by JM Guillen
I had to lure it far from Molly, out somewhere in the yellow wood, my only option. If I somehow destroyed it there, I might have a few days before it was found.
No weapon. No plan. No clothing.
Staying just out of the creature’s reach, I led it to the center of the street.
Hungering for my glamour, it issued a strange sucking noise as it ambled after me.
Good. It definitely wanted me. If my luck held, it had starved for glamour for so long that I made an irresistible lure.
I tasted cold fear. The creature was so much faster than I had thought, while I was still a touch stone-footed. The first golden dawn of autumn hadn’t come yet, after all. I wouldn’t yet be fully myself for days still. I swallowed my fear and led it onward.
The creature roared again, that strange sound vibrating only in the world behind the world. As it lunged, I spun on one bare foot and leapt. I slipped slightly in the sand on the asphalt lane but landed true. I had no time to waste with the shamble-thing. Carelessness would be fatal. Racing to the trees, I poured every whisper of myself into running, as if the Hunter himself chased me.
Perhaps he was. Hollow emptiness followed me on legs of sinew and shadow.
So it was, once again, I was naked in that yellow autumn wood. Dappled shadows danced across my body as I ran; silver shifting with shrouded darkness. Underneath my feet, the earth remained cool and smooth. Never did I step upon a thorn or snag on a root. I was a hunter, and the ground gave way before me.
Despite my fear, I forced myself to slow enough to allow the empty thing to keep pace with me. I had seen how quick it could be, but when chasing me, it moved in more of an uneven, relentless lope. If I had truly been fleeing the thing, I probably could have been far and away. However, caution paid double. I was not yet as quick-footed as I would be only weeks hence, but I found myself all too easily forgetting I had awakened early.
I ran through the forest. Like casting stones into a still pond, every step I took rippled with summer’s passing. I saw a raccoon duck behind an old log and knew that some part of its dreaming mind had shifted. Autumn was coming; the time for sleep would be soon. An owl, on the other hand, was intent on my passing, her eyes singing with the moon. Such birds of prey often ghosted behind the Great Hunt. She leapt to the sky as I passed, a whisper through the trees. The wind sighed as I ran, and the owl shadowed me in the night.
It might not yet be dawn, but the Herald of Autumn walked the land.
I usually enjoyed feeling the change overtaking the animals of the forest, but tonight it offered no pleasure. I could still hear the fetch, feel its screams echoing through me. I needed to remain focused. Even though I ran from it, I remained the hunter. I just had to figure out how to take the creature.
I couldn’t say how long or how far I had run; every thought and every step led the shadowed thing away from Mount Chase. I had a sizeable lead now, although I could still hear it behind me, still feel it cast its shadowed pall across the wood.
Beginning to wonder how far I would run, I felt the whisper of a Dreaming.
Go back. It struck me square in the face. Less words than feelings, I realized I had left something precious behind, something I might lose for all time.
The Dreaming spun an eldritch web of silver gossamer thrown around my heart. Woven from longing for the ordinary solace found in the safety of home, the net cast a powerful desire for the warmth I had never known, not for long, anyway. I slowed, letting it surge through my mind, over the untended places in my heart.
It spoke of tranquil sunlight, sweet whispers in my ear.
Cry off. Molly is waiting. Molly and warmth.
Wait a moment. This Dreaming had to be coming from something, some talis hidden in the area. I tuned out the undulating calls of the fetch, slowly casting about my eyes.
I, of course, scanned for what was not there, for places where my eyes would slide away.
No. Nothing. Simply detritus of the forest floor.
The whispers grew urgent, pleading.
Leave. She awaits you yet. She is probably awake now, awake and feeling you gone. She yearns, Tommy.
I shook my head, trying to focus. Wasn’t there—?
You always leave, Tommy. You don’t have to, though. It can be different. You can have a home—
There.
Close to the ground, to my left, my gaze slipped over where nothing appeared to be. My eyes jumped, my focus shifted about two steps.
Something was there.
As I got closer, its whispers came fiercer.
Aren’t you tired, Tommy? Tired of always being alone? You have no true friends, nothing like family. You can have that, all that, if you simply return to her. You don’t have to abandon her, to break her heart and let her fade—
My hand found what my eyes could not, a talis, a Dreaming fetish entwined with the living warmth of a woman, the smell of baking bread, the laughter of a child. As soon as I grasped it, all became clear. I could see a small pouch of leather and sinew tied to a sapling. When I broke the cord, the whispering immediately stopped.
Now, who had the glam for a toy such as this? More than a fetish, it was the perfect snare to use against me, a wanderer who knew no home.
The screeching roar behind me resonated with the crunch and grind of chewing glass shards.
My thoughts scattered and broke as the emaciated horror tore its way into the clearing, ripping a small ash from the earth as it did so. Here, in the moonlight, its true form was the monstrosity. The man became a faint shadow, somehow existing within and behind the creature.
Its keening cry grew louder, more real. When I turned to flee, it hurled the uprooted ash at me with strength I could scarcely believe.
Stunned, I blinked up from the ground.
Strange, darkling dreams reached into my mind.
They seem human but are not. Behind their guise, they are monstrous creatures, alien to behold. Yet the city is in their grasp, the people little more than playthings—
I wrenched my head, pulling it away from the image that clung like tar in my mind.
The keening cry came again, and it lumbered close, seeming certain. I could smell the blight on its breath as it leaned in, as it had in Mount Chase before I fled.
It breathed in, a wet, hollow, drawing sound. From some lost passage in my heart, despair whimpered softly.
And then, pain.
Art, memory, and glamour tore its way from my mouth and nose, drawn by the abominations’ sucking breath. It tasted my golden autumn, maple sweetness. It tasted the Hunt and stories around a blazing fire. It tasted one thousand nights and one thousand beginnings.
It dragged memory itself from my deepest well, clawing and screaming as it was taken. Parts of me, so inherent that I couldn’t imagine being without them, somehow were drank from the vaults of my mind and heart.
That day I lost baubles, forgotten stories that hadn’t been told since my kind first came to these western lands. It took the names of women loved and the glories of battle and the Hunt.
Lost.
The creature had begun devouring everything I had ever been.
Panicked, I wrenched myself away, half-rolling, half-stumbling.
My bow. I scarcely had time to reach for it before I felt those warped talons open the skin of my back.
I screamed, flooded with pain like nothing I had ever known.
I could no longer dally with the thing. I no longer cared about leading it anywhere. All that mattered, foremost in my world, was escape. I didn’t know what would happen if the thing kept feeding from me, and I had no intention of finding out.
All I had to do was reach for my bow. I was faster than the empty thing. It would be nothing for me to remain out of range… or so I hoped.
If I were wrong, however, my bow would bring me a step closer toward the Great Hunt. The Hunter was far beyond my control. If I accidentally called him from fear or anger, he could sweep through Mount Chase, dragging every man, woman,
and child with him on his mad, frenzied Hunt. People would die without question.
I needed another weapon, another option. I needed something else I could use to end the creature.
I would only draw my bow as a last resort.
My feet pounded the soft earth, secret terror hurling me away from the shadowed monster. I ran blindly, panicked, I made the nearby rise in three leaps, fleeing like prey. Then, I slid toward the gully before I fully realized what had happened. I scrabbled along the ground as I slipped down, trying to slow. The mud-slicked earth, however, slid me full force into an ancient spruce tree.
The abomination’s keening chased behind me. It was relentless. It did not tire.
I needed help. I needed—
Spruce tree.
That was a slender chance.
I wove my way into the tangled morass of boughs and needles, pushing my way next to the trunk through the tight fit of branches woven densely into each other. I hugged myself to the trunk, feeling rough bark and sticky tree tears against my naked skin.
Please.
I could use some help here, old friend.
Faint. She felt so faint. I had no idea of how long she had slept; it could have been years.
She might never awaken again.
I didn’t have time to be gentle, unfortunately. The fetch had crested the hill and would have me in moments.
I had her Name; I knew it from when we lived across the dark ocean. I hoped she wouldn’t hate me for using it.
I pressed my hand to the trunk.
“Jillian Greenspruce!” The world trembled as the name tore through me like a wind from beneath the earth. I beckoned her with every whisper of what I was, beseeching. It mattered little how long she had slept. It was almost impossible to ignore a beckoning that one’s Name evoked.
The creature’s keening howl grew closer. It sounded triumphant, certain.
You dare much, Tommy Maple. Her thoughts were cold, distant. I could feel her petulance, and the underlying anger we all felt when accosted with our Name.
My need is great, sister. She wasn’t kith or kin, but I truly found no other word. Because I knew her true Name, I became closer than any lover or any bond of blood. Only you could answer so formidable a need.
Her smirk laced her reply.
Your honey-tongue doesn’t snare me, O Great Herald. She wouldn’t awaken fully, yet even so, she became more present, more real.
I glanced up the rise at the shambling thing, only now coming down the ridge. It leered, hungrily.
I have not long for honeyed words, sister. I am hunted, stalked by darkness dire. I need a boon, else there will be a new Herald of Autumn.
I don’t know how much I can do, Tommy. You must stop poking at the things in the darkness.
I know you feel it, dear sister. I need to kill it. It won’t stop hunting me.
She considered for a moment, weighing unbroken years of life and wisdom. Spruce and I had always been on friendly terms, a fortunate happenstance.
No minor boon, this, Tommy. Not for crying my Name to the ends of the world. Not for dragging me from my bower of cold. Such is the nature of my people. Murder stood less than four strides from me, and she bargained for a greater boon.
Agreed. I tried not to hurry her as my terror grew.
A boon for a weapon?
Exactly what I had thought. Agreed twice! A boon, struck square. Just give me something, anything, I can use to kill this—!
Above you.
Just over my head was a thick, dead bough. Stouter than my wrist, it was certainly strong enough to support my weight. I doubted I could break it. Jillian would not deal me crooked, however.
Thrice agreed. Bargain made. I jumped straight up, catching it with both hands. Breaking it struck me as impossible, and yet it did, a perfect break that left a wicked point in my hands.
A mere branch is not a greater boon, Tommy. I must give more. You wouldn’t rob me, would you?
Upon me now, the fetch attempted to wend its way into the tree’s bower, hindered by the stout branches.
I clung close to the sap-covered trunk as the magnificent tree thwarted the fetch. No matter how the shamble-man tried, it couldn’t pass her thick boughs. I was safe—for the moment.
I’ve learned many-a-thing on this hill, Tommy. Once, in a twilight long forgotten, a fire-fae whispered to me that one with need would come. I felt her strength, even if she weren’t yet entirely present. The old spruce acted as a window for her, and she cast the threads of her Telling through it. Care for a story of how that limb died? Care to know from whence came yon spear?
My brow furrowed. I needed to be careful here.
Such a tale could be useful, Jillian. Could make a greater boon twice-fair. While I couldn’t Tell myself stories—for any who did was certainly damned, a fool, or human-born—I could easily ride along on Jillian’s words. Whereas the Old Man and I had sparred, Jillian and I could sing together.
If I had time.
The fetch circled the tree, huffing its great, hollow, terrible breath. Still, it could not reach me for the spruce itself confounded the creature.
Jillian began with no seeming concern.
It was the greatest storm in two-hundred years. The sky-folke had gone to war with the hidden people, such a great confrontation that the very forest could fall in its wake.
Her words echoed in my mind, a secret history of the wood that none but her knew.
Thunder raged against mountain, yet neither one gave way. Rain attempted to wash away stone but to no avail. Finally, the sky-folke struck upon a secret plan. They would use rune and guile to craft a new weapon to burn the forest to ash and stone.
Her words shaped the world that drifted around us in the mist and darkness of night. The fetch still circled methodically, trying to reach me, an impossible task. I slid ’round and ’round the trunk while the spruce shifted her boughs between us.
Yet the hidden ones, the forest-dwellers, had many friends, and one of them was the tiny sprite, Noeme, whom we shelter and keep. She came to us, whispering the diabolical plans of the sky-folke, and we were afraid. We realized that one of us would have to stand out, would have to step forward and protect us all. From the entire wood, among the ancient oaks and the lithe elms, I was chosen. All that stood there honored my strength. I went three days and nights without tasting the wind, fasting from sun and water. I spoke with dryad and nymph, and all bore their secrets to me. When my mind grew clear, I stood forth, ready to die for my people.
Her Telling rang true now. I felt it, cool wind on my skin. The sky-folke laughed—
The sky-folke laughed when they saw me, so young and small. They knew their weapon would destroy me, and they sought to make me into an example, to weave fear among the hidden-people. They drew back their fearsome arms. With thunder riding the wind, they hurled their sky-fire.
I saw it all; clear as the moon at night.
Lightning tore through the air, tore into me. My body was rent in the limb you now hold. It burned me.
I felt Jillian’s grin, almost feral in wild victory. Elation coursed through me. She had been strong—
Yet I was strong. The voice of the First Mother flowed through me. I had fasted from wind and sun and rain until my mind was pristine. I caught and held their sky-fire.
Right here she stopped in the long pause that all Tellings require. Lost to the world, I drifted on her whispered words. My fears of the scrabbling fetch and Old Man Coyote became wisps, less substantial than her story.
Her Telling was all that mattered.
I held the fire all this time, Tommy. Held it so it would never—
Never be used against her people again. Held it here, waiting, until one day—
—until one day I knew someone would come, someone with a need.
I felt it in my hand. The sharp branch held lightning, held sky-fire. She couldn’t have known—
I didn’t know when someone would come or what their need would be, but I
held it here, a secret behind my heart. I held it for you, these long years, so you could place rest to yon fell shadow.
Almost as if on cue, the thing roared again. I grinned at the empty, unknowing face of the fetch. In my hand, the spear felt light, its tip glowing, dropping small sparks to the ground. Mad glee tore through me, fear banished to the far corner of my heart. I could scarcely feel where the creature had rent me open.
Wind sang through the old spruce.
The hunt was on.
6
I wefted my way through the old spruce boughs, ever staying just beyond the emaciated reach of the shamble-man. It drew slow, wet breaths as it stalked me, relentless. Hunger poured from its eyes like madness and ichor.
The sky thundered. A single drop of autumn rain fell.
Safe in the spruce, I led the thing ’round the tree until the shrouded moon cast over my shoulder.
Behind me loomed the same mud-slicked hill we had both slid down before. This time, however, I knew that hill and knew where it would try to tarry me. Casting a smile at the shadowed monster, I hurled myself backward, out of the spruce’s bower.
Two quick leaps placed me partway up the hill.
The fetch had whispered its nature to me as we danced around the old spruce. Devoid of anything beyond feckless hunger, its most obvious flaw made my task simpler. If it possessed the slightest bit of cunning, it could have reached me, working its way through the spruce bower. Its relentless hunger had not paid off without a mind to guide it.
The naked corpse shambled along in the dirt, but the twisted thing within him was all that was real. The creature hung in my dreaming eye, a splinter in my mind. I could see its horror, like a faint echo, over and around this poor man.
Patient and merciless, it keened at me again with that dim, mindless hunger.
So I stood on that yellowed hill, the cloud-cast moon tracing pale fingers across my nakedness like a lover. The fetch canted its head at me and then did the only thing it knew, the only thing it could possibly do. With a steady, inevitable lope, it worked its way around the tree and made straight for me. No thought, no premeditation.
