Once Upon a Winter's Night

by Dennis L McKiernan

  “But the blood suckers seem to be gone now,” said Camille. “Mayhap it is the stench.”

  “What stench?” asked the crone a bit fearfully, the whites of her eyes showing as she looked about as if to see the very odor manifest itself as some wraithlike being.

  Camille sighed, and then fetched the fallen limb. After several unsuccessful tries, with the crone sneering in derision behind her and ineffectually telling her just how to go about it, at last Camille managed to snag the rope and draw it from the watery muck. She tied that end to the one the crone held, and, calling for the mare to come forward, together they pulled, but the nag seemed to drag against them.

  The crone hurled down her end of the rope and began to snivel and moan. “This isn’t working,” she blubbered, then snarled, “You need to come up with a better scheme.”

  Camille took a deep breath and looked at Scruff, the sparrow now pecking after something tiny with legs. “Have you any grain, or a carrot or apple or some such we can use to lure the animal forth?”

  “Do I look as if I have a garden or orchard hidden in my fashion wear?” snapped the crone, flouncing her tattered clothes.

  Camille gritted her teeth, yet she managed a smile. “Nay, madam, you do not. And neither do I have aught in my rucksack to use as a lure.”

  “Well, then, dearie,” sneered the crone, “that’s no plan at all, now is it?”

  “Madam, perhaps I should simply leave you and your horse to your own devices.”

  At this the crone wailed, and once more the nag began to flounder.

  Gritting her teeth, Camille whipped off her gloves and cloak and dropped them onto her rucksack, her vest following swiftly after. “There’s nothing for it but that I must wade in and push from behind, while you pull from the front. But I’ll not do it in my clothes.”

  The crone was astonished. “You would wade in for me?” “More for your horse, I believe,” replied Camille, plop-ping to the ground and jerking off her boots.

  Camille shed her clothes quickly, snatching her jerkin over her head and stripping away her breeks, both jerkin and breeks turned inside out in her haste. At the sight of such, the crone’s mad eyes widened and spittle flew from her gaping mouth, and as Camille disrobed, the crone danced about and in her crackling singsong she chanted:“For some ’tis like a terrible shout,

  When all are worn the wrong side out,

  Including cloaks to withstand the weather,

  And breeches and vests made of soft

  leather,

  As well as a fine silky-smooth jerkin,

  And two leather gloves made for working.”

  With each thing named, the crone shuffled her feet and hopped up and down and took up the associated garment, and if it was not then inside out she turned it such and laid it down just so.

  “But not a pair of good sturdy boots;

  These you must wear upon the wrong foots.

  They quail before the horrible sight,

  And many will run in headlong fright.”

  With this, and jigging to and fro, she set the boots side by side, with the left one on the right, and the right one on the left. Then wild-eyed she looked at Camille, the girl now completely undressed, and the old woman crooned:“Even when night lies on the sward,

  Wrong-side-out stands sentinel

  ward,

  Much like iron for a wicked few,

  Better than iron for me and you.”

  With that her chant was finished, and she twirled ’round and ’round and crowed madly at the sky.

  “Madam, take up the rope, for I am ready,” said Camille, and she gingerly stepped into the dreadful-smelling mire, then waded forward with purpose, slogging through the slime and water and churned-up muck and the squishing sludge beneath. Nearly to her armpits in the reeking quag, and pushing a turgid wake before her, Camille struggled to the rear of the nag. She turned and put her shoulder to the beast’s hindquarters and called out, “Pull!” while at the same time shoving with all her strength. The animal leapt forward, and Camille fell flat on her face into the evil-smelling slough and plunged completely under. Up she came, spluttering and wiping her eyes, and on the shore the crone hooted and pointed at Camille with one hand while slapping her thigh with the other. The nag, now free, stood on the road behind her.

  And even as Camille, grinding her teeth, pushed toward the shore, a sluggish wave preceding, the crone leapt to the swayed back of the animal and called out to Camille, “Be thankful for my gift, and remember what I told you!” She dug in her heels and away trotted the nag.

  Gift? What gift? And what did she tell me, other than the ludicrous babblings of someone quite daft?

  When Camille scrambled onto dry land, she looked down the road after the crone and mare, but they were nowhere to be seen.

  Where . . .?—That broken-down nag simply wasn’t that fast, was it?

  Sighing, Camille turned back toward her inside-out clothes and noted for the first time just how they were arrayed: with the reversed-left-right boots standing, and the wrong-side-out cloak upon the ground behind them, the hem toward the boots and the hood away; the inside-out breeks were stretched out on the cloak, legs toward the boots, with the inside-out jerkin just above and dressed in the wrong-side-out vest; the inside-out gloves lay on the ground at the ends of the jerkin sleeves. It was almost as if all the garments had been laid out to represent a person. Shaking her head at the old woman’s madness, Camille wondered just how in sweet Mithras’s name she would ever get clean enough to don the clothes again. She looked down at her slime-slathered, muck-laden body, and that’s when she discovered the leeches.

  The bogland echoed with a prolonged scream, followed by some well-chosen words.

  After wafting floating scum aside, Camille washed herself in fairly clean water from a pool she found along the opposite berm; then using some of her coursing rags, and a bit of the salve from the jar, she finally stanched the bleeding. With that done, she turned her clothes right-side-out and dressed. In spite of the scent of blood in the air, no mosquitoes nor gnats nor biting flies came to call. “Perhaps, Scruff, it’s the dreadful stench of the churned-up quag. Then again, perhaps not. Another mystery of Faery, eh?” She knelt and opened her rucksack and looked behind the secret panel; just as with her money belt, all was there. “Well, Scruff, at least the old crone wasn’t a thief,” said Camille as she closed the rucksack again, “though I was a fool for undressing and wading into the mire without thinking that she might be. Why, she could have run off with everything I own, and I could have done nought about it. And this after the warnings in Ardon that thieves and such lie along this road. Indeed, I was a fool.”

  Camille slung her goods and took up her stave and set Scruff to her shoulder, and smartly down the road she went, completely free of blood-sucking mosquitoes and whining gnats and biting flies, though they swarmed in the sloughs at hand.

  Slowly, so slowly, the road ascended, and the mire to either side diminished. In early afternoon, Camille paused for a meal, and she augmented Scruff’s diet of slaughtered insects with a bit of millet seed. But soon she pressed on at a quick-march pace, for she hoped to be free of this dreadful and dismal quag ere the setting of the sun. And still the land continued its gradual rise, the swamp slowly retreating, though here and there stagnant pools did yet lie, where clouds of gnats and mosquitoes and biting flies swarmed, though they bothered not Camille and Scruff.

  Toward evening, at last Camille emerged from the bogland and came into a forest, the road now wending among the trees, the land rising here and falling there and running level for stretches. As twilight drew down on the land—

  “Oh, Scruff, did you see?”

  —flickering among the trees there sped a flash of white.

  Is that a rider? The old woman on the swayback? Ah, no, it moves entirely too fast to be that broken-down nag.

  Then the white flash was gone.

  Camille continued on a bit more, and she came to the edge of a rugg
ed hill country.

  “Enough walking for today, Scruff. Night draws nigh.”

  Scruff didn’t answer, sound asleep on her shoulder as he was.

  Camille stepped into a small clearing just off the road, and therein she made camp. And she fell aslumber while eating her meal beside a very small fire.

  “Oh, Alain,” Camille murmured, as he ran his hands up under her blouse and slipped them about her waist. Whatever else she might have dreamed, only that one thing did she remember when she wakened chill in the night, her cloak gone, her jerkin pulled out from her breeks, her money belt gone as well. Gasping in alarm, she sat up, and, by the light of the waning half-moon and the yet-glowing coals of her fire, she saw that her rucksack and Lady Sorcière’s stave and her waterskin and bedroll were gone as well. Even as she started to call out to Scruff—the bird fast asleep on a nearby branch—in the silence of the night, she heard soft laughter, and the sound of some one or ones scrabbling off through the underbrush in the deep moonshadows, fleeing with the ill-gotten gains.

  “Oh, no you don’t,” gritted Camille, and she leapt to her feet and took up Scruff and slipped him into her high vest pocket, the sparrow chirping softly once or twice at being handled in the night. Then, following the furtive sounds, Camille quietly ran after the one thief, or several.

  Through the rugged hill country she followed, scrambling up steep slopes and down angled slants and across rocky streams. And now Camille knew that there were more than just one, for as they had gotten farther away from her meager camp, they became boisterous, laughing away at their ill deed, and jabbering at how easily it was done, no longer attempting to be quiet.

  The moon slid down the sky as through winding canyons and across shale-laden hills and past thickets and briars they led her.

  But at last they scrambled up a boulder-strewn slope, where high on its flank Camille saw the glowing mouth of a cave, lit from within by a fire. And she gasped once more, for in the light streaming outward she then saw the forms of the thieves: six altogether there were, and small, three or so foot tall at most, with spindly arms and legs. Their clothing was quite ragged, and, when one turned to look at another, by the firelight glowing forth Camille could see that he was wholly ugly.

  “Goblins?” she whispered to herself, wondering. “Or perhaps—No wait. Spriggans, they are. Just as Vivette and Romy described.”

  “Ho, we’re back!” cried one as he stepped inside, Lady Sorcière’s staff in hand.

  “With booty, too,” called another, Camille’s cloak draped over his arm, with a third Spriggan and three more following, each bearing an item of hers—money belt, waterskin, bedroll, and rucksack.

  A babble of voices responded, and then Camille knew that this was a den of thieves.

  “What will I do, Scruff?” she whispered. “There seem to be many within.”

  But Scruff answered not from the vest pocket, sound asleep as he was.

  Using the boulders as cover, Camille crept up the slope. She came to a place where she could see in, and by firelight reflected ’round a turn in the cave, she saw a gaggle of Spriggans gathered, some of whom pawed through her rucksack, casting clothing and food and such aside, while others examined her remaining goods. One at the rucksack crowed and lifted up a necklace; he had found the hidden pocket. Another poured out the coins from her money belt, and still another tested each ducat with his teeth.

  Just like my mother. The image flashed through Camille’s mind, and she was immediately ashamed for having thought it. She cast that image away, and watched as one unrolled her bedroll and shook out the blanket, while another poured out the water from her waterskin and jiggled it up and down to see if aught of value was within, while others fumbled along the lining of her cloak, searching for more wealth. Oh, sweet Mithras, what will I do without my goods?

  Once again, one of the Spriggans crowed; he had found the treasure sewn in the lining of the cloak. As he drew a knife to slit the cloth, another called out for attention, this one with a tattered black hat atop his head. “To the pile,” he said. Whatever he meant, Camille could not guess, but the result of his words was plain, for they rerolled her blanket and poured the coins back into the money belt and returned the goods to the rucksack, including refilling the secret pocket with its coinage and jewelry. And then they took up all and trooped deeper into the cave, disappearing ’round the turn.

  “What will I do?” she asked sleeping Scruff. “I have not even my staff as a weapon. Oh, would that I had a sword.” She remembered Borel’s words, and added, “A sword of iron would lay these by, though I know not how to use one. —Or would that I had an enchanted sword, one even better than iron.”

  A memory tugged at Camille’s mind. “Better than iron,” she repeated. “ ‘Better than iron for me and you,’ that’s what the old woman said . . . that, and ‘remember my words.’ Oh, Scruff, do you think it so? Durst I trust the mad babblings of a daft old crone. Yet did she not also say ‘Much like iron for a wicked few’? Ah, but are these Spriggans among those for whom it is true; are they ones for whom such will be a terrible shout?—Oh, but I do need my goods.”

  Taking a deep breath and deciding, swiftly Camille stripped off her clothes and turned them wrong-side-out. The she redonned all, and as she slipped on the turned vest she murmured to Scruff that it was necessary, the sleeping wee bird now on the inside; she pulled on her boots: left on right, right on left. Lastly she turned her gloves, and slipped them on as well. Then, clenching her fists and gritting her teeth, up and into the cave she went.

  The moment she entered she felt a slight tingle, and from somewhere beyond the bend the babble of voices stilled, and then a loud voice called out: “Who dares enter the cavern of the giants?”

  Camille nearly turned and bolted, but she heard a great sucking in of air, and many throats huffing and puffing, and remembering the sisters’ words and praying to Mithras they were true, on inward she went.

  “Fee, fum, fie!” came the booming voice . . .

  In that moment Camille stepped ’round the turn to see a large firelit chamber, overcrowded with tall, ugly beings jammed from wall to wall, fully twelve or thirteen feet high and quite broad; and as Camille stepped into the light, the one in the fore, the one with a tattered black hat atop his head, boomed out:

  . . . “I’ll grind your bones to make a—”

  “Eeeeeee . . . !” came a collective scream as the great tall beings saw Camille’s inside-out garments. And they bolted every which way, as if fleeing a peril beyond comprehension.

  Pthbthththth . . . came a great roar of flatulence, much as would a hundred buffoons’ air-filled, pig’s-bladder-cushions prolongedly break wind were they all simultaneously sat upon. And the chamber filled with a terrible stench—worse even than that of the nag-churned quag—and had Camille eaten a full supper, surely she would have lost it right then and there. Breathing through her mouth to keep from gagging in the ever-worsening air, she watched as the beings shrank and shrank and ran about in panic, and struggled to fit into crevices and cracks and holes. Quickly they returned to Spriggan size, and they squeezed through the fissures and clefts, and down the small tunnels beyond they did flee.

  And left in their foetid wake on a great pile of treasure and other goods lay Camille’s stolen gear.

  Yet gasping in the befouled air, swiftly Camille took up her cloak and put it on wrong-side-out. She grabbed her rucksack and money belt, pausing just long enough to make certain that her jewelry and coinage were yet within. She slung them over her shoulder by their sling straps, and snatched up her bedroll and waterskin and slung them as well; then she scooped up Lady Sorcière’s staff, and, leaving all else on the glittering mound behind, she turned and strode from the chamber and toward the bend and the entrance beyond, all the while thinking, Go slow, go slow. Don’t let them see you are as frightened as they are. Slow. Don’t run.

  But when she reached the mouth of the cave, she could no longer withhold her fright, and down the slo
pe she ran in the moonlight, fleeing back the way she had come. And as she climbed up the far hill beyond, from the mouth of the cave behind a voice screeched out, “Thief! Thief! You terrible, wicked thief, you’ll not live to see the dawn!”

  Without replying, on upward pressed Camille and over the crest and beyond, as a chill wind sprang from nowhere to curl all ’round.

  Onward she fled, the wind becoming more brutal, and it lashed tree limbs and hurled grit as if to punish Camille. And the night darkened, with racing clouds filling the sky. They slid across the moon, and Camille had to slow, for in the resulting gloom she could but barely see.

  A deluge of frigid rain began falling, and it was then Camille remembered the words of Vivette: “Though cowards all, some say they are quite dangerous, able to call up great winds and storms.”

  The blow strengthened, the cold rain thickened—Is this a storm called up by the Spriggans? Camille did not know.

  Onward she pressed through lashing limbs and driven rain and the howling wind, the gale worsening with every stride.

  I must find shelter, she thought, but where?

  Camille was by then thoroughly turned about, and she knew not whether she went away from the Spriggans or toward them or even circled ’round.

  And she was chilled to the bone and stumbling about in the darkness.

  Around her feet frigid water began to rise, and she sought higher ground, but every way she turned, it seemed, she went to ground even lower. And fighting the blow and the icy rain she became exhausted, benumbed, barely able to stand, battered on all sides by the now-thundering wind and hammered by the frigid downpour.

  Still the water rose: up to her knees it now came. Freezing, dully Camille realized her peril, yet she had not the wit to conceive even a simple plan, so terribly cold was she.

  And then something blocked her way. Camille turned and stumbled but a step, only to be blocked again. Once more she turned, and once more she was blocked.