Moonblood

by Anne Elisabeth Stengl

  The next instant, she was kneeling at his side. His hands were icy cold, but she grasped them and pulled them away from his face. That shard of pain twisted more deeply in her heart at the sight. It was he! Of course it was; she’d already known that. But it was his face! In that little space of time, as she held his hands in hers and he yet dreamed, it was not the face of a dragon, but his face, his dear, dear face.

  “Come see our future!” her husband called.

  But Anahid could not see the future while gazing at the past. She reached out to touch his cheek, and when she did so, her own tear fell on him.

  He woke.

  Two bright yellow eyes, dragon eyes, gazed up at her, unseeing. “My Father!” he gasped.

  “Diarmid,” she whispered.

  His gaze focused, the yellow eyes fixing steadily on her. The next moment, he gave a strangled cry and pulled himself to his knees. His arms were around her, and she felt the fire in his chest beneath her cheek as he pressed her close to him. She closed her eyes and allowed one more tear to fall because she could not hear a beating heart. He had none anymore.

  “Well, well, well,” said King Vahe. “What do we have here?”

  8

  Well, well, well,” said the Tiger. “What do we have here?”

  Lionheart scrambled around, trying to find a place to put his left foot and simultaneously pushing aside a bough of leaves. He stared down the long way (how had he managed to climb so far, so fast?) to the forest floor below. “Iubdan’s beard!” he breathed. “It talks!”

  “Lumé’s crown,” the Tiger responded in a deep mimic. “It talks.”

  “Forgive me!” Lionheart hastened to say as the bough escaped his grasp and swung back to strike him in the face. Scratches stung his cheeks. “I don’t mean to be rude. But I am a stranger to these parts and am unused to such phenomena . . . my lord,” he added.

  The Tiger stretched up against the tree. His enormous weight sent the topmost branches rollicking to and fro so that Lionheart thought his stomach might make a leap for freedom. The crown of the tree bent over the precipice, and if the drop had been unbearable before, it was ten times more so when one clung to branches and twigs. Enormous claws sank into the trunk and dragged trenches down to the roots. Then the Tiger sat back on his haunches. The tree was not strong enough to bear his weight, and he dared not attempt the climb. He gazed up at his captive. “No one enters these lands on purpose, and only a fool by mistake.”

  Lionheart gulped. “In fact, my lord, I am a Fool, and of no mean scope. I’ve traveled from Southlands to the great city of Lunthea Maly to the courts of Oriana in the north, entertaining kings and emperors with my foolishness.”

  “I’ve never heard of these places of which you speak.” The Tiger half closed his enormous gold eyes. “Kings and emperors, you say?”

  “Yes!” Lionheart said, his voice very thin as he tried not to look down to the river like a tiny blue ribbon below. “Great masters of kingdoms and empires! Hawkeye, Eldest of Southlands; King Fidel of Parumvir; Emperor Khemkhaeng-Niran Klahan the Eternally Brave and Strong of Noorhitam; Grosveneur of the fair lands of—”

  “They cannot be so great if I have never heard of them,” the Tiger said, the words nearly lost in a snarl. “Who would these puny mortal kings be to me?”

  Lionheart gulped. “Nothing and no one at all, my lord.”

  The Tiger let out a long growl, and the tree quivered, its leaves shushing like frightened animals. “Heroes,” the Tiger said. “You’re all alike! Bent on staining your swords with monster blood. Think you might dress the floors of your great halls with my skin, eh, mortal? Is that not why you have come?”

  “No, actually,” Lionheart said and quickly added, “mighty one,” just to be safe. “No, I’m looking for a girl. Rose Red is her name, and she’s very small and very ugly. Have you seen her?”

  The Tiger, still growling, thought about this. “All the roses,” he said at length, “are stolen away to Arpiar. Even mine, though they were once rich in this land, have gone to Vahe’s keeping.”

  “Then this . . . this isn’t Arpiar?”

  The Tiger roared. The precipice caught and echoed it until it filled the valley. Rocks flung themselves down the cliff in response, and the trees waved their branches in terror. Lionheart’s slender tree cast itself about wildly, and he lost one handhold but clung with a death grip to the other, grinding desperate prayers through his teeth to anyone who might be listening. Those prayers must have been heard, for his hold held. But the roar went on, and Lionheart began to hear words in it.

  “Arpiar? How could you mistake this place of exquisite beauty, this haven of perfection, for that blighted hole? Have you no eyes to see the splendor? The colors? The jewels? Have you no ears to hear the songs of the trees, the laughter of the waterfalls? Can your nose not smell the incense on the wind? Did your heart not long to die and be buried in this spot of supreme delight? This is not Arpiar! This is the Land of Ragniprava! And who am I? Am I some goblin king who must wear a veil upon his face and cover his kingdom in enchantments? Not so, mortal fool! I am Ragniprava, Bright as Fire, master and god of this realm! I have forbidden any to enter my territory, mortal or Faerie alike, and those who disobey shall know me well and know me very briefly!”

  Lionheart wrapped his arms in a bear hug around the trunk, shutting his eyes. The Tiger went on roaring, sometimes slipping into inarticulate rage, sometimes with words, until Lionheart thought he would be deaf long before his strength gave out and he fell to those waiting jaws. But the Tiger stopped abruptly and sniffed.

  “Wait a minute,” he said. “You have a friend with you.”

  “What?” Lionheart shook his head. “I have no friend.”

  “Don’t be so down on yourself!”

  The voice was high and bright and familiar. The next instant, an orange tomcat without any eyes trotted to the space beneath the tree, right before the Tiger. The cat purred. “Surely someone somewhere must still think well of you?”

  “You!” Lionheart cried.

  “Did you miss me?” The cat smirked.

  The Tiger sniffed again, his huge eyes focused on the little cat. “Who are you?”

  “Oh, do forgive me, Ragniprava. Allow me to introduce my—”

  Another great roar interrupted him, and Lionheart yelped in surprise as the Tiger suddenly sprang. The cat was just fast enough, however, and a small orange streak outstretched the larger orange streak as the two dashed to the tree not six feet from Lionheart’s. Lionheart watched the cat scale to the higher branches with the speed of a squirrel and, if he weren’t so frightened of the mighty Ragniprava, he might have laughed at the sight of the cat’s tail puffed out as huge as an ostrich plume.

  “No one!” roared the Tiger, pacing back and forth between the two trees. “No one calls the Lord Ragniprava by name!”

  Lionheart glared across the branches at the cat. “Well done. Looks as though we—” He stopped.

  In the tree opposite him sat a man in bright scarlet, tawny hair sticking out from under a jaunty cap. Both his eyes were covered with silken patches.

  The Princess of Arpiar did not care for the company of her grandmother. Not that the statue was the old queen herself. But it was filled with the memory of her and was, Varvare thought, a terrible gossip.

  Nevertheless, she was the best company to be found in all of Palace Var if only because she actually did speak now and then, even if what she had to say was never worth hearing. All the other inhabitants avoided the princess with such thoroughness that she was lucky if she ever spied one. And if they realized that she saw them, they ducked their heads and fled.

  They knew, she thought. They knew that she could see behind their veils.

  So she sat in the shadow of the queen, busy with her handwork, half listening to the stony whispers. For the most part they weren’t interesting, the vain ramblings of an angry old woman. But sometimes, though she knew she shouldn’t, Varvare perked up her ears and listened
with more attention.

  “He may have murdered me, but he’s still a better choice than my other son would have been.”

  Varvare didn’t look up from her work, but her mouth twisted with thought. The news that King Vahe had killed his mother was not new to her. It was the old queen’s favorite gripe. But Varvare had not known until now that the old queen had ever had another son. Which meant Varvare had an uncle.

  “I told Sosi to kill it.”

  Well, maybe she’d had an uncle.

  “Sosi was too squeamish for that kind of work. Anahid was better. But a queen? Faugh! He’s made her pretty enough, I’ll grant you, but she’ll never have the force to rule Arpiar! Vahe likes his ornaments, but he has no idea what it takes to make a queen.”

  Anahid. Varvare shivered, and her fingers faltered for a moment. Her mother. Her mother who never looked at her.

  “Vahe has what it takes, dragons eat his soul. Murdered me before his seventh birthday. That’s the kind of mettle it takes to rule Arpiar. Goblins require a ruthless ruler!”

  Varvare sighed. As much as the old Queen of Arpiar loathed Vahe, she could go on forever about him. The princess wondered if her grandmother really took such bizarre pride in her murderous offspring, or if Vahe had enchanted the statue to say those things. She focused on her work, ignoring the queen again. Slowly, silver threads spun together into a cord, but the cord was still so thin. She paused and tested it now and then, pulling to see how the fibers held. She had almost used up her last harvest, the tiny tendrils of spells she had pulled from the ghostly roses. She would have to go wandering the halls again soon to gather more.

  It wouldn’t be difficult, the way the people of Var avoided her. Not even the empty-headed Boy would tag along after her, for he had disappeared since the unicorn led him away. She dared not contemplate his fate too closely; she could only hope he was all right, somewhere in the secretmost places of Var.

  “He’s made quite a beauty of you, hasn’t he?”

  Varvare startled. In all the long hours she had sat beneath this statue, it had never directly addressed her.

  “You would make an interesting queen.”

  The princess bolted upright, staring up at the statue. For half a moment, she saw the pure white marble, the image of a goddess, the elegant work of an angel. But she shook that sight away impatiently, tossed aside the veiling enchantments, and looked at the truth that lay underneath.

  The statue was crudely carved in black, flaking stone, shaped as though by the fingers of a clumsy child.

  “The humility of a chambermaid couched in the body of a princess. An interesting combination indeed.”

  Varvare got to her feet, swiftly tucking her work out of sight. The statue laughed and twisted on the roughhewn pedestal, feet like claws clutching at a perch.

  “Don’t worry, little rose-spinner! No one has heard my voice in centuries. I won’t be telling your secrets.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about,” said the princess, backing away.

  “Neither do I.”

  And the ugly face closed its mouth and was as silent as though it had never spoken. Varvare stood staring up at it, and she couldn’t decide if she had invented the whole exchange or not. Perhaps she was losing her mind like the Boy. Or perhaps she’d never had a mind, and everything she had believed about her life was false, and the truth was the harsh, hideous world in which she now found herself. A world ornamented with enchantments, like a gilt sepulcher filled with rotting bones.

  When the statue did not speak again, Varvare hesitantly took out her handwork.

  Beloved, call for him, said the wood thrush, far away yet ever present.

  Varvare growled, her beautiful mouth twisting into a grimace. “Still singin’ that song, are we?”

  Trust me. Call for him.

  She clenched her fists. “If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a thousand times. I will never call for Prince Lionheart.”

  The unicorn in the depths of Var stirred, skin trembling across his body, and he turned his watchful eyes for a moment away from the still form of Vahe to the borders of Arpiar. Palace Var shivered on its foundations, just slightly, so that the courtiers within did not notice.

  But an enchantment not of the king’s making shot from Var’s hall and sped across the blighted plains, breaking through the boundaries into the Wood Between. The silver stream of it, invisible to most eyes, flew past the Hunter’s face, and he saw it. With a cry he turned to catch it, but it frayed like old rope as it went, dissolving so that he could not trace it back to its source. Gnashing fangs, he tore after the enchantment, praying that it would not vanish entirely before he discovered where it led.

  Vahe, sheltered within the Boy’s body, felt the tremble of his kingdom, felt the flying of that stray spell. He let out a moan that rattled throughout the cavernous Village of Dragons, then spread wide his arms and snatched what he needed before he sped back to Arpiar, snarling as he went, dragging his queen and a dragon behind him.

  And somewhere in a far demesne, high in a tree, a young man frowned suddenly as something wrapped around his heart and clung there. For a moment he forgot the danger prowling below in an overwhelming sensation of regret and resolve. He almost dropped to the ground to continue his quest then and there, and only a sharp growl from the Tiger prevented him.

  All this passed in an instant. Varvare, unknowing, continued her work at a furious rate.

  “So don’t ask me.”

  “Who the devil are you?” Lionheart cried, breaking twigs away in an effort to get a better view across to the other tree.

  “Who do you think I am?” the stranger snapped.

  “How should I know? Where’s the cat?”

  “Ha! You’re blinder than I am.”

  “I’ve never seen you before in my life!”

  The stranger, ignoring this last comment, put his hand in his pouch. “Here. I retrieved this for you.”

  He extended his hand, thumb and index finger pressed together, obviously offering something, though Lionheart couldn’t hope to reach it. “What is that?” he asked.

  “Your hair.”

  “My what?”

  “Your hair. The one you so blithely handed off to the goblin dealer! You’re lucky you weren’t transformed into a toad for your idiocy.”

  Lionheart’s jaw dropped, and he stared at the stranger with the patches over his eyes. “Cat?”

  “NO TALKING!” the Tiger roared, and Lionheart and the red-clad man clutched their tree trunks. “No one speaks unless Ragniprava gives permission! I am master here, and I cannot bear idle chatter. Why else do you think I banished all living creatures from these lands?”

  Lionheart’s gaze traveled from the Tiger, to the stranger, back to the Tiger again. Then, with widening eyes, he shot a last glare the stranger’s way and hissed through his teeth, “It is you!”

  “SILENCE!”

  The stranger who was sometimes a cat shoved Lionheart’s hair back in his pouch, then made sharp shushing motions with his hands, scowling for all he was worth. The Tiger got his wish as a deep quiet fell over that part of the emerald forest, interrupted only by the panting of Ragniprava himself. Even the waterfalls across the valley had ceased their laughter and watched the goings-on with watery eyes.

  Lionheart tried not to move, though his left foot, tucked up under him, was going numb and a branch dug into his side like a dagger. His mind whirled with possibilities, but all of them ended with the snap of enormous jaws, perhaps heralded by a swipe of gargantuan claws. That, or a long fall with an abrupt conclusion.

  The cat-man across the way wasn’t any help. He moved about in the branches of the other tree, nimble as a squirrel, not making a sound, though his long arms and legs should have been snapping twigs and rustling leaves with each movement he made. The Tiger paced, huffing great breaths between his teeth. The sun passed overhead and began its dip toward the horizon, and Lionheart wondered what it would be like, spending the night
in a tree. And whether or not he would topple out when he finally nodded off.

  Suddenly, Ragniprava spoke. “I’ll not climb up after you. Such does not befit a lord of my stature. You’ll have to come down.”

  “Many thanks for the thought, mighty lord,” the cat-man said with a trace of a smile. “But if it’s all the same to you, I’d just as soon stay where I am. The view of your realm is quite marvelous. Is that Goldstone River below us, perchance? Nasty character, that River, quite the libertine, they say! I do hope he’s not been playing the fool with your lovely waterfalls.”

  “I grow weary waiting for you to drop.”

  “Not so weary as I shall grow hanging on!”

  The Tiger sank down on his haunches and puffed his whiskers. “If we must wait, you will have to amuse me.”

  “I should think we’re amusing enough, dangling like baubles from these branches.” The cat-man swung about like a trapeze artist, still without making a sound. He did not move as a blind man should. Lionheart shifted his numb foot, cursing as blood rushed back in a million pinpricks.

  The Tiger eyed them both, shifting his gaze from one tree to the other. At last he said, “I’ll make you a deal, trespassers and ill-doers. If you amuse me, I’ll let you down and host you in my own home for supper.”

  “For supper or as supper?” the cat-man asked.

  The Tiger only smiled. “Will you make a deal?”

  “I do not doubt,” the cat-man said, tilting his head shrewdly, “that I could amuse you, mighty lord. Am I not Eanrin, Chief Poet of Iubdan Rudiobus, Knight of Farthestshore, bard and storyteller, devotee of the fair, the only, the most glorious Lady Gleamdrené Gormlaith, cousin of Iubdan’s wife? Perhaps you have heard of me.”

  “Eanrin!” Lionheart nearly dropped from his perch then and there.

  But Ragniprava only licked his lips. “Proof is in the doing, little cat,” he said. “Sing us a song, and if I am amused, I’ll let both you and your mortal friend down. What is more, I’ll not eat either but treat you both to my own royal hospitality. You have the word of Ragniprava.”