They traversed a narrow and twisted cavern, bare walls, broken by seams of crystal that reflected the faint moonlight just enough to keep them from stumbling into the walls or over imperfections in the floor.
“This all looks strange,” Bracken said turning and staring all around. “I know everything Underhill is illusion. I know that the tapestries and lighting are not real, have never been real. But I’ve grown so used to them, I forget how plain and ugly this place is.”
Even as he spoke, his wings took on more green color and strength, snapping outward in crisp imitation of new ferns growing abundantly and vibrantly on the hillside.
The passageway grew narrower as it wound deeper within the Mound. Little John’s shoulders brushed the dirt walls, scraping at his leather jerkin and linen shirt. He turned sideways and took smaller, more cautious steps.
The light grew dimmer and the air cooler with each step. His instincts made his eyes droop and his blood flow sluggishly, as they would before a long winter’s sleep . . . .
A wall of noise from panicky voices and untuned string instruments slammed into Little John. His steps faltered. But his eyes opened, and his mind grew alert.
Ahead of him, the cave expanded into a vast cavern. His party of rescuers spread out into a semicircle, leaving space for him in the middle with his back to their escape route.
Screeching voices and pounding drums warned that the hill had been breached. Strangers approached.
All eyes lifted toward a blaze at the center, a tower of swirling air and flame that rose ever higher toward one of the hidden exits at the summit of the hill.
Little John’s feet wiggled and dug into the floor of the cave trying to form roots. His heart pounded loudly in his ears. Fear stabbed at his limbs and his heart.
“No.” He knew his mouth worked, but he could hear nothing other than the cacophony of distressed faeries all around him. Dirt and sticks and rocks that might also have been furniture swirled into the churning storm. At its center hovered two figures, writhing in the unnatural wind. One was Jane.
Not again. He would not lose his Jane again. There had to be a way to extract her from the clutch of the mad Faery Queen who held Jane’s long braid of hair.
“Shoot her!” Jane yelled, clutching her head close to the queen’s twiggy grasp. “Archer, shoot her now!”
“No!” Little John broke through his numbness. “Robin, by all that you hold holy, if you shoot, Jane will fall to her death.”
“Shoot the Starfire instead,” Bracken said, pointing to a glowing crack in the wall on the far side of the cavern.
Robin swiveled his head between the lightning at the center of the cavern and the source of Faery power.
“Either way, she falls,” Robin said to Little John.
Bracken grabbed an arrow from Robin’s quiver and dashed toward the glowing crack that now pulsed and drew the attention of all the faeries. Two dozen of them flew in hot pursuit of the renegade Bracken.
Will Scarlett strummed a chord on his harp that matched the vibration of the throbbing light. He sang something soothing and yet irate, trying to capture and make sense of the wild noise.
Elena streamed out of Nick’s sleeve, pulsing as she hovered in front of Little John. “Think with your head and not your heart, silly boy. Master Archer, I have need of your bow once more.”
Little John shook his head to clear his mind of looping thoughts of watching his beloved die crumpled on the cave floor, broken and bleeding.
“Have you forgotten how to play catch?” Elena giggled as she swirled into a glowing strand of light fitting neatly against Robin’s bowstring as he drew it taut.
Little John looked up, following the swirling progress of the column of fire and air. He couldn’t judge how the storm would dump Jane and the Faery Queen.
Far above him, Jane twisted and flipped, trying . . . he couldn’t tell what she did, only that the strain of the queen’s grasp on her hair drew her features upward in a tight grimace as her hands fought the twiggy fingers.
And then . . . “Do what you must, as I do what I must. But I will not live as her slave any longer,” Jane screamed. One hand twined inside her trailing skirts and came up bearing a minute strand of something that glinted in the uncertain light.
A needle. A silver needle that Jane could wield, but a faery could not.
Queen Mab’s eyes went wide in horror. She screeched and loosened her grip.
Jane reversed her hold so that she dug her fingers from her left hand into Mab’s wrist and followed with a hard jab from her right. The needle penetrated faery skin and drew smoke.
Mab screamed in pain, completely dropping her hold on Jane.
At the same moment, Robin loosed Elena through the crack in the far wall. Blinding yellow light exploded from the crack, filling the cavern, leaving no shadows, no place to hide. Then the thunder of cracking rock nearly deafened Little John. His natural urge to retreat into a tree, any tree, twisted his mind.
He couldn’t think. Couldn’t see. Couldn’t hear.
And Jane writhed in the tower of wind, dropping closer to the ground with each pounding heartbeat.
“I’m free!” Jane exclaimed as she fell through the twisting storm of spiraling air and dust.
Little John swallowed the lump of fear in his throat and dashed across the vast room trying desperately to stay beneath his love.
Thirty-One
Follow, Elena called to Nick as she took on the form of a pulsing arrow of light. Robin had moved to stand directly in front of the source of the throbbing glow.
The intensity of the light made him wince and squint. He wanted to put his hand in front of his eyes as a shield but was afraid he’d miss something vital.
Dazed and uncertain, he grabbed Hilde’s hand and dragged her to the crack in the far wall. He figured that whatever Elena planned, she’d need him close by when she finished.
The arrow zinged past his ear straight into the narrow opening.
“What?” Hilde asked. She looked around, trying to take in all the little spots of action.
Nick’s gaze followed Elena. He tugged Hilde’s hand to draw her attention.
As he hurried to follow the little goddess, Nick watched the marble tile floors crumble to dust and the elaborate tapestries of wild hunting scenes fade and shred. The energy required of the Faery Queen to maintain the illusions now went into the violent twisting storm of dirt, debris, and flashes of dry lightning.
He and Hilde needed to be far away from that vortex before the entire world of Faery imploded, trapping the only two mortals in the collapse. He had an idea, but he didn’t have Elena in his pocket to save even himself.
At the crack, the pulsing yellow light of a benign noonday sun took on the hues of a fiery dawn, and then darker into true blazing flames, the kind that wiped out huge swaths of forests after a hot and dry summer, sparked by lightning.
He had only the comforting dull light of Elena’s arrow to lead them on. Unlike a true arrow, she did not fly straight, but conformed to the twists and turns of the passageway until it opened into a new cavern.
As vast as the great hall where the faeries lived, this one was set up like an old Roman amphitheater he’d seen in drawings. Broad shelves of rock led downward into a deep bowl. At the center of the depression rested a huge, uncut yellow gem. Crystal glinted through strands of raw rock encasing the stone. Was it topaz? He’d never seen one, only read about them.
Bracken flitted about the stone, low and high and on all sides, chipping at the sharper edges of yellow with his flint broadhead arrow. Tiny flakes and stones drifted to the ground, lying inert and dull away from the parent stone. Then Bracken swooped down and gathered up three of the largest pieces, secreting them inside his tunic.
“I’ll not be broken along with the rest of Mab’s idiots,” he chortled. “I will no longer have to
come to the Starfire because I’ll carry it with me.”
His restored wings took on a new vibrancy as he flew upward, ever upward, far beyond the pointed tip of the Starfire stone and through a tiny opening to the night sky. The brightness of the Midsummer moon blotted out his silhouette.
“What just happened?” Hilde asked.
“I don’t know. But Elena has paused in her approach.” The arrow of light, dulled in contrast to the glowing heart of Faery, circled the stone, losing speed and power with each passage.
“Hurry, my lady goddess. We are running out of time, and you are running out of power.”
With his words, the cave walls shook, and new cracks opened in the floor.
Nick braced himself with one hand on the wall and the other still clutching Hilde’s.
Elena apparently made a decision and lined herself up with her chosen target on the stone, then raced forward.
Nick felt her close her eyes and heard her silent prayer to all the powers of universe.
The arrow penetrated the stone.
Nothing happened.
Nick despaired at losing his companion. His belly and his mind felt empty. His head seemed to lift from his body. His eyes couldn’t keep up with it.
Clenching his eyes closed, he waited for a seeming eternity.
Just as he knew he couldn’t hide from the truth any longer, a heaviness plunked into his sleeve.
Hold your breath. Your life depends upon you not breathing!
Nick obeyed.
But he had to watch as much as possible.
The fabric of the air within the cavern ripped apart in blinding bolts. Then the stone rocked on its base. Tiny movements that grew and arced into larger sways.
Dozens of faeries darted in. Each gathered a fragment of stone and fled upward, out of the Faery Mound and into the wild.
“I can’t stand any longer,” Hilde wailed. She tried to pull her slippery, sweating hand free of Nick’s as she dropped to her knees.
Don’t let go of her!
Was that Tuck’s voice or Elena’s?
Nick wasn’t sure which, but he knew he couldn’t speak and continue to hold his breath. Easier to follow Hilde to the floor, ducking a fallen piece of the ceiling, and clutching her tighter.
Oh, please let me pass out now!
The floor opened along a seam of lesser rock that crumbled. Splinters of the stone exploded outward, driving shafts into the solid rock of the cave.
Another piece of the roof dropped.
Hilde screamed in pain.
Still, Nick clung to her hand and kept his breath within himself.
The edges of Nick’s vision darkened, followed by blinding sparkles. Then . . . nothing.
* * *
Jane welcomed the release of Mab’s clutching grasp of her head. Her scalp continued to prickle with pinpoints of pain.
At the same time, air whooshed up around her, flaming hot and icy cold in splotches. She almost welcomed the crumpling of her body against the jagged rocks on the floor that had been furniture and a smooth dance floor only moments before.
But Little John, her magnificent giant of a man, scuttled about, arms extended, trying to stay beneath her. She had hope of survival, if only long enough to relish his embrace once more.
The earth, cracking and quaking, broke through the screams of the faeries escaping through any portal they could find. Three of them jammed together, blocking one exit as they all tried to fit through the too-small opening at the same time.
A wild wind grabbed hold and threw her sideways then jerked her back. Below her, John had trouble keeping up with her. The air needed her to linger and play a bit, delaying her fall.
Yellow fire streamed out of the crack that led to the inner cavern. Pieces of the yellow jewel defied logic and constriction, ejecting into the main cavern.
One shaft, as long as Jane was tall, aimed above her, seeking . . . seeking bits of itself to join with.
Mab screamed and tried to fly higher and faster than the missile aiming for her heart.
Six other faeries blocked her way as they scrambled to escape the maelstrom within the cave.
The piece of Starfire sped up with the fleeing queen until it tore through her.
Mab fell, a withered old hag made of twigs and moss. A splinter of a broken yellow jewel pierced her heart and dragged her down faster than Jane. The bitter old queen broke apart and scattered across the floor.
Jane couldn’t help but laugh, choking on the dust and debris filling the twisting storm that held her captive.
And then . . . then the entire cavern, all of the Faery Mound exploded. She dropped into the momentary stillness.
Jane closed her eyes, expecting physical pain to fill her as she died, finally free of the mental anguish she’d endured for so long.
“I’ve got you, my love,” Little John whispered to her even as his arms tightened around her body. “But we have to get out of here. Now!”
Jane opened her eyes to the continuing devastation of her prison. Little John leaped with the long strides of a forest giant come to life. Three steps to cross the hall. Shorter steps ate up the twisted passageway to the outside.
And then she gulped fresh night air and watched the moon begin its drop toward morning.
She clung tightly to Little John’s neck and breathed in the fresh scent of new green life that defined him.
He paused in his mile-eating stride to kiss her gently.
Her heart woke and rejoiced.
Thirty-Two
“Where are we?” Hilde asked, blinking rapidly at the rising sun. A light dew sparkled on the tips of grass blades, and the air warmed rapidly. By the time her eyes had adjusted to the changing light, she made out three roads meeting and veering off into new directions. She sat in the island of wild greenery still holding Nick’s hand and saw Tuck sprawled prone on the other side of him.
“The crossroads?” Nick said, stretching his arms and legs. Then he discovered his hand still entwined with Hilde’s, and he grinned.
She jerked her hand free of his, uncertain what she was supposed to do about this growing bond between them.
He partially sat up, bracing himself on his elbows and forearms, and looked in all directions. Then he patted his voluminous sleeves, as he often did.
“The crossroads,” he affirmed.
Hilde looked behind them and realized they sat in the shadow of a huge stone cross with an inscribed circle connecting the cross arms.
“It didn’t used to hurt so much,” Tuck groaned, lifted his head a tad, and dropped it back down, face in the grass.
“How did you get here?” Nick asked coming alert and up to a sitting position.
“How did any of us get here?” Hilde added. She wanted to trace the knotted design on the cross and examine the tiny flowered plants growing at its base. “And where is here?”
“It’s magic,” Tuck said as he rolled onto his back and studied the few white and puffy clouds in the sky as it brightened to a deep and soothing blue. “Nick carries the statue of the pagan goddess Elena. She allows him to save himself by holding his breath until he passes out. When he awakes, he is always here.”
“That pitcher thing?” Hilde stared at the small distortion in his crumpled and filthy robe.
He looked at her with an eyebrow raised in query.
“I’ve watched you commune with it.”
He relaxed and lay back, arms crossed behind his head.
“Tuck carried her for a while,” he said. “Is that why you are here?”
“Only insofar as I heard her command you to follow her into the inner cavern. She had to have a purpose for that, for she never does anything without a reason. So I followed also, and the moment things started flying apart, I grabbed hold of your robe and held on for dear life. Good thing I did.
I believe the Faery Mound is no more.” Slowly, he sat up, testing each joint and muscle as he moved. He groaned twice before he managed enough leverage to set his back correctly.
Hilde wanted to aid him, but a stern look from Nick kept her in place.
“I used to rejoice at being mostly human,” Tuck said when he finally achieved a sitting position. “I thought it brought me closer to God. But I’ve learned through the years that God loves all of us: Woodwose, Wild Folk, and human, whether noble or serf. It is my life’s work to minister to them all. But growing old is painful.” He groaned again, pressing both hands against his lower back.
“Do you need to return to the abbey and the physician’s potions?” Nick asked. He turned and rose to his knees, concern drawing his mouth into a deep frown. “He and I will keep your presence secret so the sheriff and king don’t find out that you aren’t in Paris or Rome.”
“Or Athens or Cairo.” Tuck quirked a mischievous smile. Then he groaned and clutched his head. “Not yet, boy. Not yet. The temptation to remain at the abbey and risk discovery is too much. My work outside the cloister is not finished. It won’t be until after the war between King John and Pope Innocent concludes.” The sun highlighted his profile as he turned his head to the east to bask in the warmth of the new day.
She knew that face . . . .
“You aren’t just a venerable member of the Woodwose, are you?” Hilde asked. Something resembling truth niggled at her mind.
“For now I am.”
“But, before, you held a position of authority that Sister Mary Margaret respected.”
“Aye, child. I did. I’ve tried to keep the abbey and the convent balanced and functional without the heavy hand of the senior clergy. It’s difficult to keep the peace when everyone, and I mean everyone, thinks they have inherited the right to speak for me, deserving or not. As one of Sister Marie Josef’s victims, you should realize that.”
Hilde hung her head. “I believe that her mind became unbalanced before she sought safety in the convent.”
Walk the Wild With Me Page 24
