Starflower

by Anne Elisabeth Stengl

But Bebo said no more. She smiled at her husband, who watched her with keen eyes and suspected much, though he could make no final guesses.

  In the Wood Between, the girl by the River dreamed.

  The sun is hot upon her back as she follows the winding path. Spring has met a swift end, giving way to a brutal summer. But though her body is drenched in sweat, she shivers with a cold that freezes her from the inside out.

  Up the path into the mountains flows a long, fluid line. Warriors head the procession, solemn torchbearers armed with stone daggers. Next come three men in robes of deerskin dyed brilliant scarlet, their faces smeared with black streaks like streaming tears. Behind them walk the elders of the united tribes, the Red Feet, the people of Black Rock, the North Walkers, and more. The Eldest follows these, and his is the face of a man who died long ago.

  Behind the Eldest march twelve maidens to represent each tribe. They are hooded in black, and their feet are bare and bleeding, marked with intricate cuts. They weep silent tears.

  In the midst of these maidens walks one in white. Her black hair is her only hood, hanging over her face, shielding her even from the eye of the sun, who watches her progress. Her feet are bare but uncut. In her hands she carries a wooden bowl filled with blood and struggles to spill not a drop even as they climb the uneven pathway up the mountain. Starflowers adorn her head, a circlet of red blossoms.

  Following the maidens march the people of the Land, members of every tribe and village. The girl feels their eyes upon her as they climb higher and higher into reaches where the air is thin—people she does not know who look to her for salvation. When she dares cast a glance behind her, she sees that they all wear the same face. In that one face is sorrow and pity but no mercy, for they have no hope. They are a beaten people. But they are determined to survive.

  The girl turns her eyes upward again, up that long, winding path. For the first time since this endless journey began, her eyes fill with tears.

  The girl by the River moaned and stirred. And the River fed her enchanted sleep and suffered her to go on dreaming.

  5

  GLOMAR CALLED on every ounce of honor in his brawny being to wait on the far shore of Gorm-Uisce while Órfhlaith carried the poet over. The last thing he wanted was to make this journey in the company of Bard Eanrin, and only the strongest of all the vows he had made to King Iubdan kept the captain rooted to the spot as the mare trotted across the lake with her scarlet burden.

  But honor is honor, however inconvenient. After all, had not Queen Bebo declared that the two must venture out together and fetch her cousin? That was as good as an order, and Glomar always followed orders. He could not, in good conscience, sally forth alone. Especially not with all the people of the court gathered at Fionnghuala Gate, cheering for all they were worth.

  So the captain stood on the shore just outside the shadows of the great Wood, hefting his hatchet from one hand to the other and watching how the sunlight gleamed upon the blade. The thoughts he indulged were perhaps unworthy of his captain’s rank, but he did wait.

  Eanrin slid from the mare’s back and stepped onto the shore before him. Both of them, to the common eye, appeared as tall as an ordinary man, though Órfhlaith, standing still on the lake, was as tiny and delicate as a child’s toy.

  “What-ho, good Glomar!” Eanrin beamed. “Shall we off?”

  “I’d like to off you!” Glomar growled, or rather, thought about growling five minutes later. He was not one for witty comebacks on a moment’s notice. At the time he bowed to Órfhlaith and ignored the poet, turned, and stamped into the Wood. Eanrin did not follow him. The Chief Poet of Iubdan never followed anyone. He happened to go the same direction, and happened as well to be a few paces behind.

  Within those few paces, they stepped from the boundaries of Rudiobus into the Halflight Realm. The forest extended for an eternity around them. Lingering in its darker shadows were still some traces of the Midnight of the Black Dogs, but for the most part it had lifted.

  Eanrin stood a moment and sniffed. Glomar gave him a sidelong glance and wondered if his eyes deceived him. Did the poet look . . . anxious? But that was ridiculous. Indeed, Glomar would have liked to dismiss his rival as spineless and despicable; however, he knew too much about Eanrin’s exploits beyond Rudiobus to believe it.

  Granted, most of those exploits had been recounted by Eanrin himself.

  Nevertheless, Glomar could not recall ever seeing the poet out of his depth. He knew Eanrin had traveled many times through the Wood, more than Glomar had himself. Why, then, did the poet’s face look so drawn? Why did he sniff the air with such care? The smell of the Black Dogs was pungent enough, leaving an unmistakable trail. Glomar drew a long breath himself, trying to catch whatever scent it was his rival sought. He smelled nothing but the Dogs . . . and fear.

  He shrugged and shouldered his hatchet. “Hurry up, cat,” he growled and started off in the direction the Black Dogs had run, bearing their mistress and captive on their backs. The caorann tree standing nearby waved its branches tremblingly at the two Rudiobans. Well, it should be sorry, Glomar thought. Some protection it had been! What was the use of having caorann trees that couldn’t see through a glamour, dragon’s or otherwise? He stumped past it without a nod and started into the foliage.

  He had made scarcely ten paces, however, before Eanrin grabbed his arm. “Just where do you think you’re going, my fine, meatheaded friend?”

  “Don’t be touching me, poet!” Glomar snarled, shaking off Eanrin’s hand. “Nor even speaking to me!”

  “That will make our little adventure rather tiresome, now, won’t it?” The poet grinned.

  “This ain’t our little adventure.”

  “Oh no?”

  “I’m not the fool you take me for, cat. I know your game.”

  Eanrin rolled his eyes, but the smile remained fixed in place. “Tell me, then, since you know it so well: What is my game?”

  “You’re a two-faced monster; that’s what you are,” said Glomar. “Aye, you’ll make yourself out to be the hero with all your fine words and fine ways. But you’ll stoop to backstabbing if it serves your purpose.”

  “How enigmatic is our good captain,” said the poet mildly. His eyes half closed, and he looked as smug as the cat who got the cream. “Do, pray, continue. Enlighten me to my own treachery.”

  “You need no enlightenment! You’ll wait until the opportune moment, I have no doubt.” The captain’s lips pulled back so tightly from his teeth that they cracked. He licked them angrily. “You’re wanting to prove your mettle to the queen’s cousin, and you’ll do everything you can to make me look the fool.”

  “Is that what you fear? That in this venture of rescuing my lady, you might come out the shabbier of the two of us?” Here the poet laughed outright, tossing back his head so that his cap fell off and he was obliged to catch it. But he went on laughing, and Glomar’s face went red as a beet.

  “Do you deny it?” the captain demanded.

  “Certainly not,” replied Eanrin. “I have every intention of demonstrating to my lady—”

  “She ain’t your lady!”

  “—my superiority in every respect. If you insist upon aiding me, who am I to stop you? Contrast often makes a jewel shine all the brighter. Our little sojourn in Etalpalli, should we survive it, will be the stage upon which I perform my true devotion to the goddess of my heart. And with you as my supporting cast, how can my performance help but shine?”

  The guard lunged, but Eanrin expected this and danced out of his reach. “My good Glomar!” he cried, scampering behind a twisted elm tree, keeping the trunk between himself and Glomar’s hatchet. “In all seriousness, you haven’t a hope of success without me. Did I not just watch you plunge into the Wood without a thought?”

  “I’m following the trail of the Black Dogs, which is clear enough.”

  “A trail and a Path are two different things!” The poet jerked his hand off a branch just in time to keep from losing a finger
to the guard’s swinging weapon. “It is dangerous to walk the Wood without a Path, as you should know by now. The Wood will twist you up and drag you places you never expected. And Etalpalli is no easy realm to find.”

  “What makes you think I don’t know the way?”

  “Do you?”

  Here Glomar paused in his assault and gave Eanrin a sly smile. “You don’t remember.”

  For the space of a heartbeat, Eanrin could not breathe. Then he said brightly, “It would seem that I don’t. Tell me, what is it I’m not remembering?”

  “I’ve been to Etalpalli.” Triumph, albeit premature, flooded the captain’s face. “I’ve been there myself, passed through the Cozamaloti Gate. When Iubdan traveled there for the last queen’s coronation, I went with him as his guard. And where were you, poet? Gallivanting off in the Wood somewhere and unable to join your king’s entourage?”

  Eanrin shrugged. “It matters not. I know where Etalpalli lies. Better than you, it would seem, what with your rushing off on the Black Dogs’ trail! There are sure Paths and there are foolish Paths, and to pursue the Black Dogs is invariably foolish. But everyone knows that to find Etalpalli, one has only to follow the River.”

  “True,” said Glomar. “Follow the River, why don’t you, Eanrin. But it is I, not you, who knows the key to Cozamaloti’s unlocking.”

  “Oh, is that so?” Eanrin continued grinning, but he had not, in fact, considered this point. He had assumed that the gate’s locks were broken when the city itself was burned. He wasn’t going to let that on to Glomar, however. “How nice for you!”

  “Aye. Nice for me, indeed,” Glomar said, playing with his hatchet’s balance. “For I know you’ll never unlock it! Cozamaloti can only be opened if you enter for the sake of another. If you try to open it for selfish reasons, the gate remains locked. And you, my friend, will die.” The guard licked his lips, his eyes for a moment cruel. “A great, watery death.”

  Eanrin blinked. He turned this information about to observe it from a few angles. “But of course,” he said at last, still smiling, still pretending he had the advantage. After all, advantage lay in the perception of power, not the fact. “I shall pass through Cozamaloti for the sake of my beloved.”

  Glomar growled, but it was more of a laugh than a threat. “You never loved anyone but yourself, cat.”

  “What good is there in protesting?” Eanrin’s voice became silky. “Can one expect a dirt-bound lug-about to understand the higher, more tender feelings of the soul? No indeed, dear captain, with your earthy snuffling about in fair Gleamdren’s shadow. I am certain you believe your feelings true and noble, but in reality—”

  The captain roared at this and took hold of his hatchet in both fists. “Do you think me a fool?” he bellowed.

  “In point of fact, yes.”

  The captain swung, missing the poet’s head by inches. “I’ll hew you limb from limb. Honor be dashed!”

  The poet eluded the blow on feet as light as thistledown. He’d incensed his rival, and the advantage was his once more. “My dear, blustery captain, you must learn to bear with my upstaging you, or you’ll never see my lady—”

  “She ain’t your lady!”

  “—again.” The poet put out a hand. “Shall we shake and say peace, at least until Gleamdren is returned to my arms?”

  Captain Glomar hacked at the hand. The poet darted back with the air of a slandered saint, drawing his cape close about him. “Very well,” he said with a sniff. “If that’s the way you feel about it, allow me to make another proposition. It’s hardly a fair one to you, but—”

  “I’ll hear none of your propositions!” The hatchet sank into the trunk of the elm tree. A shudder ran from the roots to the topmost branches and back again. The hatchet stuck.

  “You’ll hear this one,” said Eanrin. “I propose we part ways, here and now. And to make things interesting, I propose a race.”

  The captain, tugging at his hatchet, paused. A tremor passed through the ground, like the rippling of roots beneath the soil, but neither he nor Eanrin noticed. Glomar’s face sank into a deep scowl, yet there was interest in his eyes. “A race, you say?”

  “Aye. Rather than drag me down with your sour company and lumbering blundering, I suggest that you race me instead. To Etalpalli and back. He who rescues my lady Gleamdren first and carries her triumphant back to the Hall of Red and Green will be declared victorious. And,” he added slowly, “the loser must agree to forgo his suit to the winner forevermore.”

  Here, Glomar smiled so knowingly that Eanrin, for all his confidence, felt a twinge of concern. He masked his discomfort, however, and answered smile for smile, even as Glomar said, “You may not like that so much as you think, poet. This meathead may possess more knowing than you realize.”

  The poet gulped, but he spoke lightly. “That risk I am willing to take.”

  With a final heave, the captain pulled his hatchet free. “Well—”

  That was when the tree snarled.

  There is only burning. Forever and ever, it seems.

  But this fire, like all fires, must run out of fuel and dwindle until nothing remains but smoldering embers. When that happens, she begins to remember.

  At first there is little enough for her mind to grasp. She sees a girl whom she recognizes but whose name she does not know. A lovely creature with wings of many vivid colors spreading from her shoulders. Upon her head she wears a simple crown, and her hair and her eyes are as vibrant as those wings. Such a fair creature is she!

  Why, then, does Etanun not love her?

  Hri Sora’s eyes flew open.

  She stood, she discovered, at the summit of a high tower on a wide, flat roof. The stones beneath her feet were blackened. All embellishments that might once have made this tower beautiful were obliterated, all greenery long since killed.

  She knew this place. Turning about, her dry eyes studying every cranny and crevice, Hri Sora recognized Omeztli, the Moon Tower. It was the queen’s tower, had been hers ever since her brother died. Before she herself died.

  It was not the sight Hri Sora had seen in her dream. No colossal bonfires engulfed the green towers—the flames were gone, leaving behind blackened, flaking stone through which the red rock beneath showed like raw wounds. Many of the towers had crumbled into the streets, carcasses fallen in war. She searched for Itonatiu, the Sun Tower, which should stand opposite Omeztli. The home of her brother, the home of kings.

  Where it had once stood was a great, gaping hole.

  “Lights Above be eaten!” she cried, but the words caught and strangled in her throat. Fire rushed to her mouth, ready to drag her into madness and oblivion. When she had been a whole dragon, that rush of flame inside had led to her bursting into true dragon form, wings pounding the air, great, sinuous body tearing and destroying as the furnace erupted from her belly.

  But now she had only a woman’s body, wingless and weak. A body that could not support such a fire. To let it build, to let it take over, meant to give herself up to the blaze, to sink into burning dreams and lose all memory.

  No, Hri Sora could not allow herself to succumb to those fires again. Not yet. Slowly, she forced the fire down into her belly. As she did so, more memories returned.

  “I did this,” she said. Once upon a time, leafy vines had cloaked those stark walls, causing the entire city to look alive, lush, and growing. “I burned it all.”

  She stood like a statue, watching smoke rise from the pit where Itonatiu had stood so proud and golden.

  Then she smiled.

  She knew who she was again. The memory of her death and rebirth as a dragon returned to her, and her teeth gleamed with a smile.

  “The queen is dead,” she said and laughed. “Long live the queen!”

  She strode to the edge of the tower and looked out from that dizzying height. For a moment, her fire vanished in a dreadful coldness—something akin to fear. How dreadful it was that she, a dragon, should fear to fall! She who had once flown
upon wings of iridescent blackness, rising even to the highest vaults of the heavens!

  Hri Sora put a hand to her head. The fire inside was so great sometimes. How often did it drive all thought away? “Cruel, cruel fate!” she growled, and fire gleamed in her mouth. “But . . . but have I . . .”

  Oh! How her head pounded with mounting heat and pressure! She would have to flame it out, burn the air until it melted away. But when she flamed, she could not think. And she must think! She must devise some way to regain her wings.

  Another memory stirred. “The . . . the Flowing Gold,” she whispered.

  “I was wondering when you were going to bring that up.”

  The voice came from somewhere near. Though the throbbing in her temples did not diminish, Hri Sora raised her head slowly. It swung on the end of her long neck like the weight of a pendulum, back, forth, searching for the speaker. The voice was familiar somehow, but she could not place it, nor even see from whence it came.

  “Down here.”

  A little iron cage sat on the stone floor near the center of the flat tower roof. Her heritage, nearly forgotten, flared in her memory for a moment. Cages! Those with wings could not abide them. The impulse to fling it from the tower nearly overcame her. But she strode over to it, the remnants of a green nightgown wafting about her limbs, and knelt to peer inside.

  A tiny woman with white-gold hair gazed up at her from furious blue eyes.

  The Flame at Night startled back, her lips curled into a dreadful snarl. “What are you doing here?”

  The tiny captive folded her arms and shook her head, disbelieving. “Well, I like that! Here you go through the bother of kidnapping me, laying siege to unsiegeable Rudiobus, dragging me off in the middle of the night after I’d given you my own bed for your comfort . . . and you have the gall to ask what I’m doing here.”

  Hri Sora hissed again. When she said no more, the tiny woman kicked the bars of her iron cage, rattling them with such force that the dragon drew back. “You kidnapped me!” the tiny woman cried. “You kidnapped me and shoved me into this cage, forcing me to take this insignificant size! And now you’ll attempt to wrest the secret of Rudiobus from my unwilling lips!”