by L. K. Rigel
Igraine. Her name was Igraine. She belonged here, in this wood. She lived in Kaelyn’s cave. The man was nearly upon her now, with his breathing and his wanting, on the other side of the tree, his back to her. He turned in a slow circle, searching.
“Invisible!” she whispered and flicked her fingers and wrists furiously. She didn’t have the strength to sustain invisibility long, but she didn’t trust that a lighter obscuration boundary would be enough, unless the man was a simpleton—and he felt exceedingly complex.
She sat down on the cold ground to put on the boots.
“Come back!” The longing in his plea tugged at her tender side. So vulnerable, almost sweet.
At the foot of the yew tree, she buttoned a boot while struggling to keep the invisibility wyrd going. The run had helped her mind to focus, but she wasn’t quite there yet. She knew she was neither falcon nor fish. She was a human woman whose heart pounded furiously. Amazing the man didn’t hear the pounding; he was mere steps away.
One boot done, she fastened the other. He looked straight at her, but he didn’t see her. Shod at last, she rose and stepped quietly out of his path, crept away, and headed for the cave.
Who was he? She had a glimmering memory of standing by a fire and calling out his name. But how could she have, if she didn’t know it? The more she strained after the image, the more it receded. It was as if she’d acquired all the knowledge of the world in a dream and then lost it upon awakening.
The cloak kept blowing back and didn’t entirely keep out the cold. By the time she reached the cave, she was shaking. Thank sun and moon there was a good fire going inside.
A contraption above the fire pit drew the smoke and funneled it up to the surface somewhere miles away, an improvement over the previous one. Igraine had come home one day last year from exploring the woods to find the device working and a fire glowing in the pit.
She’d accused Kaelyn of being a secret genius and had asked to learn how she did it, but the old woman had always denied making the old flue, as she called it, and she denied making the improvement too. Wherever it had come from, thereafter life in the cave had been much cozier. Never so welcome as now!
Igraine hung her cloak near the fire and set the boots on the hearth. She turned her bare backside to the heat while she removed the jeweled apple blossoms and braided her hair. Yawning, she went to put on her nightgown.
She walked through the curtain of beads and bobs which separated the main living area from the sleeping area she and Kaelyn shared and laid out her hand, palm up.
“Light.”
A glow-ball pulsated in her hand and grew to about four inches in diameter, giving enough light to show the way to where she’d thrown her nightgown that morning. What a day! She wanted to collapse on the bed in exhaustion, but a thousand thoughts and feelings wouldn’t let her sleep.
Who is he? Where is he from? Will I see him again?
“Now there’s something you don’t see every day,” a familiar voice said from the other side of the room. “Isn’t it a bit cold out to be running around in the natural?”
“That it is, Kaelyn.” Igraine laughed and tossed the glow-ball into a bowl on the wall shelf. “I came out of being a fish and had to make a quick getaway.”
She slipped the nightgown over her head and adjusted her braid over her shoulder as the soft flax fabric settled over her hips and legs.
“A fish!” Kaelyn said. “Goodness. Fish are so… brainless. You could lose your mind becoming a fish. Literally.”
“I have no desire to try it again, believe me.” Something was off. Kaelyn didn’t sound right.
“I know you don’t like to be told what to do, Igraine, but a fish…”
“Kaelyn, you’re ill.” It wasn’t a question. Igraine sat down on the old woman’s bed and took her hand. The spindly fingers were colder than the room, and there was no strength in the grip, as if life was receding from Igraine’s dear teacher, sister, mother, friend…
“Ah, well…”
“What is this?” Igraine frantically ticked through well-being spells in her mind. “What’s wrong? What can I do?”
“There’s nothing wrong, nothing to do. The wyrd live long but not forever, dear, not like the fae or the fallen.” Kaelyn was weak, but her spark still danced. The smile in her eyes was disconcertingly cheerful. “I’m glad you’re here. It lifts my spirits to watch you wyrding spells just for the fun of it. Someone might think you were part fae.”
“Knock wood and spit on the devil.” Igraine countered the harshness of her tone with a forced smile. “You can’t be too bad off if you’re still telling jokes.”
But that wasn’t true. Kaelyn would laugh with her final breath.
“There’s something I need to tell you before I die.”
“Kaelyn, stop. You’re not going to die,” Igraine said. “Not if I can get you to Avalos. But how?”
“Transmogrify into a flying carpet?” Kaelyn said. “Not far below a brainless fish.”
“You joke, but if it were possible, I would.”
Igraine scanned the room, not knowing what she looked for. Just as the glow-ball died out, a beeswax candle on the bedside table spontaneously flashed aflame.
“Oh!” She jumped.
“Ach, that Zoelyn,” Kaelyn said. “Meddling sister.” But she chuckled as she said the words.
“She must sense something’s wrong with you.”
“She always senses something’s wrong with me, even when I’m perfectly fine.”
True. The abbess was ever anxious for her less-gifted older sister, the rather inept wyrding woman of the cave.
“I’m sure she’s frantic.” Igraine blew out the candle and threw another glow-ball into the bowl on the wall. “Sustain.”
Kaelyn smiled like the imp she was.
“You’re exasperating!” Igraine said. “You’re so ill Zoelyn can feel it, and you think it’s a grand time to watch me throw glow-balls.”
“It’s never a bad time, dear.”
“If you hadn’t saturated the cave with all manner of obscuration wyrds, Zoelyn might have seen you earlier in her glimmer glass. She could have sent help already.”
“I like my privacy,” Kaelyn said. “And I had to use so many to make sure they’d take. You know I’m not the most powerful wyrding woman.”
“Nonsense. You do lots of things wonderfully well.”
“Care to make a list?”
“You… um…”
“Ha!”
“You have the sight! You always know when something extraordinary is about to happen, good or bad.”
“Ah, yes. Being a good guesser is a high form of wyrd.”
“You love me.” Igraine kissed the old woman’s clammy forehead. “That’s the greatest magic of all.” She had to talk about something else or she’d cry. “Why did Zoelyn light the summoning candle? Does she doubt I’ll take you to the island? The only question is how to get you there fast. You can’t walk. With a weightless spell I could carry you, but I couldn’t sustain it all the way to Igdrasil.”
“The other candle.” Kaelyn gestured. “The crimson one. Take it out and light it. That’s why she lit hers, to make me think of mine. Oh, be glad you have no sisters, child. Always meddling…”
“Be glad you do, silly woman.” Normally Igraine would call Kaelyn a silly old woman.
Old woman. Her name for Kaelyn since she’d turned thirteen and suddenly resented being called child. It had begun as a mean comeback, full of youthful anger and resentment, and had metamorphosed into a sweet term of endearment.
It was hard to see through her tears. Knickknacks and gewgaws covered the little table beside the bed. String. Handmade paper. A peacock feather. A small glass bottle filled with an indistinct sea-green potion.
“Ah. Here.” Under a wadded-up swatch of shimmering fabric was, indeed, another beeswax summoning candle.
She held up the crimson stub and raised an eyebrow at Kaelyn. “You keep goblin paraphernalia so
casually?”
“Don’t judge,” the old woman said. “Goblins make the finest objects in the material realm. Count yourself lucky should you ever convince a gob to part with any of his treasures. Would you turn down a swatch of glimmermist?”
“No.” Igraine smiled. “But glimmermist is only a legend. It isn’t real.”
“It’s as real as Mistcutter—the Sword of Mist and Rain. Who do you think forged that mystical weapon?”
“A goblin.” Everybody knew that.
“The greatest goblin who ever lived,” Kaelyn said as if she personally knew the very fellow. “Light it.”
Igraine jumped to it, excited. Her exhaustion fell away. A goblin—she couldn’t wait! The candle took her wyrd gracefully, without flicker or flash. Rather than sputter and spark, the wick bloomed into flame. She could think of no other word for it but lovely, lovely.
The smell of clean, damp earth emanated from the smoke.
“Oh, that is wonderful.” Kaelyn inhaled deeply, and in sympathy so did Igraine.
“It’s nice. Odd, but nice.”
Nothing happened.
“Should I go outside and wait?” She started toward the curtain.
“That won’t be necessary.” Kaelyn stopped her. “But come listen to me.”
Igraine sat down again, and Kaelyn squeezed her forearm—or tried to.
“Recall how you came to Avalos, dear. Can you?”
“I remember the story. I’ve heard it countless times. You were in the Small Wood collecting yew branches to make glamour dust, and you heard a baby cry. You found me at the foot of a tree and brought me to Zoelyn at the abbey.”
“There’s… more,” Kaelyn said. “A detail you were never told. When I found you, you were protected within an obscuration boundary.”
“Sun and moon, how could that be?”
Igraine had always assumed she’d been abandoned for the usual reason—because she was a lowborn female, useless, another mouth to feed. Peasants had no money for wyrds—especially not such an expensive wyrd as an obscuration boundary—and most especially not for a child they meant to abandon.
“The wyrd was exquisitely made. It shielded you from human and beast—and fae. It’s a wonder I saw through it. I’m no great wyrder, as you know.”
“Oh, Kaelyn, stop saying that.”
A gruff “Hello there!” sounded from the front of the cave, and a thrill shot through Igraine’s gut. The goblin, she was sure of it! She crept to the beaded curtain.
“Madam?” It was a rough, no-nonsense grumble. “Kaelyn, where are you?”
A bent creature dressed in dark clothing shuffled toward Igraine. He carried a lantern, but its glow didn’t illuminate his face. Rather, it accented shadows, now shallow, now deep, depending on how the light splashed over lines that seemed carved into his rough skin.
Hideous. So beyond ugly that Igraine felt no fear of him, but pity. She forced herself to take a deep breath.
“Maxim!” Kaelyn called out cheerfully. “We’re in here, dear!”
The goblin pulled aside the beaded curtain. He was about a head shorter than Igraine and apparently not given to speeches. He grunted, walked past her, and scooped Kaelyn up out of her bed.
“Oh, Maxim.” The old woman giggled. “You make me feel like a girl again.”
Giggled!
“Hmph.” Maxim shuffled out of the bedroom with his bundle and toward the front of the cave.
Igraine followed. “I think she should go to Avalos. It’s an island beyond the bay. If I could just get her to Igdrasil—”
The goblin stopped and squinted at her over his shoulder. “Avalos.” He stared at her bare feet and grunted, then continued on his way out of the cave.
“Oh.” Igraine slipped on a pair of dry sandals—they would have to do—and called her cloak from the wall hook.
Outside, the goblin put Kaelyn down beside a little wagon hitched to a pony. While the old woman held the lantern, the goblin spread hay in the back of the wagon and covered it with a blanket. As if Kaelyn were light as a child, he picked her up again and laid her on the makeshift bed.
“Ooh,” she said. “This is softer than my own bed. Very nice. I should have died sooner.”
“Oh, Kaelyn!” Igraine jumped in without asking and took hold of Kaelyn’s hand.
“Hmph,” Maxim said. With tender care, he put a pillow under Kaelyn’s head and pulled a thick quilted blanket up to her chin.
He climbed up onto the driver’s bench. “Hey now, Mavis,” he called to the pony. “Let’s go then.” The wagon began to roll.
“That isn’t Mavis,” Kaelyn said to the goblin’s back. “She’s a different color altogether.”
“Old Mavis is…” For the first time, the goblin’s rock-solid self-assurance faltered, and there was a catch in his voice. “This is new Mavis. I couldn’t think of another name.”
They came to the road near the cave. Traveling southwest would lead to the Ring road and on to Igdrasil, a two-hour drive in the wagon. Igraine had never cast a summoning spell for the boat without having her eyes on the Severn Sea, but if she could do it from the Ring road, Velyn would be waiting for them when they arrived at the shore. Kaelyn seemed a bit stronger since the goblin’s arrival. They might just make it.
But Maxim turned northeast.
“What are you doing?” Igraine said. “This is wrong. We need to go to the Ring.”
The goblin glanced over his shoulder with a raised eyebrow and an incredulous look that nearly stopped her heart. A strange noise came from Kaelyn—and Igraine realized she was laughing. Then the goblin burst out laughing.
“Are you two crazy?” Igraine said. “This isn’t funny!”
Igraine’s tormentors only laughed harder as the wagon turned into a tunnel on the side of the hill. How could she have never noticed this before? The opening was wide enough for cart and pony with some room above their heads to spare. The smooth walls and fairly level floor indicated the passageway wasn’t natural. It had been dug into the dirt and was shaped to order.
Maxim inhaled deeply and blew out his breath with an appreciative “Ahh!” and in sympathetic reaction, Igraine did the same. The air was sweet with the smell of clean dirt. Cool, not cold. Candles in wall sconces lit up, then self-extinguished as Mavis pulled the wagon along.
“This is a goblin tunnel,” Igraine said. “We’re in a goblin tunnel!”
“You think?” Kaelyn said.
“Here we go,” Maxim said.
The solid tunnel floor dipped and lurched sideways. Igraine felt like throwing up—and then the world started to spin.
« Chapter 14 »
Coffee and a Secret
12th century. The island of Avalos
Igraine awoke to sunlight, open windows, and birdsong. A light breeze stirred the curtains in the bedroom of her little cottage on Avalos. She stretched, feeling rested and restored—as if she’d slept for days.
What a wild dream… finding Glimmer Cottage as a falcon. If only it could happen in waking life! Igraine chuckled, remembering how she’d annoyed the obnoxious priest. And then she’d become a fish, caught in a net by… that man. She sat up and caught her breath.
The man at Nine Hazel Lake. A small dart of disappointment stung her heart. His image filled her mind—her fisher king. It had been so real! She could recall it in detail, even now.
Inside the hunter’s cottage, she stood by a fire, confused. Naked. Heat from the flames warmed her skin, but her bones shook with cold. The man stared at her bare feet, and his gaze traveled upwards. She felt it, as if it conveyed warmth, moving over her knees and thighs. She felt no shame, no fear. He found her sex, her hips, her belly, lingered on her breasts, drank in her arms, her hair. No lust in his expression, but hunger—and wonder.
Igraine felt the hunger too.
Their eyes met. It felt like falling and falling—and at the same time being caught up, lifted to heaven. Had she transmogrified? Was she him? Were they two instances of the s
ame soul, living different lives here on earth?
Brother Sun, Sister Moon—what’s happening to me?
O, cruel dream! Why had she run?
“What was his name, Igraine?” she asked herself. “You said it in the dream.”
Unlike with most dreams, he didn't fade now. Oddly, she perceived him more clearly, with the utter certainty that he was real.
She got up and threw on a silk tunic. The apple blossom jewels lay on her dressing table, and she sprinkled them randomly through her hair. Their tiny wyrded tendrils grabbed on, winding themselves in place as sweet peas affix to a beanpole.
On the way outside, she took a pear from the bowl of ripe fruit by the front door and finished it before she reached the path to the main abbey. When had she last eaten, and what? It must have been Kaelyn’s stew at the cave.
“Sun and moon. Kaelyn.” It all came back in a rush. Kaelyn. The goblin.
Igraine ran to the main abbey. She had to see Zoelyn, had to find out what had happened. Kaelyn had to be all right.
The entry hall was empty, but voices sounded from the corridor to the acolytes’ wing. Igraine followed the muffled conversation to a door that had been left ajar and let out a sigh of relief. One of the voices belonged to Kaelyn. Igraine stopped when she heard her own name spoken.
“Don’t dismiss Igraine so lightly.” The old woman sounded much stronger.
“If you say so.” The goblin, Maxim.
Igraine remembered the tunnel and the twisting nausea. He’d brought them to the island after all. But how? And how long did I sleep?
The creature grunted. “I saw nothing remarkable in her.”
It wasn’t right. It wasn’t fair. How dare he call her unremarkable! Why would Kaelyn discuss her with a goblin at all?
“Oh? Igraine will free Boadicea,” Kaelyn said. “I call that somewhat remarkable.”
Wait... who was Boadicea?
Apparently the statement confused the goblin too. “Can… can this be true?” The gruffness left his voice, and he sounded quite vulnerable.
