Chapter 14: Venturing into the Wilds
“So which way are we headed?” Megan asked as Cassia hitched up the cats and put the extra pack of supplies in the chariot.
“That way,” Ashling indicated. “Towards the Unfordable River.”
“Sounds reassuring,” Megan said dryly.
"Don't worry," Ashling said, "We're headed for the part with the flesh-eating fish, not any of the Jenny Greenteeths, Greentooths, Jennies Greenteeth ... well, there's a bunch of them. Twenty-seven, I think. They might have gone to school together."
Megan sighed. "Flesh-eating fish?"
"And fast-moving rapids. And we're right between a couple of the whirlpools. They'll occasionally try to meander out a bit, just to see if they can get in on the drowning-people action,” Ashling said.
"Whirlpools... don't usually do that."
"Not the whirlpools you're used to," Lani said, "Keep in mind where you're at. The environment is going to have a certain attitude about things sometimes.”
“And we do not just mean flora and fauna,” Ashling said in an attempt to re-seize the conversation. “The magic in the very essence of a place will care deeply about some things and not others. The ballroom at An Teach Deiridh has an incredibly hidebound, aristocratic personality, and there's no reasoning with it—although my cousin Nessa tried once. With visual aids.”
Lani continued the original subject. “Besides, the river has to be pretty bad in order to keep the pack on the other side."
"Pack?" Megan asked, not liking the sound of this.
"You saw some of the pictures of the Wild Hunt. When the huntsman calls them, they can come to him over anything, to anywhere. The rest of the time, when they're not chasing someone down, they need somewhere to be. The plains on the other side of the river is it."
"Oh, well of course. So we're crossing an uncrossable river, in order to go hang out with some hounds that love nothing better than running people down?"
"That's only when the huntsman calls them," Cassia said, "Without his magic behind them, sometimes they like to chase, sometimes they just like to sunbathe. And they're not quite as tireless, only mostly."
"Still, very reassuring," Megan responded.
"Megan, we're going to manage it," Lani said, catching up and laying a hand on Megan's shoulder, "I have some ideas."
"Besides," said Ashling, "Getting there is just half the challenge. Findias itself is bound to be much worse. Enough people have gone there and back that we know about the rivers and hounds. No one gets past the front gates, or if they do, they haven't come back."
"Are you sure you're Seelie?" Megan asked the overly cheerful pixie.
"You get too hung up on the teams things," Ashling answered. "Seelie just comes from an old word meaning cheerful anyway."
"I thought you said it was punctual."
"Punctuality is among my virtues, but it's definitely all about the cheerful part."
"What about the Queen and her General, and those knights? They looked pretty serious."
"On the outside, sure. Inside, they're singing show tunes and doing high kicks. Trust me."
Megan blinked, trying to picture that and failing. "If you say so. Are you going to tell me the real story of where faeries come from next?"
Lani grinned at Megan, "You're catching on," she said quietly.
"Of course I am," Ashling responded without taking any notice of sarcasm or Lani's response, "Faeries come from the dust the eldest Gods rubbed out of their eyes when they first awoke."
"Fascinating," Megan said, "Now, just to check, if Seelie means cheerful, does that mean Unseelie means not cheerful? Because the Gray Lady kind of looks it, but Cassia..."
"I'm crying on the inside," Cassia said without missing a beat.
"I'm sure you are," Megan said.
"You'd think so, but they're actually totally unrelated words, very different entomologies," Ashling said.
"I think you mean etymologies," Megan replied.
"I would, except Unseelie are descended from dragonflies, so it totally applies."
"Aren't Unseelie still faeries?"
"Well of course they are. Are you still worried about the teams thing? There's not as much difference as you seem to think. Sure, the Unseelie are more prone to, say, eat people or cheer for the villain in slasher flicks, but otherwise, not so different."
Megan was about to respond, but Lani shook her head. "I'll keep that in mind," Megan replied instead of her previous question. She reviewed the conversation in her head. “Speaking of the Gray Lady, if will o' wisps feed on emotion, why're some hanging out with her? She's got more of a zombie thing going than an emotional thing.”
“Grief is an emotion,” Cassia said. “Those wisps just don't mind getting the same thick, juicy steak five meals a day.”
“What happened?”
“She lost her kid. A long, long time ago, but it kind of overwhelmed her identity. She's not a zombie. She's a bean sidhe.”
“Banshee? I thought they screamed. She doesn't even talk.”
“Let's just be glad of that, okay?”
After walking a little further in relative quiet, Megan finally asked the other question that had been bothering her. "So, that redcap, the one who chased us before, and was hanging out with his buddies back at—"
"An Teach Deiridh," Lani filled in.
"Yeah, that place," Megan said. "How likely is it he's going to get a bunch of his buddies and come after us now? I mean, obviously someone trapped my father, and they won't want us to get the sword."
"About even odds," Cassia said, "Depending on how much they really want to stop you versus how much they don't want to upset the Queen, or be on Riocard's bad side if you succeed."
"But they came after me before."
"Sure, but no one cared then. You were on Earth. A few of us like the place, but most faeries only visit every now and then. Now, lots of people are watching. You're not just some mortal who doesn't know anything, anymore. You're the King's daughter. People will notice, and care, if you disappear now."
"But they might still come after us?"
"Oh sure. They could. Obviously, someone put an awful lot of effort and magical resources into this. Trapping Riocard isn't a small feat. You don't live for thousands of years, and rule for a lot of those, by being an idiot."
"You don't seem very worried."
"If they come after us, we'll deal with it. I think they're much more likely to hope the river, the hounds, or the city kill us. Of course, I could be wrong."
"And if you are?"
"Then I figure out which of the cats to listen to."
"Which of the cats?"
"Well, yes. Maxwell is pretty sure we can outfight a gang of redcaps or hags or bogies or whatever else there is."
"And Jude?"
Cassia grinned in a way that didn't suggest she wasn't being entirely serious. "He's pretty sure we can outrun you."
Chapter 15: The Unfordable River
The girls looked over the roiling water.
“Well.... Cassia... can you possibly jump it in that thing, if you got enough of a start?”
Cassia surveyed the river. “...Nope,” she said at last.
Meanwhile, the leopard on the left was intently focused ahead, muscles tensing under his fur.
“Maxwell really wants to try, though,” Cassia added.
For a while, they all sat in the near-tangible moonlight, which suffused the night air the way the golden haze had the day. The girls munched on the granola bars and sandwiches that Lani had packed for reasons of Lani. Megan was starving. Of course, she'd been constantly hungry ever since the orange pills hadn't been orange pills anymore. Of course, for this trip, she hadn't even brought the multi-colored ones.
After this makeshift supper, Lani sighed. “Okay, Blankets out. Everyone needs to go to sleep.”
“What?” Megan asked. “You think the situation'll get better if we sleep on it?”
“Sort of,” said Lan
i. “Not in the biological equivalent of tech support way—” at the raised eyebrows, Lani sighed again at having to explain her joke. “The 'have you tried turning it off, and then on again' way. Anyway, never mind. I just need everybody to sleep, and then I'll handle it. But you have to be asleep.”
“What, are you Santa Claus now?”
“Wrong kind of jolly old elf. Or elf-like thing. Look, there are Restrictions, okay? What I need to do is a night-time thing, a non-menehune-are-asleep thing.”
It was Megan's turn to sigh. “Fine, fine. Just....watch out for owls.”
“Just go to sleep.”
They made a makeshift camp, once Cassia agreed her chariot wouldn't be too harmed by a little industrial use. So Megan curled up in the blankets and lay back. The stars burned bright high above, with an intensity, and a feeling of nearness Megan never remembered stars possessing before. She'd heard in freshman science class that the hotter stars burned, the more fuel they were using up. Recalling that, she'd swear half the stars in the sky could disappear at any moment.
She closed her eyes, trying to ignore the sounds of moving wheels and sliding objects, which became strangely fast as she drifted.
Megan dreamed of the castle hallways.
One of the people she'd seen about the prescriptions her mother wanted had told Megan that dreams weren't accessible to all five senses. The scent of some kind of barbecue wafted through the halls nevertheless. Megan followed her nose, ravenous, around twist after twist and turn after turn in the bizarre complex of ornate carpets, stained wood, and bare stone. She waved to a passing bloodthirsty vine. When she came upon the dining hall the smell was coming from, a sea of nightmare faces crowded around a long table, leaving only one chair empty. The huge bird dressed in the middle as the main course was not a roasted, seasoned chicken or turkey or even something like a duck or goose. It had three heads.
Megan stood in the doorway staring at this for a while, but she was still hungry. A large figure with rough hands the size of her head passed her a fork. She took the empty seat. As bones—both those on the plates and those within the arms of some shoving, elbowing diners—cracked open across the table, Megan had her meal.
When she woke, all she could think was that it was delicious.
She wasn't thinking about whether she was supposed to get up, in the not-quite-light of not-quite-dawn.
“Megan!” Lani shouted, suddenly grabbing onto the riverbank.
Megan looked around. A collection of small trees had been uprooted. Their stumps stood on the riverbank, sliced into angled wedges of varying heights, a different rope tied around each. Across the river, the higher ropes provided handholds as the lower ones were bound together with logs for stepping. The logs started off extremely close but eventually became much more sparse. On the opposite side of the riverbank, the sets of ropes were held down by—or attached to—several large rocks.
“Ah. Not done. Right. Sorry, I'll try to go back to sleep.”
“Nope. Doesn't work,” Lani said, pulling herself up. “You made it count as morning. This job is over.”
“Sorry. Oh, well. We'll just be really, really careful for the last bit.” Megan looked over as the others were getting up … and looked at the chariot. “... oh, yeah.”
Cassia stepped over and kicked one of the wedge-stumps, finding that it had, apparently, taken root again. She gauged the level of the slant of the combined area of wood. She and Lani exchanged grins for a moment, then the satyress looked back. “What do you think, boys?”
The leopard in the aviator helmet sniffed hesitantly. His brother simply stood himself near the chariot, muscles tensing again.
Cassia hitched her cats up and took the chariot far back, to where cleared trees had previously been. After a few moments, Jude and Maxwell started running.
In sophomore biology, Megan had learned that the peregrine falcon is the fastest living animal. For a moment, watching the big cats build up speed, it was harder to believe. As they ran up the rickety-but-rooted ramp, the leopards roared like, well, a motorcycle engine. Above that was simply a high-pitched “Yeeeeee-haa!”
Both girls let out a breath Megan didn't know they were holding when the wheels of the chariot hit the opposite bank by the slightest margin. Various bits of grass and chips of bark kicked up into the water by the jump attracted the attention of strange, large fish with noticeable teeth.
“Well, our turn now,” Lani said. She looked at the water. “A bit ...uhm ... slower, and more careful.”
“Yeah,” said Megan.
They tentatively edged their way across the bridge, clutching the ropes more and more as they progressed and had to take wider steps onto fewer logs. As they drew closer to the somewhat less-elaborate moorings on the other side, the ropes drastically angled lower, which meant having to crouch lower to hold on, making it even harder to avoid looking closely at the fish-things that snapped just below the logs. It also made the increasingly bigger steps more awkward.
“Ech. I should have worn gloves,” Megan said as her hand and arm were brush-burned by the rope mid-lunge.
“You should have stayed the heck asleep,” Lani muttered.
Eventually, they managed to toss themselves on the riverbank, breathing heavily for a moment, while Cassia, Ashling, Jude, and the Count all stared at them. Maxwell was busy staring at the snapping fish-things, though Cassia said, “Maxwell, no,” without even looking at him.
Cassia then took some of the scattered logs Lani's frenetic menehune activity had left on that side of the river and started to bind them together with rope from the chariot's pack. Lani occasionally glanced over as she was drawing herself up, twitched slightly, and muttered under her breath about workmanship and Restrictions.
“No rules for me, kiddo,” Cassia said cheerfully as she propped the improvised ramp against the stones. “There. That'll be something for the way back.”
“Is this really the time to be planning the way back?” Megan asked.
“You think we'll have time when we've just stolen a magic sword?”
Chapter 16: The Hounds
Now that she could stop worrying about falling into the river, Megan's attention shifted to worrying about the hounds. She was certain that with all the noise Cassia had made, the smell of the cats, the smell of people, or just bad luck, there would be snarling monster hounds investigating at any moment.
Despite her nightmare imaginings, the area remained quiet. Unfortunately, with the terrain shifting from the plains and wooded terrain on the other side of the river to rocky hills, she also had little idea how big the area was, or how close any of the hounds might be. Suspecting the baying monsters from the paintings around any turn or just behind every rise was, to her mind, almost as bad as actually seeing them. Given the slow and careful progress of the group, Ashling's general quiet, and even Cassia and the cats' going tense, Megan guessed she wasn't alone in her paranoia.
She continued to trust in Ashling's sense of direction, the crow flying out over the hills and scouting ahead, then wheeling back to be certain the others were still following. Despite the extra effort in scaling the occasionally difficult hills, particularly for the chariot, the small group kept making the effort, pausing at the top of each rise to look around at the territory below. Megan always felt safest on the hilltops, but, of course, they couldn't stay there for long.
With the group in the midst of one of the climbs down the back side of one large hill, Ashling and the Count came diving back to the group. "They'recomingthey'recomingrunrunnow!" the pixie shouted all the way. At least she did right up until the point where a nightmare beast came racing over the top of a hill, leaping without hesitation, trying to snap at the bird in mid-air. Either Ashling or the crow noticed in time, and managed to climb, but the Count still lost a couple of tail feathers.
Megan stopped, mid-climb, just staring at the monster dog. She was pretty sure she'd seen a few horses that weren't quite that big—and it sounded like it was just the first
of many. Sounds of baying started echoing through the hills.
"Megan, come on!" Lani shouted, tugging at Megan's jacket. The pair began to run, almost stumbling a few times. Cassia finally reached back, pulling each of them onto the chariot, though they had to split their effort between clutching the side of the chariot and clinging to Cassia to stay in place, as the satyr urged the leopards into a full run. The vehicle bounced and rattled down the hill. More than once, Megan was pretty sure it was going to flip over—at least as many times as she felt like she was going to be thrown free despite her death-grip, and almost as many as the times she thought she was about to be sick.
They reached the bottom in one piece, and Cassia turned sharply, trying to stay in the valleys between the hills so she wouldn't lose speed. Megan, glancing back, started catching sight of more and more massive forms emerging from all over the area, scaling hills to get a view of the area, and forming up into packs before tearing after them.
Caught up in watching the horde forming up behind them, Megan's head whirled around when she heard one of the cats howl a warning, followed by cursing from Cassia in what Megan was pretty sure was at least three languages. She'd heard of packs of dogs or wolves working together to drive prey into traps, which was what she was guessing had just happened, as more of the monster beasts were swarming out over the nearby hilltops.
Cassia pulled on a rein, and the cats turned sharply, taking the chariot up an incline and over rocky outcroppings large enough to briefly send the vehicle into the air, landing awkwardly on one wheel. Cassia leaned hard the other direction, and despite spending a few moments tipped precariously, the chariot came down on both wheels—just in time for Cassia to need to turn sharply again. She barely avoided the closest hound as it leaped from the top of the hill they'd been climbing, landing where they'd have been had Cassia's reflexes been any less.
Foul is Fair Page 7
