Although already maintaining an unbelievable pace, with a vigorously painful stretching of every limb Versa pushed himself even harder, dropping his head as he surged into a careering run.
Like a blaze of liquid light, April and Veras flowed over hills, dipped through hollows, swept through woods.
Yet still the whooping, baying hunt was gaining on them. Soon the leading hounds of the pack were sliding around them through the undergrowth, like gathering sharks in a dark, shallow sea. Some snapped at Veras’s fiery heels, having no fear of the flames.
April jumped in surprise as, with a clang and a burst of hot sparks, one of Veras’s ancient shoes fell away, rolling across the grass behind them like a fireball. April instantly felt the change in Veras’s ability to run, one leg dragging, now lacking the amazing power of the other three.
Versa whinnied in bewilderment and agony.
April pulled hard on the reins, bringing their ferocious gallop to an immediate halt. She couldn’t let Veras injure himself in this way.
Slipping down from the saddle, she slapped his flanks, told him to run, to get out of there before the ravenous pack caught up with them.
As a terrified Veras all but vanished into the darkness, only its three flaming shoes now visible, April turned to face the circling pack.
How long would it be, she wondered, before they closed and tore her to pieces?
*
The pack might have surrounded April, but the chase for Veras hadn’t quite finished just yet. Huge numbers of the hounds simply surged past those encircling April, continuing their pursuit of the fleeing horse.
The riders amongst the hunt similarly either chose to continue their rampaging chase, or join those circling April. They eyed her with glints of amusement in their eyes, their faces ranging from little more than hollowed out skulls to bloated, demonic features.
Their expectant sniggering and cries stilled, quietened. A small space opened up in the surrounding circle they’d formed, the horses and even dogs obediently parting. From out of the darkness, the blazing shoe Veras had lost seemed to be making its way towards April, hovering in the air, the flames flickering only slightly in the wind.
As the flaming shoe drew closer, April made out in its surrounding red glow that it was being casually held in the hand of a towering, dark figure.
‘These are my shoes, I think!’ the Devil stormed irately as he continued to stride ever closer towards April, entering the circle of huntsmen, letting it close once more behind him. ‘I trust you’re intending to let me have them all back!’
‘Yes, yes, of course,’ April said, trying to control her fear, her quaking voice. ‘But please don’t harm my horse, he–’
‘Yes, yes, yes: he didn’t know. He’s innocent. I have heard excuses like this so many times, you know?’
‘Well, in this case, it’s true!’ April insisted as adamantly as she could manage. ‘It’s all my fault, not his! I took them because I wanted to rescue my friend from the clutches of the Fay Queen!’
The Devil chuckled.
‘Ah, so the queen’s up to her old tricks again, is she?’
As he spoke, three hounds entered the circle, each carrying something ablaze in its mouth.
‘There they are!’ the Devil said with relish.
A horrified April breathed in deeply as the dogs casually dropped the flaming shoes by the Devil’s feet.
‘Oh, don’t worry,’ the Devil said as his dogs happily scampered back towards the rest of the hellish pack. ‘It’s only the shoes they were after!
‘Thank you, I thought, I–’
‘I know what you thought.’
The Devil eyed her slyly, his head cocked, his eyes narrowed.
‘We’d do anything, wouldn’t we, to get back what we think is rightfully ours? And the question is, my dear April, what would you give to get your friend back?’
*
April woke up in bed in a sweat.
What a dreadful nightmare she’d had.
Rising quickly, she ran outside. Veras was tethered in the nearby field, lazily munching the grass. Swiftly saddling him up, she set off at the fastest gallop Veras could manage, heading for June’s house.
June was there, tending her old pony.
April chuckled at her own foolishness: her dream had all seemed so incredibly real!
She slipped down from her saddle. She wanted to wrap her arms about her friend and hug her ever so tightly, to tell her she was glad to have her back – but how ridiculous would that look?
As June looked up from distributing the feed for her pony, she smiled warmly as she spotted April striding towards her.
Rising up from her kneeling position, June excitedly ran over to April, joyously wrapping her arms about her friend and hugging her ever so tightly.
‘Oh April, April,’ June wailed tearfully. ‘Whatever did you promise to free me from the Fay Queen, you silly fool?’
*
As promised, April rode out to the smithy that very night.
How did one pay a debt with one’s soul? she wondered morosely.
Around her, slinking silently in the darkness, she caught the odd glimpse of the encircling hounds. No doubt they were there, she reasoned, to ensure she kept her promise.
The furnace glowed. The metal clanged. The violin played, it seemed to April, even more mournfully than before.
Once again, April could hear talking in the smithy as she tied Veras up outside.
It was, once again too, a man and a young woman. This time, however, the young woman was complaining.
‘…since when is trading my girl for yours a fair deal? There are rules, regulations, regarding such things you know!’
‘But my rules trump yours I believe, my dear!’
April recognised the highly amused tones of the Devil. So he had arrived here to accept her payment.
She walked into the smithy. As when she had walked in before, the blacksmith was working his glowing metals over the great anvil, while the violin was hovering above the chair, magically playing its sad tunes.
This time, however, there were two further visitors in the smithy; the Devil and the Fay Queen.
They grinned a malicious welcome as April strode towards them. The blacksmith kept his eyes on his work, too ashamed to look April’s way. Like the music emanating from the violin, he appeared sad, melancholy – beaten.
Outside, the cobblestones rattled to the clump of tiredly placed hooves. Everyone exchanged puzzled glances; no one, it seemed, had been expecting this extra visitor.
June confidently strode into the red glow of the smithy, speaking before anyone else had a chance to.
‘April, I can’t let you do this for me! I enjoyed being with the Fay Queen! It was fun, exciting: more wonderful than anything I’ve ever done in my life!’
The Fay Queen made sure that April had no time to protest.
‘Hah, I think that trumps your rules!’ she exclaimed, glowering triumphantly at the Devil. ‘She’s here of her own free will!’
‘Oh come now,’ the Devil calmly retorted. ‘You haven’t even tried to make the poor girl aware of the consequences!’
‘Consequences?’ April repeated anxiously.
‘The secret of the Fay Queen’s youth and beauty,’ the smith replied, at last setting down his hammer and tongs and looking June’s way. ‘Whenever she chooses her moment, you’ll find your own youth vanishing in the blink of an eye. The Fay Queen would absorb it all, make it her own: while you would be absorbing only what little youth she still held within her from her last victim.’
‘You see, June, you can’t–’
‘I don’t care!’ June interrupted her friend’s cry with a determined declaration of her own. ‘I’ll even sign whatever I have to–’
With a flourish, the Fay Queen produced a document of vellum, a quill pen, already dripping with ink.
‘Well decided, my girl!’ she trilled elatedly.
‘Th
is can’t be allowed–’
‘Sign it!’
Only the Fay Queen would dare cut the Devil short.
‘Sign this, and the Devil’s deal with your friend is cancelled!’ the Fay Queen promised as June signed the document placed in front of her. ‘Because, of course, he hasn’t fulfilled his own end of the bargain!’
As she talked, she handed the signed document to the blacksmith. He sealed it with a clang of iron on iron, an irate hiss of fire being doused in water.
June’s name glowed on the document as if it were a fiery trail.
The Fay Queen smiled with immense satisfaction.
‘You know,’ she said with a doubtful, displeased frown as she caressed her own cheek, ‘I think I’ll take full payment right now, if you don’t mind?’
In the furnace’s bloody haze, her face began to change. She smiled in satisfaction, sensing the absorbing of another’s youth.
About her, everyone stared at her first in surprise, then growing horror.
‘What’s wrong, what’s happening?’ she asked fearfully.
But she already sensed what was wrong.
She was feeling weary, not more energetic.
Her back was bending, not straightening with a new-found confidence.
Her skin was wrinkling, not blending into a wonderful smoothness.
‘I’m…I’m growing older!’ she wailed, glaring at an unchanging June with loathing and fear. ‘What have you done?’
She stumbled, her walking difficult, uncoordinated and painful.
‘Whatever she’s done, my dear,’ the Devil chuckled wickedly, ‘it seems all our contracts have been fulfilled.’
With a wave of his hands, he gave the two girls permission to leave. Taking their chance, they whirled on their feet, and fled towards the door.
‘Oh, don’t be so dramatic, my dear!’ they heard the Devil admonishing the Fay Queen as they rushed outside. ‘You’ll soon find some other poor girl to restore your youth!’
Outside, April was surprised to see that Veras was tethered next to a young horse, not June’s old pony Juniper as she’d expected.
‘What did you do?’ she asked her friend as they deftly slipped into their saddles.
June grinned as they turned their horses around and set them into a gallop for home.
‘The Fay Queen thought I was signing my youth away,’ she explained. ‘But the name I’d really put down was “Jun Iper”.’
‘Ride, ride, ride!’ the girls yelled out gleefully to Veras and a now youthful Juniper as they galloped out into the surrounding darkness. ‘Ride, ride for our lives!’
*
Chapter 21
As the girl finished her tale, she offered no clue as to her own identity; whether she was April or June, or perhaps none of the girls involved in the story at all.
‘This Fay Queen sounds even more dangerous than I’d first thought,’ Luna admitted with an apprehensive curling of a lip. ‘But I have to find her: and waiting around these woods or the smithy sounds an ideal place to be to come across her passing hunt.’
The girl shook her head in disagreement.
‘After the humiliation she suffered, she no longer hunts around here. Powerful people like the Fay Queen or the Devil don’t like being reminded of any time they displayed a weakness.’
‘But we saw the hunt pass by here only last night!’ Rouger protested.
‘It might have been last night to you, but it could have been a thousand years ago as far as the Fay Queen’s concerned. She isn’t constrained by time the way you are. People mistakenly think of eternity as being endless time; but time has no effect at all, nor can there be any cause – for the things we believe happened before also happened later, while the later things actually also came before.’
‘But, then, surely…’ Rouger began uncertainly, trying to work out the best way to explain what he was thinking, ‘surely that means she could still show up here; even though she no longer comes here?’
Even as he tried to explain his thoughts, he pulled a bewildered expression.
‘Does that make sense?’ he wondered, looking to Luna for confirmation that it did.
‘It’s doubtful she’ll show up again,’ the girl answered. ‘Besides, to catch up with her in the full flow of a hunt, you’d also need the Devil’s shoes: and the blacksmith will never be loaning those out again! As I’ve heard it, he was seriously punished for the last time he did it.’
‘Perhaps, then,’ Luna said thoughtfully, ‘this talking violin could tell us how to reach the princess’s tower; I mean, with it originally belonging to the princess?’
She glanced Rouger’s way to see if he agreed with her.
‘No matter which way you look at it,’ Rouger said dolefully, looking down at their poorly shod horse, ‘we’re going to have to risk going into this Devil’s smithy!’
*
Chapter 22
The violin’s tunes sounded sadder than ever as Luna and Rouger entered the smithy.
As the girl had described in her tale, the blacksmith was hard at work, doused in the furnace’s red glow as if made of fire himself. Nearby, on a chair, the violin hovered in the air, playing its mournful melodies.
The hammer clanged, metal on metal.
Yet far from making more shoes for the Devil, or even sword or plough blades, the blacksmith was painstakingly constructing an incredibly small key that seemed to be made of softly pliable mistletoe juice rather than solidly hard iron.
Along one wall, there hung a great many of these seductively glowing keys.
Nearby, along an adjoining wall, there also hung a large number of larger, more ornate and yet strangely ancient looking keys. For some reason, they reminded Luna of the many times her mother had told of her father’s strange disappearance after his discovery of the ancient, craftily-wrought key.
The forging of the small key seemed to require an amazing amount of concentration from the blacksmith; he still seemed unaware that Luna and Rouger had entered. It wasn’t until the violin stopped its playing that he at last glanced up and spied them waiting.
He tried to smile, yet it didn’t look as if his heart was in it.
‘You do realise,’ he said, ‘that any payment for work done here is–’
‘Yes, yes, we know,’ Rouger replied impetuously. ‘It has to be something magical.’
‘We don’t have anything magical to offer you, I’m afraid,’ Luna admitted.
She glanced at the now silently hovering violin. As yet, the violin hadn’t made any attempt to speak; but then, hadn’t the girl’s tale explained how the violin didn’t like people to know it could talk?
‘I sense the magic in your horse outside,’ the blacksmith confidently declared.
‘It’s hardly worth us having it shod if we then have to hand it over as payment!’ Rouger frowned irately.
‘Beside, he’s not ours to so freely give away,’ Luna said far more calmly.
‘Then I’m not sure what I can do for you.’ The blacksmith smiled sadly once more.
‘I wonder,’ Luna began hopefully, ‘if we could just talk to your violin for a–’
‘She doesn’t talk!’
The blacksmith’s demeanour had instantly changed to one of anger.
‘I’m sorry, it’s just that we’d heard–’
‘Heard she could talk? I don’t know who’s going around telling such tales! I assure you, she cannot talk!’
As he spoke, however, the violin began playing once more. It seemed to Luna to be trying to calm the blacksmith down, to placate him. It was almost as if the violin was indeed attempting to talk: is this what the girl had really meant? That the violin could only talk through its music?
At least the violin’s attempts at speaking had the desired effect: the blacksmith calmed down. He glanced at the violin as if he had indeed been admonished by its music.
‘I’m sorry,’ the blacksmith stated sorrowfully, his back bowed, his implements now held limply by hi
s sides. ‘But, you see, both you and me, we’re both right in our way; she could talk, but not anymore.’
Had this been the Devil’s punishment? Luna wondered. It had been the violin, after all, who had persuaded the smith to loan out the Devil’s shoes.
‘We could take her with us,’ Luna offered, having noticed that the smith always referred to the violin as ‘she’, not ‘it’. ‘Take her somewhere to be repaired.’
‘I don’t see ho–’
The smith’s protest was cut off by the violin as, once again, it hovered in the air playing music full of short, sharp bursts of emotion. It was an effect similar to a man or woman trying to talk through a gag, using the rise and fall of tones as opposed to individual words.
The smith listened to the violin, his brow furrowing as he tried to make sense of what the violin might be attempting to say.
‘I think she agrees,’ he said unsurely, to be rewarded by a burst of brightly joyful chords from the violin.
He obviously took this to be a sure sign that she agreed with his statement.
‘She’d have to give you directions to where she was made,’ he said, adding with far less certainty, ‘Would you be able to follow her directions?’
‘We’ll make sure we do,’ Luna assured him, already contemplating the means by which the violin would be able to lead them, such as by sprightly playing a pleasant tune whenever they were heading the right way.
‘Then that’s your payment!’ the smith declared happily. ‘Bring in your horse, and let’s get him shod!’
Before anyone could change their mind, Rouger dashed out of the smithy, running to fetch their horse.
‘We might not be able to return…’ Luna hesitantly admitted to the smith.
‘If you can’t, you can’t.’
The smith was focusing now on preparing his tools, warming up the horseshoes in the furnace, working the bellows that made the furnace burn all the brighter and hotter.
‘Just as long as you help that poor girl.’
‘Girl?’
Luna was confused; they’d offered to ensure that a magical violin was repaired, not help a girl.
‘Oh yes,’ the smith replied brightly, working the bellows hard now. ‘The tales she had to tell, they made me see the errors of my way–’