Once Upon a Winter's Night

by Dennis L McKiernan

  Camille burst into tears. Furiously she went about straightening Alain’s chambers, her thoughts awhirl.

  I am the one who brought about this ruin. Oh, but why didn’t Alain ever tell me? Then I wouldn’t have—Camille, you ninny, he couldn’t tell you, else the curse would have struck regardless. That’s why the mages and seers and sorcerers and witches were here at Summerwood Manor. To break the Trolls’ two curses, and—

  Of a sudden, dread filled Camille’s heart. With Alain gone, the Bear gone, everyone gone, the Troll is free to come after me. I must decide what to do and be away from here.

  Camille began assembling a travelling kit: a waterskin and a bedroll came first, each fitted with a sling. Then into a rucksack she packed spare clothes, some dry food, some salt and pepper and additional seasonings, a cooking pot, flint and steel and tinder, soap, raggings, a tiny lantern, and other such necessities.

  I shall find Liaze, and then we will get Borel and Celeste, and then . . . and then . . .—Then what?

  Camille frowned in concentration. Then what? Then what? Then what will we do? What can we do?

  As she took up a small bronze knife—like the ones she had given Papa and Giles—she paused and looked at it, and opened and closed the blade.

  Ah, then, that is what we can do: raise a warband and find this Olot and his daughter and make them tell us where Alain and all the others have gone. A warband, that’s it.

  She slipped the knife into the kit and again paused and looked about. What else do I need?—Oh, if for some reason I must travel far, I will need—

  Moments later, Camille rifled through her jewelry boxes and took brooches and rings and necklaces and bracelets and other such jewelry of significant value. Then she went to the steward’s office, and in Lanval’s desk she found a small lockbox, which she bore to the smithy and broke open using Renaud’s great bronze hammer and a chisel. From the box she took up a handful of gold coins, yet she paused. It won’t do to flash a gold piece just anywhere, nor the jewelry either. There may be thieves about, and—Oh, but I did send that poacher’s woman away with nought but a gold piece. I should have specified silver and bronze. Camille added silver and bronze to the coinage, then she buried the lockbox in Andre’s compost pile.

  Yet thinking of thieves, she went to the seamstress chamber, and there she sewed jewelry and coins into the lining of her all-weather woolen travelling cloak and behind a panel in the rucksack. And she stitched together a money belt to wear under her jerkin.

  Night fell, and she spent it in one of the abandoned stables, sleeping in straw, where perhaps Olot and his Goblins would not think to look if they came that eve.

  The next morning, she took breakfast in the manor, eating rapidly so as to be away without delay.

  I wonder if there are enough folk in the Forests of the Seasons to raise a warband? Perhaps that great man with a scythe has kindred elsewhere. I know of few living in the Summerwood: a handful of smallholders who came on business, that poacher’s wife—now gone—and the Lynx Riders and those of us here at the—

  Camille paused, a biscuit partway to her mouth.

  The Lady of the Mere, a seer, and she lives not far from here, or so Alain did say. Perhaps she can help. But wait; Alain also said, “. . . she only appears in circumstances dire.” Then he said the disappearance of his sire and dam would not seem to be one of those events. Since that is the case, what chance have I that she will be about, even should I find the mere? I mean, if the disappearance of a king and queen was not enough to cause her to show . . .—Ah, fille, if you do not try, then you will never know.

  Bearing her rucksack and bedroll and waterskin, Camille spent the day walking through the woodland surrounding Summerwood Manor, her path spiralling ever outward in a pattern she hoped would swiftly bring her to the Lady of the Mere. And from time to time she called out for aid, yet no one answered, though birds and small animals flew and scuttled away from this creature disturbing their lives, a doe and a fawn fleeing as well.

  As twilight fell across the land, adding its silvery light to that of the ever-present twilight of Faery, Camille made a small camp on a hill rising above the forest, and she was dismayed to see the manor standing what seemed to be but a stone’s throw away, yet, in truth, it was full mile or two off. Even so, she cried herself to sleep that night.

  For three days did Camille search without success, for she knew not how far or which way the mere of the lady did lie. Too, she could have easily passed by a small pool without ever knowing it was there. And Camille’s spirits fell into a pit of despair at the futility of her quest.

  And on the eve of that fourth day of fruitless searching, with her head in her hands she sat on the remains of a long-fallen tree and quietly wept.

  “Why do you weep, Lady Camille?” came a voice.

  18

  Mere

  Startled, Camille gasped, her tears stemmed. And she looked up to see a Lynx Rider stepping out from the tall grass, his cat following. Reaching nearly to his knees, a brace of voles dangled from the rider’s belt, and he carried his bow in hand. He stopped before Camille, and she thought from the markings on his face, she knew him.

  “Lord Kelmot?”

  Kelmot bowed. “At your service, my lady.” Then he turned and signalled the lynx, who sat, and began licking a paw and washing its face and ears.

  “May I aid you, my lady?” asked the tiny lord.

  He smiled, again revealing a mouthful of catlike teeth, and as close as he was, in spite of the failing light, Camille could see that his eyes were catlike as well—yellow and with a vertical slit of a pupil.

  “My lord, I am most desperate,” said Camille, “for I seek the Lady of the Mere, and I know not where I must go.”

  Kelmot took a deep breath. “My lady, I can take you there; yet heed: none seek the Lady of the Mere unless somewhat dire is afoot, and even then she may not appear.”

  Camille burst into tears anew, and though Lord Kelmot was nonplused, his lynx merely looked up from its grooming, and then went back to washing itself. Finally, Camille regained control of her weeping, and though tears yet welled in her eyes, oft to break free and stream down her face, she haltingly told him of her disastrous attempt to put an end to the curse, speaking of the candle and her mother’s urgings, of Alain’s remark concerning the geas, of her readings in the great library, and her hesitancy to light the candle within the darkened room but then succumbing, and of the wax falling onto Alain, and the wind and the screams therein, and of Alain becoming the Bear, and the disappearances of all in the thunderous blow, and of the wind itself vanishing, leaving nought but destruction in its wake, and of her search for anyone yet within the manse, but finding all were gone.

  Full night had fallen when she came to tale’s end, a waning half-moon high in the sky, and Kelmot, now seated on the ground, looked up at her and nodded as if unto himself. “Ah, so that was it. The night my sons and I came to the manse because of the poacher’s wife, Steward Lanval told us the prince would be wearing a mask, yet he did not tell us why; but now you, my lady, have; ’twas all because of a curse.” The tiny Lynx Rider then frowned and shook his head. “There is great magic at work here, and none I know has such at his command, most certainly not a Troll, for they are not natural wizards. Tell me, my lady, was there about him some token, some item of power?”

  Camille thought back to the only time she had seen Olot, there in the Winterwood. Slowly she shook her head. “Nay, Lord Kelmot, I think no—Oh, wait. There was about his neck on a leather thong an amulet of sorts. But it was quite insignificant, or at least seemed so.”

  “An amulet?”

  “Yes. Small and round and dull, almost as if made of clay.”

  Kelmot gasped and then looked about as if seeking eavesdroppers. “It must have been one of the Seals of Orbane,” he whispered. “I thought them long-lost or long-gone.”

  “My lord?”

  Kelmot took a deep breath and let it out. “Orbane was a great wiza
rd, yet evil grasped his heart. As to that which you thought was but a clay amulet, it was a seal holding within a great and fearsome power; there were seven seals in all, each one capable of invoking a terrible curse when broken—speak the curse, break the seal, and such will it be.”

  “Though you numbered them seven, I saw but one. What of the other six seals?”

  “Two were destroyed when we trapped Orbane in the Castle of Shadows in the Great Darkness beyond the Black Wall of the World. The missing five: we thought them gone, used up by Orbane or perhaps lost. But it seems we were wrong, for nought else I know of has the power to do that which you described—the wind, the vanishment, Prince Alain cursed to be the Bear in the day. Too, it would explain how Olot, and indeed his daughter, could cause such great harm, and it’s just like a Troll and his spawn to use such for their own vengeful ends. Most certainly they had at least two of the seals: the daughter one, the sire another. Wherefrom, I cannot say.”

  Camille frowned. “Lord Kelmot, you say Alain was cursed to be the Bear in the day, but on our journeys he was the Bear in the night as well; even so, at Summerwood Manor, he was Alain at night, and not the Bear.”

  In the moonlight, Kelmot shrugged. “Mayhap at night he had a choice as to which he would be; while in the day he had none.”

  Camille frowned and added, “Then again, perhaps it is only Summerwood Manor where he could become Alai—No, wait. He was also Alain when he was on the ridge with Olot in the Winterwood, or at least I think it was Alain.”

  “And that was nighttime as well?”

  “Yes.”

  They fell silent for a moment, but the lynx suddenly stood and faced away, its ears twitching.

  “Something is amiss,” said Kelmot. He called the cat to him and mounted. “I will see.” And up a tall pine went the lynx, Kelmot riding.

  After a while, down they came. Kelmot pointed and said, “Yon lies the manor, and toward it across the grounds I saw black shapes scuttling: Goblins, I ween.”

  Camille’s heart lurched. “Oh, my. I was right. Olot sent his Redcaps to fetch me.”

  “Fear not, Lady Camille. I and mine will handle these interlopers.” At a word from Kelmot, somewhat between a spit and a growl, the cat bounded into the tall grass.

  “But wait, my lord,” called Camille after, “what of the Lady of the Mere?”

  “I shall return,” came Kelmot’s cry, and then he was gone.

  Moments after he vanished, Camille heard a forlorn calling, and she looked up to see silhouetted against the glowing half-moon, five great birds winging away; they were the black swans of Summerwood Manor, and two were missing from the flight. Distressed, Camille sat for long moments, certain that the Goblins had slain two of the swans out of hand.

  Even so, weary as she was, at last she nodded off to sleep. How long she was aslumber she did not know, yet something awakened her, but what, she could not say. Still, she had a foreboding, as if something evil were afoot. She glanced all about in the silvery light shedding down from above, yet no Goblin or aught else did she spy. And she glanced up at the moon, now three-quarters down the sky, and of a sudden she gasped, for another black silhouette crossed the half-lit face, yet no swan was this, but a sinister knot of darkness, streaming tatters and tendrils of shadow flapping in the wind behind. And though Camille knew not what she had just seen, shudders ran up her spine.

  In the last candlemark ere dawn, Camille was awakened by a soft call. Riding his lynx, Lord Kelmot had returned. “Hurry, my lady,” said Kelmot, dismounting. “The Lady of the Mere: if there, she is only present between the first sign of dawn and the full coming day.”

  As Camille rolled her bedroll by the light of her small lantern, the diminutive Lynx Rider said, “ ’Twas indeed Goblins at Summerwood Manor, my lady”—Kelmot touched his bow—“yet they no longer live.”

  “Were they Redcaps?”

  “Aye. Just as you suspected.”

  “You slew them all?” asked Camille, pausing and looking at the wee person, wondering how such a small one could be so deadly.

  “Not alone,” replied Kelmot. “Other Lynx Riders came at my call, for Goblins in Summerwood are an abomination—especially Redcaps—and we will not abide their presence.—And, yes, we slew them all, though something or someone with them fled—escaped—something dark and sinister, though I know not what or whom.”

  “I think I saw it,” said Camille, “flying across the moon. A dreadful thing of streaming shadows.”

  Kelmot nodded.

  Camille looked across at the wee Lynx Rider. “The swans: they flew across the moon as well, but two were missing.”

  “Goblin-slain,” said Kelmot.

  Camille sighed. “I had feared it so.”

  “We took revenge,” said the tiny lord. “The Goblins all lie dead.”

  “Oh, but I do hope their ghosts will not haunt my beloved’s mansion,” said Camille, tying the last of the knots.

  “Fear not, my lady, for even now my riders are fetching others to come, other dwellers of Faery, those who can see that the bodies are burned and the spirits banished.”

  Camille stood and shouldered her bedroll and rucksack, and Kelmot mounted up, and through the woodland they went, Camille pressing hard to keep pace with the Lynx Rider.

  Light had seeped well into the sky when they finally came to the marge of a woodland glade. There it was Kelmot stopped. “Straight ahead, Lady Camille, that’s where you’ll find the mere and perhaps the lady as well.”

  “Aren’t you coming with me?”

  Kelmot shook his head. “Nay, Lady, for, if she appears at all, she will not do so if more than one stand along her shore. Yet I will wait for you here. Now hurry, for day is nigh upon the land.”

  Taking a deep breath and exhaling, Camille said, “Merci, Lord Kelmot.”

  “Go,” he replied, glancing at the oncoming light of day.

  Camille hurried into the glade, and in its midst she came upon a crystalline mere of still water. Vapor rose from the surface, tendrils of mist to waft upward and twine out over the mossy banks, or to curl among a small cluster of reeds along the near shoreline. Across the limpid pool stood a huge oak, its great limbs shading above, its large roots reaching into the water. In the base of the oak Camille could see a hollow, and her eyes widened in revelation, for within the darkness therein sat a robed, hooded figure.

  Of a sudden, Camille realized she was totally unprepared, for she had not considered what she would ask of the seer.

  Oh, why hadn’t I—Stop it, you goose of a girl! Now think!

  Thoughts swiftly raced through Camille’s mind. As a seer, she can tell me of the future. Perhaps I should ask, Where will I find Alain? But wait, what if it is not my fate to find him, but someone else’s instead? Then it would be a wasted question, a lost opportunity. What if instead—Oh, my, I remember what Alain said about knowing the future: that one would perhaps try to change the outcome and thereby thwart Destiny, and thus perhaps upset the balance of all and make things even worse.

  Nonplused, Camille glanced at the sky; the sun would break the horizon in but moments. She took a deep breath and asked, “Where can Alain be found?”

  And still the sky brightened, for, despite Camille’s desperation, the oncoming day did not falter, and her spirit fell, for only silence reigned. But at last a whisper came across the mere, and Camille’s heart leapt with hope, but then fell, for the lady said, “What service have you given me?”

  “Service, my lady? How can I have performed a service when I knew you not?”

  “You must serve me in some manner: a favor, an aid, a duty.”

  “Then, my lady, this I pledge on my heart: if there is aught I can do for you, then so I will.”

  “Any service? Ponder well ere you answer.”

  Camille glanced at the horizon. The sun was nigh at hand. Only moments remained ere it would rise. Though frantic, Camille considered deeply then said, “I will do no service which goes against my conscience.
”

  A sigh came across the mere, yet whether in satisfaction, relief, or disappointment, Camille did not know. Yet the lady murmured, “Well answered, Camille. Now riddle me this: “I open the eyes of the world,

  So wide-awake I be,

  I close the eyes of the world,

  Name me, I be three.”

  Silence fell, and in desperation Camille again glanced at the ever-brightening horizon. Then, of a sudden, she knew, and she smiled and said, “You are dawn and midday and dusk.”

  “Indeed, I am,” came the whisper.

  “Oh, lady, please, where can Alain be found?”

  Long silence reigned, but at last: “East of the sun and west of the moon is where your prince does lie. And this I will tell you for nought: a year and a day and a whole moon more from the time you betrayed him is all you have to seek him out, and you have already wasted seven days. Take my two gifts and go, and go alone, but for one of my gifts. Unlooked-for aid will come along the way.”

  “But I would have the aid of Borel and Celeste and Liaze,” cried Camille. “The aid of Lord Kelmot, too.”

  Only silence answered.

  “But I don’t know where east of the sun and west of the moon might be. Oh, please, my lady, tell me where I should be bound.”

  But the figure remained silent.

  Frustrated, Camille circled ’round the water to confront the Lady of the Mere, yet when she came to the massive oak, all she found was a strange burl in the dark hollow at the base of the tree, a gnarled stick within.

  “Where are you, Lady?” called Camille, tears stinging her eyes. “I am in desperate need.”