“We can do so, if you wish,” said the fairy queen. “I suppose you’ll want your horse for such a journey, Sir Goldmayne,” she added. “It might be best to wait on killing him until after you’ve returned, though I had thought he wanted to be rid of his curse sooner rather than later.”
A protest gurgled up in Duncan’s throat, but it was drowned out by Wildfire’s voice. “We thank you so very much for your kindness and generosity. We will certainly return after our journey’s completion. Come along, Duncan.”
The horse turned then and picked his way back through the cloud of fairies. Duncan gathered his wits enough to follow. A quick glance over his shoulder showed the two canary-fairies carrying the chest back the direction they had brought it. The whirlwind resumed and blocked them from sight.
Only when the pair had put a sufficient distance between them and the bright little fairy-glen did Duncan trot forward to Wildfire’s head. “We’re not going back to get that thing!” he cried.
“We certainly couldn’t refuse it,” Wildfire retorted. “Or did you want to risk offending a horde of fairies? An ax that never grows dull would be a very useful thing, Duncan.”
“I’m not going to kill you! Why must they keep pushing me to do it?”
“Because they don’t understand death,” said Wildfire. “You should know that well enough already. Come on. The sooner we get out of these woods, the better.”
Duncan could not express his disappointment in words. True enough the fairy queen had been careful not to say specifically that the reward would be a cure, but he had hoped it would be something, at least. That the demented fairies remained fixated on him killing Wildfire did not bode well for the quest ahead of him.
For all their magic, the fairies had not been as strong as Dame Groach. Duncan and Wildfire’s last hope lay to the north, to a sprawling estate that lay abandoned now that its owner had shifted into a more stationary phase of being. Dame Groach had spent countless hours in her library, both reading and recording. Surely, if a cure existed, it would be there.
And thus, it was to the witch’s estate that Duncan and Wildfire returned, back to the beginning, where everything had started for them. A month seemed like insufficient time to scour every book in the library there, especially since the horse was the only one who could read, but that was all the time they had. Days passed, then weeks. Wildfire discovered Dame Groach’s poisonous diaries, in which she had poured out the malice of her soul. She had recorded every last plot she had perpetrated against the royal house of Meridiana, along with many others that she had thought of but not yet executed. Among these tales she gloated over trapping the crown prince of Delamore, the betrothed of the eldest Meridian princess, and turning him into a horse alongside the servant who had betrayed him.
“It’s bothered me for some time,” Duncan interrupted as Wildfire read this account aloud. “You must’ve known who she was. Why on earth did you come to her estate?”
“She wasn’t supposed to know who I was,” Wildfire replied dully. “I was traveling under a false name.”
“But still, why come here at all?”
“Because I knew the counter-curse was going to expire,” said the horse. “I wanted to discover her weakness so that I could protect Mae from her. I was a fool, and I’ve paid a bitter price for that foolishness. Looks like I’ll continue paying it, too.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s here in the diary, the last line of her entry. It says, ‘And he’ll remain a horse until the day he dies, for such is the nature of the curse.’”
Chapter 32
“Duncan, wake up.”
Wildfire nudged his shoulder. Duncan’s eyes fluttered open, and for a moment he stared up at the white horse in utter confusion. Then, realization struck him full in the face. The month had passed. Their time was up. Today was Princess Margaret’s wedding day, and they had not found a cure for Wildfire’s curse. He had utterly failed.
He started up to his elbows and looked at the abbey ruins around him. They had arrived late last night. Duncan had been against coming back to Midd at all, but Wildfire had convinced him that they should at least be present on the wedding day. Dawn had broken now. Sunshine spilled through the chapter house windows to banish the shadows within. It was still early, still hours before the wedding.
“Come on,” Wildfire told him, and he ambled away to the cloister.
Duncan scrambled to his feet to follow.
“Do you have a change of clothing?” the horse called back to him.
“In my bag,” said Duncan.
“Bring it,” said Wildfire. “You’re going to need it.”
He snatched up the travel bag and trotted off behind the horse. “Where are we going?” he asked.
Wildfire did not respond. Duncan took this as command not to ask any more questions. They left the abbey ruins and turned to the great sprawling tree that stood next to it. The hollow beneath had held Duncan’s armor safe in times past, but it stood empty now, or so he thought. Wildfire paused next to the tree.
“I went to see the fairies while you slept last night,” he said.
“What?” asked Duncan sharply. “Why? They’re not any help to us!”
“I think we’ve overlooked the obvious resolution,” said the horse. He dipped his nose into the hollow beneath the tree. When he emerged again, clenched in his teeth was the enchanted ax that Duncan had refused as reward.
A chill ran up Duncan’s spine. “What’re you doing with that?”
Wildfire dropped the ax at his feet. “I claimed it last night. They promised it would be of use to us. I want you to chop down a tree for me, Duncan. There’s a dead one just down the hill, next to the pond.”
He wondered if the horse had gone daft. Wildfire stared at him with steady eyes, though. He made no arguments or explanations, but stood silent and waiting. Beneath that heavy gaze, Duncan reluctantly grasped the ax’s handle.
“Why do I need to chop it down?” he asked.
“Because it will be of use,” said the horse. “Go on, now. The ax is supposed to chop through anything. You’ll want to start with the upper branches rather than felling the tree from its trunk.”
The day and the horse’s demeanor made Duncan obey. Princess Margaret was set to marry another, and Wildfire was destined to live the rest of his life as a horse. Under the circumstances, Duncan would obey almost any whim he stated.
He cast off his cloak next to his travel bag. As directed, he climbed the withered tree and started to dismantle it from the top down. It had been dead for ages; its wood was old and seasoned and split away with only the slightest pressure from the fairy-ax. As Duncan cast each branch down, Wildfire dragged it away to a slowly growing pile. They worked as the sun rose, hour after hour, until the tree was only a stump.
Even though the ax cut so smoothly, the work had been strenuous. Duncan dropped upon the round stump and breathed in the morning heat. “Is there any particular reason we had to chop down this tree?” he inquired.
Wildfire deposited the last split wedge from the trunk onto his pile. “It was preparation,” he said. “There was just enough wood there.”
“For what?” asked Duncan in confusion. All he saw was a heap of split logs. Short of burning them, he didn’t see what purpose they might hold.
Wildfire answered his expectations: “For a pyre.”
Duncan sat very still, unsure if he had heard correctly, and certain he had misunderstood.
“You have one last cut to make with that ax,” Wildfire told him, and he stepped closer. “I want you to cut off my head.”
Duncan recoiled. “No! Have you gone completely mad?”
“Cut off my head,” Wildfire said again, his voice firm. “This is the only path left to me. Cut off my head and use the pyre to burn this wretched body to ashes.”
“No! I won’t!”
“You swore, Duncan!” shouted the horse. “You swore you would break my curse! This is the only remedy we h
ave!”
“I’m not going to kill you!”
“You would sentence me to live as a horse forever?” Wildfire retorted. “Mae will marry this very morning—I cannot live, I have no reason to live if not for her!”
“If you would just go to her—” Duncan started.
“Even if she were to accept me in this form, it wouldn’t change anything,” Wildfire interrupted. “A horse cannot marry a princess! Please, Duncan! I have thought this through! I’m lucky to have lived this long, lucky that Dame Groach didn’t kill me outright, lucky to have seen Mae again and to know that she’s able to move forward in her life! I have no place in Meridiana anymore!”
“I can’t kill you,” said Duncan helplessly. “How could I?”
“If you don’t, I will kill myself,” Wildfire replied. “I can cast myself from a cliff, or drown myself in a lake. You have no power to stop me. You do have a choice to give me an honorable death and to claim your own happiness in life, though.”
His eyes widened as he realized what the horse was offering him. “I would never—!”
“We brought back Dame Groach’s diary,” Wildfire interrupted. “It’ll serve as proof enough that you found what became of me. Take it and claim your rightful reward.”
“I won’t!” cried Duncan.
“Please,” begged Wildfire. “Please, Duncan. We’ve been through so much together already. Please let the end come quickly and well. I would rather die at your hand—I know you’ll do the proper honors. Please.”
He felt like the whole world had collapsed around him. He had not been prepared for such a request, nor for Wildfire’s arguments to support it.
“You promised,” the horse uttered in a low voice. “You swore you would help me break my curse. Death is the only cure. Keep your word and do it quickly.”
“Stop it,” said Duncan. Bitterness welled in his throat. “Stop it! Do you know what you’re asking of me?”
“Please,” Wildfire repeated. “If you leave me in this form, you’re no better than Dame Groach.”
“Stop it!” Duncan shouted. He stood, the ax in his grasp. Tears blurred his vision. “Wildfire,” he said, more quietly, “you are the first and best friend I have ever had.”
“And you have been a most faithful and true friend to me,” said the horse. “I would not ask this of you otherwise.”
Silence stretched between them. Duncan did not know what to do. Wildfire had grown increasingly morose over the past weeks. He would certainly follow through with his threat of suicide. Even if Duncan could prevent it, forcing him to live as a horse for the rest of his life would be cruel torment. Logically he knew how they had come to this point. Even so, he could not move forward.
The white horse suddenly dropped to his knees and laid his head upon the ground, his neck exposed. “Don’t think about it. Just do it, quickly.”
He mutely shook his head.
“Duncan!”
“Fine!” The word erupted from his lips, infused with bitterness. “Fine,” he said again. He moved into position, hating himself more with each step. He raised the ax high above his head.
Wildfire had relaxed. His eyes shut as he waited for the final blow. “Thank you,” he said quietly, his soul finally at peace.
“Don’t thank me, you fool,” Duncan replied as tears fell unbidden from his eyes. “I don’t want to hear that from you.”
“Then, goodbye,” said the horse.
“Goodbye, Wildfire.” Those two words almost choked in his throat. He squeezed his eyes shut, took a deep breath, and swung the ax in a downward arc. He felt through the handle as the blade made impact and sliced through flesh, through bone and sinew. The horse’s body slumped onto the grass. Then, there was nothing but deathly silence.
He dropped the ax and stumbled backward. Bile rose in his throat and tears streamed from his eyes. There was still the task of dragging the heavy corpse to the fire, of burning it to ashes as requested, but he didn’t care. Misery wracked him so keenly that he did not know how he could possibly escape, except to turn the enchanted ax upon himself.
He stared down at his hands upon the ground and loathed them. His chest convulsed with repressed sobs as he started to rein his emotions back under control.
From the corner of his eyes, he saw something move.
Dazed, he turned his attention upon the carcass of the horse. Its shoulder contorted, as though something pushed against the skin from within. Duncan fell back in shock and stared. The bulge moved upward to the severed neck. Through the gore and flesh there, the mysterious something pushed outward.
Those were fingers, a detached voice in his head whispered. They pushed out further to reveal a full hand.
In an instant Duncan surged forward and grasped that hand with all his might. It clamped onto him like a lifeline, and he tugged on it as hard as he could to drag out a blood-covered arm. The mess of gore at the severed neck bulged. Duncan tugged again.
A man’s head slid out. He gasped deeply, a first breath big enough to fill his lungs.
“That… witch!” he declared, and his voice rose in pitch as he continued. “That awful, horrible, evil, demented witch! Death was the only cure? That witch!”
Duncan fell to the ground and stared dumbly. The voice was different, but the speech patterns were certainly the same. Before him was not Wildfire, though. “Prince Julian?” he managed to ask.
The man was still mostly stuck inside the horse’s carcass. He moved his only free arm to wipe muck from his eyes. They blinked open rapidly, pale blue and lucid. “Duncan, I am covered in my own gore, and I don’t think I have the strength to get free without your help,” he said. “Can you cut away this wretched horse? Have you the stomach to do that?”
Duncan snatched up the ax again. The horseflesh was of no concern to him now. Wildfire’s soul was once more embodied in its proper form. The horse was simply a cocoon and it was in the way.
“Careful with that,” said Julian as the ax blade sliced into the horse’s neck near his shoulder.
“I know,” Duncan replied irritably.
“You can’t very well blame me for worrying,” the horse-turned-prince retorted. “I don’t know where exactly I am inside this thing, and after everything that’s happened already, I’d rather like to get out in one piece.”
“Why don’t you take the ax, then?” Duncan suggested.
“Because I’m at exactly the wrong angle to use it properly. Careful!”
“Where’s your other hand?” asked Duncan crossly. “Can’t you get it free?”
“Hang on.” Julian struggled for a moment against the flesh that encased him. “Cut—no, slit just a little over here, that’s it. Ah!” He wrenched his other hand from the mess. He was still chest-deep in the carcass, though. “See if you can cut just enough to loosen things,” he instructed.
Duncan had the general idea. He held the ax blade tight and slit shallow grooves into the skin. He and Julian worked against the deadweight of the horseflesh at an excruciatingly slow pace until, at long last, the prince’s restored body slid blood-covered and naked from a cavity within the carcass. Duncan snatched up the cloak he had discarded at dawn and threw it over the man. Julian lay beneath the fabric, feeble and gasping for air.
“Let me catch my breath,” he said. “The instant that blade went through my neck, my whole body seemed to condense inward, into the horse’s belly. I thought I was going to die in there for lack of air.”
Duncan cradled his forehead in his hands. “Why didn’t the fairies just say that the horse’s death would restore you to your natural form?” he asked. “We might have done this ages ago!”
“They did say it,” Julian replied. He managed to sit up and wrap the cloak around him. “They told us numerous times that death was the only cure. It’s not their fault we didn’t understand.”
Duncan stared.
“It’s not,” Julian insisted. “They’re fairies. Death is an unknown concept to them. They can’t be e
xpected to understand that for humans it means a permanent end.”
“I hate magic,” said Duncan. “I hate fairy tales.”
Julian’s shoulders shook with laughter. “I think I might have to agree with you. You look frightful, you know.”
This criticism coming from someone in Julian’s state was beyond bearable. “You’re one to talk. You’re naked and drenched in blood. You look like a crazed lunatic.”
The prince opened his mouth to retort, but he stopped suddenly. Over the grass from the direction of Midd came the ringing of bells.
Duncan leapt up. “The wedding!” he cried. “Come on! We have to stop it!”
Julian, too, climbed to his feet, the cloak wrapped tightly around him. He wavered unsteadily as he stood on two legs for the first time in five years. “I’m naked and drenched in blood,” he reminded Duncan apologetically. “Besides that, I don’t think I have the strength to run all the way to Midd. Those are the processional bells. The wedding will start in half an hour, maybe sooner, depending on how long it takes them to get from the castle to the church in the center of town. There’s no way we can make it in time.”
After everything they had suffered, Duncan wanted to throttle him. He suppressed the urge, however. “I’ll go,” he said. “I’ll stop the wedding and bring her back here. You, clean yourself up in the pond. My extra clothes are in the bag there.” He was already backing away as he spoke. He thought he saw a protest on Julian’s face, so he turned his back on the prince rather than listen to him.
They had come too far already to give up at the last minute. Duncan broke into a run down the road back to the castle, determined to do everything in his power to bring Margaret and Julian back together, even if he had to interrupt the ceremony itself and drag her kicking and screaming from the altar.
He ran as hard as he could. The castle walls drew near, and a split in the road headed off toward Midd. He knew where the church was, had passed by it once or twice and had seen its location on Alberta’s map of the city. There were sure to be crowds along the route of the processional. He needed only to make certain they did not bog down his progress as he neared the church.
Goldmayne: A Fairy Tale Page 38
