Shadowfell

by Juliet Marillier

  My little fire warmed me as I chopped fern roots and soaked them in water, then mixed them with acorn flesh I had crushed between stones. I would fill a cloth with the resultant pulp and put my feet in it for a while before I tried to sleep. It couldn’t hurt, and perhaps it would help. Maybe, further on, I would find birch trees from whose bark I could make a lining for my shoes. I eyed them, seeing the holes, the places where sole had parted from upper, the frayed cords that no longer tied up.

  As I worked, I saw from the corner of my eye that the pot of onion brew was already being investigated. Small hands were turning Flint’s way-bread over and over; a furred being in a red cap took a sharp-toothed bite from a corner – snap! A skinny creature with fingers like long twigs snatched the treasure away with a hiss.

  ‘Share,’ Long Fingers said. ‘Ssshaaaare.’

  ‘Break it up, then, break it up!’ urged Red Cap, and a chorus of voices chimed in. They would get a crumb each, at most. A creature with a tube-shaped snout leaned over to suck the brew direct from the pot, and another gave it a smack on the head.

  My makeshift poultice was ready. I sat down with Flint’s cloak over my shoulders and the fire warming my face, and wrapped the cloth around my feet. It was awkward, the lack of a binding component making the thing too ready to slip at the slightest movement. I kept perfectly still, wondering what would happen when my meagre offering was gone. Would they be angry and turn on me? Would they vanish without another word? Every part of me was on edge with anticipation, but for what I did not know. Their presence, so close, felt both wondrous and perilous. I had seen their kind as shadows passing in the woods or eyes in the night. Seeing them was my gift and my curse. I had heard their eldritch voices. But they had never come so close before. The squabbling division of the unexpected bounty went on awhile, and then silence fell, a silence so sudden and profound that, against my better judgement, I turned my head to look directly at them.

  They sat in a neat circle, as if holding a council, but every one of them was facing me. I felt the weight of all those eyes: little beady eyes; large lustrous eyes; narrow eyes; long-lashed, lovely eyes; eyes of every shape and colour I could imagine. The smallest was no larger than a hedgehog, and indeed somewhat resembled one. The tallest, standing, might come up to my waist. One or two were still nibbling on fragments of way-bread. Their gaze was neither friendly nor unfriendly, but deeply Other.

  The silence was full of expectation. Plainly, I was expected to make a speech of some kind. With my feet wrapped up, I felt at something of a disadvantage.

  ‘Greetings.’ My voice had a nervous wobble in it. It was one thing to see Good Folk more or less wherever you went, but quite another to be surrounded by them and attempting a conversation. ‘I’m afraid I can’t get up, I have blisters. Thank you for letting me shelter here with you. I regret that I didn’t have something better to share.’

  ‘The brew was sufficient,’ said a little woman in a leaf-coloured cloak, dabbing her lips with a spotted kerchief. ‘Besides, such gifts are not offered for the purpose of nourishment or our kind would all have perished from hunger long ago. They’re given as a sign of trust, and accepted in the same spirit.’ She gave her companions a withering look. ‘Though there’s one or two let their appetites take the place of their common sense.’

  ‘Your friends were welcome to my food. But I will need to forage soon enough. What I have won’t last long.’

  ‘Aye, you’ll be hungry tomorrow,’ said the little woman. ‘Closer to the loch there’s nettles to be found. And you’ll see some wee toadstools at the feet of the great oaks. Take care which you pick or you’ll set your guts in a twisty tangle.’

  ‘There’s fine fish to be had,’ put in Red Cap, revealing that although he looked somewhat like a pine marten, he spoke much as I did. The voice was undoubtedly male, but I noticed the creature bore a sling on his back, and from it peered tiny bright eyes. ‘Along Silverwater, past the big man’s house, a fall known as Maiden’s Tears tumbles down toward the loch. Above it lies a pool where they rise by moonlight to be taken. Their flesh will keep you strong. We will show you.’

  A chorus of protest rang out in many voices, high and low, rough and sweet, sending my flesh into goose bumps with their strangeness. ‘No!’ ‘No show, no show!’ ‘Fool, Red Cap, fool! What are you thinking, to trust such as her?’

  ‘Never mind,’ I said, a shiver of foreboding running through me. ‘I’ll be going on alone.’

  ‘We would expect no less.’ The being who spoke looked something like a human girl of about my own age, but she stood no taller than a young child and was as delicately formed as a wildflower. Her gown flowed around her, drifting gossamer. Her hair was a shimmering fall of silver light. Her eyes were large, lustrous and wholly inimical. ‘I know what is in your mind, Red Cap, and I know who put it there.’ She shot a glare at the little woman in the green cape, who gazed steadily back at her, unperturbed. The silver girl turned to me. ‘Traveller, do not expect our aid. No matter what gifts you may set out for us, the time is long gone when the Good Folk involved themselves in the petty struggles of humankind. Your troubles are of your own making.’

  Fragile as she looked, her voice was strong as oak wood and chill as a stream under winter ice. It was pointless to protest that I had not expected any help, indeed had not dreamed they would come so close. It was useless to explain that I’d never have accepted an offer to have them accompany me, since that would have put them at the same risk I faced every day. She believed me some kind of enemy. Well, I was human and Keldec was human, so perhaps her animosity made sense. It hurt, all the same. In my mind was that sweet, magical day in Grandmother’s garden, and the two little folk with their basket of berries.

  ‘You’ll be moving on in the morning, then.’ It was one of the others that spoke, a creature in a dark glossy cape made all of feathers. Its tone was flat, but its sharp eyes examined me keenly. Its features held something of a man’s and something of a crow’s; they were disconcerting, and I tried not to stare.

  ‘I will, yes.’

  ‘A warning. Red Cap spoke of a fall, Maiden’s Tears. The fish are good, aye. But if you go that way, ’ware the urisk. He will call for help, you ken. Bitterly. Endlessly. Take no heed of that, for if you speak to him, he will follow you on your journey. He will dog your footsteps. He will never let go. A creature such as that is eaten up by loneliness.’

  ‘Thank you for the warning.’ Perhaps I would forego the fish.

  Long Fingers had moved out of the circle to investigate my decrepit foot gear. ‘Shoes,’ he observed. ‘Broken.’

  ‘Leave them!’ The silver girl spoke sharply and the creature shrank back. ‘Enough of this. Leave the shoes and leave the girl. She’s nobody. A wanderer, a vagrant. This was a misguided venture from the first.’

  ‘You make your judgement quickly, Silver.’ Though she spoke quietly, something in the voice of the green-cloaked woman stilled them all. It was as if she had made them draw a long breath together.

  ‘One look is enough.’ Silver – aptly named – had frost in her voice. ‘One word. If matters were as you believe, we would know. We would see it. It would be apparent in an instant. This girl can’t even mend her own shoes. How could she – ?’

  Suddenly I felt my weariness like a weight on my shoulders, and with it a flicker of anger. ‘I can mend them. All I need is some birch bark.’

  Someone hooted with laughter, as if such a notion were utterly ridiculous.

  ‘I said I’ll mend them!’ My voice was as brittle as a dry twig. ‘Thank you for your company and your good advice about fish and the urisk and so on. It’s obvious my presence is causing some dispute amongst you, so you’d best leave me to get on with things by myself. I’ll bid you goodnight.’ Let them take their debate about what I was or wasn’t somewhere else. It was plain enough that my company was unwelcome to them.

  There was a general twittering and whispering, but I caught no words in it. In the growing dark,
the circle of eyes took on an eerie glint, as if they carried their own light within.

  At length the little woman in the green cloak spoke. ‘You’re not afraid on your own?’ she asked.

  ‘Of course I’m afraid.’ Sitting, I could look her straight in the eye. She seemed formidable, her small size doing nothing to diminish the strength and shrewdness of her gaze. Her nose was a sharp beak, her hair a cloud of grey-green fuzz through which her pointed ears protruded. I felt as if she was looking right inside me, into my secret thoughts, and that turned my heart cold. ‘It’s culling time,’ I added, ‘and the Enforcers are around every bend in the road, behind every wall, listening for every careless word. I shouldn’t be talking to you. I should be pretending not to see you.’

  There was a brief silence, then Red Cap observed, ‘You set out supper for us.’

  ‘My grandmother taught me to share,’ I said, tears pricking my eyes. ‘It was a good lesson. She said that even if you think you have nothing at all, there is always something you can give to another. She taught me early to respect your kind.’

  If the Good Folk felt any warmth toward me after this, it did not show on their faces. Indeed, most of them were looking at Silver, as if waiting for her lead. Only the green-cloaked woman had her gaze on me.

  ‘Goodnight to you, Neryn,’ she said. ‘Safe journey.’

  ‘And to you,’ I replied, wondering how she knew my name.

  ‘Nowhere is safe,’ said Silver. ‘Not for your kind, not for our kind, not for anyone. In this benighted realm, all is turned to darkness.’

  ‘The wolves howl,’ put in Long Fingers.

  ‘The winter bites,’ said Red Cap, and as he spoke, there was a wriggling from the sling on his back, as if whatever was there had burrowed down deeper.

  ‘King’s men come with cold iron,’ said the crow-like being. ‘They seek out our hidden places.’

  ‘I know that, and I am sorry for it. If it was in my power to help, I would. But all I can do right now is follow my own path.’

  ‘You will be cold.’

  ‘Lonely.’

  ‘Hunger and thirst will walk the road with you, every step.’

  ‘The wind will chill you. The rain will soak you. Your shoes will break apart.’

  ‘Many trials lie before you.’ Even the woman in the green cloak had joined in now. ‘You will be tested to your limit.’

  ‘Enough!’ I snapped. ‘My father died not long ago, I’ve lost the last of my family, and I’m tired. I’m terribly tired. Stop making me sad and let me sleep.’

  They vanished as if they had never been, fading into the stones and the water and the darkness of the forest. I felt instantly ashamed of myself, but when I whispered, ‘I’m sorry,’ there was only the night, and the call of a bird, and silence.

  I dreamed the Good Folk were in their circle again, with a furious debate raging among them.

  ‘Her? A wee lassie with holes in her shoes? You’re off your head!’

  ‘What about the way she shared her food with us? If that’s not the Giving Hand, then I’d like to know what it is!’ The creature who spoke resembled a small bush, for it was all over twigs and leaves, with eyes like ripe berries set deep in the foliage.

  ‘Sorrel speaks wisely, as always,’ said the woman in the green cloak. ‘You felt the girl’s presence as we all did, don’t deny it. It was powerful. Compelling. A pull the strongest of us would find hard to resist. It makes no difference if she’s a wee lassie or an old woman of seven-and-seventy.’

  ‘The Giving Hand?’ A wispy, big-eyed being spoke, its voice all scorn. ‘Easy enough to give when you’ve plenty to spare. Didn’t you see that supply of way-bread? Let’s see how giving the lass is when she’s half-starved and too weak to forage.’

  ‘And even if you’re right, Sage,’ said a little man in a rattling cape of nutshells, ‘what’s one out of seven?’

  Red Cap cleared his throat. Now he was seated by the banked-up fire and he had a miniature version of himself in his arms, up against his shoulder. The infant from the sling; perhaps he was soothing it after a nightmare. ‘It’s a start, that’s what it is,’ he ventured, eyes going from the little woman, Sage, to Silver and back again, as if he were not sure which of them might bite first. ‘Give this lass time and we’ll know one way or the other.’

  Sage folded her arms, her head on one side as if she was thinking hard. ‘It wouldn’t want to be too much time,’ she said. ‘Whether she’s what I think she is or not, her gift puts her in danger. Let her fall into the hands of king’s men and we might lose our only chance.’

  ‘This is utter nonsense! I can’t believe so many of you have let yourselves be caught up in such foolishness.’ Silver spoke with sharp authority. ‘You’re meddling in matters that lie far beyond your understanding. Ancient things. Weighty things.’ A pause. ‘Perilous things.’

  ‘Aye,’ put in the big-eyed being, ‘you’d stir up what’s best left sleeping and bring down disaster on all of us.’

  ‘When has our kind ever joined with their kind in a venture that did not end in catastrophe?’ asked Silver. Clearly no answer was expected, but the bushy creature, Sorrel, spoke up.

  ‘In the war between the Sea Folk and the brollachans,’ he said smoothly, as if he had only been waiting for the opportunity to provide this information. ‘A human fellow. A Caller. But for his leadership, the brollachans would have been wiped out in the north, and the human folk of the isles along with them. It’s in the long songs. Even you cannot argue with those, Silver.’

  ‘A story. That’s all it is, an old tale. Those times are gone. To do this would go against everything we are; it feels wrong, it smells wrong, it’s as wrong as an eaglet in a dove’s nest. Human folk got Alban into this sorry state. Let human folk get it out again. It’s not our fight, it’s not our quest, it’s not our business.’

  ‘Alban is our home,’ Sorrel said. ‘Since time before time; since long before humankind set foot on this shore.’

  ‘What will you do when the storm comes?’ put in Sage, her eyes fixed on Silver. ‘Defend your home or lie down and let it fall to pieces around you?’

  The answer to this, I did not hear, or if I did, it was gone when I awoke. But everything about the dream seemed real: the harsh urgency of the Good Folk’s whispered interchanges, the cryptic references to me and my journey, the dark blanket of the night and the cries of owls in the trees above. I wondered if it had been no dream at all. Perhaps, thinking me asleep, they had decided to debate my worth or my future or whatever it was, and I had been just sufficiently awake to hear them. One out of seven. Seven of what?

  Next morning, when I rolled out of the warmth of the cloak, I found that my footwear had been repaired, the torn uppers cobbled together with tiny fine stitches and the linings replaced with a flexible substance like tightly packed cobweb. When I slipped the shoes on, they were no longer too small but fitted me perfectly.

  I knew it was perilous to accept fey gifts. The king’s wrath fell swiftly on anyone found to be in possession of such an item. A wooden spoon that happened to have a magic symbol carved on the handle, or a piece of weaving that was a little too expert, could see a house burned to the ground with the occupants still inside. No matter if the spoon had been carved by someone’s old grandfather, or the weaver simply happened to be clever with her hands. Under this king, suspicion was as good as proven fact. And Keldec’s will was absolute.

  I wondered, often, what kind of man it would take to carry out an Enforcer’s duties. Did the king use fear to keep them obedient? Did he offer rewards they could not refuse? It seemed to me it would be better to die standing up to a tyrant than to survive as a tool of his will. If I ever had to face the Enforcers, I hoped I would be as brave as Grandmother had been.

  ‘Many trials lie before you,’ I muttered to myself. ‘You will be tested to your limit.’ True, maybe; but as a piece of advice, not especially helpful. As for the shoes, clearly mended by no human hand, I must wear them
. With autumn closing in, and many days’ walking over rocky hillside and untracked forest ahead of me, I simply could not do without them.

  I remembered the settlement of Silverwater clearly. It lay on the shore of the freshwater loch, a collection of mud-and-wattle buildings with roofs of thatch, all surrounded by a dry-stone wall. The most substantial building was fashioned of shaped stones and had a small tower. It was the home of the district chieftain, Dunchan. A long time ago the folk of his household had given Father and me two nights’ shelter. We’d earned our keep by shovelling cow dung the first day and cleaning out a privy the second. Father had done most of the work; back then, he’d been a strong, fit man, though given to bouts of melancholy. In that household the meals had been good and few questions had been asked. We’d done the work we were given, kept ourselves to ourselves and, on the third day, moved on.

  I could reach that place by tonight. The loch was in sight, and if my memory served me well, the settlement was about a half-day’s walk along it. Maybe I should change my plan. If I told a convincing story, perhaps Dunchan’s folk would give me work over the cold season, and I could move on north in springtime when there would be good foraging in the woods. That made sense, provided they believed I was no threat.

  I glanced down at my shoes with their fey mending. Walk into Silverwater wearing those and I’d be handed straight to the authorities. Even a tolerant household like Dunchan’s could not afford to ignore such plain evidence. And what about the Cull? I had no idea which way those Enforcers were headed after they’d worked their evil in Darkwater. The path of the Cull was different every year; the order in which settlements and farms were visited was never the same. Some escaped altogether, though nobody could ever be sure that would happen. The element of surprise let Keldec cast his net more effectively. Folk never knew when the Enforcers were coming. To seek shelter at Silverwater might be to bring down disaster on that household.

  Before the sun was at its peak I reached the loch shore. I did not walk on the path by the water, for it was busy. Cull or no Cull, life had to go on. I saw men fishing, boys with geese, a girl with a small herd of goats. And from time to time I saw folk scrambling to the side of the track when drumming hoof beats announced the arrival of a group of black-cloaked Enforcers riding their big dark horses. They went in pairs, harnesses jingling with silver, leather-helmed heads high, round shields blazoned with the Stag of Alban: the king’s emblem. Mostly they were travelling eastward, as if returning to Summerfort, where Keldec’s household spent the warmer part of the year. A shiver went through me. The king might still be in residence there now. My journey would take me right by that place, close enough to be almost sure of meeting Enforcers on the way. I would not hasten the day when that might happen. I kept to the precipitous slopes of the forest, letting the trees shield me.