Once Upon a Dreadful Time

by Dennis L McKiernan

  As they rode, Lady Simone, who had not yet travelled extensively in Faery, shifted about on her sidesaddle and said, “I just don’t understand it, Céleste, how can we in the Springwood and those in the Summerwood and Autumnwood and Winterwood all be riding starwise—which I still think of as being northerly—when it is said that Valeray’s palace lies central to the four Forests of the Seasons?”

  “ ’Tis Faery,” grunted Émile.

  “Oh, Papa,” admonished Avélaine, “that’s no explanation.”

  “It’s as good as we’ll get, I ween,” said Émile, cocking an eye at his beautiful black-haired daughter, then swinging his gaze toward Céleste.

  Céleste grinned and said, “Sieur Émile is not far off in his opinion.”

  “Oh, Maman,” said Avélaine, “do you not remember what Reydeau said?”

  “He taught us many things, Avi,” said Simone.

  “I mean about Faery being like a great jigsaw puzzle, all the pieces separated from one another by the twilight walls.”

  “Oui. He said that like a jigsaw, some pieces touch upon many others while some touch upon few . . . and some just one.”

  “Well, there you have it,” said Avélaine. “It means that King Valeray’s realm touches upon just four other realms: the four Forests of the Seasons.”

  “Even so,” said Simone, “how can Valeray’s demesne be surrounded when no matter which of the four forests we cross from, we ride through them starwise bound?”

  Avélaine shrugged and turned to Céleste, but before the princess could comment, Blaise said, “In Faery, when one crosses a border bearings oft seem to shift—this way and that and the other—and sometimes not at all, and one never knows which direction one will be facing after passing through a bound.”

  “Even so,” said Simone, “for a demesne to be completely surrounded when everyone comes at it from the same direction, well, do you not find that odd?”

  “It does seem passing strange, Maman,” agreed Blaise.

  Céleste smiled and said, “Papa calls his demesne ‘Le Coeur des Saisons.’ ”

  “The Heart of the Seasons? Whatever for?” asked Avélaine.

  “Because it stands central to the Forests of the Seasons, hence it is the heart, the core, the hub, lying amid all four. The only way in is through one of the four and there are but four ways out. Papa also believes that it is his demesne that somehow allows the four forests to remain as they are: everlasting spring, summer, autumn, and winter.”

  “Ooh, then it is the source of the magic?” asked Avélaine.

  Céleste turned up her hands. “ ’Tis a mystery, that.”

  “Non, not a mystery,” growled Émile, though he was smiling, “but instead, as I said, ’tis Faery.”

  “Papa is right,” said Laurent, running a hand through his red hair, red but shading toward auburn. “Faery is a strange place with its twilight walls and creatures and marvel and magic and peril.”

  Blaise laughed. “Ah, brother, mayhap I have seen enough of peril, but of mythical and mystical creatures and uncommon beings, I can never get my fill.”

  “Speaking of uncommon beings . . .” whispered Avélaine, pointing.

  From under shrubbery and from behind clumps of grasses and from among tree roots, tiny folk, no more than a foot tall at most and many quite a bit smaller, stepped out from hiding and took off wee hats and stood and bowed or curtseyed as Princess Céleste rode by. And in one place they passed by an Homme de Vert, a twelve-foot-high manlike being all covered in leaves who respectfully bowed as well. Céleste acknowledged his and the others’ obeisance with inclinations of her head.

  “Where are the common folk?” asked Simone.

  “Oh, la!” exclaimed Avélaine. “Can anyone who lives in Faery be said to be common?”

  Céleste laughed and said, “We will pass through several villages and by farmsteads along the way, Lady Simone.”

  “Tended by humans?” asked Simone.

  “Some, but not all,” replied Céleste.

  They rode in silence for a while, but as they fared down into a vale, with a plunging white waterfall of snowmelt to their right cascading down into a tumbling stream to feed the dell crowded with cherry trees in full pink bloom, Avélaine swept her arms wide and said, “Look about you; isn’t it marvelous? I mean, even the lands are numinous. We ride in a realm of everlasting spring.”

  Blaise smiled. “Clearly, Avi, you are besotted with this world.”

  “To be sure, I am, now that I’ve escaped the clutches of that dreadful Lord of the Changelings.”

  “Thanks to Céleste and Roél,” said Laurent.

  They passed along the dell humming with bees harvesting nectar and pollen from blossoms on branches reaching forth to fill the air with gentle fragrance. Hummingbirds, too, flitted among the blooms along with gossamer-winged Sprites and gentle butterflies, all sipping nectar.

  On they rode passing across high bluffs and along meandering streams and down long slopes and up sharp rises, and everywhere they went, spring lay on the land: from the chill onset stirrings of the season to the warm days leading into summer, the forest ran the entire gamut. In places there was snow yet clinging to deep shadow, while in other places flowers were in full bloom and warm zephyrs caressed the passersby. Birds sang for mates, and mushrooms pushed up through layers of leaves. Stags bounded away from their paths, some with their antlers nought but buds agrowing, while others had velvety coverings over tines, and still others had full racks with shreds of velvet dangling or gone altogether.

  “Give me a good pack of dogs and my bow,” said Laurent, “and I would have us our dinner.”

  They rode onward moments more, passing through a grove of bourne-side willows leafed out in green as if in late spring. And as they cleared the dangling strands, a wood grouse sprang up from a tuft of grass nigh underfoot and hammered away. The horses snorted and shied, yet firm hands kept them under control. “Ah, there is the game of my choice,” said Émile, his gaze following the flight of the bird. “Hard to bring down, but oh so good on the table.”

  “I prefer pheasant to grouse,” said Simone.

  “Mère always claimed she could tell the difference,” said Laurent.

  “Well, I can,” replied Simone, “and if you ever took the time to savor the meal instead of wolfing it down, you could too.”

  “They eat like I do,” said Émile. “On the battlefield, it is an advantage.”

  “But most of the time you are not on the field,” said Simone. “And there is indeed a difference between grouse and pheasant, though both are quite delicious.”

  “Me, I like spit-roasted boar,” said Blaise. “A good hearty joint and a mug of ale and a bit of bread, that’s all I ask for.”

  Roél laughed and said, “Given the dining habits of you and Laurent and our sire, the entire hog would vanish in but moments.”

  Blaise broke out in laughter and nodded his agreement.

  As onward they rode they spoke of game and hunting and good meals and other such talk, and they stopped occasionally to water the steeds and give them a bit of grain, as well as to take a bite of food or drink and to stretch their legs and otherwise relieve themselves.

  But these pauses were short ere they resumed travel through Céleste’s realm. Occasionally they passed by farms, where pigs wallowed and chickens scattered and cows and sheep grazed on green slopes. Farmers and their wives and children oft came to their fences of split rails or stacked fieldstone, and they would remove their hats and bow and curtsey as the princess rode past. Some of these folk were human, while others were small brown men and women that Céleste called Hobs, a folk somewhat like Brownies, though quite mischievous and given to pranks. And at one place they passed, the crofter seemed to be a Gnome.

  The princess never failed to acknowledge these subjects of hers as on passed the rade, and when she was gone the farmers and wives returned to their tasks of driving geese and milking cows and gathering eggs and sweeping floors and muck
ing stalls and other such chores and domesticities.

  On rode the cavalcade, while Céleste and the others spoke of this and that, of twilight walls and the wonders of Faery, of grimoires and amulets and swords and rings and other things of magic, all of them quite rare.

  “But what of Coeur d’Acier?” asked Avélaine. “Is it not a magic blade from Faery?”

  “Ah, Heart of Steel,” said Céleste, glancing at Roél and the sword at his side. “Flashed in silver and bound by runes it is, and hence does not twist the aethyr, and therefore Roél can bring it into Faery without facing the wrath of the Fey. It is indeed a marvelous blade, but it came from the mortal world.”

  “Non,” objected Émile. “If I understand Sage Geron’s words and those of Roél, it might instead have come from the Three Sisters, and if the three Fates are not of Faery, then whence come they?”

  “That I do not know,” said Céleste. “The Sisters Wyrd, Lot, and Doom are an enigma unto themselves, and who can say whether or no they are Fey? Not I nor any I know. But as to Coeur d’Acier, it was Sage Geron who gave it to Roél there in the mortal world.”

  “A fine point, I would say,” said Émile, lifting an eyebrow askance.

  Céleste laughed. “Indeed it is.”

  And so they left it that way, with no further explanation, as four separate cavalcades in four separate domains respectively rode through the Springwood, the Summerwood, the Autumnwood, and the Winterwood, all heading starwise toward the completely surrounded demesne of the Castle of the Seasons.

  In midafternoon a full day later, into Valeray and Saissa’s realm rode the four individual retinues, and were Lady Simone able to see each one enter she would have said the entourage of the Springwood came in from the east, while that of Alain’s Summerwood entered from the south, and Liaze’s Autumnwood contingent broached the west, while Borel’s Winterwood band, with its Wolfpack leading, entered from the north. Indeed, though all fared through the marked places on their own starwise margins—the sunlight fading as they neared the ebon heart and then returning as they passed through—they emerged travelling dawnwise, sunwise, duskwise, and starwise into their sire and dam’s domain—one moment they were travelling starwise, and the next in another direction, all but the Summerwood band, that is, for starwise they continued.

  In the warm breeze, three of the rades paused to shed cloaks and other outer clothes, especially those from the Winterwood, for they had come into summertime here in this small realm. And as the sun slid down the sky, on they rode toward the distant castle, with its tall, gleaming spires rearing high and flying long banners of bleu and rose and vert and rouge in the gusting wind.

  Nigh sunset, one after another the cavalcades arrived on the castle grounds, and, as each did, the men in the war bands sounded horns, signaling the identity of their principality, answered in kind by horns from the ramparts, proclaiming the king’s own call. And across the drawbridge above the moat rode the four contingents, the heavy wood of the span ringing under hooves, and then on flagstone as they passed through the gates.

  In the courtyard beyond, the full staff of the castle was turned out, all but the ward on the walls, and gaiety swirled about as did the breeze while families and friends and acquaintances were reunited and lovers met lovers again. And amid the delight of reunion, squealing and laughing and riding high on Borel’s shoulder, three-summers-old Prince Duran—waving his toy horse in the air and calling out, “Asphodel!”—was paraded around the bailey, with a small brown sparrow flying about both man and child and chirping in jubilation, while four deadly knights—Luc, Roél, Laurent, and Blaise—smiled and embraced and clapped one another on the back and spoke of a testing of mettle. And amid this hullabaloo, the Wolves looked to Borel for instruction and, receiving none, looked toward his mate Michelle, for Borel had been teaching her their language, yet she, too, was caught up in the greetings and gave them no guide, and so they flopped down upon shaded stone.

  And as the sun slid into the horizon, pursued by a fingernail-thin crescent of a moon, mid all the babble, Queen Saissa, her black hair astir in the breeze, her black eyes snapping with urgency, gathered Céleste and Liaze and Camille, and said, “As soon as you are freshened up, fetch Lady Simone and Michelle and meet me in the green room, for surely we must talk.”

  4

  Preparation

  “Ah, a monkshood leaf preserved on its autumnal cusp—perfect,” muttered Hradian as she scrabbled among her ingredients. “Powerful she was, but a fool, Little Sister Iniquí. . . . Now for a chrysalis. Yes, here is one. Wait, wait, my love, this is of a death’s-head moth. Not good. Not good. Instead I need a—Ah, where did I... ? How Iniquí died, a mystery, but I knew she was after the paramour of that trull Liaze. . . . Here we are, the chrysalis of the papillon doré. Perfect! But I didn’t know just why she would seek out Luc. Yet through my scrying, I now realize what she was after—Huah? Merde! I do not have the skin I need.”

  Irritated, Hradian moved away from the workbench and through the doorway and onto a platform jutting out some foot or so above the scum-laden mire. On the flet squatted an overlarge, bloated toad, one of its eyes shut as if asleep, but the other one open and watching for a midge or fly or other insect straying within range. Hradian hissed words at the warty creature. Its long tongue lashed out to snatch a large fluttering moth from the foetid air, and, after a moment of swallowing, the toad waddled to the edge of the overhang and toppled off to plop into the bog; with awkward but strong strokes of bulbous hind legs, and ineffective and feeble strokes of tiny forelegs, down it dived under the surface of the ooze.

  Hradian returned to the workbench and made ready—moving things from here to there, setting a tin pot upon a tripod and placing a small but unlit fat-burner beneath. She laid out on the table an especially prepared square of vellum, its color flesh-tone, though nigh alabaster, and she weighted down the corners with odds and ends to hold it flat. She arranged other jars and vials and laid out ingredients and examined all, often referring to her grimoire. Finally satisfied, she waited, for there was little else she could do until the last component was obtained. Then she sat on the high stool and shifted a candle closer to her spell book. But even as she idly turned through the pages describing the preparation of the potion, her thoughts were upon revenge. “First to die was Rhensibé,” Hradian muttered, her mind going back to the day in a ramshackle tavern when she discovered that her eldest sister had been slain. . . .

  No one took note of the old woman entering the small saloon to set her bundle of twigs down by the door. She shook out her shawl, drops of rain flying wide. Then, through the reek of unwashed bodies and acrid woodsmoke and days-old vomit and piss and belch and fart, slowly she made her way among the gathering to the wooden plank that served as a bar. The babble of conversation did not pause, for remarkable news had come by the tinker standing at the fireplace and warming himself.

  “Tore apart, she was.”

  “How?”

  “By the prince’s very own hands, I hear.”

  “What’ll it be, Goody?” asked the barkeep.

  “A toddy,” replied the old woman.

  “How could someone tear a body apart with nought but their bare hands?”

  “ ’F he were an Ogre, he could,” said someone.

  “Non, the prince be no Ogre,” said another. “ ’Stead, I deem ’twere a sword what took her down.”

  “Where d’y’ say this happed?” asked another still.

  “Here you are, Goody. That’ll be a copper.”

  The old woman fetched a coin from the small pouch at her belt.

  “The Winterwood: that’s where it happened. That’s where the prince was.”

  “The Winterwood, you say?” asked a large, bulky man, just then joining those nigh the fireplace. “Why, then, that’d be Prince Borel.”

  “Oui, Gravin,” said someone. “Weren’t you listening to the tinker?”

  “Don’t be getting snippy, Marcel. I was in the pissoir.”


  At the naming of the Winterwood and Prince Borel, the old woman turned an ear to the conversation.

  “Oi, now, what is it you really know, Tinsmith?” asked Gravin of the lanky man standing before the flames.

  The stranger shrugged. “Rumor, mainly, though there seems to be something to it. Quite a few were speaking of it as I made my way sunwise.”

  The onlookers waited. The tinker sighed and turned and faced the throng, his dark beard and hair still damp from the drizzle outside. “It seems Prince Borel and his lady were travelling to his manor when they were assaulted by someone—”

  “Someone?”

  “Oui. The rumors say it was either a fiend of Enfer, or a vile mage, or a maleficent witch.”

  The old woman’s dark eyes widened, and she leaned forward, the better to hear.

  “And then . . . ?”

  “Well, they were in the Winterwood when the attack came, and apparently the attacker was torn asunder.”

  “By the prince?”

  “By his woman?”

  The tinker shrugged, but Gravin said, “Most likely it was by his Wolves. Savage they are, I hear, when the prince be threatened.”

  “What about his sword? Couldn’t he have cut the attacker up with his sword?”

  “Non,” replied Gravin. “The prince, he doesn’t carry a sword. Just a long-knife and a bow, or so they say.”

  “What about something like a Bear? I mean, there’s a rumor that a Bear sometimes is seen in the company of the prince.”

  The pot-mender shrugged and turned back to the fire.

  A momentary silence fell upon the gathering, and the old woman cleared her throat and asked, “Did the attacker have a name?”

  “Arr, a meet question, Goody,” said the barkeep. “Did the attacker have a name? I mean, mayhap we can riddle out whether it were a fiend, a mage, or a witch.”

  The tinsmith sighed and said, “The only thing I heard was that it was one of Orbane’s acolytes.”