A Princess of Landover (4 page)

Had she not known what to expect, all this would have frightened her. But she had traveled between worlds before, and so she knew how it worked. The mists marked the entry into Landover, and once she passed through them, she would be on her way home. Others who found their way into these woods and encountered the mists would be turned around without realizing it and sent back the way they had come. Only she would be shown the way through.

Assuming she didn’t get careless and stray from the path, she reminded herself. If she did that, things could get complicated. Even for her.

She pulled the collar of her coat tighter, her breath clouding the air as she trudged ahead, still following the path that had taken her up. When at last the path ended, she kept going anyway, knowing instinctively where to go and how she must travel.

A wall of ancient oak trees rose before her, huge monsters casting
dark shadows in the failing light. Mist swirled through them, but at their center they parted to form a tunnel, its black interior running back into the forest until the light gave out. Trailers of mist wove their way through the trunks and branches, sinuous tendrils that moved like huge gray snakes. She moved toward them and entered the tunnel. Ahead, there was only blackness and a screen of mist. She kept walking, but for the first time she felt a ripple of uncertainty. It wasn’t altogether impossible that she could have made a mistake. There wasn’t any real way of knowing.

The consequences of a mistake, however, were enormous. One misstep here, and you were in the land of the fairies.

She pressed on, watching the mist and the darkness recede before her at a pace that matched her own. She hugged herself against the chills that ran up and down her spine. Whispers nudged her from within the trees to either side, the voices of invisible beings. She knew those voices, knew their source and their purpose. Fairies, teasing travelers who passed through their domain. They were insidious, unpredictable creatures, and even she—who was born, in part, of their soil and therefore a part of their world—was not immune to their magic. Partly their child, partly an Earth child, and partly a child of Landover: that was her heritage, and that was what had determined who and what she was.

Her mother, Willow, had kept the secret from her; it was the witch, Nightshade, who had told her the truth. Her mother was a sylph, an elfish creature who transformed periodically into the tree for which she was named to take root and nourish in the earth. She had done so in order to give birth to Mistaya. In preparation, she had collected a mix of soils—from a place in Ben’s world called Greenwich and from the old pines in the lake country and from the fairy mists in her world. But when she had gone into labor unexpectedly, she had been forced to take root in a hurried mix of the soils she carried while she was still down in the dark confines of the Deep Fell, the home of the witch Nightshade. The consequences were unimaginable, and while Mistaya had been born without incident she had also been born the only one of her kind.

You couldn’t be more different than that.

But being different only got you so far. For one thing, you were never exactly like anyone else and so you never completely fit in. It was so here. Being part fairy was not enough to guarantee safe passage. Staying on the path and keeping your head was what would protect you.

So she did as she knew she must, even though the temptation to step away, to follow those intriguing voices, to try to find even one of the speakers, played on her curious mind. She pushed ahead very deliberately, waiting for the dark and the mist to fade, for the trees to open before her, for the passage between worlds to end.

Which, finally, it did.

Quickly, smoothly, without warning of any sort, the trees thinned and the curtains of mist lifted. She walked out of the darkened forest into a bright, sunlit day filled with sweet scents and warm breezes. She paused despite herself, drinking it in, letting it infuse her with good feelings.

Home.

She had entered at the west end of Landover, and the sweep of the valley spread away before her. Close by, just below, lay the broad, open grasslands of the Greensward; south, the lake country that was her mother’s home; north, the Melchor Mountains where the trolls lived; and east, beyond the Greensward, the wastelands and the Fire Springs where Strabo, last of the dragons, made his home. She couldn’t see it all; the distance was too great, and when you reached the ring of mountains that encircled the valley, mist cloaked everything.

As she scanned the familiar countryside, enjoying the good feelings that coming home generated, her eyes passed over and then returned to the dark smudge below the Melchor that marked the Deep Fell. Memories she did not care to relive surfaced anew, and she felt a twinge of regret. The Deep Fell was her real birthplace, dark and terrible, and though she would have wished it otherwise, it was a part of her. Nightshade had told her so. Nightshade, who had wanted her for her own child. For a while, she had wanted that,
too. Treachery and deception had marked that period in her life, when she was only ten years old. But that was finished now. Nightshade was gone, and she wouldn’t be coming back.

She shifted her gaze, fixing it instead on the place where she knew Sterling Silver waited, not too far away now, less than a day’s walk if she hurried.

She started ahead at once, moving deliberately down from the foothills into the valley, choosing her path almost without thinking about it. She breathed deeply of the scents of the valley as she descended into it, marking each of them in turn, identifying each one, able to separate them out and match them to their names. She had learned to do that a long time ago while studying under the able tutelage of Questor Thews, the court wizard. Questor, ancient and amusing, held a special place in her heart. It wasn’t just because he was so funny, frequently mixing up his spells and causing all sorts of minor catastrophes. It wasn’t because he had always treated her like an adult and never a child, better attuned to who and what she was than her father. It wasn’t even because he was the dearest friend she had, aside from her parents.

It was because he had saved her life and almost lost his own by doing so. It was because he had done so impetuously and without a thought for the consequences. It was because he had dared to go up against a much stronger sorcerer in Nightshade, the Witch of the Deep Fell.

Mistaya had used her own magic to save him, a combination of newfound talent acquired from studying with the witch and her natural talent. Enraged upon discovering she had been deceived into using both to attack her father, she had lashed out at Nightshade in a red-hot fury. The two had gone toe-to-toe in a battle of sorceries that might have seen both destroyed if not for the timely intervention of Haltwhistle. Her spell turned back upon herself, Nightshade had disappeared in an explosion of green witch fire. Afterward, Mistaya had used her talent and determination to nurse Questor back to health. When he was well again, he had become her teacher and constant companion.

Until her father had sent her away to Carrington where, he insisted, she would learn new and necessary things.

To his credit, Questor hadn’t argued. He had agreed with her father who, after all, was King and had the final word on almost everything. He had told her that her father was right, that she needed to see something of another world, and her father’s world was the obvious choice. He would be waiting when she returned, and they would pick up right where they left off on studying the flora and fauna, the creatures and their habits, of the world that really mattered to her.

Remembering his promise, she was suddenly anxious for that to happen.

Abruptly, a huge black shadow fell across her, a dark stain that spread wide in all directions as something massive and winged swept overhead in soundless flight. She gasped and dropped into a protective crouch, preparing to defend herself. A beating of great, leathery wings churned the sleepy air into a howling wind that threatened to flatten her, and Strabo hove into view. Body extended, the dragon banked into a glide that brought him about and down into a smooth landing directly in front of her.

She straightened tentatively and faced the dragon as he towered over her. “Good day, dragon!” she greeted bravely.

“Good day, Princess,” the dragon replied in a voice that sounded like metal being scraped with a saw’s sharp teeth.

She wasn’t sure where this was going, but decided it was best to find out sooner rather than later. “You seem as if you have a purpose in coming upon me like this. Are you here to welcome me home?”

“Welcome home,” he said.

She waited for more, but the dragon simply sat there, blocking her way. He was a massive beast, his weight something in the area of four or five tons, his body sheathed in leathery skin and armored with bony plating, spine ridged with spikes, triangular head encrusted with horns and legs as big as tree trunks. One yellowish eye fixed on her with determined intent while the other closed with
languid disinterest. Neat trick, she thought, and wondered if she could learn how to do it.

“We have a small problem, Princess,” Strabo rumbled after a long few minutes. “You have engaged in forbidden behavior. Are you aware of what that behavior might be?”

“I am not,” she declared, wondering suddenly if it had something to do with Rhonda Masterson.

“You used your magic to create an image of me to frighten someone,” the dragon said, confirming her suspicion. “This is not allowed. This is never allowed. No one is ever, ever, ever allowed to use an image of me, in any form whatsoever, for any purpose whatsoever, without my permission. Perhaps you did not know this?”

She took a deep breath. “I did not. I thought it was a perfectly acceptable usage.”

“Think again. More to the point, don’t do it again. I don’t know what kind of manners they teach you at the castle, or what sort of behavior you have been led to believe is acceptable, but labeling dragons as scary monsters is way out of line. Consider this fair warning. If you ever create an image of me again without my permission, you shall hear from me much more quickly than this, and you will be made to answer for your foolishness. Am I clear?”

She tightened her lower lip to keep it from trembling as the dragon bent over her like a collapsing rock wall and she got a clear whiff of his incredibly rancid breath. “You are very clear,” she managed.

“Good,” he declared. When he straightened, he was as tall as a three-story building, and with his wings spread he was twice as wide. “I shan’t keep you longer. It is good to see you again, and I wish you well. I have always liked and admired you and your mother; your father, of course, is a different story. Please do yourself a favor and don’t take after him. Now farewell. Take care to remember my warning.”

Huge wings flapping with enough force to knock her sprawling, Strabo rose into the sky and soared away, flying east until he was little
more than a dwindling black speck against the horizon. Mistaya stared after him, aware of how close she had come to finding out a whole lot more about dragon breath than she cared to.

“Although that was pretty show-offy,” she mumbled as she rose and brushed dirt from her pants.

A sudden movement to one side startled her, and she gave a small cry of delight as a familiar face poked out through a thatch of berry bushes and a pair of soulful eyes gazed up at her. “Haltwhistle!” she cried. “You did come!”

She started to rush over to throw her arms around him in greeting before remembering that you couldn’t touch a mud puppy, and so she settled for dropping down on one knee and blowing him a big kiss.

“I’m so glad to see you!” she said.

The mud puppy gazed back at her with his soulful brown eyes, and his strange lizard tail wagged gently. Mud puppies were among the strangest of all creatures in Landover, and that was saying something. His elongated body, colored with patches of brown hair, sat atop four short legs that ended in splayed, webbed feet. He had a face that was vaguely suggestive of a rodent, long floppy dog’s ears, and that weird reptilian tail. He looked as if he had been put together with spare parts, but he was so ugly he was actually cute. Haltwhistle had been a gift from the Earth Mother, her own mother’s spirit protector and self-appointed guardian, who had anticipated that Mistaya would have need of the magic that a mud puppy possessed.

As it turned out, all of her family and friends had ended up needing the mud puppy to keep them safe.

Haltwhistle sat back on his haunches and regarded her soberly, his tongue licking out briefly in greeting. “I knew you would be here,” she told him, even though she hadn’t really known that at all. “Good old Haltwhistle.”

She patted her thigh to signal for him to follow and set out anew. The appearance of the mud puppy further buoyed her spirits, and she was beginning to feel like everything was going to work out.
Her father, while stubborn, was not an unreasonable man. He would listen, weigh, and evaluate arguments carefully. That was what made him such a good King. He didn’t just decide and put an end to discussion. He took his time, and he wasn’t afraid to admit when he was wrong If she argued strongly enough, he would come to see that he was wrong here. He would accept that she belonged in Landover and not in some other world and agree to give up the Carrington experiment as a failed cause.

She marched along briskly, anxious to get back to the castle and begin making her case. Haltwhistle, for all that he looked incapable of moving much faster than a turtle, kept up with no trouble. She loved this little animal, and she determined never to leave him again. She would keep him with her always, close by, her constant companion. All she needed to do was speak his name once each day, even if she couldn’t see him and didn’t know where he was. That was what the Earth Mother had told her when she had given her Haltwhistle, and that was what she knew she must do. She hadn’t needed to do so while she was in her father’s world, but she had done so anyway just because she missed him so much.

She whistled a bit as she walked, a poor effort since she had never learned properly, and after a bit gave it up for singing. One of Landover’s eight moons, the mauve one, hung low in the sky east, pale and ephemeral against the blue, and she sang to it in greeting. The peach moon hadn’t risen yet, but when it did she would sing a song to it, too. Swatches of bright color spread across the valley, fields of grasses and flowers that bloomed in every color of the rainbow. Groves of fruit trees dotted the landscape, their smells carrying on the wind. She breathed them in, and suddenly she was very hungry.