The Star Shard

by Frederic S. Durbin

  Now Loric led, racing down the long bank. Cymbril heard something heavy fall into the grass and glanced back. The men were dropping more coils of rope, the ends fixed to cleats on the lowest deck.

  Underfoot, the weeds concealed holes and soft places. Stumbling at nearly every step, she and Loric pulled each other onward, downward, and slowly the line of trees drew nearer.

  "Hurry!" Loric gasped. A thistle had lashed his face, leaving a streak of blood. Cockleburs clung to their clothes.

  The hound's deep baying rang through the dark. Bale was on the ground now, somewhere behind them to the left. The men yelled. Torch light reflected on the old twisted trunks ahead.

  Beneath the first limbs, the grassy slope gave way to a floor of moss. Dodging over crisscrossed roots, Loric swerved into a thicket. "Through here," he said, holding a branch out of Cymbril's way.

  She heard soldiers trampling the brush, but the sounds echoed, and she could not tell where the men were. The trees squatted thicker and thicker, lumpy as half-melted candles. Night birds called, their songs haunting and strange. Likely these were birds of the Fey world, perched in the forest's eaves. Bale had stopped barking, but the pursuers were close, their voices floating from all around. Firelight flickered on the forks and arches above. Creepers of moss stirred in the wood's breath.

  When Cymbril thought she could go no farther, Loric led her down a bank to the edge of a stream. She gulped air, shivering in her soaked clothes. The steep-sided ravine was almost a tunnel, the trees curving over it, root knuckles clutching its banks.

  Loric's eyes gleamed. Even his hair seemed to shine brighter through the burrs that tangled it.

  There was nowhere to walk but straight up the streambed, into the current. The water sloshed around their knees, swift and piercing cold. They rounded a final bend, and before them loomed the gate of the Sidhe world. It could be nothing else. The forest ended in a wall of briar and trees, all intertwined so tightly that Cymbril saw no gap for even a squirrel to scurry through. This hedge rose up into the canopy of limbs and leaves. It marched away into darkness on both sides. The stream rushed from an arched tunnel at the wall's base, just large enough for Loric and Cymbril to enter side by side.

  Splashing toward it, Cymbril wanted to cry out with relief. They'd made it! A wonderful aroma washed out from the tunnel—something like lilacs, something like new-mown hay under a summer sun, yet not quite like either of them.

  "Only those with Sidhe blood can go in," Loric said, squeezing her arm. "Or those the gate watchers allow. Anyone else will not see the tunnel or even the hedge, but only the old forest trooping on and on."

  At the mouth of the tunnel, they exchanged a glance and laughed.

  Suddenly Loric's eyes widened in horror.

  Something hit Cymbril from behind, knocking her face-down into the icy water. The stream penetrated her clothing all at once. Her shriek came out in bubbles. Water flooded into her nose and mouth, bringing the sensation of liquid fire. She groped for handholds in sand and slime as the current pushed her backwards. At last her feet bumped against solid rock, and she struggled upright, coughing out water. Flinging soaked hair from her face, she searched for Loric—and stopped still in dismay.

  Bale had found them. The hound stood astride Loric, pinning him in the stream. Bale's jaws gripped Loric's neck, but he did not bite down. Snarling a threat, he held the Sidhe's head out of the water, keeping him a prisoner until Master Rombol arrived. Ears flat, the dog turned his amber eyes toward Cymbril, warning her not to move.

  She sagged to her knees, hugging herself. She felt as if the water's ice had frozen her heart. They had been so close—but Rombol had won.

  "Cymbril," Loric said quietly. The brook made his hair billow and swirl like the plants beneath the sea at Roadsend. "This hound isn't going to hurt me. You can make it into Gorhyv Glyn. My parents will take care of you. Someday soon I'll join you there."

  Cymbril shook her head. "When we go, we'll go together."

  He started to argue, but torches flared through the leaves. The brush thrashed, and soldiers appeared at the top of the bank. The first men hollered to others, reporting that Cymbril and Loric were found.

  Wiltwain crashed from the bushes, followed by Rombol himself. Where the roots made a crude staircase, they led their party into the ravine. The men-at-arms were muddy and covered with scratches. Forming a ring around each of the two, the soldiers appeared none too happy to be standing in cold water before sunrise.

  Wiltwain glared at Cymbril, hands on his belt, but left words to the Master of the Rake. There was something in the Overseer's gaze more complex than anger. Cymbril realized it was a look of hurt—of disappointment. She had thrown away his mercy and broken her promise to be loyal and good. He kept shaking his head as if he couldn't believe her stupidity.

  Rombol trudged to the group surrounding Loric. "Bale!" he said. "Stand down. Good lad."

  Bale released Loric and backed away. The hound's muzzle was wrinkled in warning, his tail wagging for Rombol, threshing the water.

  Rombol signaled for Cymbril to be brought closer. In her fall, she'd been washed twenty paces downstream. The guards seized her elbows and dragged her forward, dropping her beside Loric.

  For an endless moment the Master silently glowered, and it was worse than his most terrible bellowing. In the ravine's chill, his breath emerged as white puffs. He stared into the tree limbs, perhaps to control his rage. Then he looked down at the two and spoke in a dangerous, quiet tone. "The Rake has been your home, Cymbril. This is how you thank me."

  Cymbril refused to cower, though she could not control her shivering. She raised her chin and stared back.

  "There will be changes now," Rombol said. "And if they are not to your liking, remember who is to blame." He nodded to the guards, who grabbed Loric and Cymbril. The Master turned away.

  "Wait!" said Cymbril in the firmest voice she could manage.

  Rombol stood still. Wiltwain gave Cymbril a scathing glance and shook his head. Don't speak, his expression said.

  The Rake's Master slowly faced her. "You have something to say?"

  She felt her jaw trembling and willed it to stop. Water from her doused hair trickled into her eyes. "I have a deal to offer you."

  Rombol took a slogging step closer. "What?" He wasn't asking what the deal was. It sounded more as if he couldn't believe his ears.

  "A deal," she repeated, trying hard to look and sound like Brigit. "All the world is a market. Anything can be had for a price."

  Rombol crossed his arms, apparently not flattered to be quoted under these circumstances. He towered above her, waiting.

  Cymbril didn't dare to let herself think about what she was doing. Pulling her arm free of the guard's grip, she reached into her pocket.

  "Cymbril," said Loric, "no!"

  The Star Shard blazed in her hand, its blue-green light dancing on a thousand ripples in the stream.

  Most of the guards had never seen the stone before. They gaped or squinted, and one gave a low whistle. Bale growled at it, hackles raised. It lit up the glade as if a star really had fallen to earth.

  "Our freedom," Cymbril said, "for this stone."

  "More deception," Rombol said. "I know the elf stone will not leave you. It always comes back to the hand of its little mistress."

  "It will remain yours if I give it to you." She extended it toward him. "You can make sure of it before we go."

  The Star Shard illuminated tears on Loric's cheeks.

  "It is a great treasure of my father's people," Cymbril said. "Well worth two slaves who will never serve you happily."

  Wiltwain's eyes narrowed as he looked keenly from her to Rombol.

  The Master snatched the stone from her. Cymbril gasped as it went. She curled her fingers on emptiness. She would never hold it again, never half glimpse her parents' faces behind its glow.

  Gone.

  Rombol rubbed it on his shirt, held it up toward one of the torches, and studied it
with one eye shut, then the other. "Well," he said at last, shrugging, "it is a pretty rock, obviously Sidhe, clearly magical. But not of perfect shape and not all that rare." He looked down sideways at her. "This stone will buy freedom for one of you. Do you have any other deals to make?"

  He was thinking of the hairpin, trying to get it as well. "I have nothing else," Cymbril said, still flexing her hand. "I had to give up my hairpin to open Loric's collar. It's gone."

  "So is the lock," said Rombol. "And believe me, it did not come cheap. That's destruction of my property. There's been an awful lot of that tonight."

  Anger rose within Cymbril. "That one stone is worth much more than you paid for both of us. You know that! If you want it, you must let us go!"

  "Must?" Rombol's lip curled, an expression matching Bale's. He looked at the guards, and a few snickered obediently. "You've made your offer," said Rombol. "You've heard mine. Choose now. Does one of you leave the Rake, or do you both come back and learn to be content?"

  Cymbril pressed her lips together. The breeze knifed through her wet clothes. She would have to buy Loric's escape. Then she would go back to the Rake, back to punishment—probably chains. And she would no longer have the treasures to comfort her.

  "Quickly, girl," said Rombol, "before we all catch our deaths of cold. What will it be?"

  She tossed her bedraggled hair. "It will be Loric. Let him go."

  "No," said Loric. "I won't go."

  Rombol nodded, raising his brows. "Fair and done. Go home, Fey boy. The Rake will manage without you. Swamp travel was not one of my better ideas."

  A few guards smiled. None laughed.

  Loric started to protest again, but at that moment a bird swooped over his head, twittering. With a curious light in his eye, he fell silent.

  "On your guard!" said Wiltwain. "He's up to something."

  The soldiers snapped to attention, scanning the woods. Bale sniffed the air.

  Cymbril hardly cared what was happening. She'd lost her dearest possessions, and the days ahead seemed as dark as if the sun would never rise. Like a sleepwalker, she got to her feet. Would sunlight feel warm on her face? Would she ever again have the heart to sing?

  "There!" Wiltwain pointed to the top of the bank. "Something's coming."

  Rombol drew a short sword. The Star Shard's light leaked out through the fingers of his other fist.

  The bushes divided. Into the firelight plodded Urrt. Cymbril's heart leaped. She'd never been so happy to see him.

  "You are all still here," Urrt said, waddling to the ravine's edge. "Very good, very good."

  The night bird sang again from a high limb. Cymbril watched Loric's face. Clearly, he understood what the bird was saying.

  Behind Urrt, another of the Rake's Urrmsh trundled out of the forest—and another behind that one.

  "What is your business here?" demanded Rombol. His men looked increasingly uncomfortable. Their worst fear, Cymbril thought, must be a rebellion of the Armfolk.

  More of the Strongarms appeared, dozens of them, lining the top of the bank. "The kindly bird tells me," said Urrt, "that our Cymbril has just made a purchase from you, Rake Master. Her precious family treasure for the freedom of this Sidhe lad."

  "Yes," said Rombol. "And what is that to you, Master Strongarm?"

  There were now more than a hundred Urrmsh on the ravine's edge. Cymbril had never seen them move so quickly.

  Urrt scratched his warty jaw. "It seems today's marketing has begun early. We are here to do some buying of our own."

  At the line's far end, a Strongarm held up a large empty leather sack. From his belt purse, he took a handful of coins—which, when measured by an Urrmsh hand, was a mound of copper and silver. The Strongarm dropped it into the sack and passed it to the next Urrmsh. That one also tossed in money, earned from wages, from feats of strength in the markets—and handed the sack along.

  "Nothing is forgotten in the songs of the Urrmsh," said Urrt. "We remember exactly how much you paid for little Cymbril: one hundred pieces of gold. A generous price to offer a starving old woman who would have taken less, but you always strive for fairness, Master Rombol. You knew at first sight that Cymbril was someone extraordinary." He smiled his uneven smile, and the sack came along the line, getting heavier.

  An ache rose in Cymbril's throat.

  "For Cymbril's freedom," Urrt said, "we offer you the equivalent of one thousand gold pieces—in small denominations, such as we have. Ten times what you paid, for she's developed many qualities since then. It's not nearly as much as she's worth, since our sack isn't big enough. Nor is your vault."

  Wiltwain grinned until Rombol looked his way.

  "I wasn't really thinking of selling her," the Master grumbled.

  "Were you not?" asked Urrt, turning his gaze meaningfully upon the Star Shard.

  Rombol might have haggled under the sun in an open market square, Cymbril thought. But a thousand gold pieces was a dazzling sum, and Rombol surely knew he needed the Armfolk much more than they needed him—even he couldn't afford enough horses to pull the Rake. "Fair and done," the Master said.

  When Urrt had added his coins, the huge sack bulged, swinging in his grasp. None of the Rake's men would be able to lift it. "I'll carry this for you," said Urrt. "And as a token of your goodwill for the morning's favorable business, perhaps you might send for Loric's clothes. And Cymbril's wardrobe, too, so she can wear her dresses to remember us by."

  Cymbril hoped the Urrmsh could see the thankfulness in her eyes. Even if she lived to be older than Mistress Ilda, she'd never be able to repay the Armfolk.

  "All agreed," said Rombol, sighing impatiently. "Now, I've had quite enough of the wet and the mud. We have a market to open, and I should like to be dry by then." He turned to Cymbril. The anger was gone from his face. It was not yet daylight, and he'd already made two profitable deals. "I'll have your clothes delivered right there, to that flat boulder on the slope." He looked around into the leafy, gurgling shadows. "So the stories are true. The door to the elf country is in this wood. I suppose you know your way from here?"

  "Yes, Former Master," said Loric.

  "Well, then," said Rombol. "Goodbye." Cymbril offered her hand. He grasped it briskly, then strode away, Bale at his heels, the great boots and paws churning the stream. And that was all with him—no sentiment, no backwards glance. Cymbril guessed one must have a hard heart to become as rich as Rombol, but she was glad to be free of the world he ruled.

  Wiltwain crouched on one knee, right in the current, and gripped Cymbril's shoulders. "Well bargained."

  "Like Brigit?" she asked hopefully.

  "Well ... yes," he said. "But don't strive to be like her. You're much better off as Cymbril." His eyes twinkled, and she saw that he'd forgiven her. She studied his weathered face, strong but deeply lined, his hair beginning to show flecks of gray. She would worry about him, she knew, in the days ahead—about how he would oversee a Rake where witches lurked. Wiltwain had no ferials to help him. At least he had the Armfolk.

  "We heard a report just before we found you," he said. "You were right about a wild beast on board. It's apparently dead now, a huge smoldering carcass. Did you see how it was killed?"

  "Not exactly," she said truthfully. "We didn't do it."

  "Of course not. Well, the Master will be looking into the matter."

  "A nargus," Cymbril said, allowing herself a grin that said I told you so. "It was called a black nargus."

  "You're a walking bestiary," he said.

  "Be careful of the two old women. They mean none of us any good." She almost added that Ranunculus was back but thought better of it. She'd already caused the magician enough loss. Let him reveal himself when and if he chose.

  "I think we'll meet again, Thrush of the Rake," Wiltwain said. "And I'm certain I'll hear of you."

  "I'll come to the markets now and then. When the witches are gone."

  He laughed softly and nodded. "Come and sing for us anytime. You name your
wage."

  A lightness tickled her insides. She could do that. She was free now to do anything ... to go anywhere her feet would carry her, to stay wherever the stars or the breezes seemed kind.

  The guards followed the Master and the Overseer up the steep bank. One by one, the Urrmsh vanished into the forest. With the bag of coins straining over his shoulder, Urrt waved a giant hand.

  At last Cymbril and Loric were alone, except for the bird, who seemed overflowing with things to say.

  Loric took Cymbril's hands and fell to his knees. Diamonds of water shimmered in his brambly hair. "I haven't thanked you for saving me in the swamp. Now I'll never catch up."

  She pulled him to his feet and glanced toward the dark archway into Gorhyv Glyn. "Oh, yes, you will."

  They hurried forward. The dim tunnel, scented with sweet, wild growing things, led toward a distant grove of floating mist. Though still piercing, the water no longer made Cymbril shiver.

  "I'll find you another Star Shard," said Loric, wading beside her. "I'll never stop looking until I've found just the one."

  She slid her hand into his. There were many things she wanted to look for, both in the Fey realm and in the world of humankind. She was born of both. That was another treasure from her parents, one that truly could not be taken or given away.

  The tunnel opened into a forest—the trees familiar, yet ancient and tall, leaves rustling in an early breeze. Among the roots spread a carpet of green-gold flowers for as far as Cymbril could see. They shone with their own light, as if the mossy ground were a mirror of the night sky.

  The sky! The stars were growing pale, winking out, but she saw more of them than she would have thought possible. No wonder their shards fell to Earth—the heavens hardly had room for so many.

  Away beyond the trunks, golden lamplight flickered. Loric and Cymbril climbed onto the stream's bank.

  Now from the shadows on every side, dozens of people stepped into view. They were slender, graceful, and fair of face, their clothing of the same shades as the wood and the dusk. Like Loric, they had hair that glistened with the light of stars. They called out in pleasant voices, and Loric answered. Though Cymbril couldn't understand the words, the language seemed as musical as the song of the water.