Once Upon a Winter's Night

by Dennis L McKiernan

  Camille sighed and said, “Well, Jack, er, Big Jack, I suppose it can’t harm if you tag along.”

  After the mêlée at the Red Lantern was over, and after the three men who had tried to carry Camille up the stairs had been smashed unconscious by single blows of one of Big Jack’s massive fists, Camille no longer objected to him being about. In fact, after but two nights, his very presence meant that when Camille took the stage a quiet would descend, for Big Jack would stand up in the center of the throng and glare all ’round; and a hush would fall over the boisterous crowd, each person there wondering if he was the one Big Jack was getting ready to maim. And then Camille would begin to sing, and Big Jack would smile and sit down, to a great sigh of relief. And her singing brought laughter and tears to the eyes of captains and crew alike, and even the ladies of the Red Lantern would pause to listen, some weeping softly. And now and again, as she had done in Les Îles, Camille would sing to a wee sparrow.

  As before, at the conclusion of every performance, she would ask if anyone there knew of a place east of the sun and west of the moon, and though sailors and masters looked at one another, none could tell her where such a place might be. . . .

  ... And thus did eighteen days pass, eighteen blossoms withering to vanish since Camille had been in Leport. Twenty-one blossoms remained on Lady Sorcière’s staff, new splinters and cracks yet riving the stave with the coming of each new day.

  “Mademoiselle! Mademoiselle!” cried the lad. “The harbormaster sent me to fetch you. He says to tell you the South Wind has come.”

  Over Scruff’s chirping objections, Camille snatched him up from his breakfast of grain, and she grabbed up the staff and followed the lad out from the common room.

  Down to the docks she hastened, following the trotting lad, and he led her to one of the piers, where was berthed a ship fully as large as the Higashi No Kaze had been.

  Yet this ship had a pointed prow, and her lines were long and low, though a high deck arose at the stern, and a smaller one at the bow. She was three-masted, and brown was her color, her furled sails brown as well. Her name was written on her prow in serpentine letters, letters which Camille could not read. Her crew was dressed in long, flowing robes, their faces dark brown, some nearly black beneath their colorful turbans. At their waists they bore sharply curved swords as well as curved and keen-pointed knives.

  Jordain stood on the dock with a small, dark man dressed in pale brown robes, sandals on his feet. He had black hair and a black beard, as well as a flowing black moustache below his quite aquiline nose. His black eyes lit up as Camille approached.

  Jordain said, “Lady Camille, this is Captain Anwar, master of the Hawa Kibli. Raiyis Anwar, I present Lady Camille.”

  “Chp!”

  “And her sparrow, Scruff.”

  Anwar laughed, and, with a great flourish of his right hand, he deeply bowed. Camille curtseyed in return.

  Then Anwar smiled, white teeth showing. “Lady Camille, Harbormaster Jordain tells me you seek a place?”

  “Yes, Master Raiyis, I do.”

  Again Anwar smiled. “My lady, ‘raiyis’ is the word for ‘captain’ in my native tongue. Please, call me Anwar.”

  “And you, sieur, please call me Camille.”

  Anwar made a small gesture with his hand, somewhat like the flourish of his bow. “Now, about this place you seek.”

  “All I know of it, Captain Anwar, er, Anwar, is that it lies east of the sun and west of the moon.”

  Anwar shook his head. “I know not where such a place is. In fact, unless it moves, unless it cycles on a crystal sphere of its own, somehow gliding between those spheres upon which the sun and the moon do ride, I do not know how such a place can even be.”

  Tears brimmed in Camille’s eyes, and Anwar took her free hand in his and said, “I am sorry, my dear. Yet do not yield all hope, for strange is the realm of Faery, and your place might be real after all.”

  Then Anwar turned to Jordain. “Is the Aniar Gaoth or the Nordavind in port? Or the Higashi No Kaze?”

  Jordain shook his head then added, “The Higashi No Kaze sailed away some days past, and Lord Hirota did not know where the place she seeks might lie.”

  Anwar nodded. “Then perhaps it is written that the Elves will know . . . or the iron-bearing Dwarves.”

  “Elves? Dwarves?” asked Camille.

  Anwar nodded. “Jordain told me of the riddle you have: ‘There are winds that do not blow, but flow across the sea.’ Camille, many are the vessels in Faery named after the winds, but only four of these are great ships of the sea. If any would know where this place you seek might be, it would be the captains of such. Yet, alas, the master of the East Wind did not, and I, master of the South Wind, know not either. But there are two ships left: the Aniar Gaoth—the West Wind—is a vessel with an Elven crew; her master may know, for he has travelled wide, as has the Dwarven master of the Nordavind—the North Wind.”

  Camille gestured at the harbor. “But Captain Anwar, those two you name, they are not here.”

  “Nevertheless, Camille, it is the trading season, and they will come soon or late.”

  “Then let us hope they come soon,” said Camille, “for if they come late, it will not matter.”

  Another fortnight did pass, fourteen more blossoms gone, when came the word that the Aniar Gaoth had docked. Again Camille rushed to the pier, following the lad that Jordain had sent, Big Jack now striding after, for he had decided Camille needed protecting in the day as well as the nights at the Red Lantern. And so, down to the docks they did go to where the Elvenship lay.

  She was long and low and slender and sleek, her bow knife-sharp, her stern club-blunt, her hull a deep blue. No fo’c’s’le nor stern castle did she bear, but instead low decks fore and aft. And her three masts were tall and raked back, with yardarms wide and many. She would carry an enormous amount of sail, all of it now full-reefed, though Camille could see they were pale blue and with a sheen like that of silk. She was half-again longer than either the Hawa Kibli or the Higashi No Kaze had been.

  As to her crew, Elves were they all—alabaster skin tinged with gold, tilted eyes in narrow, high-cheekboned faces, tipped ears, and lithe grace. They were armed with glittering swords, and horn-limb bows and deadly arrows, and long-handled, gleaming spears. Silks they wore, and satins, and they spoke in a lilting tongue.

  Jordain was waiting. “Welcome to the West Wind,” he said. Then he escorted her up the gangway, Big Jack following in their wake. Elves paused in their activities to watch this golden-haired maiden with a sparrow on her shoulder pass by, many smiling, some essaying courtly bows.

  Jordain led her aft, then down a short ladder to a passageway below—Big Jack bending down to keep from bumping his head—and into a captain’s lounge. At a chart table centermost, a flaxen-haired Elf pored over scattered maps, and he looked up as they entered.

  “Cabhlaigh Andolin, I present Lady Camille; my lady, Captain Andolin.” Jordain glanced at the sparrow and added, “And ere he objects, on her shoulder is her companion Scruff.”

  Andolin made a courtly bow, murmuring, “My lady,” and Camille curtseyed and replied, “Captain.”

  Andolin looked at Scruff and smiled, then turned to Big Jack, who thrust out a hand and said, “My name’s John, but all call me Big Jack.” Andolin’s clasp was swallowed in Big Jack’s grip, and the Elf seemed glad to get back his hand whole.

  Andolin then turned to Camille. “My lady, Harbormaster Jordain has told me of your riddle and of the place you seek.” He gestured at the scatter of charts on the table. “Yet I find nought to satisfy your quest, for I think no place can exist that lies east of the sun and west of the moon, not even in Faery.”

  Camille burst into tears.

  The blossoms withered one by one, until all were gone but one. And there was but one great ship left whose captain might know. Camille no longer had the heart to sing, though she felt she must. Yet night after night none in her audience could tell her
where was the place she sought. And every day she had haunted the docks, watching the harbor entrance, watching for her last hope. Yet the Nordavind did not come and did not come, as the blossoms withered away until there was left but one.

  And now in the gloom Camille sat on the dock, her songs at the Red Lantern done, and she waited, her hopes all crashed down, but still she sat waiting, waiting for a ship, waiting for the Nordavind, waiting for the North Wind to come.

  Camille’s spirits were as black as the night, for it was the dark of the moon. Yet the docks themselves were lit by lanterns scattered here and there and by the stars shining down from above. Off to one side and lurking in the shadows stood a large man: Big Jack yet on guard.

  “Oh, Scruff,” said Camille to the sparrow asleep in her pocket, “do you remember what the old woman said back in the very last village on our way to Raseri’s lair? When we asked if any knew where lay a place east of the sun and west of the moon, she said, ‘Only the North Wind would know.’ I do pray that she is right. And I pray to Mithras that the North Wind will come. Yet I have little hope, for the last blossom even now—”

  “Make ready to tow!” came a distant call.

  Camille stood to see whence came the cry.

  At a dock afar she could see the Elvenship alight with lanterns, and a bustle of activity aboard.

  She walked down to see what was afoot.

  Captain Andolin stood on the stern, issuing orders, Elves haling on halyards and climbing ratlines. Towing ropes had been affixed to bow and stern, and rowing gigs awater and manned stood ready to haul the ship away from the slip.

  When Andolin fell silent, Camille called, “Are you and the West Wind leaving, Captain?”

  He looked down at her. “Aye, my lady, we are.” He glanced over his shoulder out toward the night sea. Then he turned back and asked, “Can you not feel it?”

  “Feel what, Captain?”

  “The ever-worsening twist in the aethyr, the growing warp and bend.” He pressed a hand to his forehead as if in distress.

  “No, Captain, I cannot. I don’t even know what you mean when you say ‘aethyr,’ and I certainly do not feel any twisting or warping or bending.—Are you in pain?”

  “I would not name it pain, my lady, though it is much like an ache.”

  “What is amiss, Captain, and is there aught I can do to aid?”

  “Only distance will help, Lady Camille, and we are making ready to put such distance ’tween us and Leport as swiftly as we can.” Andolin then called down to two Human dockworkers, “Cast off fore! Cast off aft!” Hawsers were uncoiled from ’round mooring posts and thrown into the water. Even as Elves drew the hawsers in, Andolin called out, “Rowers, row!”

  Slowly the great Elvenship Aniar Gaoth drew away from the dock, the men in the towing gigs rowing to pull her away.

  “But, Captain, I still do not know what is the matter,” called Camille.

  Andolin looked down at her and grimly said, “Iron is coming.”

  Then to her he said no more, instead turning and calling out to his Elven crew, the captain totally consumed in swiftly getting his ship under way.

  Camille watched a bit longer, then she sighed and walked back toward her place of vigil, a large shadow following.

  Iron is coming.

  Nigh mid of night, even as the Aniar Gaoth, silhouetted against the stars as she was, slid beyond the harbor mouth to vanish from view, Camille heard the dip and pull of many oars, and a guttural voice calling out: “Roers, gjøre i stand!”

  In the starlight and the light from the lanterns adock, Camille could make out a long, low craft gliding across the water, many oars stroking, and it appeared the ship was heading for a nearby slip. Camille stood and watched, and oars dipped and dipped, and the voice called out, “Mindre! . . . Mindre! . . .”

  The craft slowed, and slid toward the slip.

  “Åres på!” came the cry, and all the oars were shipped aboard. Then the long boat slid into the slip and broad-shouldered, short men leapt out to—Nay! Not men. But Dwarves instead, like those she had seen in Les Îles.

  And in the lanternlight on the dock, Camille could make out runes on the bow of the ship, runes she could read, and they named the ship Nordavind.

  The North Wind had come at last!

  And even as the Dwarven crew moored the vessel to the dock, the very last blossom disappeared from Camille’s split and splintered stave.

  32

  Commission

  Even as Camille approached, she recognized the craft for what it was: a raider ship . . . or so Fra Galanni had said in response to Camille’s inquiry about a picture in one of his books. “A terrible raider ship from the North, bearing tall, flaxen-haired, blue-eyed men, and you would think them sent from Mithras Himself, they with their proud ways. Yet they are not from Mithras, girl, but instead from one they call Woden, and a grim god is He. For His followers come in their longboats, their Dragonships, girl, with their axes and their shields and murderous ways to pillage and rape and despoil. You’d best never see one, Camille, yet if you do, run away as fast as you can.” Or so Fra Galanni had said.

  Yet now Camille was hastening toward the craft, rather than running away, for this was the Nordavind—the North Wind—and she would speak with the captain of the Dragonship.

  As to the ship itself, it was long and low and open-hulled, and Dwarven war shields were arranged along her sides. Her hull was klinker-built—long overlapping oaken strakes running fore to aft—and even though she had ribs and crossbeams thwartwise for bracing, still her hull had a serpentine flexibility that caused the craft to cleave sharply through the water, yielding a nimbleness beyond that which her narrow keelboard alone would bestow. And she was swift, for her length was a full fifty paces, yet her width was but barely five. She could mount as many as four masts, each with a square-rigged sail angled by a beitass pole to make the most of the wind. She also carried thirty-five pairs of narrow-bladed, spruce oars, trimmed to length so that all could strike the water simultaneously in short, choppy strokes, the oars now resting amidships on three pairs of trestles. A steerboard rudder was mounted at the starboard rear to guide her on her journeys.

  As the Dwarves unladed the craft, Camille stopped one bearing a keg on one of his broad shoulders and said, “Your captain, sieur. I would have a word with your captain.” Yet even as she spoke she noted that not only was this Dwarf wearing an iron or steel chain mail shirt, so were they all.

  Iron is coming, said Andolin, and this must be what he meant.

  The dark-eyed, dark-haired, dark-bearded Dwarf, a half a head shorter than Camille, said, “Captain Kolor is the one you want, lass.” He turned and called out, “Kolor, en pike til se du!”

  “En pike?” The response came from a Dwarf standing at the far end of the ship.

  The keg bearer pointed at Camille and called back, “Pike, ja!”

  Kolor gestured for Camille to come to him, and she said to the keg bearer, “Merci, sieur,” then began wending her way through the bustle of iron-clad Dwarves as they unladed their cargo.

  And as she walked toward Kolor, Camille noted that the Dwarves’ axes and war hammers and maces and dirks and crossbows and quarrels and shields were all of iron and steel.

  Ah, and did not Captain Anwar speak of the iron-bearing Dwarves? And Alain’s brother Borel said, “A few who sail the seas carry weapons of iron, of steel. It protects them from some of the monsters of the deep. They seldom bring it onshore, however, and then but in direst need.” No doubt, these are some of those mariners Borel had been speaking of.

  Finally, Camille reached the captain, a Dwarf who could have stood no more than four-foot-one. He had honey-blond hair and a honey-blond beard and his eyes were pale blue.

  He cocked an eyebrow as she stopped before him.

  “Captain Kolor, I am on an urgent mission, and I need your help.”

  “And you, my lady, are . . . ?”

  “My name is Camille, and of late consort to P
rince Alain of the Summerwood. Yet he is missing, and I believe you know of the place where he could be.”

  “Lady Camille, if I know of it, you need but ask. Has it a name?”

  “Sieur, I only know it lies east of the sun and west of the moon.”

  Kolor frowned and said, “My lady, I do not think such a place can even be.”

  Camille drew in a sharp breath. “Captain, are you saying—?”

  “What I am saying, Lady Camille, is that I know of no such place in either Faery or the mortal world.”

  Of a sudden Camille’s knees gave way, and she collapsed to the dock, her stave clattering down at her side, and she buried her face in her hands and sobbed. Kolor stepped forward to aid her, but from nowhere it seemed, Big Jack was kneeling beside her, and he glared up at the Dwarf and gritted, “What did you say to her?”

  In spite of the difference in their relative sizes, a steely look came into Kolor’s eyes, and he said, “I but told her I did not know where lies the place she seeks.”

  Big Jack ground his teeth, and for a moment it seemed he was caught on a cusp, trying to decide whether to comfort Camille or to lay this Dwarf by. Unflinching, Kolor stood ready for either. But finally Big Jack softly said, “Lady Camille?”

  “Oh, Jack,” she sobbed, “I was hoping Urd was right.”

  “Urd!” cried Kolor, reeling back. “Did you say Urd?” Yet weeping, Camille looked up at the Dwarf. “Lady Urd, yes. She told me of the winds that are not winds. She and her sisters Verdandi and Skuld aided me.”

  “Maiden, Mother, and Crone, girl, didn’t you know who they were? The Fates, that’s who. The Fates! Am I to be cursed by the Fates themselves?”

  They sat in the Bald Pelican, the night nearly faded away, the tavern empty of all but Camille and sleeping Scruff and Kolor and Big Jack, as well as a drowsy barkeep and a drunken old man lying under one of the tables, mayhap the same old man to whom Camille had given a bronze days past. Camille was just coming to the end of her tale, Big Jack’s eyes wide in wonderment, for this was the first of it he had heard.