Max was in the process of screwing up his courage, preparing to step out into the road to block the girl’s progress, when a new development interrupted his plans. The heavy sounds of approaching horses rose from behind the girl, farther down the road.
Only a moment later, three riders appeared from around the bend. They were three knights of the gentry — that much was immediately obvious. They were dressed in armor of shining plate over chain mail, and wore bright surcoats over that, decorated with complex heraldic devices on their breasts. The warhorses they rode were huge and intimidating beasts, snorting and thundering.
The dark girl turned to watch them as they rode up to her. She seemed unconcerned, only mildly curious, and made no move to flee, or even step off the road. The riders reined up next to her. Their horses’ great hooves kicked up mud in their efforts to stop, spattering the girl’s white legs and the hem of her fine dress.
“Well, here’s an unexpected prize on a dreary day,” one of the knights said. He was clean shaven and fair haired. His device was two golden gryphons, addorsed, with their wings abased. “What’s your name, girl?” he said, unsheathing his most dazzling smile.
“I have many names,” she said, “and I change them often, lest I begin to think of myself by one of them more than another. Then one of my rivals might learn of it and use it to conjure against me.”
“Many names is fine,” a second knight said, “as long as I can steal a lusty kiss from each one.” That earned a laugh from the first knight, but the girl and the third knight remained silent and unimpressed by the jape. The third knight wore a deep scowl.
“We’re wasting time here,” the third knight snarled. “I want to be under good cover before the rains come again.” He had dark hair and a dark beard that was cut into a single point that jutted from his chin like a dagger. His armor was enameled in a midnight blue, and his device was a red falcon at prey, against a field of vert. “You, girl. We’re on our way to Hamelin Town to reinforce their imperial garrison.”
“To greatly improve it,” the second knight interrupted. He had long and curly brown hair, but a darker beard and mustaches. His device was a purpure vine against a barry of twelve in argent and azure.
“Tell us if we’re on the right road and how far away it is,” the third knight continued.
“You’re on the right road,” the girl said, “and going in the proper direction. You’ll reach Hamelin before nightfall if you continue to ride with a purpose. But I can’t say if you’ll get there before the rain resumes.”
“I can,” the goat said, startling all but the girl. Even Max in his hiding place was surprised. “The rain will certainly catch you before you can reach your destination. You’ll arrive drenched to your new duty station.”
“Blood of the gods!” the second knight said. “I can’t abide animals that pretend to a man’s speech.” He dismounted, tossing the reins of his charger to the knight with the gryphons on his crest. “I’d thoughts of making my dinner out of this beast, but a talking one is unnatural. I won’t have it.” He drew his long sword.
“Stop!” the girl cried. “How dare you?”
But it was too late. The Knight of the Vines struck once and then twice. With the second blow the goat’s head was separated entire from its body. Both parts splashed into a brown puddle on the muddy road. There was surprisingly little blood, but a dark and grainy mist seemed to rise from the carcass for just a moment, before fading into the afternoon’s breeze.
“Nicely done, Sir Diederick,” the Gryphons Knight said. “But I venture I could’ve done as much with a single cut.”
“No,” the girl said. “This wasn’t nicely done at all. It’s a fearsome power you’ve released back into the wild world this day. It took me a dozen lifetimes to bind it safely into so gentle a form. I’ll have recompense from you three!”
“The only payment I’ll award you,” the Knight of the Vines said, “is a little bastard to round out your flat belly.”
The girl said nothing to this, but backed away from the dismounted knight, placing a hand on the hilt of one of her daggers.
“It’s not your place to demand anything from sworn officers of the Empire,” the scowling Falcon Knight said. “You should take care, girl, lest we take you to trial as an unauthorized witch. You’ve already admitted as much.”
“The trouble with witch trials,” she said, “is that once in a great while you actually capture a real one. And then the spectacle never turns out the way you anticipate. Often the one who ends up hanged, or drowned, or burned, isn’t the one in the docket.”
The girl and the Falcon Knight glared at each other for a long moment. A few small raindrops pattered against armor and mud, advance skirmishers for the vast army to come.
“Mount your horse, Sir Diederick,” the Falcon Knight said, breaking the brief contest of wills. “I told you we were wasting our time here.”
The Vines Knight slowly, and some might say insolently, cleaned his blade on the goat’s black coat. Then he sheathed it, took the reins back from his fellow knight, and mounted. He smiled one last smile at the dark girl, and blew her a kiss, before the company spurred their horses and rode off along the forest road.
Max stayed in his hiding place, determined to remain quiet as a mouse. Any thoughts he’d entertained about confronting this dark girl had fled. His new plan was to wait where he was, until, like the three imposing knights, she too had continued on her way.
The girl stood over the goat’s black carcass for a long time, as the rain gradually grew more insistent. Then once again she said, “There will be recompense,” as if making a promise to the dead animal.
After a while she resumed her way, apparently not minding the rain, which had begun falling in earnest by then. When she was directly across from Max’s hiding place in the underbrush, just inside the tree line, she paused in the middle of the road and looked in Max’s direction, as if she could see him, or at least knew he was there.
In his hiding place, Max was frozen in fright. Though he was certain of his concealment, she was looking directly at him. What should I do, he frantically wondered?
Then, never having spoken to him, the girl turned away and continued down the road. Soon enough she’d disappeared around a bend. Max stayed in place for many long minutes afterward, hardly daring to make a sound, and trying to understand what he’d witnessed. After a time, getting wetter all the while, he recalled his original desire to help himself to some of the goat’s meat for his dinner.
The animal’s of no use to anyone but me, he reasoned. So I might as well cut myself a roast. It’s newly dead, so there’s no chance it will be rotted like the last meat I had the misfortune to eat. And I’d best build my evening’s fire soon, before there’s no wood dry enough to light.
Timid as a deer, ready to spring away at any provocation, Max ventured out into the road. He walked a few paces up its length, to the goat’s carcass, where he used his sword to hack and chop at it. In little time he’d cut himself several strips of meat. He brought the smallest one up to his lips to taste at it, never having tried goat before.
He nearly gagged.
“This wretched thing’s flesh tastes of ashes and dust!” he said aloud.
He dropped the slice of goat’s meat and looked all around him accusingly, though there was no longer anyone there to complain to. Out in the middle of the road, he was getting wetter under the more direct rainfall. He needed to be on his way. But first he needed to pick a direction in which to continue his wandering. He considered something the knights had said. They were on their way to Hamelin Town, and now Max remembered that he’d once undertaken a journey to the same place. That was where his family and the Peep family had agreed to rendezvous, should they become separated in the Black Forest. More important, if Peter were still alive, that’s where he’d most certainly be.
Frost Taker practically hummed in its sheath.
“Peter has my inheritance,” Max said. “The dirty thief
stole it from me and thinks he got clean away with it. Time to set things right.”
Frost Taker silently agreed.
“I can easily avoid any number of soldiers and silly little girls along the way. And Hamelin will certainly welcome someone like me — a fierce warrior, and a hunter of men.” He thought of the warm beds and cooked meals that are always available in towns. So, like the three knights and the dark girl before him, Max set off in the direction of Hamelin.
AN HOUR LATER MAX WAS DRENCHED and miserable again. The cold rain had steadily increased in intensity until it had become a downpour. The day had turned dark, either with the coming of night, or by the heavy rain’s shroud, or both combined. He thought about seeking shelter, until the worst of the rain had passed, and there, like an answer to his wish, he spied a house in the distance.
This was a cottage even smaller than the Schoeps’ humble home. My former home, he corrected himself. Its four walls were made of wood planks on top of piled stones. Its roof was made of straw and it had a stone chimney. Its single door was made of stout boards and there was the face of a lion carved in it, with its jaws wide open. A wind chime dangled from one of the eves, with the shapes of stars and crescent moons carved out of copper. Against one wall there were set many clay and porcelain jars, of all different sizes. Some had lids fastened down on them, with wax sealing the rims, while others were left open and were now collecting rain. One jar had a picture of an ancient warship, engaged in a fierce battle, depicted on it. Many seashells were tacked up on the wall, above the jars, arrayed in a complex pattern of shapes and colors. Indecipherable runes had been inscribed all around them, in white paint against the wall’s natural brown. To one side of the cottage, large rounded stones, each one draped in a cloak of deep green moss, were set out to enclose a rectangle of yard, which was filled with smaller pearl-white pebbles. There was the skeleton of a great beast lying in this enclosure. Max couldn’t tell what sort of creature it had been, but in life it would have been large enough to swallow Max whole without the need of any of the many long fangs in its jaws. A hundred tiny green lizards sat on rib and skull, or scampered along the other parts, making their home among the bones. Welcoming light shone from the cottage’s one visible window, which had real glazing fitted into its frames. A fat toad of many colors sat on a stump outside of the door, and watched Max as he approached.
“Croak,” the toad said.
Max ignored it.
“Dinner’s almost ready,” the toad said next, which Max couldn’t ignore.
All of a sudden, Max realized where he was. This must be the strange girl’s house, and he turned away from the cottage, determined to be on his way again, despite the cold and rain. But before he’d made more than a few steps, the lion-faced door opened to reveal the dark girl standing in the threshold, silhouetted by warm and inviting yellow light.
“I was beginning to worry you hadn’t received my invitation,” she said, to Max’s retreating back.
“Huh?” Max said, turning to face her.
“Won’t you come out of the rain?” she said, stepping to one side, to wave him in. “Fafnir was right. Your supper’s almost done.”
“My supper?”
“Yes.”
“For me?”
“Exactly so, though I hazard there might be enough for me as well.”
Max stood in the wet yard, staring at her, mouth agape.
“If you can’t conclude whether or not you’re hungry, you might as well debate the matter in here, where you can at least get warm and dry while you decide.”
After another moment, Max shrugged and entered the cottage.
“Welcome to my home, Max,” she said, as he passed over her hearth.
“How do you know my name?” He stopped again, ready to bolt away.
“A simple working. You don’t change your name often enough to hide it from one such as I.”
DINNER CONSISTED OF PLUM PUDDING, a mountain of green peas, and a score of plump stuffed baby quail, baked into a flaky pie. Then there were buttered new potatoes and a dripping red roast, which the truly lovely girl invited Max to carve at as often as he liked. There were brown rolls just out of the oven to dip into the gravy or sop up the meat drippings. After all of that, there were fine cakes and golden mugs of beer, which, in the years before, Max had only been allowed to try once in a great while, on special occasions. But the girl, who would never speak her true name no matter how often Max asked, allowed him to drink as much beer as he liked. “I’m the Black Forest,” she’d said once, in reply to his oft-repeated question, but that answer only confused him all the more.
“Are you married?” Max said, after taking a long draft of beer to wash down a mouthful of cake.
“Never,” she said.
“I could marry you,” he said, in a calculated offhand manner, as though he were willing to do her a favor in return for her kindness. He reasoned that he could do a lot worse than wedding a girl this young and pretty, who was also enthusiastic about feeding him. “I’m a man grown now and at an age when I should begin to think of such things.”
“And perhaps we can talk about that someday, Max, but not just yet. You’ve so much to do for me first.”
“Like what?” He began to look suspicious.
“Before all else, before you even take your revenge against your younger brother, for his sins against you, you will first become the instrument of my revenge against those who’ve so gravely insulted me today. You’ll punish those three knights of the road, and all of their comrades in arms, and perhaps even the entire Hamelin Town, which they claim to rule. That’s why I summoned you here tonight.”
“How did you know about my brother?”
“I discerned ever so much about you when I first saw you in the woods. Your hatred and desire was a beautiful fire in the rain. How could you hope to hide among mere leaves and branches, with a flame that burned so brightly? And oh, Max, such a consuming will you have. By the terrible power of your will alone, you’ve managed to imbue a dull and lifeless blade with a modest touch of real magic, even though you’ve no understanding or practice in the craft. You’ve impressed me, Max. I’ve never seen such a thing done before, and would have considered it impossible before today.”
“Frost Taker will help me get my inheritance back from Peter.”
“Perhaps so, but consider some of the other artifacts and instruments here in my home. Some of them have much greater powers than a mere magic blade, the most powerful of which can still only destroy one soul at a time. There are better things here you could learn to use.”
Max looked again about the cluttered room. Her cottage was bigger inside than out, which had disturbed him at first, until he’d decided that he must not have gotten a good look at the place in the dark and pouring rain. There were many more jars inside than out. Most of these were small ones, full of all sorts of tinctures and powders, the girl had said. Max didn’t know what a tincture was, but knew that things in such tiny jars are usually women’s stuff, so he didn’t concern himself with them. There were also uncounted weapons in the place, stacked and leaned and placed everywhere, without rhyme or reason. He saw many more daggers, hanging from thongs, or sitting on tables, or stuffed into bookshelves to separate one book from another, and to mark a place that she intended to return to again. There were swords too, most of them so much finer than Frost Taker. And there were spears, and slings, and arrows, and other things that he didn’t recognize, but which she assured him were absolutely instruments of mortal intent. She also had more books and scrolls than he’d ever seen, outside of the one time he’d been allowed inside the great stone library in Old Heidelberg City, when the Family Piper had played there one year. There were a hundred or more dolls, and the girl had said they were powerful conjuring devices, not meant for playthings. But Max assumed she was just embarrassed to still have them, after she was no longer quite young enough to keep such things.
A fat yellow tomcat, covered in old scars, and mi
ssing one eye and most of its tail, stood up from the chest of drawers it had been sleeping on. It leapt ponderously down to the floor, to chase a mouse. When it suddenly moved, Max’s eyes naturally followed it, and so alighted on the top of the chest and the shelves it supported. On the second shelf up, he saw a long wooden flute, which he hadn’t noticed before, embedded as it was among all of the other clutter.
“I can play that,” he said.
“The flute?” she said, following the direction of his gaze. A sly smile began to grow upon her lips. It was the sort of smile from which devils and hauntings and deadly secrets are born.
“Yes, that’s what I do.” And then after a sullen pause, “Well, that’s what I used to do, back when I was young, before the invaders came.”
“Then that’s what you shall do again,” she said, taking him by the hand and leading him over to the old chest and its shelves. She picked up the flute and handed it to him. It was a few inches longer than Frost and made out of a deep red wood, polished to a remarkable finish. “There’s powerful magic locked away in this thing,” she said. “I’ve been meaning to learn to play a pipe someday, so that I could explore the uses this might be put to.”
“I’ll find its power,” Max said, never taking his eyes off it. “What’s its name?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “It came to me long ago, delivered by the trembling hand of a dying prince, who claimed to be the last of a dying race.”
“Fire,” Max said. “Its name is Fire.”
And so it was.
In which Peter returns
at long last to a town
he’d never been to.
IT WAS LESS THAN TWO HUNDRED MILES FROM Frankfurt to Hamelin, as the crow flies. Unfortunately the proverbial crow didn’t design Germany’s autobahn system, which refused to provide Peter with any clear way to drive due north, the direction in which Hamelin was located. The best he could puzzle out, examining his map, was to circle way out and around the Hamelin area, by first going east or west, and eventually tacking back in towards his goal. In his many centuries in the mundy world, Peter hadn’t had much experience driving modern automobiles at all, much less in mundy traffic, and never before on any of Europe’s roadways. Shortly after leaving the greater Frankfurt metropolitan area, he became thoroughly lost.
Peter & Max: A Fables Novel Page 16
