Hero

by Alethea Kontis

  Saturday got lost on the way to the privy cave. This mountain was a piskies’ parlor, mazes upon mazes of dark tunnels and chambers in which even a kobold could get lost. She arrived just in time to do her business and avoid being burned by the cleansing fire. Clever, whoever had discovered this particular alcove. Cruel, that Peregrine had not mentioned the marsh-gas odor that heralded the cleansing fire. But then, she hadn’t gone out of her way to be kind, either. She decided to make an effort to be nicer.

  And then she wondered why.

  Stupid kiss.

  Too bad she couldn’t leave her clothes behind to be incinerated as well. The privy cave smelled better than she did. She stayed close to the fire, missing the feel of warm sun on stiff muscles. She found a lantern and used the embers left in the wake of the privy fire to light it, coaxing them to her with the handle of the rake. She tossed the rest of the useless pebbles into Puddle Lake. She’d started keeping a handful of pebbles in her pockets to toss whenever she suspected such a mirage.

  Her stomach growled angrily. Dubious of the multicolored mushrooms guarded by the bearlike rock formation, she tried to locate a place in the walls where she could chip away at the icerock. What clear ice she finally did manage to carve out melted disappointingly on her tongue. Her stomach was not fooled and loudly voiced its opinion about her trickery.

  The caves wound down and around, up and through, with sometimes sloping, sometimes jagged floors and ceilings low and high. Somewhere in between Saturday realized she was even more lost than when she’d started. Tired of knocking her sore noggin on cleverly concealed protuberances and fingerstones, she sat back against the wall with the rake beside her. Someone would find her eventually. She secretly hoped that someone would be Peregrine, even though she still hadn’t decided what to say to him.

  His kindness reminded her a little of Peter, always offering to help, always letting her get under his skin. Peter was compassionate without being soft, so what was it about Peregrine that bothered her so much? She should try harder to consider him as she did her brother.

  Except for the kissing part.

  There was a shuffling noise in the shadows, the same scurry of little feet she’d heard in the armory the night before. Curious as to the source, Saturday did not move the lantern. She remained very still. Creatures in the Wood were often brave enough to sniff her out so long as she did not pose a threat to them. Not that any creature of the Wood could have stood her current scent, but cave dwellers might be a bit more forgiving.

  Tentatively, a small, ginger-furred tailless rat-thing entered the golden ring cast by the lantern. It led itself more by its whiskered nose than its cloudy eyes. Its ears were wide and pointed, like a cat’s, and the left one was missing a chunk. The light reflected off several sharp teeth. The rat-thing opened its mouth and snapped at the air.

  Trix would have been able to tell her if the animal meant her harm, but Trix was not here to guide her. Not sure that she wanted it nearer, she shifted slightly. The animal backed away with a hiss and quickly retreated to the shadows.

  Saturday heard a fluttering of wings from the opposite end of the cavern, but it was not Betwixt. The witch’s familiar rounded a corner and landed on a fingerstone beside her. The lantern light revealed green in the bird’s changing feathers today; the tips were the color of rich rye grass.

  “Hello, Cwyn.” The greeting was raspy in Saturday’s dry throat, and she realized that these were the first words she’d spoken since waking. Yet another odd feeling. Members of the busy Woodcutter house were often expected to converse before fully leaving Lady Dream’s realm. “I don’t suppose you’re here to lead me to a fine breakfast?”

  “Caw!” said the bird.

  “That’s what I thought.”

  Saturday moved her weary bones off the floor and dutifully followed the raven down the tunnel to the bird’s nest. The lorelei waited for her there, a ghostly vision of tattered rags dancing in the shadows up and down the corridor. Saturday tucked one of her daggers inside the waistband at the small of her back, in case the witch decided to remove the other one, in her belt.

  “Shall I sing you a tune?” Saturday asked the witch, fully intending to do no such thing. Saturday had the melodious voice of a lizard. She only ever burst into song when Peter got on her nerves.

  “The rocks sing their own tune,” said the witch. “When I had my eyes I did not know how to listen.”

  “Perhaps losing your eyes was a blessing,” said Saturday.

  “Perhaps I will cut you into pieces and eat you for dinner.” The witch licked her lips. The raven settled on her mistress’s shoulder. Her talons made deep furrows, but if this was painful the witch showed no sign of it. She looked pale beside her richly colorful pet, the yawning sockets of her eyes like puddles of shadow unable to catch the light.

  “I have more tasks for you,” said the witch. “I need you to bring me seeds and mushrooms and spiced moss. And if you do not clean this mess today, my bird and I will dine on your bones.”

  Saturday was suddenly glad she’d gone to Peregrine for help despite . . . everything else. “I suspect I will make a lovely supper,” she said boldly, “if a bit tough and chewy.”

  “I will cook your meat until it is tender,” said the witch. “You will melt on my tongue.”

  “But if you cook me, how can I find your eyes?” asked Saturday.

  The lorelei grasped Saturday’s arm in an iron grip. Her seemingly frail and withered appendages were as much muscle and bone as raven’s claws. “If you do not find my eyes,” said the witch, “I will simply take yours.”

  Not if I kill you first, thought Saturday. She considered the dagger in her waistband. She could do it now, dispatch the witch and be done with all of this. But she wanted to find her sword first and, if possible, a way off the mountain. She knew there would be very little chance of survival against the dragon, but she had to try.

  Saturday turned her face away, but the witch’s hand found it anyway, lovingly tracing the contours with her wrinkled blue claws. “Your skin is smooth,” the witch said dubiously. Her cheeks flushed a deeper blue. She smelled of frostbite, cold and sharp.

  Saturday tried to hold her jaw as arrogantly as she could. Jack, she repeated the lie to herself. I am Jack. She let her voice fill her whole chest and deepen in tone. “I should get to work.”

  “Work!” The witch threw back her head and cackled at length, all soberness melting into hysteria. “Live to fail another day, Jack Woodcutter! Come, Cwyn. Your mistress tires and there is much to do.” But the raven had already taken wing, quietly riding the chilly drafts down the cavernous hall, her glowing wings illuminating the path with soft green light. “Foul fowl,” the witch grumbled.

  Taking one last lungful of icy air from the hallway, Saturday entered the disgusting bird’s nest. Immediately her nose wrinkled and her eyes watered. Before her towered pile after pile of once dried, now soiled, moss, easily four times the amount there had been when she’d started. Saturday brushed her uneven forelocks behind her ears, sickened by the griminess of herself, and set to work. She lifted the rake like a club and thought about Peregrine’s armory, procured from an era’s worth of fallen warriors.

  “What idiot came to best a dragon with a rake?” Amused at the images the thought evoked, she took a shallow breath. “Here goes nothing.”

  She grasped the rake just below the business end and poked the handle into the moss pile. As if skewered by an invisible pitchfork, a heaping helping of soiled moss rose into the air. Ridiculous and implausible it may have been, but Saturday could not deny what she saw. It was nothing that lifted the straw, nothing that held it, and nothing that tossed it away from a pile that this time shrank instead of grew.

  “I’ll be damned,” she whispered.

  The soldiers in the practice yard used this expression all the time, but it wasn’t one Mama encouraged. The Woodcutters’ lives were strange enough without tempting Fate with a request for punishment. Considering he
r circumstances, Saturday wasn’t terribly worried. It would be considerable work for the gods to make her life more complicated than this.

  Before going any farther, Saturday dropped the invisible forkful of moss and exited the cave again. She poked around in the crystalline darkness for Peregrine’s promised sacks and found them behind a large pillarstone, about thirty yards from the cave opening, far enough away that a meandering witch wouldn’t have tripped over them. Three were full of fresh, clean moss. The rest were empty. Saturday filled her arms with the sacks—it took her several trips—and then dutifully began filling them one by one.

  While she worked, Saturday thought about every member of her family. She made up rhymes about them all, and what they might be doing. But she couldn’t stop her mind from constantly drifting back to the swordfight with Peregrine . . . and that kiss. On and on she worked and thought and blushed and worked some more. She considered what Peregrine had said before about the length of a “day” in these caves. Saturday could go on for hours in the Wood without getting tired. She didn’t even stop to eat unless Papa or Peter reminded her. If left to her own devices, exactly how long might a full day’s work be?

  The chill air kept Saturday from sweating profusely, but she was forced to stop and carve untainted ice chunks from the wall as she grew more and more weary. Saturday filled fewer and fewer sacks between breaks until, finally, her body gave up.

  She woke to water splashing in her face and a chunk of ice wrapped in linen at the base of her neck.

  “Wake up, Woodcutter. You’re too big for me to carry, and you’re no good to me dead.”

  Wasn’t she? Without her, the witch would have her blasted stew, may it give her heartburn and spoil her stomach and ruin her spells. Peregrine and Betwixt could continue on with their freedom to live, if not their true freedom. Freedom. Sword. Water. Trix.

  “Trix,” she croaked. “I’m so sorry.”

  “I’m the one who’s sorry. If I’d known you were going to wake up and work yourself to the bone straight off, I would have left you some food. Why didn’t you come find us first?” Droplets of water on her face again. “No, no, come back to me. Here, drink this.”

  Saturday could not manage to open her eyes, but she knew a cup of cool water in her hands when she felt it. She drained it.

  “More,” she croaked, but her stomach was louder.

  “This first.” The cup was ripped from her reluctant hands and replaced with bread. Gods of heaven and earth, a small roll of bread. Saturday could imagine it was still warm from her mother’s oven. In her kitchen. At home. On a winter’s day. Or maybe Friday had baked this one, because it was chalky and flat and had a funny spice to it. Her chair at the table was freezing.

  “Peter, shut the door.”

  There was a crack and a sting in her cheek as Peregrine slapped her.

  Saturday’s eyes flew open. In the next heartbeat, she had her dagger pointed at his throat.

  He caught her hands in his easily, too easily, and lowered his head to look deep into her eyes. “There she is.”

  “Welcome back,” said Betwixt.

  “Where—” But Saturday didn’t need to ask. The answers came and disappointed her as quickly as they had upon waking. “Right. Sorry.”

  “I hit her and she apologizes!” Peregrine said far too loudly. “I was going to congratulate her on not having lost her mind, but now I’m not so sure.”

  The food settled in her nauseous belly and sanity slithered back under her skin. Saturday watched Peregrine’s mouth as he spoke, imagining what it would be like to kiss him once more and telling herself to stop. Warm, she thought. It had been warm in his arms. She’d like to be warm again.

  “Her brain’s still addled,” said Betwixt.

  Saturday was inclined to agree.

  Peregrine handed her another rough bread roll and the cup, which he’d replenished from the helmet at his feet. She drained the cup again and inhaled the roll while he refilled the cup once more. Peregrine emptied the bags of fresh moss and scattered it across the clean room while she chewed and drank and slowly came back to life.

  “I’m okay now,” she said finally, glad that he had goaded her into conversation before she was conscious enough to worry about what to say. Actions spoke louder than words and he was helping her, despite the fact that she was about to be the cause of his death. “The witch gave me new tasks. She wants me to find her mushrooms and seeds and some sort of spiced moss.”

  “No brownie teeth?” asked Peregrine.

  “She must already have some,” said Betwixt.

  “What’s a brownie? Wait, no . . . If it has teeth, I think I saw one earlier. What’s spiced moss? And where am I supposed to find seeds in a cave?”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll help you with all of it,” said Peregrine. “But first things first. Are you okay enough to help me lug these bags across the mountain?”

  Saturday groaned.

  “I have a wagon,” he said.

  “Really?”

  Peregrine shrugged. “It’s a small thing, more of a litter or a wheelbarrow, I suppose, but it’s useful enough. And it functions! Sort of.”

  “Sort of?”

  “When it doesn’t, he fixes it,” said Betwixt.

  “Works for me,” said Saturday.

  “And I’ve brought you a change of clothes for that bath I promised.”

  “Gods, yes.” Those were the very words she’d wanted to hear. She expected some small retort from Peregrine at her blatant enthusiasm, but when none came, she turned to find him staring at her like an idiot. Seizing the opportunity, she moved to return his earlier favor by slapping him out of his dazed state. He caught her hand before it connected.

  “Don’t start,” he said, shaking off his brief catatonia. “That look on your face just reminded me of . . .” He shook his head again and dropped her wrist. “I’ll explain later. Let’s go.”

  Saturday jumped up. “Yes, sir!” She wavered a bit as the blood rushed to her head. That was dumb—she should have remembered to rise more slowly. Mama called it the curse of the tall folk.

  Peregrine shot her a look. “Remember who you’re addressing, Woodcutter.”

  “Yes, ma’am? Whatever.” Saturday tapped her temple. “Addled brain, remember?”

  “Fools,” said an exasperated Betwixt.

  “Cats,” mocked Peregrine.

  The cat in question stuck out his large pink tongue.

  Now that her belly was temporarily sated, Saturday’s muscles complained as she hefted the bags onto Peregrine’s strange cart. It had been stupid of her to faint and lie still on such cold ground for so long—the frost from the unforgiving icerock had seeped into her sinew and frozen her limbs stiff once more. As much as she longed to be clean, she loathed the thought of bathing from a metal helmet-basin the same temperature as the walls, but she’d suffer through it if it meant not having to smell herself for another night. Peregrine might even take pity on her and let her sleep by a fire again. If she didn’t open her gob and screw it up first.

  Peregrine’s “wagon” had been cobbled together from what looked like the broken wooden handles of axes, spears, and maces. She’d noticed a dwarf’s hammer or two in the armory before their sparring match, but she wondered what Peregrine had used for nails. The wheels of the wagon were shields, hammered down and reinforced with leather straps. It wasn’t the smoothest device she’d ever pulled, but it was indeed functional.

  Once the cart had been filled, Saturday grabbed the handles and began jogging down the corridor. “Where are we off to?”

  “Let me carry that for a while,” said Peregrine. “You’ve already done enough for today.”

  Why was he being nice to her? She’d been nothing but rude to him, and that was before the pyrrhi had come bearing tidings of doom. When Peter was nice to Saturday like this, it was always because he wanted something.

  “I need to stay warm,” she told him. “I’ll hand it back over to you when I tire. I prom
ise.”

  Peregrine agreed, silly boy. Peter never would have accepted such a deal. He knew that Saturday never tired.

  True to her word she ferried the moss all the way to their destination. Peregrine called out twice to get her to stop and change direction, and twice to pick the mushrooms and moss for her second task.

  “Do you think it’s wise to collect these ingredients for a spell we’re trying to stop?” she asked him.

  “With the amount of magic at her disposal, thanks to your presence, I suspect the ingredients don’t matter much,” he said. “And fulfilling her task will keep you alive long enough to fulfill your destiny.”

  “Destiny” was a kind word for the chaos Saturday was meant to unleash here. She only hoped she found her sword first. It would be a shame to die without it.

  Saturday did not recognize any part of these caves. She had no idea where they were. It hurt her head less to concentrate on stretching and keeping her footing instead of the twists and turns around and through as their path gently sloped heavenward.

  She was grateful that most of the way had been level and wide enough for the cart—only once did they have to unload and reload the wagon, after moving it to an opening several feet off the ground. The air was considerably warmer here. Her muscles relaxed even as her boots slipped on the perspiring rocks beneath her.

  Once Saturday was able to relieve herself of her burden, she looked around and lost her breath at the sight.

  They had climbed all the way to paradise.

  12

  Beyond Saving

  OF ALL the nooks and crannies Peregrine had discovered in the caves, the garden felt the most like home. Under different circumstances he would have kept this room from Saturday, but their time on the mountain had been cut short. In a fortnight, the garden might no longer exist.

  The walls here were solid quartz crystal instead of cloudy calcite and icerock. Ironically, these towering, flowering crystals looked more like ice to him than the rest of the rime-ridden caverns. The ceiling came to a point, creating a clear pyramid, with walls thin enough to let the sunlight through when there was any and the starshine in when there wasn’t. Currently, there wasn’t.