Brian hurriedly searched through the top drawer of the china hutch, checking the labels on each half ounce vial of oil by the nightlight. Finally he found the right one, set it down to close the drawer and it rolled under the silver potpourri bowl. He moved the bowl to fish it out, stared at the steel mixing bowl at his elbow then at the silver one in his hands and on a whim, dumped the dried petals and colored wood shavings into the steel bowl. He snatched up the vial and headed out, pausing near the door to snatch one long ear of wheat from a dried arrangement from the entry table. He stepped out onto the front porch, rifle slung across his back, careful not to let the screen door slam behind him and turned, stopping dead on the top step.
Silouan was standing in the middle of the yard, back to the house and hands held up to catch the softly falling rain. Her head was thrown back and her hair moved slightly in the breeze, edges which should have hung straight and heavy with moisture seemed to curl at the very edges feeling the air. The rain had slacked off, the storm abated and moving off though the gibbous moon had not yet broken through the cloud cover. It was dark, yet somehow she was luminous.
She turned slightly, perhaps sensing him standing there. “Is it far?” she asked. She sounded stronger.
“Nnn no,” he stammered. “Less than a mile if you can walk it. If not I can get one of the horses.”
“But then he will be left unattended,” she said.
He shook his head. “It’s actually in one of the pastures. He’ll be fine.”
She thought a moment, tilting her face up to the falling rain, savouring it. “It would be best to preserve every ounce of myself we can.”
He nodded and crossed to the barn, trying to shield the things he had fetched for her from the weather. “It’ll just take a moment to saddle him.”
“I have no need of a saddle unless you do.”
He leaned back out the door. “Unless I do?”
“I have ridden pillion before. Unless you choose to take two animals.”
“I can walk,” he said suddenly, self-conscious of sharing a saddle with her, of being that close to her and felt the inexplicable and foolish need to explain himself.
“As it pleases you,” she smiled, watching as he disappeared into the open barn. “I am fascinated by the brown and white one. I have never seen a horse like him.”
“The paint?” he asked, setting down the things to fetch a saddle blanket at the very least.
“If that is what you call his line, then yes. And I think he is the least afraid of me. I seem to have that effect on some animals who are not used to my presence. This eve may have seen me the prey, but I still smell of predator.” Her voice drifted in the door like a breath of fresh wind in the still air of the barn, soothing, blending in with the soft patter of the rain on the roof and the ground.
“He is fairly easy-going,” he said, clipping a lead onto his halter and leading him out to where the lady still stood in the rain, watching him with those silver eyes. He held the things they needed in a burlap sack in his other hand. “You want to wait for the rain to stop?” he asked.
“No need,” she smiled. “I like the rain. And I need it,” she added, limping slowly over to the horse, letting him get her scent and her manner before trying to touch him. “It will stop soon.”
He watched her use her voice and its dulcet tones and her whole body to set him at ease. There was a grace about her, even with the limp and something distinctively wolf in her manners as she dealt with the small, stocky paint. His initial reluctance faded quickly and he nosed her hand, pushed up against Brian’s body, eager to be off.
With her permission, he helped her up onto the broad back, careful of her injured leg. He let her adjust herself until she was balanced and comfortable, then slowly moved them off into the rain. He opened the pasture gate, made sure to close it back again. There would be questions left behind, he knew. But he could not afford to cripple himself with them at this time. He had to remain focused on Layla and getting her back, everything else could be dealt with, not necessarily easily, but dealt with none-the-less.
True to her word, the rain slowly stopped before they reached the small pond, and the moon, nearly full, finally broke through the clouds. He glanced back at her, saw the rapture on her face as she seemed to drink in the moonlight as she had the rain. By its light she was more than luminous, she glowed. It was a soft light, not unlike starlight, but it was there. “Ah, nearly full,” she sighed. “That is good. At home it is nearly gone. This will lend me absent strength.
“Before we begin, there are things I must tell you,” she continued.
“Yes?”
“First, I do not know where or when we will arrive, but that there will be water. We could be firmly in Ranish’s county. You will have to be careful.”
“Me?” he asked, startled, looking back over his shoulder at her.
“Yes. I am weak, as I said, and magic comes from within. I will be weaker still once we’ve crossed. You must use your wits, trust your instincts. My personal county lies east of Ranish, and the grand capitol, where my brother lives, lies north of it. If you can find east, head in that direction. Look for some dwelling place for direction. If they are lit by flame, be wary. You may be within his lands. In which case, move east and be cautious. If it be lit by wytchlight, go to the nearest cottage and beg aid.”
“How will I know a wytchlight?”
She smiled. “It will not be natural. Like the lights of your barn and office, but softer. I may not be able to help you much in the beginning. Trust your instincts, but use your head. You may feel her, sense what direction within she lies… remember she will not be served by you approaching there alone.”
He nodded.
“Once the portal is open, take my hand and we walk through together. Do not let go until the world is solid again.”
Before could question what she had meant by the world being solid, they had arrived. He drew the horse near the edge of the pond and helped her down. She in turn surveyed the site whilst he took the lead rope and blanket off the horse and shooed him off with an apple and a slap on the shoulder. The horse wandered off to graze only a few hundred feet away from them, watching curiously. Brian laid the blanket on the cold damp earth and began to take out the items she had requested. He had just tossed the bag aside when he heard a splash. His head snapped up, saw the princess wading calmly out to the center of the pond. “Be careful!” he called, half rising to go after her, pulling the rifle off and laying beside the blanket. “There’s a deep hole right about…” he began, but she had stopped, as if instinctively, right before the hole and was staring intently into its depths.
“This is good,” she said, and turned back to the shore.
The vision struck him profoundly. He was aware of nothing but the haunting beauty that all but floated out of the water to kneel before him on the edge of the blanket and began to pick through the things he had brought.
The first thing she touched was a well worn, silver fairy perched on a crescent moon dangling from an empty keychain. “That’s my sister’s. I gave it to her on her 16th birthday. She’s never without it.”
Silouan held it up to the moonlight, watched the play of light through the tiny crystal in the fairy’s hand. “It will do well then. Put it in your pocket and keep it safe. We will not need it here,” she said, handing it back.
She then picked up the letter opener, an eight inch long replica of a samurai sword, and slid it from its sheath, tested the edge. It was very sharp. “Nice.” She set the sheath down and carried the bare blade to the edge of the water. She dipped it into the pond balanced across her palms and then held it up to the moon, chanting something incoherent in a long, sibilant whisper. For a second, Brian was convinced his eyes were playing tricks on him. For just an instant, he thought he saw the knife hovering on its own.
She returned, eased herself down again, and laid the knife aside. It was an athame now, he had to remind himself, ritually cleansed for the working of magic. She sifted through the rest of the items, blowing dust off of the ear of wheat and picking fourteen kernels from it. Two of them she planted at the edge of the blanket, pushing them deep into the muddy earth with her fingers. “To call their brethren home,” she explained.
Six of the remaining, she tied into a scrap of cloth she tore from her dress. These she pressed into his hand. “To hear the call of your world. Keep them on you at all times. Where there is one world there could be many, and this will make sending you back easier.”
He tucked them into the ammo pouch he had added to his barely functional utility belt.
The last six she poured from her hand into the bowl, letting them ring against the metal like tiny bells in the cool night. Then she picked up the knife and held her hand out to him. Reluctantly, he set his hand over hers. Her fingers were cool, like wet silk as she turned his hand over. Her eyes apologized to him as she brought the knife to bear. He steeled himself and his revulsion, every instinct crying out again it. The cardinal rule in his world, where magic had no real power, was never give of yourself, your blood, your hair or nails, to the use of magic. It was dangerous. It was an act of trust.
He expected her to slice open his palm, but all she did was nick his fingertip until a drop beaded to the surface. “A drop of your blood to call to your blood,” she explained. And he suddenly realized the pitch and cadence of her voice was more an intonation. She was working already. He obeyed the gesture that he should squeeze the drop into the bowl himself, heard the tiny droplet splash musically onto the bright silver.
Wait, was it brighter than a moment ago? he thought. He watched her prick her own finger and add a drop of her own blood. It struck with another bell tone. “A drop of mine to call to mine, a breath nearer to be complete.”
She set the knife aside and took up the vial of oil, rained four drops onto the upper sides of the bowl, one in each of the cardinal directions. She then began to hum softly as she traced strange figures in the oil, down and across the belly of the bowl, through the blood. As if an afterthought, she raised her other hand back towards the pond, never taking her eyes off her work and motioned as if scooping up water she could not reach.
Brian’s eyes went wide as a plum-sized globule of water rose at her command, expelled a panicked minnow and flowed to her hand. She brought her arm back around and over turned it above the bowl and the water rained softly down. Now there was no doubt of the bowl’s glow. He could almost see the light pouring from her into the bowl, filling it to the brim and overflowing with a soft silvery radiance. When she lifted it up, she seemed to hold a tiny moon in her delicate hands.
Not knowing what to expect, Brian slung his rifle across his back, made sure he had everything he was bringing with him. Guessing they would be entering the water, he took off his belt and slung it over his shoulder as well, making sure to keep his ammo and rifle dry. As she rose, with only a little help, Brian saw the paint’s head come up from across the pond, watching them warily. There was something electric in the air that even Brian could feel, like undischarged lightning.
Silouan took slow, careful steps, favoring her right leg without allowing the bowl to tip or her gait to be uneven. Her stride had a curious, almost exaggerated rise and fall to it. He stepped behind her, gently placing his hands to lend her support. He gasped as they entered the icy water and it seeped effortlessly into the flimsy spandex, but made he himself follow. The water came up to her lower ribs and just above his hip. That was when he noticed that, in the water, she had no limp, but seemed to glide effortlessly through it.
She stopped in the center, held the bowl above her head, offering it to the moon. Her hair seemed to come alive then, rising up and around her as if caught in some unpredictable current both above and below the water’s surface. Some of it maintained contact with the water, but all of it behaved unnaturally. Tiny motes of light seemed to flicker at the tips. A strand reached out and caressed his cheek. It felt like running water, though his face was no more wet than before.
Without warning she tipped the bowl. A silver stream of glowing liquid poured out with six sterling motes that no longer resembled kernels of wheat. But instead of flowing down into the pond as water should have done, it behaved as if the air itself were a body of water. He watched the eddies swirl down, out and up, billowing like underwater clouds. It reminded him of experiments he and his sister had done as children, adding red Kool-Aid to a glass bowl of water to watch the current patterns. Now, as then, it was a beautiful sight.
A noise began, soft at first, then louder until it engulfed everything. For one terrified second, he thought it was a tornado. Then he saw the air in front of them ripped apart by a swirling vortex. He barely heard the panicked scream of the pinto as he bolted across the pasture. The princess was pressing the empty bowl into his hand. Thinking of his mother for one brief second, he hurled the bowl to shore as she grabbed his hand and pulled him through.
Suddenly he understood what she had meant about the world going solid. What lay beyond the threshold was like being sucked down a drain. Something like deep water pressed heavily upon him all around and all of his senses were keenly aware of every inch of himself and the girl who had folded into his arms. He clung to her, her hair whipping all around them, almost protective and he could feel something, perhaps the currents, pulling at his cape. What light there was dimmed and the rushing noise assaulting his ears began to lessen, then ended abruptly and the earth rose up to meet them both.
“Oof! That’s solid all right,” he grunted. He rolled off of the figure curled beneath him, her hair sliding away, his cape slowly settling around them. He was struck once more by the feeling of drowning, that compression of deep water pressing all the air out of him as if the whole world were trying to cram its way inside him. Light spots swam in his vision as he struggled against the mysterious force threatening to crush him. He tensed, fighting to steel himself, to withstand it and then just as quickly as it had come it was gone again. There was a sudden sense of wholeness, of being filled to bursting, then that too subsided and he knew with absolute certainly that Layla was here somewhere, miles away in
that direction, but there. What direction ‘that’ was, he could not have said but he knew which way it was.
He looked up, trying to see in the dim light. He was in a forest of some sort by the smell of things, surrounded by a deep mist that granted occasional glimpses of trees and other things that might have been animals or some fey thing. There was coolness to the air, like that faint pre-dawn chill of a late spring night. “We’ve made it, your highness,” he said, looking down at her.
Her silvery eyes blinked at him, gave him a wan smile and stretched a hand towards his face. Suddenly worried, he took it and pressed it against his cheek. It was hot. He felt her fingers working weakly against him, as if trying to draw him closer. He bent obediently, and she turned her rose-pale lips to his ear and whispered something. “Alaneth,” she gasped. “Al…aneth.”
“What?” he asked, feeling panic rising. “Alen… I don’t ….”
“Understand,” she breathed and closed her eyes. Her hand against him went limp and he immediately put an ear to her chest, felt the weak and fluttery pulse at her throat. She was alive but barely.
Quickly, he sat her up, gathered her hair and draped it over her shoulder. It was dry and brittle. Then he lifted her up in his arms and stood. He turned in place for a moment, wondering which way to go, the world seemed very topsy-turvy. Then he remembered what she had told him and closed his eyes, concentrating. He felt for Layla, touching that twin bond, that shining thread between them and felt something touch back. She was off to his left. Reluctantly, he turned his back to it and began to march stoically to the right.
Snuggled deep beneath the weight of the blankets and quilts, Layla felt strangely secure and comfortable. Her dreams had begun tormented but ended rather pleasantly, playing out like the torrid romance novels she often teased her roommate for loving. A light flared into being, which she ignored, and the sound of someone throwing back the curtains. Her mind tried to catch back up to current events. Her bed in the dorm was nowhere near this comfortable. She had to be home then, and the person in the room opening the curtains to roust her for chores had to be her brother. She seized hold of the pillow beneath her head and prepared to hurl it. Suddenly the blankets were pulled back and she struck, sitting up and whirling her body and the pillow around, knocking the culprit to the floor.
The first thing she noticed was the height of the bed, followed by the black velvet curtains, the black gown she wore and the brown haired young woman in the grey dress sitting up from the floor. Blue eyes locked with dark brown. The brown, Layla felt certain, were laced with an equal measure of fear and hatred. Before she could apologize, Eighfa’s voice barked the girl’s name from across the room.
“Rya!”
The girl flinched.
“I told you to open the curtains and lay out her things. I did not tell you to wake her,” she snapped as the girl scrambled to her feet and bowed, and remained in the position. “Forgive her, my Lady, she is… over zealous. I trust you slept well?”
“I did, Madam Eighfa,” Layla said as imperiously as she could, climbing out of the bed. “Rya, you may leave us.”
Rya glanced up at Eighfa for some signal which did not come, deepened her bow in Layla’s direction then exited the room hastily. Neither she nor Eighfa moved until the door closed, at which point Layla picked up the pillow she had thrown and tossed it back onto the bed.
“Well played,” Eighfa congratulated her, setting down the silver tea service she carried.
“I thought she was my brother, sneaking up on me. I’m just glad that wasn’t you.”
She closed the distance between them, drawing Layla over to the dressing table. “Well, I wouldn’t have been so stupid. Not on your first night here, anyway,” she chuckled, began helping Layla out of her nightdress and into the blue-purple gown. “First we get you dressed, then I’ll pour you a coppa.”
“Coppa? As in cuppa tea?” Layla frowned as she wiggled into the dress and helped as she could. The use of the distinctly British term somehow seemed out of place here.
“This isn’t tea. It’s coppa. It’ll perk you up, banish all remnants of sleep from your mind. Let the air out and hold it,” she instructed as she tightened the laces.
Layla stared at herself in the mirror as she adjusted her cleavage for maximum effect. The pale blonde hair fell forward over her ears like a fringe, longer in the front than in the back. The front sides cradled her face to her chin, following the jawline up and back to stop above her nape. The style was actually kind of flattering in a perverse way.
Brian was right though, she thought.
Blonde just isn’t really me. Her eyes seemed a little darker in the firelight, but no less piercing.
“Why did those women not recognize immediately that I was not Sister Moon?” she asked suddenly as Eighfa was tying off her laces.
“Because they have never seen her before,” came the curt response. The old woman made a few final adjustments and gestured for her to sit while she brought the coppa.
“But she was here, how could they not?”
“The Princess was locked in a tower and tended by other women.” There was something dark and sinister in the way she said it.
“Surely he did not punish women severely for not being able to stop a lady from escaping using magic?”
Eighfa set the cup and saucer in Layla’s hands. “I have warned you before that he is a dangerous man. He is not his father, no. But he is no less dangerous for all that. Now drink it while it’s hot,” she admonished and picked up a brush. “You sure you don’t want a veil?”
Layla shook her head and looked down at the contents of the small, delicate cup. It seemed to be made of black porcelain, though the inside was coated in gold. The liquid was black and gave off a fragrance not unlike a sweet menthol but different in a way she cold not place and the steam that wafted upwards was faintly lavender. She blew on it before taking a sip, bracing herself for anything.
The drink was thick with the flavor of fire and a heavy sweetness that barely buried an acidic, bitter core. It reminded her a bit of the syrupy Cuban coffees her grandfather had been fond of, but only in the balance of the flavours. The taste was so far from anything she could imagine that comparisons failed her. It had a consistency of warm honey and even the fragrance was a shock to her system. As it poured down her throat it began to affect her mind almost immediately. It was like the effect a Hall’s cough drop has on a stuffy nose, only it was her brain that was coming unclogged. She quickly set the drink down.
“Too sweet? Too bitter?” Eighfa asked, concerned. “You may just need to get used to the taste. I don’t know if you have anything like it in your world.”
“I’m… actually kind of afraid of it,” she hesitated. “That stuff can be addictive.”
The old woman chuckled. “I suppose if you’ve never had it before. Of course, I didn’t water yours down any. You need the clarity. Get your wits about you. It’ll also sustain you for a while should you not get a chance for supper. Drink up.”
“Why would I not get a chance for supper?” she asked, starting to turn.
“One never knows. He may have many questions,” she urged, putting the cup back into her hand and making her drink. “This will make you more aware of your surroundings, of his manipulations. Just remember what I’ve told you about half truths and letting him draw his own bloody conclusions.”
Wincing, Layla downed the draught, nearly gagging on the thicker dregs at the bottom. Eighfa took the cup from her, setting it on the dresser and drew her to her feet. As an afterthought, she reached into her apron pocket and drew out a small pastille of some sort and popped it into Layla’s mouth as she opened it to ask another question. The slightly tart, flowery taste startled her enough to divert the question. “What is this?”
“Helps the taste and sweetens the breath,” she said, ushering her towards the door.
“Right, coffee breath.” Without thinking she crunched the small candy and felt a pop in her mouth, followed by many more. They seemed to multiply like pop rocks for about five seconds before they faded away and she could no longer taste either the coppa or the candy, or the ‘morning fuzzies’ either for that matter. “Candy, breathmint and toothbrush in one,” she mumbled. “Ingenious.”
Eighfa paused at the door, checked her over one last time, made invisible adjustments. “Now,” she said in a low voice. “Remember yourself, and all I’ve warned you. Acknowledge no one as we go. Dayn are going to stare, this is natural. Ignore them.”
She set her hand on the old woman’s shoulder. “I am still angry with your son,” she said gently. “Don’t worry. Thank you for everything you have tried to do. This is up to me now. I am quite certain this high and mighty son of yours has never dealt with an American …Lady,” she caught herself, smiled. “We are famous for defiance in the face of adversity and righteous indignation. The motto of my forefathers was ‘Don’t Tread On Me’, and the device was a foot stepping on a snake biting back. He’s in for the shock of his life.”
This did not seem to completely mollify the old wytch. “I pray that it is not you who is to be shocked. Be well.”
Eighfa opened the door without warning but the corridor was empty. Without a word she led Layla down the spiral stair. She did not lead her out through the baths as she had been brought in, but through a set of double doors they had passed the night before. These doors opened into a corridor lit by braziers and long, narrow windows that shown into the courtyard beneath a night blackened sky.
Layla glanced outside, tried to maintain a sedate, graceful pace. She was amazed to learn that she had slept literally all day, but she kept her reactions as invisible as she could. They were not alone in these halls. Men and women, all wearing the same, simple grey clothes, paused and bowed as she passed. Lords and Ladies, of which there were a few, paused to watch curiously.
Layla turned her mind inward, running the previous nights’ events through her head to re-stoke her anger, which she knew would be her best weapon.
Think like a queen, she told herself.
You are in the right and you have been gravely wronged. Remind him of that. He’s a pompous, arrogant princeling who places his wants above the rights of others. What’s more, he has no way of knowing what kind of power you held before he had your hair cut. That’s an unknown he has no choice but to fear. Build on it. But above all, remain calm, it’ll make him wonder. Suddenly they were in a broad hall with two gigantic bronze doors across the surface of which danced so many allegorical figures in detailed relief that it was almost impossible to take in all at once. There were four guards before this door, two armed with pikes and two, in the center, dressed in a black and silver livery. Eighfa nodded to them and stepped out of the way. They bowed to Layla and seized the bronze hands of the two inmost figures and pulled them apart, opening only a small portion of the great doors, large enough for a lady in a full gown to pass through.
Feeling a slight nudge at her back, Layla swallowed back the chill that was beginning to brew in her belly and strode through the doors with a firm purpose. She stopped just inside as the doors swung silently closed behind her.
The chamber was impressive. It was impossible to determine the dimensions of the room, though she guessed it easily had to be the size of the college gymnasium. It was flagged with honeycombed tiles of some unreflective black stone from floor to wall to ceiling. Braziers and candles were hung everywhere suffusing the room in a soft, flickering light that was reflected back from tiny mirrors imbedded everywhere giving the effect of winking stars imbedded in the night sky.
The atmosphere here was different than the rest of the castle. Here it was a little warmer, the air still, hung with the heady fragrance of beeswax and some incense she could not place, something earthy, a hint of copper. The room was empty of all furnishings save a single throne on a raised dais at the far end, all in polished black marble. The only living thing in the room was the man lounging on that throne. He leaned back in the chair, head tilted slightly back, one pale hand trailing over the arm with a silver goblet in hand. From this distance she could see little very clearly, only that he was lean and tall, pale of skin with dark locks that draped over his shoulder. His clothes were fitted and dark, only lightly embellished with either metal thread or seed pearls. In short, he looked like an arrogant, East-European prince.
Taking a deep breath to keep herself calm and focused, Layla strode regally across the dark floor.
His voice wafted across to her as lazily as his manner, the tone almost a purr. “Black, my dear?” he tutted, “I know the moon wanes dark, but really. Or have you accepted…” He stopped.
She had reached the center of the room. The sudden coiling stiffness of his body warned her, even though he had not seemed to have moved. She came to a halt, lifting her chin a little, prepared for battle. The smoothe voiced bastard would have to use magic on her to gain any satisfaction from the confrontation, which would, of course, mean he would have lost it, something she felt he would be fully aware of, and that gave her strength.
“You are not Sister Moon,” he said flatly. There was something dangerous in his silky voice, like a tiger who just noticed the mouse he had been graciously ignoring was wielding a very large sword.
Layla dropped into an overly obsequious curtsey. “Oh, my Lord,” she drawled out dramatically. “You are truly a master… at stating the obvious,” she ended coldly, returning to her previous imperious posture. There was plenty of venom in her voice.
He sat up, let go of the cup which mysteriously did not fall. Layla had no time to discern why. The lord in the chair held her complete attention. The calm of his voice was as deceptive as the still eye of a hurricane. “Who in the name of the primordial fires are you?” he asked slowly, his dark eyes slightly narrowed.
“Just some hapless damsel who ran afoul of your abomination,” she said with a vague, dismissive gesture of her head.
He studied her a moment, rest his elbow on the arm of his throne and caressed his upper lip with a finger as he did so. Layla boldly returned the favor.
He was handsome in a very ‘bishonen’ way. He reminded her a bit of those anime men her roommate used for her computer’s wallpaper, only real, very achingly real. He was lean and angular with piercing dark eyes whose color she could not yet discern, and skin so pale she could easily believe he had never seen the sun. That was not to say he looked sickly. There was a bit of color to his face, just a hint at the cheeks, a certain depth to his angled eyes and more than a suggestion of color to his lips. Closer now, she could see that his shirt was midnight silk, billowing at the broad cuff which was fastened by something that glittered. His sleeveless tunic came to the bottom of his thighs and was a rich, black velvet seeded, seemingly at random, with tiny pearls or silver beads, and was clasped high at this throat with two silver hasps. His boots were supple leather, stretched over his knees, and his pants were… close fitting. His jewelry was far from ostentatious though: a simple, though large, masculine ring with some dark stone, and a thin, silver coronet that circled his brow beneath his hair. She had been unable to see it before.
“Very well,” he breathed, moving his hand from his face. “What is your name,
damsel?” he asked.
If he spoke French I would be in serious trouble, Layla thought, then laughed, “Now why in the world would I want to give you that kind of power?” This was an idea which had been percolating in her brain over the last few minutes, brewed together from fragments of legends and fairy tales and books she had read over the years.
There was suddenly something keen and sharp in his manner. “Excuse me?” She got the distinct impression those were words he was not in the habit of saying. She made a mental note to make sure he said it often.
“Hardly,” she replied with disdain.
Righteous anger, remember, she admonished herself. “In my world there is power in true names,” she exaggerated. “So say those who know better. I would sooner give you my hair or my blood,” she sneered.
That at least was true, if you followed voodoo. “Speaking of which,” her hand drifted to her hair. “I want it back.”
“We shall see,” he murmured, finally rising from the throne. He moved like a tiger finally getting off his branch to investigate a young antelope foolish enough to enter his bower, deceptive indifference. He stalked the rest of the way across the room and it seemed to her that he had not taken quite enough steps to do so. He circled her once, finally coming to rest almost toe to toe with her. She could feel his presence like a live wire. Magic or pheromones, either way she had to put an end to that quick.
She raised her brilliant blue eyes defiantly to his startlingly black ones and spoke in a cold voice just as he took a breath to speak. “There is something called personal space,” she hissed.
“Excuse me?” It was obvious this was not what he had intended to say, and that he was beginning to become irritated with being interrupted.
“It is called personal space. And you are violating mine.”
A touch more color rose to his cheeks as he tightened his jaw. Nonetheless, he took a graceful step back and gave her a half-mocking, half questioning bow. She merely nodded. “Now then. As you are now my guest, may I ask what I may call you?” he asked, straining to remain polite.
She was sorely tempted to grant him permission to ask, then wait for him to ask, as she so often did with her brother, but somehow knew that would be pushing it. “You may call me Lady Valentine,” she said, giving him only her surname.
He was visibly startled. “Valantyne?” he echoed.
“Yes, Valentine,” not understanding why the name would cause such an impact. She would have to ask Eighfa later. For now it was enough to use it. “Now, would you care to explain why I was viciously attacked, torn from my world and had my glory clumsily hacked from my head then locked in a tower all day?”
“Yes,” he began, getting hold of himself. “That is something I would like to know myself. As you have no doubt already surmised, you were taken by mistake.”
“Oh, are you in the habit then, of kidnapping women?”
His eyes hardened, “Only those who withhold from me that which I desire.”
She crossed her arms Morticia style. “Then you had best pray that I have nothing you desire. For holding me against my will shall cost you more than you may be willing to pay.”
Something glittered in his eye, the faintest trace of a smile well hidden. “Then I had best discover the price quickly, hadn’t I?” Whatever that glimmer had been was quickly covered by a more pragmatic manner. “I realize you are my guest, however unwilling and in error, but if we are to get to the meat of this matter you will have to forgive this tiny breach of hospitality,” he said and reached out to her.
Before she could flinch away, his cool fingertips had brushed her forehead and something like a static shock had taken place. She was keenly aware that he had expended a little of whatever lightning force was contained within him, a spell, she guessed. Eighfa had warned her he might cast something to discern truths. From his words, she also guessed it was a breach of hospitality, however minor but it might allow her to get away with something she had been dying to do since the baths last night.
“Then you will no doubt forgive me this,” she said with misleading calm, then slapped him with a strength and alacrity which surprised even her.
Pain, shock and anger flashed across his face in microseconds to be instantly replaced with a strange calm. His eyebrow arched delicately as he lightly touched his cheek. “I suppose I deserve that. Though I do not think anyone else would have dared. Not even Sister Moon.” He studied her tightened lips and angry eyes with something akin to admiration. She noticed his breathing had quickened ever so slightly. Her own breathing had become almost labored, she hoped from anger. “Yes, I do believe I did. For having your power cut short so…”
when did he get so close? she thought. “…uselessly,” he finished, reaching out to brush the fringe of her hair from her ear to her chin.
Something within her seemed to effervesce, as if her blood had suddenly been replaced with soda water or pop-rocks. Her breath came faster, harder. She was frozen to the core but beginning to burn up from the inside out and getting lightheaded from hyperventilating. Her eyes were locked with his, communicating a growing terror. There was an unveiled hunger in his eyes, an open mouthed smile of undisguised pleasure. His cool fingertip touched the tip of her ear, slid along her jawline with a feather-light touch, but that minute contact was like ice water poured into hot glass. She screamed.
Power flooded from every pore, throwing her head back and her arms out. Her hair rose in a static cloud and she felt her feet leave the floor. She screamed, felt more than her fear roar forth. Cool hands touched her burning flesh at her back, an arm crossed her belly as if to keep her from floating away. The pain where she was touched was acute, and she was aware of a voice yelling at her but could not make out either words or their meaning. Then, just as suddenly as the energy was expelled, it surged back within her like filling a vacuum. She felt her weightless body collapse like a doll thrown to the floor, was barely aware that the burning cold hands on her were all that kept her from smashing into the tiles as even the light in the room was consumed by her and everything went dark.
He had no idea how long he had been walking. Time seemed dampened here. The wood was deathly quiet, filled with that isolating hush of heavy fog as he marched blindly through it, taking care to keep the only known direction to his back.
Forgive me, Layla. Just know that I am here, and I WILL come for you, he thought forcefully.
He stopped; listened. After a moment the sound came again. Something like a cowbell, clanging dully in the distance to his left. He hesitated, then turned that way, letting the intermittent sound guide him. After a few yards, he could make out the quiet bleating of a goat. Then he saw the light, dim though it was. He paused, studied it through the mist. It was steady, a pale blue and putting off little more than a nightlight would. Hope sprang in his breast and he came closer only to be startled by a hissing honk from very nearby. He spun, saw a rough railed fence stretching off into the mist and stretched between the two lowest rails the long, black neck of something akin to a goose. It menaced him as a goat strode up, sniffing curiously at him. He was startled to notice that the goat’s two horns grew in a line on its head instead of side by side, curving gently back towards its neck.
He heard another noise ahead, this one more human.
“Nelly!” came an aged voice, definitely feminine. There was a twinge of worry in that voice. In answer the goat bleated at her and the goose, if that’s what it was, hissed louder at him. “Who’s out there?!” she called. A light flared a touch brighter, bobbed higher in the air.
Brian, not trusting his voice, approached. He must have cut a frightful figure, stepping almost silently out of the mist, his cape swirling menacingly around him, as she raised her hand in a threatening manner and something in her palm began to glow green. He shrugged his shoulder to pull the edge of the cape back, exposing the unconscious girl cradled to his chest. “My lady…” he began, tipping his head to indicate the princess.
The woman’s manner changed instantly. The green glow vanished and she gasped, darted to him. “Sister… Oh, my stars in heaven, she’s so
dim! That time of the month not-withstanding….”
Brian flushed, thinking something else entirely.
The old woman did not give him much time to wallow in his embarrassment. “Bring her, quickly,” she hissed, turned away and led him a very short distance to a small cottage wreathed in the mist. “We are still too close for safety. The bastard’s dogs still hunt nearby. But they won’t find us inside, oh no. I’ve had
that seen to. Quickly!”
He had to duck to enter the open doorway, which the old woman closed swiftly behind him and muttered something under her breath. A rune flared on the door and faded, but Brian could distinctly feel
something there, like one feels a raw electrical current nearby. She bade him lay Silouan on the only bed in the small room that he could see. It was large enough for two, but looked as if no one had used that second pillow in a very long time.
He stepped aside to let the woman work. She muttered as she did so, checking her over. Suddenly she held up the wounded arm with its portion of missing sleeve. The stitches were glaringly obvious in the firelight. “Who did this?” she accused.
“Uh…” he stammered, taken aback by both her tone and his own guilt. “The injury was my doing, though not all my fault. My father tended to her. You must understand, she was in her wolf form when she ran out in front of my …” he suddenly remembered that this world did not know what a truck was, “wagon in the dark. I did not see her ‘til it was too late. My father is a vet… an animal doctor. He treated her as he would a wolf, so the stitches are not as neat as they could have been. She has cracked ribs as well, and another gash on her right thigh. We did what we could. It was before we knew… Before
I knew.”
She seemed slightly mollified. “Hmm, doesn’t explain her weakness. What else?”
Not sure how much to tell this old woman, he decided to start asking questions of his own. “Do you know who she is?”
She huffed. “Who else could it be? With the Princess’s entourage assaulted and she stolen away a mere week past? Take that with the fact that Lord Night’s forces have been combing the wood for days looking for her and those damned drakes nosing about scaring my lifestock dry and it’s no pet trick to get the right potion out of it. Now who are you?”
“I’ve brought her home, and that is all you need to know. Can you help her?” he asked, praying that getting forceful was not the wrong move.
She studied him a moment, then nodded her head in a slight bow. “That will depend, my lord, on what has been done to her. How did she escape?”
He relaxed a little. She had accepted him for an Ord. “Moonbridge. But it did not go where she had intended. It… took her to my world. My sister was taken instead of her by the Hunter and she opened a portal here to help me get her back.”
“Ah, she used magic, and in her condition,” she clucked. “Foolish, foolish. But understandable. I will do what I can.”
Suddenly the goose outside began honking again, though the sound was different, more pleasant. He turned to face the door, hand reaching for his weapon as he heard the handle move. The rune glowed briefly then subsided and a woman strode in. She was no longer young, but still a rare beauty. Her flowing dress was a deep emerald, and the linked belt around her hips was of various precious metals formed into flowers and broad leaves. Her black hair flowed freely down her back, save for a single strand of silver which fell forward into her face. She entered the cabin, resealing the door and gazed calmly up at Brian.
“Hello,” she said, her voice like warm honey. “You are a mite bigger than I foresaw, but no less imposing. And I don’t think anyone is going to be expecting you, or what you bring to bear. This should be fun.”
“Who are you?” he asked firmly, feeling very protective suddenly.
She smiled as the old woman swept around him, bowing before her with more deference than she had shown him. “Lady Veleda, you are a marvel,” she beamed. “And as usual, right on time.”
“Madam Dara, I am ever at your disposal. Besides, though I could not see clearly why I was needed, I knew I had to come here.” She looked beyond him to the still figure lying on the bed and froze. Slowly she turned her gaze to him, boring into him, or trying. She frowned, then inclined her head to him. “My Lord, I am an oracle, my sight gifted to me by the direct touch of the Princess,” she said, running her fingers down the long silver strand hanging in front of one green eye. “I promise you that no harm will come to her from me. Will you assure us the privacy we shall need to recharge your Lady and restore at least some of her strength?”
Brian felt a little out of sorts. He was only a farm boy, yet here he was, protecting a princess and being treated with great deference and no small amount of trepidation by a powerful woman of obvious rank and quality. He bowed his head as she had hers. “Her safety is my highest concern,” he said in what he hoped was a firm voice of natural command. “Tell me what you wish of me and it will be done.”
She bowed again, this time lowering her eyes slightly. She then turned to Dara. “The pool. It would be best. With so little moon out, perhaps the water can do the rest.”
“But it’s open… the hunters…”
She shook her head. “They left the hunt sometime last night. As for anything else, the Lord here will stand guard.” She turned back to him. “Please bring her.”
He nodded, adjusted his rifle again and scooped her light form from the bed. “Lead,” he said, feeling the less he said around this woman the better.
They led him to a small bower, whose protective, interwoven branches opened to let them pass with a gesture from the lady and closed behind them. The bower was open to the sky with a small pool of crystal clear water in the center surrounded by floating lotus and a soft fragrant clover that sent up a cloud of soothing aromas when crushed. The two women bade him lay the princess in the water. He was reluctant at first, but remembered that she had seemed to grow stronger in the rain. Gently as he could, he waded into the water and placed her in the center.
The women were immediately at his elbows, hands at her head and knees, making certain she floated, though the water was barely three feet deep.
“Step out, my Lord,” instructed Lady Veleda. “Stand your guard there,” she pointed to where they had entered. “Keep your weapon to bear and your wits about you.”
“Is it forbidden to watch?” he asked, wading back out again and unshouldering the rifle.
She smiled. “No, but you must not distract us.”
He smiled back, pumping the lever on the rifle. “All right, but if I have to shoot, it’s going to be loud.”
He stepped back near the surrounding tree wall, the rifle cradled in his arm ready for anything and watched. He didn’t see how anything could get through to them, but it would not hurt to be on guard, nor was he quite sure what a good a rifle would be against a magical assault. He felt more than a little silly in his flimsy batman suit with its dull gold colored utility belt, and, in spite of the warm night, he felt a chill.
He squatted down, keeping his back against the tree, watched the two women softly singing something he couldn’t make out as they slowly walked around the still form of the princess, lying like Ophelia in the pond. The mists had parted here and the faint glimmer of the thinnest crescent moon peered over the edge of the trees, filling the bower with starlight. He watched their hands as they wove complex patterns in and out of the water and over the body. Droplets of water flying from their hands seemed to capture the starlight and glittered as they arched over her and melted into her skin. Their circular movement had set the lotus flowers to following them, spinning gracefully in their wake. Tiny lights like the old woman’s lantern began to grow in the shelter of their translucent, alabaster blossoms. These lights ebbed and waxed like a slow, steady heartbeat as they drew closer to the silver woman in their midst.
Staring steadily as he was, his vision began to lose focus, as it does when one gazes so long at a thing you lose all sense of form. But just as it started to happen, he began to notice something else coming into focus, a sort of current of light and air and water, a nothingness given substance that moved between the water and the lotus and the women. It startled him so much he lost sight of it, everything else snapping back into place until there were only the women, the flowers and the water. He frowned. Was it his imagination or were the lotus’s light going out and the princess glowing again? The light was too wan to tell yet, and a sound to his left diverted his attention.
He stood, listening, feeling the hairs on the back of his neck rising. Something out there was sniffing at the hedge, padding silently at its edges. There was a sharp, musky scent to it, a palpable threat. With it came an overwhelming sense of despair and helplessness. Quietly, he pulled back the hammer of the rifle and tried to peer through the branches. He could barely see, but there was something there, something large and shadowy and hulking. It raised its head and he could see the glimmer of glowing red eyes that he felt strangely certain could not see him. He slipped the rifle barrel between the branches and took aim, waiting for the right moment. The thing saw the barrel, the eyes coming level with it to investigate and Brian pulled the trigger.
The report echoed in the stillness of the wood, muffled and suppressed by the mist, but its noise was a shock even to him, who had expected it. The thing gave a shrieking yowl and dissipated. Brian could not believe his eyes, certain it had been a trick of the mist and the bower wall. A splash from the pond made him turn. The two women had stepped back nearer the edges, both looking at him, startled by the sound. Silouan was under the water.
He yelped, thinking that in their fear they had let her sink, dropped the rifle and splashed in after her. Just as he was about to plunge his hand in to pull her out, her eyes opened and she smiled at him. He froze. Yes, she was definitely glowing, softly, dimly, but undoubtedly glowing. Her hair swirled around her like a live thing and her hand reached out and took his, rising from the water with fluid grace and steppin into his arms.
“Thank you,” she sighed, turned over her shoulder and repeated herself to the women sitting on the bank.
The lady nodded, the woman bowed.
Dara glared up at Brian. “My Lord what did you do? You were warned not to distract us. It could have been dangerous!” she hissed.
“I told you it would be loud. There was some …shadow thing sniffing around over there,” he said, pointing. “Don’t ask me how I knew but it was imperative that I shoot it.”
Silouan nudged him gently to help her out of the water. “It is all right. Did it run away or fall?”
“It… dissipated,” he said with a bit of distaste, the creature had somehow left a bad taste in his mouth.
Dara gasped, and Veleda shook her head. “That shouldn’t be. He called them off. Unless…”
“He knows,” Silouan finished for her. “Veleda, may I impose upon you?”
The lady rose immediately, bowing. “I am at your service, Princess. As always.”
“Lord Valantyne, the trinket,” she asked, holding out her hand.
It took him a moment to realize what she was asking and drew the fairy from his belt. She thanked him and, taking it, turned and pressed it into Veleda’s hands. “I need you to find the owner of this trinket. She is his sister and we must know her status.”
The lady bowed again and knelt once more by the pool’s edge.
The Princess then turned to the old woman. “I am not strong enough yet to summon a moonbridge home, Madam. Could you perhaps…”
The old woman’s eyes lit up. “I know just the thing, your Highness. Leave it to old Dara!” Without another word, she turned and tapped the bower wall and was let out.
“That thing may still be out there,” Brian protested.
“She will be fine. That ‘thing’ was not looking for her. Come, you would see this,” she said gently, turning him back to the pool and kneeling beside the frowning lady. “What is it, Veleda?”
Brian crouched beside Silouan, watching the silver fairy skimming its sterling toes just over the surface of the water as it on a pendulum chain. The surface of the water was not clear as it had been only moments before, but filled with roiling clouds through which nothing could be seen.
“It… I… cannot see her,” she stammered. She looked up at the Princess, then at Brian and suddenly seemed to see something she hadn’t before. She turned back to the water, snatching up the pendant and passing her empty hand over the surface. It rippled a moment, blackened, but once again the clouds returned, as persistent as ever. “It is you,” she said in a hushed, awed voice, her green eyes meeting his blue.
“What do you mean?” he asked, worried and confused.
“There is something about you which clouds my visions, prevents me from seeing anything of either of you. How close are you to her?”
It was Silouan who answered. “As close as Soliel and I.”
She nodded. “That is it then.”
Brian protested. “But when I met you, you said something about having foreseen me. What has changed?”
She gave him a helpless smile. “You are here. With your twin. When I saw you, you could not yet have been in this world, as I saw things I did not understand, and even then I did not see clearly. Your face I had not known, just vague gut feelings. I also told you that what you were would not be expected, and it seemed even I am not immune to that. There is something about you, here, together, that was not there, when worlds held you apart. That something I cannot penetrate. That it cannot be done even here, with Sister Moon, the mother of oracles, at my side means that perhaps it is not meant to be seen.”
“Or it could be that I am still not at full strength, but thank you for trying,” she sighed.
“Wait,” Veleda begged, touching her arm as she started to rise. “There may be a way around things. Who is she with? Is that known?”
Silouan’s mouth was a thin line as she answered. “With Ranish.”
“Ah, that is easily remedied.” She turned merrily back to the pool, passing her hand once more over the water. This time the darkness swirled, but convalesced into the form of a pale, dark haired man having an urgent conversation with a suit of armour on the back of something Brian would hesitate to compare to a horse. The oddest part was that he seemed to be speaking with the animal, not the rider and the animal’s head responded with insistent movements almost begging forgiveness. The man was not pleased. Once or twice he looked up at a tower above him and something sprang into his dark eyes, something akin to concern and fascination.
“What does this all mean?” Brian asked. “Can we hear?”
The lady shook her head. “Alas, no. At least not this target. This one is difficult,” she said, dipping her finger into the water to disrupt the image. “The longer I watch the greater the chance he will notice, though in his current state he might over look it. If I were to guess, and I am good at guessing,” she smiled mischievously. “I would say he was chastising his Hunter for bringing him the wrong hind. That he looked to the tower would suggest that your sister lives as his prisoner, though something tells me he will not be letting her go without a fight,” she said, suddenly somber. She held up her hand, cutting off any exclamation he was about to make. “I cannot answer that, my Lord. I have seen that look before, but never in
his eye. It will be interesting to see how this plays out,” she mused.
“Forgive me if I’d rather it didn’t,” he snapped.
She chuckled. “I would think less of you if you did, my Lord.”
Silouan stepped in, placing a hand on his arm to quiet him. The lady slyly watched his reaction to that touch and Brian knew she knew the attraction he was fighting and blushed, masking his embarrassment with anger. “Please,” Silouan asked, “Soliel? I need to know which way.”
“Certainly.” Once more she passed her hand over the water and another image sprang into being, this time the night was brightly lit as if by day and four golden bays were prancing in their traces, their manes like lines of fire down their necks as they streaked across the sky. A tall, tanned young man with a crown of golden curls stood at the helm of a gold trimmed chariot, a stereotypical Apollo driving his horses at a maddened pace.
Silouan reached out to the image stopped a millimeter from disturbing it and whispered something. All at once he eased back, frowned, turning his head but looking at nothing. Then once more looking forward, he began to turn the horses with a nod to no one and seemed to breathe a sigh of relief. The image pulled back as she pulled her hand back and ran ahead along the new course. In the distance, Brian could see a series of mountains and crowning their highest peak was a glittering castle gleaming like a distant star overlooking the sea.
The vision ended.
Silouan bent and hugged the lady, fondly brushing aside her silver lock to look into her green eyes. “Thank you. I will have to come visit you again when this is all over. Or you could come to the mountain,” she suggested.
Veleda laughed. “Either will honor me, Sister. I am but your humble servant. Now, I believe Dara has your mounts. Ride in safety. We would not see you married to that monster.”
“Nor would I, but now I must ensure that neither will the Lady Valantyne.”
A high, whistling neigh called them from the bower, followed by the old woman’s voice begging them to hurry. “Quickly, Sister! My Lord! I hear more hounds coming.”
Brian caught his breath as he stepped from the grove into the misty woods and found himself confronted by a delicate, almost ethereal white mare that stood beside the old woman. By the brilliance of her coat she might have been standing under a full moon on open ground instead of deep in a misty wood under nearly no moon at all. Her silvery mane and tail moved in the still air as if in a full wind. She could not have been more unreal if she had a horn growing from her forehead. And he still half expected to see one. She immediately bowed her head to the Princess, crossing to her and nudging her for affection. But as she turned, she revealed another animal standing steadfastly behind and beside her, a stallion as black as the shifting shadows beneath her feet. Brian only saw him because the old woman was standing behind it, providing the contrast to see him by. Once Brian knew he was there, he was able to dimly follow his silhouette. The stallion was staring off behind them and to the left, alert for something on the wind.
Brian shifted his rifle on his shoulder, that prickling sensation creeping up the back of his neck again. Whatever the stallion was sensing, he was also vaguely aware of. “My Lady, I do not think it wise to wait much longer and I think the mare’s companion will agree with me.”
“Can you ride bareback?” Lady Veleda asked him. “For I fear the mares of the moon and their shadows will accept no saddles.”
“If I have to.” He gently took Silouan’s elbow. “Are you well enough?” he asked, looking into her eyes.
“My leg is fine, though my wind remains impaired. I can ride. The mare has agreed to bear me and her mate you. They know the way and are swift beyond mortal horse,” she said.
He nodded, and without another word seized her waist and lifted her onto the mare’s white back. Lady Veleda and Madam Dara looked mortified by his familiarity. Silouan smiled shyly as she adjusted her skirts and swung her leg stride. Dara, self-consciously began to adjust the full skirts to protect the princess’s modesty.
Brian approached the stallion who turned to meet his gaze with a placid eye. Somehow, he knew that outward docility was a façade, that if he tried something the animal was unwilling to submit to, there would be a fight, and one he might not win. There was also a wealth of intelligence in that dark eye. The horse nodded his head towards his back and calmly returned his gaze to whatever had previously held his attention. Brian moved to his side, reaching up for the crest and placing a tentative hand on his hip, half expecting to meet nothing of substance. Close up, the sleek hide and coiled muscles looked nothing more than shifting shadow, but his hands met cool solidarity. He vaulted upwards, shifting carefully until he found his seat, and reached to grab a handful of mane. It was like trying to grab smoke. He was suddenly not even sure if the animal was breathing.
Then, with a shrill whistle from his mate, he turned away from the danger and Layla and the two of them began to gallop eastward. They began slowly, the muscles rippling beneath his legs like oil on water, like no horse he had ever ridden. He had to shift himself a bit more, to position for the pace and find a way to hold on, and it seemed the stallion realized that. Their pace slowly quickened.
Off to the right came an eerie howling, echoed by others further behind, and yet another that was beginning to move to their left. The stallion, galloping smoothly at the mare’s flank, reached out and nudged her with his nose, guiding her from a half pace back. Silouan had settled down with her cheek against her neck, braced for the speed she had to know was coming. It was then that Brian began to realize, as the wolf things began to close in and he could hear something tearing through the underbrush, that there was only one set of hoofbeats. Only the mare’s feet made any sound on the earth as they dodged between trees in the deepening fog, guided by the occasional, silent signals of her mate.
Brian kept his head down, streamlining himself as much as he could. The wind streamed his cloak out behind them but oddly it made no sound. Suddenly a falling tree loomed towards them in the mist, but instead of panicking and rearing or trying to dodge it, the stallion reached out and touched the mare’s flank. Brian yelled, expecting to feel the crushing weight of the wood, but no sound came out, and the tree passed harmlessly through them. It was the slight swirling of the stallion’s edges as they cleared the obstruction that explained it. The stallion was literally the mare’s shadow, enabling anything he allowed to pass through like smoke.
He pressed his elbows in close to his sides, feeling for his own solidity. He could still feel resistance, though slightly less. And now that he thought about it, the rifle across his shoulder seemed somehow lighter.
The baying of the wolves grew farther away as they galloped, no longer even bothering to dodge around the trees. Suddenly they broke through the mists and were racing across open ground. Brian dared to look back over his shoulder, saw the woods receding at an unbelievable pace and a group of shadowy hound-things emerge. They stared after them with their red eyes blazing even at that distance, then crowded together to sing up a howl that chilled his bones before evaporating back into the forest.
He thought this was a good thing, but his instincts remained on edge in a way he could not explain. He sat up a bit, testing his seat and the wind resistance. Though the wind continued to ruffle his hair and pull his cloak out behind them, sitting up was no less difficult than lying flat now that he had gotten used to the method of travel. For a moment, he studied the mare in front of them and just aside. Her flanks quivered and her chest heaved as she ran, almost effortlessly, but she still seemed mortal for all her etherealness. Silouan’s ride could not be as smoothe as his. The Lady rose and fell with each ground eating stride, which it seemed he did not do, rather instead he and the stallion seemed to glide across the plain.
A sudden, intense need to fight threatened to overwhelm him. Protect, fight, thwart, pressed against his instincts, his emotions, his mind though he had no idea why or what he was supposed to fight. His shoulder burned, as if something were clawing its way across it and he turned to look, caught a glimpse of something in the corner of his eye and looked up. Closing in on them from the sky were four vaguely draconic shapes blotting out the stars. Then one of them banked and what light there was from above betrayed their forms. They were dragon-winged horse… things, each bearing an armored man like the one in the pool. He had to keep them from eating the mare!
He shook his head, confused by the thought. He had no way of knowing whether or not they would eat the mare, only that they were sent to recapture Sister Moon. The idea reasserted itself: ‘
Catch the mare, eat the mare.’
I just hope, he thought to himself as he unshouldered his rifle,
that the bullets go solid when they leave the barrel. No sooner had the thought been born but he knew for certain they would.
He gripped tightly with his knees.
Forgive me. Forgiven. And turned to fire over his shoulder, aiming for one of the men, and waited for his shot. The first of them swooped down, ignoring him and making a grab for the princess who was still crouched low against the mare’s neck. He fired. He felt the shot, the concussion, the explosion of the powder under the hammer, saw the slight muzzle flare but there was no sound. The man in armor evaporated into black smoke and the beast banked away, the red light that had been where the man’s eyes were dissolved into the creature’s own and glared down at Brian with pure hatred and evil, but it pulled up and away.
Shoot the drake. The thought was a rebuke, so the drake must be the animal, not the man. This would require better aim, as the creatures had pulled up into a higher orbit, and the remaining men were doing something. Casting magic, his instincts screamed. Without thinking whether or not he might lose his seat, he turned completely around, facing the stallion’s tail and levered another bullet into the chamber. This time he took careful aim. Without the rise and fall of a normal horse’s gait, his aim was steady, and the wind provided little resistance, though the cape obscured the barrel from the drakes’ sight. There was a bony plate on their chests, and the legs churning the air made a belly shot risky. He considered the head, but the same instinct which told him about the chest warned him of the head. The throat was then the best choice and he felt a strange approval of his decision. He took careful aim on the lead creature, pulled back the hammer and fired.
The scream nearly paralyzed him, the pitch insinuating itself into parts of his brain that controlled fear responses. Something else in his mind pushed it back, replacing the creeping panic with a placid calm,
deadly precision. In the sky, the others had hesitated, hovering as their companion fought to remain in the sky as the bullet sliced through the tender underjaw to lodge in its brain. The blood rained black from the sky and sizzled the ground where it fell. A moment later the whole creature crashed earthward, still struggling to get up and fly, unaware that it was already dead. It was half a mile away when it erupted in a column of black and blue flames.
The others streaked after them, making up for the lost ground, screaming their rage like banshees tearing across the sky. Calmly, Brian levered another bullet into the chamber and raised the gun. This time they stopped, heads up and wary. There was a great deal of head bobbing and gesturing among the remaining three. One of their riders pointed off to the east and they seemed to come to some agreement. There was little doubt, watching the exchange, that the horses were the intelligence, and the men little more than a pair of hands and extra eyes. To Brian’s surprise, the creatures turned west and flew off with greater haste than they had come.
He turned back in the saddle and saw Silouan looking back at him, smiling.
I wonder why they fled? I only get one shot at a time. They could have swarmed me. No sooner was the question asked than it was answered with a firmer certainty than he felt.
They did not understand my magic. And then there is the coming dawn. He gazed to the east ahead of them and noticed the sky was slightly less black. He settled back into a comfortable riding position, feeling more one with this horse than with any he had ever ridden in his life. The thought flattered him. He chuckled. By now he had figured out how the stallion was communicating with him, but it was still weird to have the stallion’s thoughts masquerading as his own, answering himself. Somehow he could no longer think of him as an animal.
How long ‘til we reach the mountains of the moon? Noon. Brian knew by now that his mount would not tax his strength or endurance. Their flight across the ground was effortless. He worried about Silouan though, she was already weak and he could see the difference between mounts. In the same breath he knew that she and the mare would feed each other’s strength, though both would inevitably need rest.
Good luck stopping her though. He was not sure whose thought that was, his or the stallion’s, or which female it meant. It was probably both.
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More looking later, I is tired. (Yes that was meant to be miswritten.) 
