by Jane Yolen
Hard-packed dirt marked a trail that pointed them to a small shack and a wooden dock at the far end of the cavern. They walked the trail carefully. Now was not the time to trip and break a limb, nor the time to make any unwanted noise.
Next to the shack stood a tall, incredibly thin creature in a long, black, hooded robe. Clearly the creature—an it or a he? Aspen could not tell—was the ferryman, for he was holding a poling staff nearly the height of the ramshackle building. He—it—could have been standing there for hours. Or even days. He—it—made no movement even now, or at least none that Aspen could see.
A he, Aspen finally decided, never having seen anything like the ferryman before. The creature reminded him of the kind of bugs that could camouflage themselves like sticks so completely, birds could not distinguish them from the twigs on which they sat.
Looking around carefully, Aspen saw there was no one else around. No soldiers, no guards, no assassins. Jack had indeed done his work well. Aspen was careful not to ask how he had disposed of the guards. He was afraid Jack would tell him.
Or—worse—show him.
The ferryman turned his buglike head toward them, and even from this far away, Aspen felt pinned by the stare of the pale, pupil-less eyes that filled most of the thing’s face.
“What is that?” breathed Snail.
“The Sticksman,” Jack Daw answered her, but looked down at Aspen. “He will ferry you over the river. I hope you brought coins.”
SNAIL TIES A KNOT
Aspen started forward without waiting for the others, but Jack Daw put a hand on Snail’s shoulder. She could feel his nails dig into the flesh, hard enough to hurt but not so hard as to bring blood. She marveled at his control even as she feared it.
“Not so fast, apprentice,” he said, and laughed at the fearful look on her face.
I’ve heard that sound before, she thought, and it wasn’t that long ago!
Only then did she finally realize who the old drow was—the other laugher in the ogre’s room, watching and listening in the shadows as she had been questioned. Probably drinking in her fear and her anger as well. It was said drows loved to feast on famine and gnaw on the bones of the near dead. Said part in admiration and part in awe.
She wanted to ask him why, but didn’t trust herself to say the right thing, so was silent, waiting to hear what he had to say. But she turned her head and glared at him. He made no return of her glare. Indeed, it was as if he hadn’t even noticed.
When he spoke again, it was not what she expected to hear.
“You must tie me up,” he said. “Tightly. As if making sure I could not stop you from getting into the boat. Then when I am found—and I will be found—I can tell them truthfully that the girl tied me up and the prince escaped. No Truth-seeker will be able to get any more out of me than that.”
She knew there had to be more than this simple explanation. Yes, Truth-seekers could sniff out untruths. So what he said made sense—as far as it went. Still, he was leaving so much out. For starters, why he wasn’t coming with them, how he knew he’d be found, what he’d been doing in the ogre’s room. And now she realized he was the one who killed the ogre. He had said it was a drow’s knife!
“But . . . but . . .” It was all she could manage.
“No buts. It must be done. Otherwise, the blame will fall entirely on my shoulders, and I could then no longer help the prince.”
She nodded, as if she understood, but she didn’t. She thought, Once we are in the boat and across the water, why should it matter if Jack Daw can or can’t help the prince? The prince—and I—will be beyond the drow’s reach, and beyond the Unseelie king’s as well.
At least she hoped that much was true.
“What can I tie you with?” She realized she’d made up her mind to do the binding the moment she spoke. Jack Daw’s motives no longer mattered. She would be safer if he was unable to change his mind about helping the prince, because where the prince went, she went.
At least until I’m in Seelie lands.
The drow was already reaching into a deep pocket of his robe. As he pulled out a long braided rope—the kind the hangman used—she understood how planned out the whole escape had been.
Though not, she thought, my part of it. She had been an unwanted knot in the drow’s escape rope from the beginning. Of that she was sure.
“How should I tie you?”
He laughed, that now-familiar sound. “You choose.”
She figured he didn’t expect her—a mere girl, an apprentice, an underling—to make a good job of it. But midwives had to learn to knot well. Yes, they worked with tiny sutures, but they tied them surely and with swift fingers.
A knot, she thought, is a knot. I will tie you up tight, old drow. You will not get out of this bond as easily as you think.
She took the rope.
Their eyes met. This time when she glared at him, he looked away. But a smile played around his severe mouth as if he knew something more and was not telling.
Well, I know something more, too, she thought. I know you were in the room when the ogre was questioning me. And I know how to tie knots. If she was lucky, at least some of that would give her an edge.
“Turn,” Snail instructed him, her voice soft sounding but with a hard edge beneath. Quickly, she looked over at the prince. He was paying the two of them no mind, assuming—in his toffee-nosed way—that they were surely following. He’d almost reached the Sticksman and the flat-bottomed ferryboat. The boatman was facing them and saw what was happening between the apprentice and the drow, but he showed little interest, at least as far as Snail could tell.
“Hands behind you,” she told the drow, in the same soft voice.
“Sir,” Jack corrected.
“Hands behind you, sir,” she said, then began to bind him tightly. He tried to move his wrists, seeking a more comfortable position, and she gave the rope another swift, hard twist, which stopped the movement, causing him to grunt out loud.
His shoulders hunched. She could feel the tension all the way down to his hands.
Then she took out the knife, cut a piece off the hem of her skirt, and, coming around to the drow’s front, held up the cloth.
“I think silencing you is an even better idea,” she said.
His yellow eyes got huge. There was a powerful fury in them. But he was not looking at the hand that held the cloth. He was looking at the other hand, the one that held the knife. He opened his mouth to yell something at her and she stuffed the rag in.
“There,” she said, “you can tell that to the Truth-seeker as well. It may buy you a pardon and us more time, should we need it.” Putting the knife back in her pocket, she bent down and searched his robe. She found two huge butcher knives with obsidian blades and put them into her own pocket.
“I don’t think you will be needing these now.” She smiled.
He growled something indistinguishable through the rag, but curses—as she well knew—didn’t work through cloth. To be extra certain, she cut off another piece of her hem and wound it twice around his face to bind the mouth rag, then tied the ends securely at the back of his head.
“There,” she said, “that should hold you until we are on the water. And Unseelie curses do not go any easier over the water than do Unseelie folk.” She shuddered a moment, thinking about the water, hoping that unease on water was only true of the Unseelie lords and the creatures, and not the underlings like herself.
Then she turned and raced after the prince, who had just reached the ferryboat and was even now speaking to the Sticksman, who’d bent over nearly double to listen to what was being asked.
ASPEN IN ROUGH WATERS
Up close, Aspen decided, the Sticksman was even stranger to behold. His eyes weren’t actually colorless, but the very lightest of blue, like a midwinter sky or an old robin’s egg. And he smelled of something strang
e, something sweet and decayed: rotting pear or last feast day’s pudding. Aspen felt as if he’d met the Sticksman before—though he was certain he hadn’t—or that he would meet him again someday. It was a strange sort of feeling, and he had to physically shake it off, like a wet dog, before getting down to the business of the ferry.
“How much to cross the waters, riverman?” he asked, trying to sound more confident than he felt.
The Sticksman bent over strangely, his waist apparently where Aspen would have thought his chest should be. “Two pennies for each passenger and a silver for the Sticksman.” He cast a blank gaze over Aspen’s shoulder. “Four pennies and a piece, it seems.”
“What?” Aspen said. “We are plainly three.” He pointed to Jack Daw and the girl. Or tried to. They were no longer behind him. Exasperated, he turned and followed the Sticksman’s gaze to see Snail walking slowly toward them, while Jack unaccountably sat on the ground behind her.
“What in the three kingdoms . . .” he began, then stopped. He saw movement in the gloom by the cavern entrance. The movement quickly became figures. He was not sure from this distance, but there was really only one thing they could be with that height and brawn and chest armor, kilts below . . .
“Border Lords!” he shouted to Jack and Snail, hoping that conveyed the situation and its urgency.
Snail’s head whipped up and she looked toward the entrance. She understood immediately and began running toward Aspen.
Why is he still sitting there? Aspen thought, then yelled again. “Jack!”
Jack didn’t move, and now it was too late. The Lords had reached the old drow. Two stopped and swung their weapons at his back, but the rest came on. Aspen could see the shine on their armor and the drawn weapons, and knew he should be doing something, but he was transfixed by the sight of his only friend in Unseelie lands being slaughtered like a trussed ox.
Mab take that stupid girl!
Only Old Jack Daw wasn’t dead. And not dying, either. In fact, he was lurching to his feet, his arms—which had been bound behind him—released by the Border Lords’ swords. He was spitting something out of his mouth.
What a plan! Aspen thought admiringly. He is keeping them occupied whilst we escape!
Jack was now pointing at Aspen and Snail and shouted something Aspen couldn’t make out because Snail had finally reached him and was tugging at his arm.
“Let’s go!” she cried. “Now! Now!”
Her tone finally spurred him to action and he was right behind her when she leaped into the long, thin boat. An arrow whizzed past his head and he threw himself down, stretching flat on the bottom of the boat. His head was right next to the Sticksman’s feet, the creature somehow already aboard though Aspen had never seen him move.
There was a dull thunk and the tip of an arrow was suddenly poking through the side of the boat.
“Time to go, Sticksman,” Aspen called to the ferryman, who stood calmly at the back of the boat, his long pole in the water.
The Sticksman looked down and said placidly, “The coins, young master.”
Three more arrows thunked into the boat and Aspen tried to make himself as skinny as possible. One arrowhead had landed right next to his eye, and he found himself momentarily admiring the workmanship of the thin stone tip.
Then sense returned and he screamed up at the Sticksman, “I am a prince of Faerie!” His face was hot with anger and fear. “When we reach my home my father shall shower you in coin!”
The Sticksman cocked his head to one side. “I do not require a shower of coin.”
The arrows stopped and Aspen heard running footsteps on the dock. He felt tears prickling his eyes. To come so far and be stopped now because of a greedy oarsman.
“I require two pennies per passenger and a silver for the Sticksman,” the Sticksman said, now addressing the runner.
“I have pennies,” Snail cried as she scrambled on her knees to the Sticksman. She reached into her apron and produced four small copper coins. “Midwives always carry coins in case we lose both mother and child,” she explained to Aspen, “and need to pay the Soul Man.”
When Aspen looked dubious, she added, “To put on their eyes for their passage to the Land of the Dead.”
“Land of the Dead?” he said witheringly, as one would to a child who still believed in Father All Fur delivering presents at the Solstice.
“And the silver?” the Sticksman asked, as he took one hand off the steering pole and pulled a long bone knife from his belt.
Aspen glanced at Snail, who shook her head. Then he looked back up into the Sticksman’s big blank eyes, trying not to stare at the knife, trying not to tremble. “I carry no silver,” he said at last.
“Your kind never does,” the girl snapped. “And, of course, your friend didn’t supply it.”
“He had no time,” Aspen snapped in return, emphasizing his own doubt.
But the Sticksman nodded. “Then you shall owe me a single favor.”
Aspen’s instant thought was that a favor from a Seelie prince was worth a lot more than one silver coin, though that thought seemed uncharitable given the situation. And, eyeing the knife, possibly fatal. But before he could agree, a young Border Lord leapt into the boat, bare knees flashing below his kilt.
“I have you,” he cried, hand reaching for Aspen’s throat and smiling so broadly his teeth looked like fangs.
Quick as a snake, and as deadly, the Sticksman lashed out with his dagger.
Without a single cry, the young Border Lord tumbled backward into the water, which suddenly boiled with a red foam.
“He did not pay,” the Sticksman said, voice blunt as a cudgel. “No one boards without payment or promise.”
Gulping, Aspen looked over the side of the boat at the red foam. His throat seemed ready to close, so he turned and said quickly, “A favor. Agreed.”
The Sticksman pushed lightly on the pole and the boat sped away from the dock, faster than it should have, but not fast enough for Aspen’s heart, which seemed to be beating in his throat.
There’s magic at work here, but none I recognize, he thought. It was old magic, from before the time of the fey. He had heard about the day the Unseelie uncovered the cavern and found the Sticksman, who was already there, pole in hand. Aspen had thought it just a tale but now was no longer certain.
Owing such a creature a favor, he thought miserably, is probably a bad bargain.
Still, they were on the water and heading toward the other side.
Whatever gets me home, he thought. And I am a prince. I will keep my promise.
More arrows hit the boat. Even more arrows missed their target and fell in the water. Aspen could hear them splash.
The Sticksman didn’t seem to notice, and no arrows came anywhere near him, as if he were, somehow, invulnerable to them. Or warded against them. “You will need to stand now,” he said. “And draw your weapon.” He looked pointedly at Aspen’s sword.
Aspen chuckled, though with very little humor. “Not till we are out of bowshot.”
The Sticksman didn’t offer an argument. He just shrugged and said in his affectless voice, “They come.”
There were more splashes than thunks now, and Aspen risked a quick peek over the side. Though only twenty pushes on the pole from the dock, the boat was moving swiftly away from the Unseelie shore and heading for the Hunting Grounds. The Border Lords were swarming on the sands, and five of them, one a red-bearded giant, were clustered at the end of the dock. But they could not go across, as there were no other boats or ferrymen. Still—so it seemed—Jack was pushing them into the water, pointing at the receding boat, shouting at the Border Lords to swim after, to shoot.
“Follow!” he screamed. “Or the king will have your heads. If he gets to the farther shore, this is war!”
He is good, Aspen thought. No one will connect him with m
y escape and we are already out of reach.
The Border Lords seemed oddly reluctant to go into the water, though they—unlike the faerie folk—could swim. Aspen had seen them ford shallow streams, and bathe in pools. But here only a few of the younger ones were venturing into the shallows, several in water up to the bottoms of their kilts. They shook their swords and staves in the boat’s direction but did not try to go farther out.
Aspen ducked back down. “No they are not coming,” he scoffed. “They cannot possibly swim to us. The river is swift and deep, and see—they are already backing away. They will have to go the long route. Jack has planned it all well, even to giving himself an alibi.”
The Sticksman glanced over Aspen’s shoulder as the arrows began falling again. “Not them,” he said witheringly before nodding toward the front of the boat. “Them.”
Aspen followed the Sticksman’s gaze, but could see nothing except the boat’s high prow where Snail lay, clutching three knives. He recognized one she’d taken from the ogre’s back. The other two he did not remember seeing at all.
Suddenly, with a roar, a big green wave smashed into the bow and sluiced down the shallow deck, sending Snail sliding along with it. She slammed into Aspen, nearly impaling him with the smaller knife.
He fell backward into the Sticksman’s legs, which felt thin, bony, and fleshless beneath the robes. The roar of rushing water went on, as if they were now in rapids Aspen had not noticed before, but the high waves hitting the boat had calmed.
“There is blood in the water,” the Sticksman intoned.
“Yes, well, you put it there,” Aspen said. Rather snippishly, he thought. Though given the situation, he could forgive himself the tone. He might have said more, but he was trying to disentangle himself from Snail. Unfortunately, she was trying to stand at the same time, and he ended up tripping her instead.
She fell hard into his stomach and he felt the air leave him in a rush. He struggled to push her away.
“Oh, be still!” she shouted.
