Fallen Star

by Anne Elisabeth Stengl

  But Dad could drive that fear away. He was big and strong in her eyes. If she could only find him, find the shelter of his arms, he would hide her from that Dark, and she would be safe. Only she couldn’t find him. And the Wood was so big! And the Dark so close . . .

  Rosie fell to her knees, weeping heavily. She could not find the strength or will to rise. She curled into a tiny ball, calling out for her old father in a voice too full of dread to be understood.

  Thus did the unicorn find her.

  It stepped out from among the tall trees, its eyes burning with emptiness where once song had resounded. The compulsion of slavery drove it like lashing whips. It must obey its Master . . . and its Master had told it to find this child. To bring it back.

  The ground seemed to recoil beneath each footstep the unicorn made. The shadow it cast poisoned all that it touched, and the breath from its nostrils sickened the trees, the grasses, the moss, the very air.

  It approached the girl, looming over her in a pulsing mass of power. Slowly it lowered its horn until the point almost touched her trembling back. And then it spoke:

  Princess, will you kill me?

  A GATE OPENS

  THE LADY KNIGHT RAN. The path opened before her only a step or two ahead of her pounding feet, but she never hesitated. She followed the song of the wood thrush, followed the stench of poisoned roses, and ran so hard her heart might have burst with exertion!

  Follow me, sang the wood thrush. Save the child.

  Ahead of her, trees loomed like forbidding sentries, their branches as crossed lances barring her way. She flung herself at them, trusting the path to open a way before her. By some miracle it did, and she pressed on. Could she catch the unicorn before it caught the child? It didn’t matter . . . she would try. She wouldn’t worry about whether success would follow. She wouldn’t worry even about what she would do without a sword, without a weapon of any kind. She would try, and that would have to be enough.

  Suddenly she felt heat as of a star fallen to earth. Ahead of her, darkness shot through the trees like beaming rays of sunlight, and where those rays struck, leaves sizzled and bark burned.

  The lady knight redoubled her speed, burst through a thick tangle of branches, and saw the unicorn.

  Saw it standing over the child.

  The child who knelt before it, staring up with huge white eyes shimmering with tears.

  She saw the unicorn’s horn mere inches from the child’s breast and felt the rumble of its voice—a voice she could not hear but which struck her soul like fissures breaking in the core of the world, without words but full of dire meaning. This was the voice of a star, a fallen star, all but incomprehensible to those of mortal blood.

  But the child . . . the ugly goblin child put up both hands, reaching for that horn . . .

  Follow me! sang the wood thrush.

  The lady knight did not try to think. What thought could possibly help now, when she had no plan, no weapon, no reason, even, to be her guide? She merely flung herself at those strange two and, putting out both her hands, caught up the child in her arms.

  The unicorn roared.

  Lights like the death of a thousand stars flashed in eyes of utter blackness. The lady knight looked and saw in those eyes the doom of eternal souls plunging into death. She saw as well her own death inevitably captured in that wild, rolling gaze even as the unicorn—the star fallen from the heavens to dwell in ruin upon the earth—reared up on its powerful haunches, hooves tearing at the air as though they would rend the world in two.

  The goblin girl pressed her ugly face into the lady knight’s shoulder, and small hands clutched round her neck. Suddenly the lady knight felt a surge of power such as she had never before known. She tightened her grip around that malformed body, and she knew she would die before she let anything happen to the child.

  Even as this knowledge exploded in her mind, she saw a flash of brown wings dart between her and the unicorn’s cruel horn. With a certainty she had not known for many long ages, she flung herself after those wings . . . and to her surprise, found her feet upon a path she had not seen. The path, narrow but sure, led out from the roiling shadows surrounding the unicorn. She plunged after it, her feet so swift they scarcely touched the ground with each footfall.

  Behind her, Darkness swept in, biting at her heels. She felt the heat of the unicorn’s gaze on her back, felt the reverberation of its hooves pounding the ground. But it could not find the path she trod, racing instead first on one side of her then on the other, unable to catch her. Again and again it trumpeted its fury so that the trees trembled with terror and the lady knight herself feared her heart would give out. But she held onto the child and ran all the harder, pursuing the flicker of brown wings, pursuing the song that beckoned her on and on: Follow me! Follow me!

  Ahead of her a gate opened. She recognized it for what it was, though she had never seen this particular gate before—an opening to another world, an escape from the Between. The lady knight watched the brown bird dart through and vanish. She did not hesitate. Though she could not guess into which world she fled, she knew she would not cease to follow that guiding song, not now. Not ever.

  Carrying the child close to her heart, she ran under the arch of green leaves and dark branches, vanishing out of the Wood Between.

  LOST HOPE

  THE UNICORN SCREAMED IN fury and frustration.

  Its mighty horn, which could pierce the moon herself to the heart, struck against an impenetrable barrier as the gate closed against it. The protections set in place by a power greater even than that of a fallen star held the unicorn at bay. The compulsion of its Master might drive it to the very edges of existence and over into the void . . . but it would not pass through that gate.

  Again and again the unicorn shrieked its rage to the heavens, and the whole Wood shuddered at the sound. And when the shrieking ended, the silence that followed was worse by far.

  The unicorn stood on the edges of a world it could not enter. Now it must wait . . . wait for a lifetime, many lifetimes even, for an opportunity that might never come to pass. It must wait for the girl to return to the Between.

  It must wait . . . and hope for death.

  THE NEAR WORLD

  THE LADY KNIGHT STUMBLED to her knees, coughing and gagging. Her nostrils filled with a scent she scarcely recognized, and her lungs filled with air that affected her heart and limbs in ways she could not fathom. All she could do was kneel where she had fallen, clutching the goblin girl tight and gasping for breath.

  “Is all right,” a quiet voice whispered in her ear. A voice speaking through a cage of teeth. A child’s voice. “Is all right. Is home now.”

  Home? The word struck the lady knight’s ear, and she gasped again, this time not for the strangeness of the air but for the sudden surge of hope that jolted through her limbs. Home? The goblin’s home? Could it be they had somehow followed a path into Arpiar?

  The moment the thought passed through her mind, however, the lady knight dismissed it. No, this air she breathed was not the air of a Faerie demesne. This scent in her nose was not the scent of the Far World. She had fallen through the gate and back into her own world. The Near World of mortals. A world she had promised herself never to reenter.

  The atmosphere was cool but heavy with humidity, the dense jungle foliage clinging to the moistness of a recent shower. What she could see of the landscape was unlike anything the lady knight had known back when she herself dwelt in this world . . . and yet the air was unmistakably mortal.

  The goblin girl pushed out of the lady knight’s weak and trembling arms, backing up and looking around with her huge eyes. Already her unveiled face lost the lines of fear it had worn, relaxing with the ease of infanthood now that the danger was past. How strange she looked to the lady knight, standing here in this mortal realm! A creature of immortality, breathing Time-filled air. She couldn’t possibly belong here.

  Struggling against the pressing weight of mortality, the lady kn
ight rose to her feet. “Come, little one,” she said to the girl. “This is not your home. We need to return you to the Between and try to find out where you—”

  “Dad!” The girl’s shout drowned out anything more the lady knight might have tried to say. Whirling about on her short little legs, the goblin darted through tall trees out to an open space of rocks and boulders. The lady knight made a grab for her arm but missed. She then watched as the child burst through the trees and underbrush to fling herself at an old man coming down through the boulders, leading a nanny goat by a rope leash.

  The old man, seeing that ugly creature rush at him, should have shouted in terror, dropped his hold on the goat, and fled. Instead, much to the lady knight’s surprise, he knelt and caught the goblin girl as she flung herself into his arms.

  “There, there, my Rose Red,” the lady knight heard him say, speaking in a language she had not heard in centuries. “There, there. I found our Lilybean, as you see. She’s none the worse for wear, despite her best efforts to break her own neck.”

  The goblin girl buried her face against his chest a moment, holding him tight. He, realizing that something was wrong, patted her scrawny shoulders comfortingly. “What’s wrong, sweetness?” he asked. “Did you see something that frightened you?”

  “Big goat!” the girl declared, lifting her head to gaze up into the old man’s face, her eyes enormous white spheres. “Big horn! Scary.”

  The old man frowned, perplexed by what he heard. He looked around, his faded eyes peering into the shadowy forest where the lady knight even now drew near to a tree trunk, blending into its dark contours, unwilling to be seen. She watched the two of them with disbelieving eyes. Could it possibly be that this mortal man was “father” to the goblin child? And if so, how could such a strange circumstance have come about? Goblins and men were natural enemies. Was the old man blind that he did not see her extreme ugliness?

  The child, halting over her own tongue, tried to tell the fantastical story of her adventures, struggling to describe the ghostly flowers and the monster for which she had no words. She made no mention of the lady knight, however, and was soon distracted from her own tale by the sight of the goat. “Lily-beana,” she said, smiling suddenly and reaching out to the goat with a gnarled little hand. “Lily-beana, bad goat.”

  “Aye, she is a bad goat,” the old man said, groaning as he rose from his kneeling position. He took the girl by the hand and adjusted his grip on the goat’s lead rope. “We’ll take her home, my Rosie, and tie her up so she don’t escape again. Are you ready?”

  The little girl nodded, and the three of them—man, goblin, and goat—set off down the narrow mountain trail into the forest. The lady knight, realizing that they must pass by her hiding place, withdrew behind the tree, careful to avoid being seen. She watched until they progressed out of sight down the mountain trail.

  How had that goblin creature ended up in the care of this humble mortal? And how had she somehow slipped from her own world into the Wood Between, finding a gate that should have been invisible to her eye? These questions and more raced round the lady knight’s head until she feared she would become dizzy and sick.

  But then again, both dizziness and sickness might be due to breathing mortal air for the first time in so many centuries.

  The lady knight cast about, seeking the gate through which she’d stumbled. She must get out of this world, away from all the memories she longed to forget . . . memories she had thought she’d forgotten until now, as they came crashing down upon her, just on the heels of her confusion. After some searching she found the way out in a curtain of thick-hanging jungle vines twined with blooming starflowers. She needed only to push back the vines and step through, back into the Wood Between Worlds, leaving behind this strange mystery forever.

  She lifted the vines, gazing through the tangle of dense leaves and little white and red blossoms. She could not see the Wood, but she knew that if she took a step she would find herself back once more in that Timeless realm, away from this world she so longed to forget.

  A breeze blew through the mountain forest, brushed through the vines, and tugged at the petals of the starflowers. One of the little blossoms, blooming at the lady knight’s eye level, caught her attention. She watched how it flickered in and out of a stream of sunlight, one moment red, the next moment white and shining through deep shadows. At the sight of that small phenomenon of beauty, a thought stirred in her mind.

  “Dame Imraldera will know the answers,” she whispered.

  With that, she stepped through the vine curtain, leaving the mountain forest emptier than it had been a moment before.

  LADY OF THE HAVEN

  THE UNICORN WAS NEAR.

  The lady knight sensed its presence the moment she reentered the Between. It had not given up the hunt but remained pacing the edge of the mortal world, seeking openings through which it might pass. Or through which it might lure its prey with a strange, siren voice.

  Upon realizing the closeness of the star, the lady knight halted, her hand reaching instinctively for the sword strapped over her back. But her sword was broken, its shards lying in ruin somewhere far away in this inscrutable forest. She was unarmed . . .

  Unarmed against an immensity of darkness which would disregard all such measly weapons even as a war horse would blink away the buzz of a gnat. It did not matter if she bore her sword or not. If the unicorn turned its gaze upon her, she would be dead.

  But though she could feel the vibrations of its footfalls thudding through the turf beneath her boots, she did not see the monster itself. Nor did she hear that strange voice that was not a voice, though somehow she felt the aftershock of the song it sang strike her soul and make her want to curl up into a crouching bundle of shame and terror. She stood her ground however, her eyes bright, if wary, as she turned in the direction she knew the unicorn moved.

  A fallen star. One of the Lady Moon’s own children, corrupted and sundered from the heavenly hosts. She had heard tales of them many times, listened to legends of their undoing and of the evil they worked in the vast and various demesnes of Faerie. But she had never thought she might encounter one herself.

  And it sought the little goblin girl? For what possible purpose?

  Though she hated to turn her back on that Darkness, the lady knight knew she must have answers. She must understand exactly what it was she faced and why before she dared approach such a foe again. If anyone would have the answers she needed, that person was Dame Imraldera of the Haven.

  She looked for a certain path. It appeared before her feet, ready and willing the moment she sought it. The paths of the Wood are winding and treacherous, most of them deadly. But as a Knight of Farthestshore, she had learned how to discern those ways that belonged to her Lord, and these she might follow with confidence. So she set out with long strides, leaving the unicorn behind.

  She could not remember the last time she had made her way to the Haven, that abode of safety in the heart of the Wood Between, where knights and wanderers alike might find refreshment at the hands of Dame Imraldera. Long ago she had spent much time there, studying the histories of many worlds in the library collected and transcribed by the dame herself over timeless cycles of centuries. In those days the lady knight herself had been only a childe, a squire in training for her eventual knighthood. Since achieving her rank of service, she had kept herself much too busy for more than the most infrequent visits to the Haven.

  She did not like to rest, after all. Rest led to thought, and thought led to impatience, and impatience to despair. She refused to let herself despair.

  Hastening along the path, she little noticed how the forest around her melted away into a weird haze of lights and colors. Such was the way of the paths in the Wood, and she had long ago grown used to them. At length she sensed the nearness of her destination and slowed her pace. The trees reasserted themselves around her, gaining solidity and substance, casting their leafy shadows long around her.

  Th
e Haven door stood at the top of a small, moss-grown stair. Tall trees framed it on either side, their roots twining to create the steps, and green ferns grew between these roots, verdant veils of natural lace. The door itself was of dark wood that almost blended into the tree trunks and indeed might have been a living trunk itself if one looked at it through half-closed eyes. But little brass fixtures and a bright gold doorknob gleamed in the fey light of the forest.

  The lady knight climbed the short stair and put her hand to the knob. The door opened for her without protest, for it recognized her as one of the servants of Farthesthore, and it knew better than to bar her entrance. She stepped through into what appeared at first glance to be a grove of dark pine trees . . . but on second glance was a hall passage with heavy green curtains. Lances of light fell through diamond-paned windows, the only illumination in that deep and yet welcoming gloom.

  She’s here! She’s here! The mortal lady is here!

  A hundred and more tiny voices erupted in susurrus whispers up and down the hall, and the curtains moved and billowed and seemed very much like pine branches once more. The lady knight felt the pricks of minuscule hands, invisible to her eye, poking at her cheeks, pulling at her eyelashes, swinging from tendrils of her hair.

  “Get off!” she growled, brushing aside the little invisibles. The dame’s Faerie servants could be distressingly persistent in their curiosity, however, like a swarm of minute, winged puppies! The lady knight strode down the passage, blinking against those tiny hands and swiping at what appeared to be empty air to clear her passage. The invisibles giggled and retreated only to swarm her again. All the while they kept up their pitchy whispers: She’s here! She’s here! As though she had been expected.