“Um. Well, Farthestshore sounds familiar.”
“It should !” Another shake of her head, and flowers dropped their petals in colorful cascades from her hair. “He’s only the Lord of all the Faerie folk, son of the King Across the Final Water. Even I am subject to the Lumil Eliasul!”
“And, um, who are you, please?” Foxbrush asked.
“WHO AM I?”
The whole forest around them shook with the enormity of her ire. Foxbrush squawked and hid his face in his hands, and even the sneeze that had been building vanished as he curled up into a fetal ball, expecting imminent smiting.
But the lioness put up her head and gave a loud whuffle, effectively snatching the gorgeous woman’s attention.
“Did you hear what he just said?” the woman demanded of the lioness, pointing at Foxbrush with both hands. “Did you hear him?”
The lioness grunted and shook her ears again, her face patient and serene.
“Oh, fine. Fine, fine, fine!” said the woman. She rounded on Foxbrush once more, rolling her eyes at his quivering form, but her voice was less piercing when next she spoke.
“I am Nidawi the Everblooming, Queen of Tadew.” Her face sagged a little, though it became no less beautiful. And she amended her previous statement with a quieter, “Queen of Tadew-That-Was.”
Foxbrush looked up between his fingers just in time to see the woman crumple, sinking into the form of the wild child once again. She buried her face in her hands and burst into another round of stormy tears, more violent than the first.
The lioness got heavily to her feet and padded over to the child. She put out her raspy tongue and began licking the back of the child’s head until her mass of hair and moss stood all on end. The child pushed ineffectually at the insistent muzzle and even took an angry swipe at the lioness’s nose. But the lioness, ever patient, ignored this and went on with her grooming until Nidawi had quite finished her cry.
Then both turned to Foxbrush, who still lay where he had fallen, watching all with horror. Even an interview across from Baron Middlecrescent’s fish-eyed stare would be preferable to the gazes of the lioness and her now-small mistress.
Nidawi the Everblooming said, “Say you’re sorry.”
“For what?” Foxbrush gasped, but when he saw her face screwing up to a violent degree, he quickly sputtered, “Sorry!”
Oddly enough, this seemed to pacify the child, who got to her feet, all legs and elbows, now standing nowhere near as tall as the lioness’s nose. She crossed the short distance to Foxbrush and stood over him, imperial as the queen she claimed to be but rather less majestic with slime on her face and puffy eyes. Up close, however, he saw that these eyes were the shade of demure violets hidden in the deepest shadows of the forest. And her lashes were dark green like pine needles.
She looked him up and down, considering, her head tilted a little to one side, a stance mirrored by the lioness a few paces behind. Then Queen Nidawi said, “You are from There.”
He snuffled back another sneeze. “Pardon?”
“There. The Other Place. The Near World, the Time-bound land. What are you doing Here?”
“I . . . I hardly know,” Foxbrush replied. “I’m not even certain where here is. I raced my cousin down the gorge, and we’re searching for my betrothed, Lady Daylily of Middlecrescent. I thought the . . . the wind, I suppose, said something about her, though I might be mistaken, and I hope . . .”
He stopped talking, for he saw that the child was paying him absolutely no mind. Rather, she was staring at the space over his head, her mouth moving as she muttered to herself in a voice that began out of Foxbrush’s range of hearing but which swiftly rose to a near unbearable pitch.
“Here. There. There. Here. Here and There!” She clapped her hands and spun about in place, scattering petals in a rainbow storm all around her. “Here and There! Are you a king?”
With this last, she fixed her gaze with such fire upon poor Foxbrush that he thought he might actually melt. He quickly shook his head, wondering if it was safe for him to get to his feet, scarcely daring with the lioness standing so near. “Um. No,” he replied. Then, sniffling, he added, “Not yet anyway.”
“Then you will be!” exclaimed Nidawi the Everblooming. “You will be, which means you are, which means you always have been! The King of Here and There!”
She whirled again, and when she came full around, she was once more the gorgeous woman, not so tall this time, her face more youthful (though no less dreadful) in its eagerness. “You are the King of Here and There! And you will marry me!”
“What?”
Foxbrush leapt to his feet, though he fell back into the arms of the fir tree, which tickled and pinched him unkindly. One branch prodded into his trouser pocket and pulled out the scroll, which it tossed to roll through the ferns.
Before Foxbrush could reclaim himself from the tree, Nidawi pounced, plucking up the scroll between a long index finger and equally long thumb. Before Foxbrush could think to make a protest, she experimentally stuck the end of the scroll in her mouth. She made a face, pulled it back out, and opened it.
“What’s this?” she said, frowning. “I can’t read this. Are these evil signs? Witch work?”
“Please, that’s mine!” Foxbrush gasped. The lioness growled. “Or rather, take it. It’s yours. It’s a gift. For you.” He shrugged, trying to look anywhere but at the lioness. “I didn’t want it anyway.”
Nidawi put the paper to her mouth once more and licked it. Another unhappy face, and she tossed it over her shoulder, where it curled up on itself like a frightened hedgehog. Nidawi smiled at Foxbrush.
“I like presents,” she said. “And I like you. When shall we wed?”
With that, the Everblooming stepped toward him, her eyes so full of otherworldly feelings that she was quite a terror to behold. She placed her hands on Foxbrush’s chest and would have kissed him had he not, in that moment, sneezed. This startled her into stepping back, and he took the opportunity to drop to his knees and crawl rather desperately away. He was just putting out a long arm, trying to reach his scroll, when he felt her hands on his shirt and belt, hauling him back.
“Come here, king!” the Faerie woman demanded, and with amazing strength set him on his feet, spun him around, and looked at him with the most brilliant set of eyes. The colors of them swirled from violet to gold with flecks of green and deeps of blue. They were the eyes of a whole forest, all rolled into tiny points of light. And they were irked.
“Don’t you like me?” Nidawi asked.
“Oh no! I mean . . .” Foxbrush’s head was light and whirling, for the nearness of her was a bath of summer wine, intoxicating, thrilling, and a little messy. It would be too easy for an ordinary man to forget himself, to forgo his responsibilities and commitments, to become lost in the smell of flowers in her hair and never be heard from again.
“I’m engaged!” he cried in a last desperate defense, grabbing her hands and pushing them away as gently as he could. One might just as easily dislodge mountain roots.
Nidawi’s eyes narrowed, and her perfect posy of a mouth bloomed into a full pout. “Engaged?” she said, taking a step back. The lioness muttered behind her. “Engaged to whom, may I ask?”
Her fingers loosened, and Foxbrush took advantage of the moment to back away into the shushing ferns. The lioness and Nidawi watched him, and he knew it would be foolish to try running, so he swallowed, his throat constricting painfully, and tried to straighten his hopelessly bedraggled shirt. “To Daylily, Lady Daylily, the woman I mentioned before.”
“You never mentioned a woman,” said Nidawi, who was not the sort to remember any woman besides herself. Tears brimmed yet again. “Faithless, heartless, cruel man—” she began.
“No, no!” Foxbrush put out both hands. “Please don’t cry! It’s . . . it’s nothing against you, I assure you. You are by far the loveliest woman I’ve ever clapped eyes upon—”
“Oh, well, that’s settled, then,” said N
idawi, and her tears vanished at once behind a satisfied smile. “If I’m lovelier than this Daylily creature, then who cares if you break off with her to marry me as you should?”
Foxbrush rubbed his nose and took another tentative step back. Though not the most insightful man in the worlds, even he could conclude that now was not the time to mention his intention of ending his betrothal to Daylily. The lioness flicked an ear his way, and he froze once more. “It’s a, um, a matter of honor. I must honor my promise to her. And I must find her as well. So you see, I don’t have time to marry anyone else.”
“Find her?” said Nidawi, her pout returning. “Find her, why?”
Foxbrush breathed a heavy sigh and dropped his gaze. He saw the scroll lying near, a little mangled by Nidawi’s pearly teeth. “She ran away into the Wilderlands. I’m not sure what became of her, but I must—”
“If she ran away,” the Everblooming said, settling down to the ground as elegantly as though she sank into the cushions of a fine couch, “she can’t like you very much, so I don’t see why you make these protests. Come. Sit by me.” She patted the ferns beside her, smiling invitingly and making Foxbrush’s stomach drop. “I like you well, and besides, I need you to kill someone for me. She can’t say that much, now, can she?”
For a brief, thrilling moment, Foxbrush almost took one step, then another, then sank into those alluring immortal arms. All thoughts of his life and his mission and his world could so swiftly be forgotten.
But a timely sneeze returned enough of his sense that her words sank even to the dullest places of his mind. “I’m not killing anyone,” he said, rubbing his nose.
“Not yet.” Nidawi ran long fingers through her own hair and shrugged prettily. “But you will. Which means you have, which means . . . Oh! So much! Now come here, mortal king, and let me kiss you.”
Foxbrush fled.
He did not run, for he knew that it would do no good, but he turned on heel and walked very fast, stopping only long enough to grab up the scroll as he went. His face flushed deeply with something between panic and dread, and his heart thudded madly in his breast. He could easily imagine the tear of the lioness’s claws in his back, the fire, the rip, the end. . . .
His hands in fists, he strode as fast as he could, and the trees parted to make way, though he did not notice this. He knew the name of the Everblooming. What child in Southlands did not? She featured in many rhymes and nursery tales, even in the Ballad of Shadow Hand, if he remembered correctly.
But that was just it. This nursery story wanted to—he nearly choked at the thought—wanted to kiss him! This children’s book character, this figment of some strange man’s even stranger imagination! Real and voluptuous and terrifying and . . .
It was too horrid. He must escape.
“Where are you going?”
“GAHHHH!”
Her voice in his ear propelled Foxbrush into a faster pace, though he maintained enough control over himself to keep from breaking into a full-out run. “I . . . I . . .” He panted, for she had drawn up beside him, striding on her long legs, the leaves of her gown fluttering. Foxbrush could feel the silent thud of the lioness’s feet behind. “I am simply, um, going . . .”
“I haven’t told you whom to kill yet,” she said, using a patient voice that was more terrible even than her wrath. “You mortals really are odd beasts, aren’t you?”
“I’m sorry,” he said, trying but failing to outpace her, for she matched her stride exactly to his. And his own wasn’t great in any case, what with his shoes falling apart and leaving bits of themselves in his wake. “I really can’t kill anyone. And I really can’t marry you either!”
“Oh, that’s what you say now,” Nidawi replied with a merry laugh. “But you’ll change your mind. Mortals always do. I’ll make you a Faerie king, and though I won’t give you three lives, I’ll give you one nice long one. You mortals like that, don’t you?”
He caught another sneeze. His head was beginning to throb. Why, oh why had he not thought to grab an extra handkerchief before setting off on this fool’s errand? “I think you’re very kind, my lady,” he said, “but I prefer the life I’ve always had, humble though it may be.”
“A mortal life?” she asked, a sneer in her voice.
He nodded and she fell silent beside him. The trees cast their green shadows around them, and Foxbrush noticed for the first time that he heard no other sounds besides his own footsteps and the beat of the lioness’s paws. Nidawi moved without even a murmur of her fern-leaf gown, and there were no birds in the trees.
A grove of five thin silver-branch trees grew up nearby. Nidawi saw them and twisted her pretty mouth thoughtfully. “I’ll take you back to There if you like, my king,” she said, and her voice was quieter than it had been hitherto. “I’ll take you back to the mortal realm.”
“I . . . I can’t go before I find Daylily.”
“Lumé’s crown,” she snapped, and her long-fingered hand clamped down upon his arm. “If I never hear another word about this chit of a mortal girl of yours, it’ll be too soon!”
She whirled him about to face her. She was suddenly neither a young woman nor even a child, but a much older woman, stern, beautiful, not alluring so much as commanding. There were streaks of silver amid the black and green of her hair, and her large eyes glowed with purple fire.
“I can’t make you love me, but I can certainly make you obey me!” she snarled, and her voice was deep and dreadful, and it struck him in the gut. “You’re going to the mortal realm, and you’ll think about what I’ve told you. And when I come to you again, I hope you’ll have a different song to sing into my ear!”
Foxbrush opened his mouth to speak but did not have a chance. For Nidawi the Everblooming pushed him violently. For a moment, he glimpsed silver branches overhead as he flew and he fell . . .
. . . and he lay stunned.
Several moments passed before he realized that he did not lie upon crushed ferns. Nor did the canopy of the Wood’s branches and leaves close above his head but rather, blue sky, open and clear.
No sign anywhere of Nidawi or the lioness.
Foxbrush sat up, frowning, and looked about. He still clutched the scroll in one hand, and it comforted him, though he could not say why. Not many yards away stood the Wilderlands, casting long shadows that could not quite reach him. But he himself lay beyond its borders on rocks like the floor of a long-dry river. The gorge wall rose steeply behind him.
Frowning, Foxbrush got to his feet and brushed himself off. How he had come to be here, he could not guess. Had everything in recent memory been no more than a dream?
“Hullo?” No one answered, neither the specters of his imagination nor even Lionheart, whom he thought might still be near. His head hurt where he’d struck it, and he rubbed it uneasily, groaning.
“I know,” he muttered. “I know what happened. You hit your head when you slid down the trail. When Leo chased you. You must have knocked yourself out, and it’s all been a crazed dream . . . the sylphs, the woman, the lion . . . all a dream.”
But what a dream! Especially for a man who usually dreamed in numbers.
He shook himself out, noticing with dismay the tears in his shirt, the state of his shoes—both buckles missing—and the rents in his trousers.
He should have known better. He should have known better than to think he could find Daylily. Hero-ing was not for the likes of him.
Moving stiffly, too dizzy to make the climb, he started up the path, clutching the wall as he went. His sneezes were fading, so that was a mercy at least. He could draw a complete breath and his eyes were clearer. The sun was high and very hot overhead. He did not seem to have been unconscious very long, which was just as well. Strange that no one had come searching for him yet. They were probably all in a clamor at the Eldest’s House, and when he returned and told his tale, they would nod solemnly, then laugh to themselves as soon as his back was turned.
Maybe he could sneak in unnoticed?
He flushed angrily. Oh, how the rumors would fly, and the jokes as well once it became public knowledge that Daylily had fled her own wedding. Was it evil for him to hope that she may have been abducted, not run off on her own?
Shaking his head at his own folly, he scrambled up the last of the path and slipped at the end, nearly vomiting his heart out in a moment of terror on the edge of the gorge. Then he gained the upper country and stood in the Eldest’s grounds.
Only, they weren’t the Eldest’s grounds. They couldn’t be.
For where the stump of the old fig should be stood a great, spreading, fruit-laden tree. And beyond, all was wild, dark, teeming jungle.
“Dragon’s teeth,” Foxbrush whispered, his hands turning cold. “Where am I?”
13
THE BEATING OF A HEART. The thrilling sickness of a gut. The rush, rush, rush of adrenaline coursing through veins.
How strange are these things called emotions, and how exhilarating. How could one ever become accustomed to such sensations?
The utter, ecstatic delight of terror!
She must be mad. Why else did she run from the shelter of the jungle? Why else did she plunge through the screaming throng of women, pushing them aside like so many frail dolls?
She must be mad. Why else was her voice upraised in something like a scream or battle cry?
Daylily’s feet beat the ground with painful insistency. She did not know what she would do when she reached the well. Could a hero be taught to slay a dragon before the dragon descended? Could a maid outsmart an ogre whom she had never met? As the challenge came, so must it be overcome.
She covered the distance to the well in mere moments. Only when she reached the lip of that churning water did she pause, and the wind caught at her hair and her gown so that to those watching she looked like some fiery angel poised on the brink of the Dark Water.