by E. D. Baker
Eadric frowned. "What are you going to do?"
"Nothing any more dangerous than what we've already been doing. Remember what I said. No matter what you hear..."
"We know," said Eadric, "although I should be the one to lead us out of here."
I left Shelton and Li'l perched on Eadric's shoulders, something none of them was happy about, and walked a short distance toward the spire. Keeping my eyes shut, I called out in a loud voice, "I wish I could see that really beautiful cockatrice. The one I passed a little while ago. I think it was the most beautiful cockatrice in the world, but I have to see it again to be sure."
From every direction there came the scratching of claws on gravel as the cockatrices overcame their natural reluctance to leave their territory. Bragging about their beauty, they kept coming until I could hear that they were only a few feet away. "Now stop!" I said, holding up my hand. "There are so many of you that I'm going to need your help in deciding. Please turn to your neighbor and take a good long look, then tell me which one of you is the most beautiful."
I heard the sound of feathers rustling, and then the cockatrices all began to talk at once. "She must mean me!"
"No, I'm sure I'm—"
"Anyone can tell that I—"
The chorus of excited voices was loud at first, but as one cockatrice after another looked at its neighbor and turned to stone, the voices dwindled into silence. I never did hear which was the most beautiful, but by keeping my eyes straight ahead I was able to find Eadric and finally leave the cockatrice breeding ground for good. My only regret was that we couldn't take one of the little monsters with us to use against the trolls.
Nine
We left the shattered land just as abruptly as we'd entered it. With one step we went from gravel and sand to lush grass that felt soft beneath our feet. Ahead of us lay a mixed forest of spruce and leaf-bearing trees, with Roc Mountain rising in the distance. It was an oddly shaped mountain, which, according to Eadric, people thought looked like a roc, although no one had ever seen any of the giant birds on it. The forest lapping at its base looked welcoming in the late afternoon heat. Like a thirsty man who sees an oasis in the desert, we hurried toward the trees and the shade they offered. Cool air washed over us as we stepped beneath the green canopy. Eadric and I sighed with relief and sat down in the shade to rest while Li'l settled on the branch of a tree.
We hadn't gotten much sleep the night before, and I couldn't make myself go any farther. Although our stomachs rumbled with hunger, we fell asleep, dozing against a tree's rough bark. We would have slept longer than we did, but Shelton grew tired of waiting for us. "Get up!" he said, pinching me hard enough to raise a welt on the back of my hand. "We have places to go and a prince to rescue."
"You didn't have to do that," I said, rubbing my hand.
Eadric was rubbing a similar welt on the arm he'd had around my shoulder. "I'm hungry," he said. "Why don't I start a fire and cook a crab for supper?"
"Ha, ha! Very funny," Shelton said, not sounding at all amused. He skittered down my leg, then turned to face Eadric with his claws clacking. 'You can't eat me!" he said. "I'd pinch you really hard if you tried. And if you did . . . why, I'd be all stringy and taste really bad and . . ."
I scooped up the little crab and set him on my shoulder. "Don't worry. I won't let him eat you."
"I wouldn't be so sure about that," Eadric told Shelton while helping me to my feet. "She has to sleep sometime."
"Stop it, you two," I said, losing my patience. "We have enough to worry about without you fighting."
"You heard her," said Shelton, but he quieted down when I poked him.
Li'l flew overhead to keep us on course while Eadric and I made our way through the forest. We were both hungry, so we stopped to look for berries in the few likely spots we came across, but didn't find anything edible. When I heard the first rumble of thunder, I thought it was Eadric's stomach. It wasn't until the wind picked up, waving the branches overhead and making the leaves rustle like rushing water, that I knew a storm was approaching.
"Li'l!" I called into the darkening sky. "Can you look for some kind of shelter? A cave or hut would be fine."
"I'll see what I can find!" she called back, as she disappeared into the gloom.
When she finally met up with us again, she led us through the woods in a new direction. We covered our heads and ran as the wind grew stronger and loose leaves and twigs fell on us like hail. The rain had just started to pelt us when we came to the clearing she had found and saw the remains of a long-deserted castle. Lightning ripped the sky, lighting up the clearing, then thunder boomed, and a tree cracked, splitting in the forest behind us. The smell of sulfur soured the air, and I could feel my hair stand on end as Eadric grabbed my hand and ran.
Lightning blazed again. I stumbled and would have fallen if Eadric hadn't been holding my hand. He pulled me through the gateway, over the ruined portcullis, and across the cracked and broken paving stones of the courtyard. The wind was whipping my hair into stinging strands that bit my cheeks when Eadric dragged me up the steps and past a sagging door. It was dark inside, lit only by the lightning flashes showing through the doorway and the narrow windows set high on the walls. We had stepped directly into the Great Hall, empty except for some old, rickety tables and a massive fireplace too crumbled to use.
While Eadric tried to find a torch with enough oil left to burn, Li'l took off to explore on her own and I began to look around the Hall. Shelton rode my shoulder like my own miniature knight ready to protect me with his claws.
The storm moved on, but we were fortunate that Eadric had found a torch and some candle stubs that smelled of rancid fat. He lit the torch easily enough with a flint he always carried, and we began to explore together. The castie was in a terrible state, its walls crumbling and even missing in some sections where the roots of trees had forced their way in. The few pieces of furniture that we saw were broken or rotting, the scraps of tapestries black with mold. Rats had taken over the kitchen, gnawing everything that wasn't stone or metal and fouling the rest. Certain that we wouldn't find anything to eat, we didn't look for food. Instead we headed upstairs to find a place to sleep.
We were in a hallway on the second floor when Li'l stopped by to make sure that we were all right, then left in search of her own dinner, an easy task for an insect-eating bat. I remembered my days as a bat and thought of all the meals I'd enjoyed that I couldn't stomach as a human. Eadric had been thinking about food as well. "When we get Bradston home to my parents, I'm going to insist that they have a feast. We'll have roast venison, eel stew, fruit tarts, and aged cheese . . ."
"That isn't helping," I said. "You're just making me hungrier."
Eadric sighed. "I don't think I could get any hungrier than I am now."
Although the castle had been so silent after the storm that we could hear each other breathe, the wind began to howl again, coming closer as if it were inside the castle itself. I was reaching for Eadric's hand for comfort when an apparition dressed in gray flew into the corridor, her long, white hair streaming behind her. Eadric's hand met mine and I gripped it so tightly that it probably hurt. Whatever she was, this creature terrified me just by being there. It wasn't so much her red, sunken eyes and gaunt features that made her frightening; there was an air about her of great sorrow and hopelessness that turned my knees to jelly while making me want to flee. I was hoping that she would pass us by, but she saw us and stopped to float above our heads. Eadric shoved me behind him, and I could feel that his skin had turned cold and clammy.
"Oh, woe is me!" she wailed. "What evil has come to pass on this most dreadful of days? Invaders have come to this forsaken castle, here to disturb the peaceful slumber of..."
Eadric stuck out his chin and said in as brave a voice as he could manage, "What are you going on about, banshee? If you mean us, we're not invaders. We came here to get out of the storm."
Of course she's a banshee, I thought, mentally kicking myself for
not recognizing her from the descriptions I'd heard. Only someone with the power of a banshee could have made me feel such overwhelming despair.
When the banshee smiled, her eyes sparkled, and she didn't look nearly as scary. "You mean you aren't here for some nefarious reason?" she said. "Then welcome, you poor things! I'm so glad you're here! I never get to talk to anyone except when I'm working, and then I'm supposed to say things like, 'Woe is me' and 'Beware' and 'Uncle Rupert is going to die.' And then they look at me like I have two heads, which I don't because I'm not a troll, and they always say, 'Oh, no, the banshee is here!' Do you know how that makes me feel? Every time I show up, people run screaming and warn everybody else that I'm around. Believe me, I've thought about staying home and sleeping late, but I can't because I care about people. Without me to warn them, people would die unexpectedly, and then where would their relatives be? When I tell them, they have time to make arrangements, say good-bye . . . you know—important things. I'm actually a very nice person; it's just that no one gives me a chance to prove it."
"Sorry to hear that," I said, not knowing what else to say.
"Thanks," she said, her smile becoming even more brilliant. I began to wonder why I'd found her so frightening.
She glanced at Eadric and blinked. "You're looking at my teeth, aren't you? Pardon me," she said, and she stuck her finger in her mouth. "Darn bugs! But that's what I get for flying around with my mouth open." Raking the fingers of her other hand through her hair, she frowned when she found a snarl. "I must look a fright. Do you know what flying all day does to your hair? It's going to take hours to get all the knots out. Say, you don't have a cucumber on you, do you? I've heard that cucumber slices feel refreshing on your eyes." The banshee yawned until her jaw made a cracking sound. "I am so tired! I've got to go to bed. Choose whatever rooms you'd like and I'll see you in the morning." Rubbing her already red eyes, she drifted past us down the hall.
When Eadric pulled me into his arms and held me tight, I could feel that he was shaking. "That's such a relief!" he murmured into my hair. "I thought she was here to make one of her announcements. The last time I saw a banshee was the day my grandfather died from a hunting accident. A banshee came before we knew that his injuries were serious. When I saw her tonight, I thought it meant that I was going to lose you. I couldn't bear that, Emma." He kissed me on the lips before I could reply, a tender kiss that banished the last of any despair I'd felt from the banshee.
"At least this banshee turned out to be nice," I said when I could talk again. "I didn't really want to go looking for someplace else to sleep."
Shelton tickled my neck with his eyestalks. "Are you going to stand around all night and talk about sleeping, or are you actually going to do something about it? I'm so tired I can hardly hold up my eyes."
"All right then," said Eadric. "Let's see what these rooms look like."
Exhausted, we chose the first two rooms we could find that had solid walls and no holes in the floors or ceilings. From the ragged bed curtains and the rotting tapestries on the walls we could tell that they had once belonged to members of a noble family. Eadric left a sputtering candle on the floor, then went to his room while I set Shelton beside the candle.
"Wow!" he said. "The floor in here is soft. What is this stuff?"
I touched the floor, then rubbed my fingers together. "It's just dust."
"Ick!" he said, picking his legs up one at a time and shaking them. "This place is worse than the room Eadric's mother stuck you in. At least that one was clean."
I blew out the candle and crawled across the musty-smelling bed. "Yes, but the banshee's nicer than Eadric's mother." The little crab was still puttering around the floor when I lay down and pulled the blanket scraps over me.
Although most castles were cold and damp, the banshee's castle was the worst I'd ever visited. It had been years since fires had heated the fireplaces, and the cold clung to every surface. I lay shivering under threadbare blankets that wouldn't have been fit for my father's hounds, waiting for my body heat to warm the mildew-stained fabric. When I finally drifted off, I slept fitfully and woke at every little sound. I didn't succumb to a restful sleep until the sun came up, heating the air through the one narrow window.
The next time I woke, Eadric was sitting on the edge of my bed, gazing at me. "I didn't want to wake you. You looked so peaceful lying there."
"Have you seen Li'l?" I asked, rubbing my eyes.
Eadric reached down to brush a lock of hair from my cheek. "She stopped by to check on us, then went outside to look around. She says this castle is too creepy even for her. It is pretty bad," he said, looking around the room. "We shouldn't stay any longer than we have to. We'll say good-bye if we see the banshee, then be on our way."
I felt a slight tug on the blanket and looked down to see Shelton clambering up the side of the bed. "The sooner we're out of here, the better," he said. "I think I'm allergic to dust."
My stomach rumbled loudly enough for everyone to hear. "Maybe the banshee has some food," I said.
"Would you really want to eat whatever a banshee eats?" asked Eadric.
"Maybe," said Shelton. "But I won't know until I see it. Why are we wasting our time here?"
We found the banshee in the Great Hall sipping from a mug. She looked much better than she had the night before. Although her skin was still pale and her cheeks were gaunt, her eyes were a nice shade of brown instead of blood red, her hair was braided and covered with a light veil like my mother often wore, and her voice wasn't nearly as screechy as it had been the night before.
"I want to thank you for your hospitality," I told the banshee. "That was a terrible storm last night. I don't know what we would have done if we hadn't come across your castle."
"Pah!" she said. "Don't thank me. Having you here is such a treat. It's nice to talk to someone who isn't blubbering in her sleeve." The banshee set her mug on the table with a click. "That's something I don't understand. Why do they have to be so gloomy? If I were about to die, I wouldn't want to spend my last hours around people who were moaning and tearing their hair out. I'd want to laugh and have a good time." She sighed and ran her fingertip around the rim of her mug. "But that's just me. Maybe some people like being mournful. I do it because I have to. It's part of my job."
Shelton had taken refuge in my sleeve when I'd come down the stairs. Trying to get my attention, he pinched me, hard. "Ow!" I said, more startled than hurt. When the banshee looked at me quizzically, I pulled the little crab out of my sleeve and set him on the table. "This is Shelton. He's a friend of ours."
"Aren't you the dearest little thing!" said the banshee, bending down for a closer look. "I've never seen anything like you before. You must be very special."
"Oh, I am," he said, raising his eyestalks to look at her. "I normally live in the ocean with a mermaid named Coral, but she had to go away, so I'm visiting Princess Emma and Prince Eadric. We went to visit Upper Montevista, but Eadric's brother had been kidnapped. I'm helping them find the boy now."
"Your brother is missing?" she asked, turning to Eadric. "Is that why you're here?"
I glanced at Eadric, not wanting to tell the banshee more than he was willing to share. He shrugged as if to say, "why not?" so I told her about the trolls kidnapping Bradston. "We're on our way to the troll queen's home," I said. "It isn't far from here, is it?"
"No," said the banshee. "Not if you know where you're headed. Follow the row of pine trees to the village, then go straight through to the edge of the forest. The entrance is easy to see. I've never been inside, but I've seen it with my mirror. I check my mirror every day so I'll know who's about to die. Sometimes when I look at it, I hear people talking about the troll queen. They say that she's evil and enjoys destroying whatever she touches. She tortures her victims before eating them." The banshee glanced at Eadric. "And you say she has your little brother? That poor defenseless boy. You must feel so sorry for him, living his last hours in the hands of that horrible monster
."
"That's why we're in a hurry," said Eadric. "We want to get him out of there as soon as we can."
The banshee bit her lip, then said, "I know what we should do! We'll ask my magic mirror to show us what • your brother is doing. Although in all good conscience, I have to tell you that no one who isn't a troll has ever gone into the queen's caverns and come out alive. But we'll take a look and then we'll know for sure."
The banshee kept the mirror in her bedchamber, an even gloomier room than the ones in which we'd slept. The bed hangings were tattered shreds, as faded a gray as her gown. There were no tapestries on the cold, stone walls, and the draft was much worse because of the gaping hole where the ceiling had partially collapsed. I didn't see any sign of torches or candles, so perhaps she didn't need them.
Eadric didn't seem to have noticed any of this, having gone straight to the mirror. "How does it work?" he asked, prodding the mirror's frame.
"You don't need to touch it," the banshee hurried to say when it wobbled on its stand. "Step back and you'll see."
Eadric and I stayed off to one side while the banshee stood in front of the mirror and announced loudly, "I want to see Prince Bradston of Upper Montevista."
The surface of the mirror rippled and the banshee's reflection disappeared. A boy came into view, lying on a bier surrounded by gibbering, prancing trolls. Blood dripped from the bier, and it was obvious that the child no longer lived. It was very convincing, but something about it was not quite right. Although the boy looked like Bradston, he looked too sweet, too innocent, too different from the Bradston I'd met. I'd been around him only briefly, but I knew with a certainty that the Bradston in the mirror was not the real one.
Eadric gasped. "No!" he said. "That can't be possible!" I put my arms around him and held him close.
"You see, Eadric," said the banshee, her voice filled with pain. "There's no hope for him. Your brother is already gone. It's no use trying to rescue him."
