Once Upon a Winter's Night fs-1

by Dennis L McKiernan

  Rondalo laughed, and Camille blushed, and Chemine smiled and said, “La, child, those were Water Sprites. A curious folk, and playful. But not the so-called Water Fairies of lore, the Gwaragedd Annwn.”

  “Why do they name you so? — Water Fairy, I mean.”

  Chemine glanced at Rondalo, then said, “We have certain power over water.”

  “And that would have something to do with, um”-Camille glanced at the bowl-“ ‘looking into the water’? And, by the bye, is that ink?”

  Chemine smiled softly. “Not ink, but incanted water instead. And through it I can see far, though not without limits.”

  “Indeed, Mother, I brought Camille here so that you might see for her.”

  Chemine set down her own teacup and turned to Camille. “What is it, child? What would you have me espy?”

  Chemine looked up from the ebon water. “There is a strong spell here, barring the way. I can see nought of this place you seek, nor aught of your true love.”

  Tears welled in Camille’s eyes. “Is there nothing you can do?”

  Chemine shook her head. “The only other time I could not see what I sought was when I and others of the Firsts were after the terrible Wizard Orbane; yet he is now beyond the Black Wall of the World, and so it could not be his hand at work, else we would know of it, or so I do deem.”

  “What of Lanval or Blanche, or any of the others?”

  Chemine’s eyes widened. “Blanche and Lanval?”

  “My friends at Summerwood Manor. They’ve gone missing as well.”

  Chemine reached out and took Camille’s hand. “Mayhap you had better tell me the entire tale. Perhaps therein will lie a clue as to that which might help.”

  Wearily, Chemine slumped back. “Again I cannot see. Whatever happed to your Alain might have happed to them as well. The great wind you spoke of… a powerful spell, I deem, one that might have borne them all to this place east of the sun and west of the moon, and I do not know nor can I see where it is.”

  Silence fell over the three in the gazebo, now lanternlit in the night. But then Camille asked, “Can you look at all the places in Faery where you can see, and by elimination find the place you cannot?”

  Chemine sighed and shook her head. “Child, it drains me to see through the black water, and to look over all of Faery to find the place I cannot see would take much more than I have to give. What you ask could perhaps be done, but certainly not in the time you have left, nor in a thousand thousand times, for the Faery I know of is quite extensive, and, in truth, the whole of it might be without end.”

  Camille sighed. “Then I suppose I’ll have to keep asking, especially among those with much lore.” She looked at Chemine. “Tell me, is there among the Firsts, someone with deep knowledge of that which has gone before, someone who might know?”

  Chemine looked first at Camille and then at Rondalo, and suddenly she burst into tears. In spite of her weariness, she leapt to her feet and rushed into the garden. Rondalo sprang after, and when he caught her he held her in his arms as she quietly wept. After long moments she gained control of herself and sent him back to the gazebo. And Rondalo and Camille sat watching as Chemine paced the grounds, as if trying to come to a difficult decision. Finally she came and took Camille by the hands and haltingly said, “There is one who might help, for he is eldest in all Faery, the First of the Firsts. He has travelled far and knows much, yet he is a murderer.”

  “Murderer?” blurted Camille.

  Rondalo sucked air in through gritted teeth and clenched his fists and said, “Name him, Mother,” yet he was braced as if he already knew the answer.

  “You know who he is, my son.”

  “Raseri,” hissed Rondalo.

  Camille frowned, for she had heard that name somewhere before.

  Rondalo turned to Camille. “He is a-”

  “-A Firedrake,” said Camille. “Lisane named him during the reading.”

  Again tears streamed down Chemine’s face. “He slew Audane.”

  “Audane?”

  “My heart, my love, Rondalo’s sire. He was to me as your Alain is to you.”

  “Oh, I am so sorry,” said Camille, embracing Chemine.

  Moments passed, and finally Chemine regained her composure. Gently disengaging from Camille, she turned to Rondalo. “You must guide Camille to Raseri.”

  “What? To my enemy? To the one who slew my sire? He of monstrous guile and loathsome treachery?”

  “My son, we have no choice. If Camille is to find her Alain, she must speak with the eldest in the land.”

  “But Mother, I swore that if I ever went to his lair, I would take my sire’s sword and slay him.”

  “Then leave the sword behind.”

  “Break my oath?”

  Chemine sighed. “No, I would not have you break an oath sworn upon the sword of your sire.”

  “Then what you ask cannot be done,” said Rondalo.

  They sat in silence a moment, but then Camille said, “Would it break your oath to guide me to a place from which I could go on alone?”

  “But Camille, I would not have you face that monster without someone at your side.”

  Camille smiled and gently touched the sleeping sparrow, and, as he gave a tiny “ chp, ” she said, “Scruff will be with me, a gift of Lady Sorciere.”

  Long did they debate, Chemine saying that this might be Camille’s only chance, and Rondalo admitting that he would not break his oath if he but guided her nigh, yet he would not abandon her to face Raseri alone, foul murderer that the Drake was. Yet Camille would not be swayed, arguing that without Rondalo’s help, Alain and the others would be lost forever; and as for facing Raseri, it was a risk that she and mayhap Scruff were willing to take.

  A glum silence fell over them all, yet at last Rondalo agreed, saying to Camille, “Your persuasion is almost as golden as your singing.”

  At this, Chemine raised an eyebrow. “You sing?”

  “Oh, Mother, you must listen,” said Rondalo. “Let us to the cote, and you take up your harp, and then you will hear.”

  Camille glanced at Chemine’s weary posture and started to demur, but Chemine said, “Music is restorative. Besides, it will break this somber mood fallen o’er all our hearts.”

  It was mid of night when Camille and Rondalo took their leave of Chemine. She embraced them both, and said to Rondalo, “Let not this child sing to Goblins and Trolls.” And to Camille she said, “May you find what lies east of the sun and west of the moon, and may it be your true heart.”

  Then she took up a sheathed sword and handed it to Rondalo. “Just in case, my son. Yet draw it not until the mountain comes into view, and then only if you believe you need go on, for, heed! you must not break the oath sworn upon your father’s blade.”

  Rondalo nodded, his look grim, and he said nought as he buckled the weapon on.

  Then Chemine kissed each and stepped back, and Camille and Rondalo went through the silver-bound door in the stone and down to the tunnel below.

  As they started along the passageway, to break the brooding silence, Camille asked, “What did your mere mean, ‘Let not this child sing to Goblins and Trolls’?”

  Rondalo looked at her. “You do not know?”

  “No.”

  “Then heed: ’tis said because of their own hideous, froglike croakings neither Goblins nor Trolls can abide the sound of sweet singing, for what they cannot have, they revile. The sweeter the singing, the greater their fury, and with a voice as pure as yours.. I dread to think of what they might do. Regardless, that’s what my dam meant when she spoke to me, but in truth was cautioning you.”

  “I did not know.”

  “I ween she suspected as much,” said Rondalo.

  They reached the end of the long corridor, where the spiral stairway led upward, and Rondalo paused and said, “My dear, you should not venture about Faery without someone of knowledge, someone of lore at your side.”

  “Would that I could,” replied Cami
lle, “but the Lady of the Mere said I must go alone, but for one of her gifts-Scruff, I believe. She did say unexpected help would come along the way, and it has. Even so, I deem Scruff and I must see this Raseri alone, but let us not argue that point again.”

  Rondalo sighed, then began the ascent.

  They climbed up the long spiral to come to the glamoured door in the boulder, and they stepped out into the woods along the high, riverside bluff. The waxing moon rode high in the sky, and by its gentle light they passed among the trees of the forest along the rim, aiming for Les Iles.

  As they came to the road, Camille said, “Tell me, Rondalo, if it pains you not overmuch, how did your pere die?”

  “I am not certain, for it did occur ere I was born. I only know that he was slain by Raseri.”

  “What does your mere say?”

  “She knows not how it came about either, for her own memories ere coming unto Faery are all but nonexistent. All she says is that my sire Audane was her true love, and that he was slain by the villainous Raseri.”

  “And you have the sword of your pere?”

  “Aye. ’Tis all of his that I do have. ’Twas one of the few things my dam bore with her into Faery, the sword in her hand, with me in her womb straining to get out.”

  They walked in silence for a while, passing by the stables and paddock where horses slept in the night. Just ere coming to the rope-and-board bridge, Camille said, “Mayhap ’twas grief drove your mere’s memory from her, yet if your tale about the Keltoi is true, then mayhap that’s where your mere’s story begins, with the death of Audane and the birth of you. Mayhap there is no story before that. Mayhap that’s all the Keltoi told, or all of that tale the gods did hear, hence ’twas but a fragment they did make manifest.”

  Rondalo did not reply as they made their way across the span and into Les Iles.

  “Ah, Camille, I shall miss you greatly,” said Robert. Then he frowned. “What should I do with the gowns?”

  Dressed for travel, her rucksack and waterskin and bedroll slung, her stave in hand, Scruff on her shoulder, Camille said, “Perhaps another singer will come along who can use them.”

  “And mayhap you yourself will return one day,” said Robert, hope glimmering.

  “Perhaps,” said Camille, “and merci for all you did, Robert.”

  She turned toward Rondalo, he, too, ready for travel, and he said, “Shall we?”

  With a final au revoir, Camille and Rondalo departed, and they made their way through the bustle of Les Iles, Camille’s troop of urchins laughing and darting among the stir, yet keeping pace with their patron. At last they reached the final bridge, and here did Camille stop and call the children together. With a smile she said adieu, then flung a handful of copper pennies high into the air, scattering them widely, and with wild whoops the urchins dove after.

  Even as the children scrambled for the coins, Camille and Rondalo stepped onto the bridge and went out of Les Iles. Soon they came to the stables, where two riding horses and one packhorse stood waiting, and though Camille had protested she knew not how to ride, still she realized a deal more blossoms would wither away if she walked than if she rode. And so she mounted up, and off they went, away from the river and into the forest at hand, setting forth for a grim range of mountains somewhere in the far distance beyond, for deep in the foreboding fastness therein a murderous Firedrake did lair.

  27

  Firedrake

  Two hundred sixty-five blossoms gone, the two hundred sixty-sixth awither. Oh why does it take so long to “Yon,” said Rondalo, breaking Camille’s thoughts.

  “Wh-what?”

  “Yon is the firemountain, wherein the Dragon does lair,” said Rondalo, pointing, his breath blowing white in the cold mountain air.

  Camille’s gaze followed his outstretched arm to where tendrils of smoke from a truncated mountain rose into the early-morning sky.

  Their horses plodded onward through the snow, rounding a great looming frown of stone, and slowly more of the firemountain came into view, the whole of it a dark ruddy color streaked with ebony runs. Finally, just above a long and sheer rise topped with a ledge, there gaped a black hole.

  “Is that it?” asked Camille, her heart hammering in sudden dread.

  “Aye,” replied Rondalo, his voice grim.

  They had been on the way some thirty-five days, travelling toward this place, and at last the goal was in view, there where a monster laired.

  Thirty-five days of pleasant company. Thirty-five days of sleeping in forest campsites and crofters’ lofts and hunters’ cabins and in wayside inns.

  Back trail some two days and a dawning ago, a mountain village lay; ’twas nought more than a dozen or so stone-sided, sod-roofed dwellings scattered along a narrow mountain road, with tiers of farmland carven in the slopes below. The villagers had spoken in a guttural language Camille did not know, for it was neither speech in the Old Tongue nor in that of the new. But Rondalo understood and he did converse with them, translating for the benefit of Camille. And when the villagers had discerned whither the twain were bound, their warnings were stark and forbidding.

  Gjore ikke…

  [Do not go into the mountains, for there a deadly Drake does abide.]

  [We have no choice but to do so.]

  [Many a brave and foolish warrior has gone, armed and armored, ready for battle, seeking fame, seeking glory. None have returned, and their names are not remembered.]

  [We seek neither fame nor glory, but knowledge instead.]

  [Knowledge of what?]

  [Where lies a place east of the sun and west of the moon.]

  The villagers had looked at one another, yet all had shrugged, for none had known where such a place might be. After a moment an eld and toothless woman had gazed up at the ice-clad mountains and said, [Only the north wind would know.] Then with faded blue eyes she had looked beyond a col leading deeper into the fastness and added, [Or mayhap a Dragon dire.]

  [That is what we are hoping for, and that is where we go.]

  [Then we will see you no more.]

  The villagers had then turned their backs and walked away, for what profit was there in speaking unto the dead?

  And so Camille and Rondalo, after spending the night in an abandoned, roofless ruin of a stone hut, had ridden out the next dawntide, and no one had watched them go.

  And now, on the morn of the third day after, their goal was in sight.

  Camille reined her horse to a halt and dismounted. “I will go on from here alone.”

  Rondalo sprang down from his horse and stepped to her. “I cannot let you face Raseri single-handedly. It is entirely too dangerous.”

  “I have Scruff, and what of your oath? I would not have you battle a Dragon, Firedrake that he is.”

  “I shall keep my oath, and do battle with that foul murderer, but only after he has answered that which you need to know.”

  “No, Rondalo. The Lady of the Mere said I must go alone”-Camille gestured at her shoulder, where Scruff perched, his feathers fluffed up against the cold-“Scruff and I, that is.”

  “These past thirty-five days you have not been alone, Camille. And I have come to cherish you, mayhap more than you know.”

  Camille blushed, remembering:

  It had occurred in a wayside inn, just a fortnight past: After they had sung for the patrons, the innkeeper had sent a second bottle of wine to their table, and both Camille and Rondalo had overly imbibed. That was when Rondalo had leaned over and kissed Camille, and she, so very lonely for Alain and craving his intimacy, had fervently responded. It was only when Rondalo had paused and looked into her eyes that she caught her breath and saw deep within his gaze an ardor burning bright, and she was thrilled. But then, shocked at her own behavior, in a confusion of emotions, she had fled away from him and to her quarters, and in the next days they had ridden in uncomfortable silence, saying nought beyond the needs of the moment, or when making camp, or planning the morrow’s journey. And during this t
ime Camille had wondered if there were room in a single heart for more than one love. As she had done so, unbidden there had come to mind the image of the Unicorn Thale, and this had made her wonder as well of virtue and purity and other such, and whether or no she had lost that which she once had.

  But that was then and this was now, and Camille said, “I cherish you too, my friend, and no more than would you have me face Raseri, so would I not have you face him as well.”

  Rondalo grasped the hilt of the sword at his waist and flashed it into the sky, calling out, “By the blade of my sire I-”

  But then he fell into stunned silence, his eyes upon the gleaming bronze. And then he cried out, “Mother!” his voice slapping from vertical stone faces to echo among the peaks.

  Camille stepped backward in startlement, for she knew not what was amiss, until Rondalo’s shoulders slumped and he said, “This is not my sire’s.”

  “Not your-?”

  “Nay, for his is silver-bright, and hammered runes of power run the length of the blade.”

  And now Camille remembered Chemine’s words as she had handed the sheathed sword to Rondalo: “Just in case, my son. Yet draw it not until the mountain comes into view, and then only if you believe you need go on, for, heed! You must not break the oath sworn upon your father’s blade.”

  Camille said, “Your mere knows you well, Rondalo. Yet she also knew I would need go on alone. And so she did that which had to be done to assure that it would be so, for you must not break your sword-oath.”

  Tears sprang into Rondalo’s eyes, to run down his face. “Oh, my dearest Camille, I…”

  “I know, Rondalo. I know.”

  Rondalo wiped his cheeks with the heels of his hands, then cleared his throat and said, “Remember, look not into his gaze, else he will glamour you.”

  “I remember,” said Camille, untying leather thongs from behind her saddle. “You told me often enough of the powers of Drakes, and so I think I will not fall unto a Dragon’s wiles.”

  “They are quite crafty, quite cunning. Treacherous, too.”