The Faery Godmother, page 28
“Of course,” she whispered. “Why should any part of this be anything but impossible?”
“If you are able to locate the dragon’s cave, then you must find a way to outwit the creature. This will not be at all easy, mind you–”
She laughed despairingly. “Because it has been so easy up until now?”
Stern now, Athavan pointed a finger at her. “Attend me, please. A dragon is no laughing matter. At any moment, it could be too late.”
Can’t you see that I’m laughing to keep from crying–or running away in sheer terror?
Morath shook her head. “I’m sorry. Please continue.”
“You must not try to battle the dragon with magic,” he insisted. “Wits only. Every dragon has something it craves above all else. Find its weak point. Exploit it. Only then will you gain the upper hand over this creature of greed and avarice.”
“Why did you give me the wand, if I’m not meant to use it?” she cried. “I'm not anything like clever enough to outwit a dragon.”
Gravely, he told her, “Then we are all lost. For you and your country will be the first to fall, but in truth, the Summer Country is tied to Ket Alaa in ways that cannot even begin to be described.”
She hung her head. So much responsibility on my shoulders, and I feel so inadequate.
At last, Morath said aloud, “I’m afraid that I’ve already failed even before I even begin.”
He tilted her head up with a knuckle under her chin. “The only thing anyone can ask is that you try. There is no dishonor in dying for your cause, cousin. Only in never putting your hand to the wand in the first place.”
She firmed her chin and squared her shoulders. “I’m not a coward.”
“Of course not. Would a coward even consider seeking out a dragon in its filthy, bone-strewn lair?”
The mental picture this painted was too horrible to contemplate closely, so she squashed it and merely shook her head again.
More gently, Athavan said, “The wand is for if you survive all of this. For the dragon may have done some damage to your loved one–and if not the dragon, Danyel is likely to have harmed him in some way out of sheer spite. The magic is to repair whatever can be fixed. Unless,” he added somberly, “it is already too late.”
Athavan suddenly threw his head up as if hearing something inaudible to her. “Go! Go now! I am needed in the Summer Country!”
The panic on his face set fire to the tinder of hers. Morath whirled around, her first thought to find Copper.
Running toward her were her friends from the menagerie. “We’re with you!” cried Ariane.
Relief flooded through Morath. “I’m so glad I won’t have to go alone!” she gasped, hugging her friend.
The short man who had danced with her at the ball stepped forward. “Beggin’ yer pardon, Godmother. I hain’t got a saddle, but if you can ride without, I’ll take ye where ye need to get.”
He turned very purple, as though he was holding his breath–and then began to shapeshift into the catoblepas.
Morath realized that her mouth was hanging open, and she shut it quickly.
I have to see this through–if only so I have a chance to ask the very many, many questions piling up in my mind!
The others began transforming themselves as well, and it was all she could do to keep herself from gawking. A Faery Godmother I may be, but I’ll never get used to magic in all its infinite variations, she reflected as Ariane’s auburn hair melted into the ruddy coat of the kitsune.
A pile of simple yeoman’s clothing puddled next to the form of the catoblepas, reminding her that she was dressed for a wedding. Morath looked down at the black gown she still wore.
“This won’t do,” she said, and summoned an outfit better suited to rescuing one’s true love from a dragon. Clad now in hunting leathers and her own well-worn boots, with a thick woolen cape to keep off the snowflakes that were beginning to fall in earnest beyond the borders of the Summer Palace, she was ready outwardly.
As for her insides, she could only hope that her courage would eventually catch up with her somewhere along the ride.
They rode out of the gates at a gallop into the freezing rain. As her mind fixed on the journey ahead, Morath’s senses sharpened with the cold.
“Which way, Godmother?” shouted Ariane from the pack she was riding in on Morath’s back. The familiar voice coming from the small body sounded quite different in her ear. She realized with a jolt that she’d gotten used to thinking of the kitsune as a person.
The catoblepas wheeled around at her signal. “Along the coast road north-west, I think,” she shouted to be sure the others heard her over the rising wind. “A dragon would hide its hoard somewhere safe and easy to defend. We should check the sea-caves.”
Something tugged at the lip of her boot. Morath looked down to see a tiny field mouse clinging to the leather, not one of the menagerie.
“Hello,” she said, scooping up the mouse in her gloved palm and cupping her palms to keep it warm. “Do you have a message for me?”
The mouse nodded, and opened its tiny paws. A grain of earth fell into her open hands. The catoblepas angled its head backward trying to see what was happening, but its horn blocked the way.
Morath let the mouse scamper down to her knee, where it took up shelter from the rain under the edge of her cloak. She stared intently at the crumb of dirt, but no mystery revealed itself.
“I don’t understand,” she whispered. “What am I supposed to take from this?”
A breath of wind lifted her cloak. She caught a faint metallic tang rising from the tiny smudge as the rain water soaked into it, releasing its earthy essence.
She lifted it to her face and inhaled, taking in chalk and minerals, a breath of fir needles, and seeing in her mind’s eyes heavy rain clouds clustering over white-capped peaks.
“The mountains!” she called out. “The dragon’s lair is somewhere in the mountains.”
“That’s bad news for us,” said the kitsune in her ear as they wheeled around to face the north-east. “Cold-wyrms are slower than fire drakes or sea serpents, but they’re heavier and have thicker hides. We certainly won’t be able to take it by force.”
“Ariane,” said Morath through gritted teeth, “please be quiet, before I lose my nerve completely.”
She felt the little kitsune settle back into the pack. “Being quiet now, Mistress.”
The catoblepas bent its head to the road, and they were off again.
The sleet dampened into twirling snowflakes as they rode, pale sunbeams wrestling their way through heavy indigo-hued clouds that threatened to break open at any moment. Morath pulled the hood of her cloak up, wishing she had a fur coat like the animals that ran alongside her.
Sometime in the afternoon by the changing light, they came upon a fork where the road turned into little more than a track through dead grasses. Morath cast her gaze longingly at the hard-packed road disappearing behind them as they veered due east.
Her fear that the path would prove treacherous was quickly borne out. Watching the catoblepas’s hooves leave sucking footprints in the sticky mud of the track, she wished desperately that she could use magic to ease their way. The countryside surrounding them appeared to be completely abandoned, with nary even a crofter’s cottage in sight.
Would it really be such a problem to use just a little bit of magic?
In the next breath, she banished the idea. Yes–the Syndaryans have eyes and ears everywhere.
They plodded on to drier grassland, where the sounds of hooves and paws on grass became a soft whisper that barely touched the silence which lay thick as a fog across the prairie. The hours slipped by with nothing more to mark them than the lowering sky, and the sound of one’s own breath whistling in tandem with the wind.
At last, toward evening there came some variation in the monotony of their journey. A copse of trees rose up before them as they crested the short roll of a hill, spreading its flanks across the eastern horizon until it grew up into a proper forest.
The kitsune, who true to her word had not spoken in hours, now rustled her way up out of the pack as Morath dismounted.
“What do you think, Mistress?” she asked. “Looks as though those woods could hide any number of dangers. Ought we to camp here on the plains for a night and set out again in the morning?”
Morath shook her head. “If assassins and were-creatures there are, they will be waiting for us regardless of when we cross,” she said through a throat dry and dusty with travel. “Better to do it at night when we’re under cover of darkness. Most of the animals have excellent night-sight. The ones who don’t can stick close to the others.”
The kitsune frowned. “What about you?”
“I’ll manage,” she said, secretly vowing to create a tiny tea-light if necessary. Surely such an inconsequential dribble of magic would hardly be noticed out here in the vast empty wilderness.
The kitsune nodded uncertainly. Morath felt, rather than saw, its shiver as it settled back into her pack.
“Onward,” she called.
There was a faint rustle among the menagerie, an uneasy murmur too timid to be called a protest. Nonetheless, they straggled forward into the forest, its branches and brambles closing in around them.
The sky darkened faster than she would have expected, as if they had crossed a boundary between day and night when they passed beneath the thick-clustered boughs. Thorny vines began to catch at her clothing despite the tough riding leathers she wore. “Blast!” she swore, swatting at the brambles.
Morath cast her gaze up and along the line of trees, but there was no obvious break in the underbrush to give them relief. “This will take us forever to cross.”
There was a shuffling among the animals before several caprids presented themselves, blinking yellowish slit-pupiled eyes. One of them gave a low bleat of greeting.
“Oh!” she exclaimed, realizing what they intended.
Magic-ridden variants of their goatish cousins, caprids were capable of eating through enormous quantities of plant material. Brambles fazed them not at all; they seemed to regard thorns as a particularly-flavorful spice. The one which had bleated stamped its foot interrogatively.
“Yes, please–go ahead,” she urged them. “We’ll follow behind you.”
The caprids moved forward into the underbrush. Morath realized that they must have been hungry indeed after their long day, watching them carve a swathe through the thicket faster than she could have believed possible.
Her stomach let out a great growl. She realized that she was starving, herself.
If I’m this hungry, the menagerie must be twice over. We were so panicked that we rushed away with no preparation–and I was stupidly convinced that we’d find the dragon around the next corner!
I think I’ll have to use magic to feed some of us, at least. While the caprids’ bellies will certainly be full, and others can graze too, there are some who will need watering and a good feed if we’re to go on tomorrow.
The crackling of feet and hooves over the forest floor was a rhythmic cadence in the gloomy dusk. A night bird swooped noiselessly overhead, its path only made visible by the brief break in the moon’s light. Morath tried her hardest not to imagine eyes following them from the shadows.
Full dark had fallen by the time they were well into the treeline. The caprids had tried to chew their way around obstacles, leaving a clear path behind them for the rest to follow. When they came to a slick, mossy fallen log that blocked their way completely, Morath called another halt.
“I’m going to have to use a little magic,” she told them.
None of the animals spoke. The silence of the woods enveloped them, sending prickles along her arms.
Morath quickly held her hand out in front of her, spinning up a tea-light that bobbed along the path, casting a glow bright enough to see where safe footholds lay on the moss-damp wood. Her wand still lay quiet in her pocket; a simple light didn’t require more than her own faculties. She doubted she would need it for their provisioning, either.
It scares me to think of using it, she admitted to herself at last.
The animals clambered in a single-file line over the high wall of the log as Morath directed them toward the safest spots. She watched at the ready to ensure that no paws or hooves slipped on the slick sides.
An owl hooted in the nearby distance, sending a ripple of awareness through the procession. Heads turned to track its flight overhead. Morath watched it most carefully of all, wondering if it was a spy off to tattle to the Syndaryans of their progress.
It couldn’t be helped, she insisted to herself. I had to use magic!
They were deep enough into the forest now that if anything erupted out of the darkness to attack, it would be difficult to retreat along the narrow route with the log blocking their way. Nerves were strung tight by what felt like their plodding progress in the dark, though the caprids were still chewing away with all their power at the brambles.
As if in response to her thoughts, the faint sound of thrashing along the edge of the forest pricked up everyone’s ears. One of Morath’s hands slid to her wand-pocket, while the other plucked nervously at the seam of her leather legging. “What was that?”
The kitsune crept up to look over her shoulder. “It sounds like a boar, Mistress.”
Her judgment was dismayingly accurate. A snorty snuffling, punctuated with grunts, was heading their way.
Fast.
Morath didn’t know what to do. She’d heard hunters talk of boars–their speed, their deadly tusks and hooves. Farmers, too, told of their destructive rages when the foul creatures trampled through fences to devour the crops at night, any livestock not safely inside found violently gored the next day. Folk said that the largest of the beasts would actually eat people if they caught you alone and unguarded.
None of the stories, however, had included the best way of turning an encounter into an escape–beyond her instinct to run screaming back down the path in the direction that meant away . She hoped that the animals had a better idea, or she was going to have to call upon a good deal of magic to save everyone from harm.
Everyone had frozen in place, staring in the direction where the snuffling was growing louder by the moment. Nothing was visible in the dark underbrush, but they could hear it stomping toward them. It was very heavy–and very large.
Morath let her bobbing tea-light blink out, hoping the creature would fail to notice them and continue on its way.
Instantly she regretted it. Waiting in the dark forest with a light to see by had been nerve-wracking. Waiting in pitch-black blindness was unbearable.
Suddenly the snuffling erupted in a massive squeal as the beast scented them and realized it wasn’t alone on its midnight forage.
It crashed toward them through the brush, letting off screams like the hissing of a deranged tea-kettle. Morath instantly made her decision.
Still leaving the wand in her pocket, she gathered up a ball of fire in her right hand and flung it into the treeline.
The entire forest lit up in a blaze of orange. Tender night-adjusted eyes blinked all around at the bright flare.
A moment later, there came another yell of pain and anger as the boar took a direct hit from her fireball and ran off screaming into the night. Soon its squeals were out of earshot–but they had a bigger problem in front of them now.
The trees had blazed up in a rush of flame, as the winter-dead brambles below provided the perfect tinder to set them alight. Morath realized her mistake as the animals around her let out panicked yelps at the embers flying toward them.
She cast about for a source of water and found one in the aquifer sleeping far below them in the ground. Drawing recklessly on her magic, she sent wave after wave toward the flaming brush and trees in great sweeping arcs that soaked the tinder faster than it could flare up.
Soon all that remained was a sodden, smoky mess of ashes. Morath stood panting and sweating in spite of the wintery night, surveying her work.
Well, I nearly sent us all to a fiery end… but I did get rid of the boar.
She noticed something else. A long tunnel had been carved down through the brush like a hot knife through butter, all the way to where a faint smudge of lighter darkness revealed the end of the treeline.
While she never would have purposefully chosen such a dangerous path out of the forest, Morath couldn’t help feeling pleased. As soon as they reached the other side, they could make camp for the night–hopefully somewhere easily defensible.
A faint smoky scent of burnt hair hung in the air. Hoping it was from the boar, she asked, “Is everyone all right?”
Heads nodded around her. “Let’s keep going,” she said. “We’re almost there.”
Another quarter-hour’s passage through the fire-cleared tunnel brought them out of the forest. It was a relief to see the unnatural darkness overhead suddenly become speckled with starlight.
The moon had shown her face, giving them an unfettered view of a long meadow that still held some dried-over grasses, sloping softly down to a burbling river. Free of ice crystals and shallow enough to be forded on the morrow, it was yet wide enough to offer some protection during the night on their east flank. Protected by the ring of forest at their backs, anyone trying to take them by surprise would find Morath and the menagerie no easy target.
“I’ll take first watch, Mistress,” offered the kitsune. “I slept most of the day while you all traveled.”
“Thank you,” Morath replied, setting the little creature down on the ground.
Feeling as though she would rather stretch out and sleep til morning, Morath instead closed her eyes and began summoning food for everyone–buckets and sacks full of hay, oats, grains, and other more exotic provisions. She added all the horse blankets the barn held so that sweat-cooled coats didn’t lead to anyone cramping or catching a chill.
As a final touch, she brought along her own blanket, pillow, and down-filled mattress, with a horse blanket underneath to block the dew. Her picnic basket sat alongside the final pile.
No reason I shouldn’t be comfortable, too.
