Without so much as glancing back over his shoulder, he pointed at Foxbrush’s feet. These were clad in tough leather cloths tied across the insteps and ankles with string made of animal gut. Foxbrush stood in a patch of mud and weeds, and as far as he could see, there was no path save the one a few paces behind him leading up to the Eldest’s House.
But he remembered suddenly Nidawi and her lioness. Especially Nidawi’s screeching yet oddly alluring laugh. “You walk the Path of the Lumil Eliasul, and you don’t even know it!”
He had very nearly convinced himself that this encounter had been a dream. But it wasn’t. No more than the Twisted Man or the sylphs or the leather-tied shoes on his feet.
Still he said quietly, “I don’t see any path.”
“You walk it even so. Don’t try to escape it, and don’t try to hurry it.” Redman looked thoughtfully up at Foxbrush. “I know you want to find your lady. But you cannot simply wander off into the jungle and expect to happen upon her. I know the play and pattern of stories. I’ve lived enough of them by now to know! You were brought to me, a balance to my own tale, I should imagine. You need to stay here until it becomes clear that you must move on.”
“But how will I know?” Foxbrush asked, his voice a whisper of pent-up frustration.
“You’ll know.” Redman heaved a great sigh and stood, turning the full intensity of his one-eyed gaze upon Foxbrush. He reached out and clasped the young man’s shoulder, opening his mouth as though to say more.
But a nearby cry of “Redman! Redman!” sent them wheeling around. A man ran up through the village between the mud-and-wattle houses, and villagers with anxious faces gathered in his wake. He fell to his knees before Redman, not kneeling but simply giving out at the end of what must have been a long run. Redman silently waited for the man to regain breath enough to speak. Foxbrush, sensing the anxiety in the gathered crowd and feeling more than one unfriendly gaze turn his way, stepped back a little, though he watched all with interest.
The man gasped out a string of words Foxbrush did not understand. Redman drew a sharp breath and barked an answer. The man shook his head and spoke again, then bowed down, exhausted, and did not move until someone brought him a skin of water, which he first poured over his flushed face before drinking.
Redman stood silently, looking neither at the villagers nor at Foxbrush but at the wounded kid in the goat pen. Then he drew a long breath and took the hat from his head as he rubbed a hand down his face.
“Your red lady has been seen again,” he said in Northerner.
Foxbrush leapt forward. “Where?” he demanded, looking from Redman to the messenger and back again. “Where is she?”
Redman shook his head. “She’s gone. She and others wearing the Bronze were seen in the Crescent Land not three days ago. This man ran all the way to tell us. They killed Tocho, the Big Cat of Skymount Watch. One of the most powerful totems in all the Land.”
None of this made sense to Foxbrush. But he grasped the one detail he did understand and held on like a lifeline. “She was seen there? At Skymount Watch? Where is that? Can he take me?”
“No, I told you,” said Redman, his voice angry now. “She is no longer there. They came and they went. Warriors wearing bronze stones about their necks. Killers of Faerie beasts.”
“But there might be something!” Foxbrush insisted, his eagerness blinding him to the look on Redman’s face. “There might be some sign, some token! She might be held against her will by these warriors you speak of! She is no warrior herself, and she couldn’t kill anything, I know. I must—”
“You must be quiet,” said Redman. And Foxbrush, though he wanted to protest, shut his mouth. “You do not know of what you speak. These warriors wearing the Bronze are moving throughout the Land. The messenger tells me there have been other sightings. And if your Daylily is wearing their stone, she is one of them.”
The villagers gathered did not understand a word passing between their Eldest’s husband and this stranger. They watched with fearful eyes, for the world had become a darker place since even the night before.
“Do you want to know what they demand in tithe for services rendered? For the killing of Tocho?”
Foxbrush didn’t want to know. But he couldn’t speak or even shake his head, so Redman continued: “Firstborns. Children. For every beast they kill, for every life they save. They demand the firstborn children of the Land. And they take them, Foxbrush. They come in the night, these warriors wearing the bronze stones. They came to the five villages nearest Skymount Watch, and they took all the firstborn children, leaving no trace behind.
“Your red lady, Prince Foxbrush, is stealing the blood of the South Land.”
Foxbrush stared at Redman. The words, foreign and dark, filled his head so that he could not comprehend. All was blackness and pain, and he felt his temples throbbing.
The only words clear in his head were two lines from the ballad he had read to the gathered children just the night before:
But dark the tithe they pay, my son,
To safely dwell beneath that sun!
Foxbrush did not leave the Eldest’s village that day. The villagers gathered in the Eldest’s House with Sight-of-Day and her husband to discuss what might be done in light of these dire happenings. Foxbrush, to no one’s surprise, was not invited but sent out among the children.
“What happened?” Lark demanded when Foxbrush appeared and descended the hill. Wolfsbane, balanced on her hip, added his own experimental, “Wha?”
But Foxbrush shook his head, which was full and aching. He continued on past Lark and her little sisters, who fell into step behind him like goslings behind a mother goose. They trailed him all the way down the hill and on through the village, ignoring the looks of those they passed, who did not like or trust the stranger (though they made respectful signs to the Eldest’s children).
“What is it?” Lark persisted as they went. “Is it the Bronze? Have they had more news?”
“Yes. No. I don’t know,” Foxbrush said, which wasn’t entirely untruthful. Lark, however, was unconvinced.
Still carrying her brother, she caught Foxbrush by the sleeve and yanked him to a halt with surprising force for her size. “Don’t talk to me like a child,” she said, which never ceased to sound strange coming from her childish mouth. “What news did the runner bring from the Crescent Land? I know it’s about the Bronze Warriors, and you needn’t try to hide it!”
Foxbrush looked at her hand on his sleeve, then at her. She scowled fiercely, and her three sisters, gathered behind, mirrored her face. Wolfsbane chewed on his fingers, but his eyes were no less solemn than those of his sisters, and they were very dark beneath his mop of red hair.
“We are the Eldest’s children,” Lark said. “We are strong and we are brave. We fear only ignorance. So tell us, wasp man.”
Foxbrush squeezed his eyes against the throbbing in his temples. Then he shook off Lark’s hand. “The Bronze Warriors are demanding firstborn children in exchange for the monsters they kill. Will you leave me in peace now?”
A variety of expressions flashed through Lark’s eyes. Then she bowed her head and took a step back, holding Wolfsbane close and allowing her sisters to close in around her. Foxbrush bit his tongue until it hurt, wishing he’d had the sense to do so before it spoke of what it shouldn’t.
With a bitter curse, he turned and walked away from the children, making for the fig orchards where he had spent that morning. Evening was descending, bringing with it the sultry heaviness of an oncoming storm. All was dark, and the black figs hanging in the branches of the elder fig trees looked ominous, like so many little black heads hung up as a warning by some cruel warlord.
Foxbrush shuddered as he passed on through the orchard. Now and then, when he looked up, he thought he saw the flit of wings and the glow of bulbous eyes. Perhaps they were merely evening birds and lemurs. Perhaps they were fey folk, drawn out in the gloaming murk, ready to mock him.
“He can sav
e Southlands?” they might ask each other. “What a laugh!”
“What a laugh,” Foxbrush whispered. How hollow and foolish all his grand plans sounded. How hollow and foolish he was! He tried to put his hands in his pockets, found he had no pockets, and stood a moment, awkwardly wondering what to do with his arms.
Suddenly his nose began to tickle. He rubbed it but could not drive back the force of an oncoming sneeze. It burst out of him with an explosive roar, and he wished very much for a clean handkerchief . . . any handkerchief at all, for that matter. Rubbing his nose with the back of his hand, he cast about for a fig leaf as a substitute.
“You were thinking of me.”
Foxbrush startled and fell back against a tree trunk, one hand still pressed to his nose, staring about. He knew that voice, or thought he did. “Where are you?” he gasped.
“Right here, darling. Didn’t you see me?”
And Nidawi the Everblooming stepped out from behind the very tree against which he’d taken shelter, sweeping around to stand before him. She was mere inches from his face, one hand pressed into the tree on either side of his head, leaning in and smiling the most secret and brilliant and dazzling of smiles.
“You were thinking of me!” she said again. “I heard you. You thought of me and something I said to you, and I heard it, so I came at once. I knew you wouldn’t be able to get me out of your mind! Are you ready to marry me now?”
25
SUN EAGLE AND DAYLILY passed through the Wood in silence and once more came to the gate. They entered the Near World and stood in the gorge, looking up to the tableland above. Daylily, dulled by now to the comings and goings, still looked unconsciously for the bridge she knew should be there. For this was the gorge near the Eldest’s House, or rather, near where it would one day be.
“Come,” said Sun Eagle, and they began the long climb. Worn and trembling, more disturbed than rested by her sleep in the Between, Daylily lagged behind Sun Eagle. He reached the top and waited there for her to catch up. A certain gnarled fig tree seemed to watch him, and he eyed it back and made certain it could see the Bronze upon his chest. It did nothing, and though Sun Eagle suspected a Faerie dwelled therein, he chose to ignore it for the moment.
In time, they would deal with them all.
Daylily reached the top of the gorge trail and sat, breathing hard and looking into the jungle. It was unusually quiet. In the deeper reaches, birds and monkeys called, but here not even the buzzing of an insect disturbed the air.
“They know who we are,” Sun Eagle said, answering Daylily’s unspoken question. “They know the master has come to this realm, and they are afraid. As they should be.”
When Daylily was rested enough, he made her get to her feet. This time, when they progressed into the jungle, they took the man-made trail. “Our brethren are spreading throughout the Land,” Sun Eagle told her. “Every tribe and every village will see us and thank us and fear us for what we do. It is good work.”
“Good work,” Daylily echoed. “But what about . . .”
There flashed through her mind an image. She saw herself holding a child, carrying him toward a yawning black door. Who was that child? Where was he now?
Ask if you dare, snarled the wolf.
So the wolf was alive. Just as she’d feared.
Yes, I’m alive. You’ll never be rid of me. Ask this Advocate of yours what happened to that child. Ask what happens to all the children!
“I’ll do nothing by your order,” Daylily whispered fiercely. “I am not your slave.”
You are a slave, but not to me, the wolf growled, then subsided for the time being. Silence fell upon Daylily’s mind, interrupted only by the shushing of the wind overhead.
For a moment, oddly enough, Daylily thought she heard a voice in that wind. Foxbrush! Foxbrush! it called as it wafted overhead. Where are you, Foxbrush?
Daylily frowned, an unpleasant taste rising in her throat. Why should she think of that name now? Of all people, Foxbrush was the very last she wanted to remember. Her spurned groom, her unwanted lover. She shuddered and quickened her pace behind Sun Eagle. He glanced back and read things in her face she did not intend to reveal. He could not read all, for he knew so little of her. But he read enough.
“You must let go of your past,” he said, “if you hope to survive in this new life.”
Her eyes flashed, and she was again, however briefly, the cold Lady Daylily of Middlecrescent, who could freeze a man’s blood with a glance. “Who are you,” she said, “to tell me what I must or must not let go? What right have you to judge?”
His face remained impassive before her tight-lipped wrath. “I am your Advocate,” he said. “I have every right. And if you wish to be an Advocate yourself one day and take on an Initiate, you will do as I say.”
Daylily drew herself up, her tiredness forgotten in her ire. “Do as you say? Do as you do?”
“Both.”
“Let go of my past? Is that what you have done?”
“This is what all of us must do in order to devote ourselves fully to the master.”
Her gaze ran up and down his savage form—his skins, his bloodstains, his weapons, his scars. Then she said, “If that is so, why do you still wear those two beads about your neck?”
Sun Eagle’s face did not move. Slowly one hand rose to the necklace on which hung the clay beads, the blue and the red, name marks given him long ago to carry into the Wood as he made his rite of passage. He touched them now as though he didn’t quite know what they were.
The Land is all. All we need.
“All we need,” mouthed Sun Eagle, but he still caressed the blue stone. Then he smiled grimly. “We have work to do. No more talk.”
He passed on into the jungle, and Daylily had no choice but to follow. Thunder rolled overhead, threatening rain, but the air was already so thick with moisture, plastering Daylily’s body with sweat, that she felt rain could scarcely make a difference.
Suddenly Sun Eagle stopped. He lifted a hand and Daylily also froze, tilting her head to listen, lifting her nose to sniff. But she sensed nothing. Nothing but jungle and greenness all around.
“What is it?” she whispered.
“A Faerie beast,” said he. Then his lips drew back in an animal snarl. “One I know. One I know too well!”
The next moment, he was running, disappearing into the green, and Daylily was hard-pressed not to lose him.
Foxbrush sneezed again.
He couldn’t help himself. It’s not something a fellow likes to do when a stunningly beautiful woman is leaning toward him with an expression on her face like Nidawi’s wore. But sneezes are not prey to the wants or wishes of those inflicted with them. He sneezed so violently that he nearly knocked his forehead against Nidawi’s exquisite little chin. She leapt back lightly, frowning at first, then shaking the frown into a rain of laughter.
“True love is such a beautiful thing!” said Nidawi the Everblooming. “It has made me decide to find that odd little quirk of yours charming. I can find anything charming if I love it enough. Even mortals!”
“Pardon,” Foxbrush gasped and pulled a fig leaf down to wipe his nose, simultaneously trying to sidle away from the tree and put it between himself and the fey woman. For she was overpoweringly beautiful with a natural, breezy, frolicking sort of beauty, like a flower or a young tree or a fawn on delicate, gamboling limbs. Her hair was loose and tangled, with thick braids of moss and flowers, and her leafy gown fluttered in the wind of an oncoming storm. One could far more easily believe she had sprung up from the ground than ever been born of a mother.
But she was too frightening for words. Trying to escape her, Foxbrush rounded the tree and started to back away when he felt a gust of warm breath on his neck. His mouth opened, his lips drew back from his teeth with the desire to scream, but his throat closed up. He turned his head ever so slightly and found himself gazing into Lioness’s black-rimmed eyes.
She started to purr. Foxbrush thought it a gro
wl and nearly died on the spot.
“Lioness has decided she likes you too,” Nidawi said. Taking Foxbrush’s hand, she turned him to face the beast. “She wasn’t certain at first, but after we talked about it, she agreed you would be a fine husband.”
Lioness’s mouth was open, her pink tongue showing hugely between her teeth. If one strained the imagination, one could believe it was a smile. But one required no imagination whatsoever to think it was a hungry expression. Foxbrush felt his knees giving out.
Nidawi caught him before he collapsed, easing him gently to the ground. Twilight was deepening, bringing with it a heavy summer storm. The first few drops began to fall, and Nidawi, seated with her arms around Foxbrush’s rigid body, tilted back her head and caught rain in her mouth. “Delightful! We shall have a drink to toast our betrothal!”
“B-betrothal?” Foxbrush shook his head, trying to find strength to protest. Despite the warmth of the evening, he began to shiver.
“Why, of course! Now that you love me, I see no reason for us not to wed. Just as soon as you’ve killed my enemy.”
Foxbrush’s head continued shaking for some moments before he could find words, during which time Nidawi laughed and stuck out her tongue to catch more rain, then suddenly turned and planted a huge kiss on Foxbrush’s cheek. This worked like a lightning bolt, shooting him instantly to his feet and out of her arms.
“See here, my good woman, I . . . I . . . I thank you for your kindly, um, thoughts of me, but I—” His hair flattened down across his forehead, and he pushed it back nervously. “I haven’t changed my mind. I still can’t marry you. Or kill anyone,” he added quickly.
Nidawi blinked. Despite the darkness, everything around her shone brightly. Her lashes caught the rain into tiny diamonds rimming her violet eyes, glittering like prisms, casting and creating gleams of light. How magical and beautiful and thoroughly petulant she was in that moment.