Cobweb Forest (Cobweb Bride Trilogy) (23 page)

Lady Calliope paused, her gaze straining to the south. “So as you can see, I cannot leave this place, not ever. Even though I know not where
he
is now, where the island is, where anything is, this it is the closest I can be to him, here in San Quellenne—for as long as it remains. And then, I go with it.”

Percy held her lips tight and her own breath, then she uttered, softer than a whisper, “Would you like me to put you to rest?”

Lady Calliope San Quellenne nodded. “Thank you. Do it now, swiftly. For if the shadows come—the other shadows, they that steal the land away—then you will have no time to return after our people. And I would not hold you back. . . .”

Percy watched her, for long profound moments. “Where would you like to
 . . . rest?”

The Lady San Quellenne smiled then, and pointed south, to the edge of the plaza with a copse of trees, through which was visible the glimmering sea. They walked there, and it was a small rise, then below it, beyond the trees, the beach began.

“Lie down now, My Lady, and . . . close your eyes. . . .”

But Calliope San Quellenne shook her head. She came to a stop before a great tree with a wide gnarled trunk, and she sat down, leaning with her back against it. Her long cotton dress billowed in the mellow cooling breeze, and she pulled it over her feet, and then folded her hands in her lap. “No,” she said. “I will not lie down, nor will I close my eyes.
 . . . Let the last thing I see be the horizon and the water. . . .”

“As you wish.” Percy stood at her side gently, and they looked out together into the watery distance.

“I am ready now . . .” said the Lady San Quellenne after a few moments had passed.

And Percy reached out to her with her thoughts, no longer needing to touch. While the air rang with familiar tolling darkness, she gently took her death shadow and gave it soft passage inside the body of the one who had been Calliope San Quellenne.

The breeze enveloped them then, as though the island itself issued a soft farewell gasp, and in that moment Percy knew she was entirely alone at last.

It was time to go for her also, for now Percy could feel the preternatural sensation of fading all around, as the last of the landscape began to warp, and was being
taken
.

And thus Percy turned her back to the sea and returned as quickly as she could to the plaza where the grey mist marked the spot of the passageway into which the people had gone.

Her last few steps she ran, for she could feel the land being consumed around her by forces beyond this world, and the stars overhead were warping, pulled apart into splinters and shards of light, and the ground under her feet was quicksand. . . .

As she entered the safety of the mist, she knew that behind her, the land that was San Quellenne and the rest of Tanathe was gone entirely.

K
ing Roland Osenni of Lethe carefully ascended the stairway along the parapet wall to the top of the city battlements. He was flanked by guards who watched his every step upon the ancient iced-over stone stairs, moving close enough to catch him in case he slipped.

Once on top, the King and his guards were greeted by the curious sight of a constantly moving wall of the dead pushing up against an invisible barrier that existed halfway between the inner and outer parapets and was present along the entire perimeter of the walkway. There was nothing to mark its existence in the floor of the battlements or up in the air, not even a discoloration of vapor. The only thing that delineated the barrier were the actual dead bodies crushing against it as though there was an invisible wall of glass erected to keep them away.

The bodies were so thick that it was impossible to see beyond them and properly look over the outer walls and down below.

“Careful, Your Majesty,” one of the soldier captains remarked. “You must not attempt to reach out beyond the sorcerous boundary, for on this side there is nothing preventing us from stepping across—only
them
. Once your limbs pass the boundary, even by accident, you might be in danger of being grabbed by these accursed corpses.”

“I see,” said the King, adjusting his expensive long fur coat closer about him and patting down his fur-lined hat, as though there was some concern that the edges and bottom of his coat or the top of his hat might move of their own accord toward the zone of danger and thus imperil him.

“This way, Your Majesty,” another captain said, and the King followed him, keeping to the inside of the walkway, and trying not to see the horrifying faces of the dead and their gaping wounds and their stirring damaged limbs, leering at him less than a foot away.

They walked for several minutes until they reached one of the southern bulwarks of the battlements. Here, the walkway widened into a flat area where several angled structures protruded, containing city cannons pointing out at the enemy. The cannons were silent and unmanned, for they were in the zone beyond the boundary, and that portion of the bulwark was full of the dead. There was also a stockpile of ammunitions and barrels of black powder and other supplies which fortunately lay near the inner parapets and were thus within the safety of the magical warded zone.

Here, in the middle of the bulwark, close enough to touch the invisible boundary that she had herself created, stood Claere Liguon, the Infanta of the Realm.  Her back was turned to the city and she looked out, facing the sea of the enemy dead. At her side stood her familiar companion, the disgraced Marquis Vlau Fiomarre, the same man who had killed her. . . . Their two forms were still and upright, both equally lifeless, frozen almost, it occurred to the King.

After she had marked the boundary of the city by walking the entire circle of the walls, Claere Liguon had been standing here thus all day and all night with two lit torches upheld. Now, in the wintry pallor of the overcast mid-morning, the torches had long since gone out, and she had lowered her arms and placed the torches on the ground at her feet. But she continued standing in place, silent and statuesque. And the marquis stood at her side.

“I am glad to have received your message, Your Imperial Highness. . . . Wonderful news! Now, my dear, how are you faring?” the King said, after clearing his throat.

The Infanta turned to him slowly. “It is done, Your Majesty. The city has been warded, with the help of Grial.” She drew in a deep breath, and spoke with a creaking voice and a sound of shattered ice in her lungs.

The King saw her white face dusted with a fine sheen of frost, like a delicate porcelain doll frosted with infinitesimal specks of crushed glass. Her great smoke-grey eyes sat deep in their sockets and were shadowed and particularly lovely, so the King felt a pang of guilt mixed with compassion.

“But now, I am sorry to say, the enemy is here in full force,” she said. “I just witnessed the arrival of a great army below the walls. They are wearing the red heraldic color that I am familiar with as the color of the Domain. I assume the Sovereign is here. Admittedly it is difficult to see from here, especially since we many not approach the edge of the exterior wall to look. But at least we are safe within the city—at least for the moment.”

“True, true!” the King said hurriedly. Then he motioned to the ranking soldiers around him. “What of the army out there? What reports do we have now?”

“It is as Her Imperial Highness says, the Trovadii army is here, stretched as far as the southern horizon. They have spread around in a great semi-circle, and Duke Chidair’s rabble is now but a small crowded circle directly around us.”

“Here, Your Majesty, a spyglass might help,” another officer remarked. He then assisted the King to step up on a raised portion of the inner bulwark and thus to see better over the walls beyond.

The King stood up, balancing carefully, and a circle of guards stood all around below, ready to catch him, while a long brass telescope was brought to him, fully extended for a viewing of at least a league’s distance.

Roland Osenni glanced through the eyepiece, training it at the grey mass of snow and tiny dark moving specks of the dead soldiers below. He could see very little at first, for the daylight was poor, and distance and the enlargement only inspired confusion. Eventually a garrison soldier pointed the end of the lens in the proper direction precisely, and King Roland Osenni could at last see the face of his enemies up close—in particular the enemy newly arrived.

About two hundred feet below, beyond the quenched remains of the scorched earth that was all that was left of the firewall, stood a fine regal carriage trimmed with gold, attached to a splendid team of white horses. Before it stood a statuesque woman, wearing an ermine-lined cloak of dark shimmering sable on the outside, sweeping the ground at her feet. A hat of similar sable fur trimmed with gold sat atop a small platinum courtly wig that lent a piquant air to her impossible beauty—for that much could be seen even through the imperfect lens of the spyglass.

The woman was conversing with the burly monster that was none other than Duke Hoarfrost. And there was a third person, a lady dressed in sage green who stood in attendance.

“Ah-h-h.” said the King, watching them. “It is indeed Rumanar Avalais, the Sovereign, damn her. Wish I could hear what is being said.”

He then swept the spyglass in a slow panoramic circle, and saw the extent of the Trovadii army. It was worse than he thought. Rows upon rows of perfectly aligned infantry, formations of cavalry, and banners of the Three Armies, stretching in pomegranate red to the horizon . . . indeed the whole of the Trovadii were camped out below his city’s gates.

It occurred to the King in that surreal moment that “his city” was not precisely the term he might use any longer, for the dead Infanta had appropriated his authority—for better or worse—even as she wrought the warding defense boundary for Letheburg. However, these were technicalities. He would proceed as usual for now.

“How many are there, would you say, captain?” he asked the nearest officer.

“Hard to say, Majesty,” the man replied after a pause. “Though, I can see the banners of all three of their Field Marshals. First Army there, dead center, see the Spiked Sun. And southwest, quarter turn, there’s the Second Army banner of the Coiled Serpent. And on the southeast, there’s the Third Army, Black Rose. So I am estimating eight to ten thousand, give or take a hundred. Plus, there’s Hoarfrost’s local rabble, about two thousand at least.”

The King exhaled loudly. “Not good. No, not good at all. Now, the question is, will this magic, this blessed sorcery of ours hold? Where is Grial? I would ask her—”

“Your Majesty! Here I am! How might I serve, now?” A loud familiar voice rang out, sonorous and grating at the King’s nerves and yet quite welcome for the moment.

Grial stood bundled in her coat and winter hat, just a few feet behind the guards surrounding the King up on his lookout pedestal.

“There you are, Grial,” said His Majesty, again clearing his throat in some minor vocal discomfort that curiously made itself known during circumstances such as these. “I would know—how well this magic of yours would hold out against
that accursed woman
and her army?”

“Ah, but Majesty, this is not my magic! It belongs to our dear Imperial Highness, Claere. And as for how well it can hold out, well, we’ll just have to see, will we not?”

“Well, is there anything else that you can do now?’

“Not in particular, Your Majesty. The next move belongs to her who stands below.”

H
oarfrost stood and watched the blood-red army surround him and his men from all sides, with the sound of drums and feet striking the snowy ground in unison. He had to admit, the formations were impressive, and the discipline worthy of envy—for he was yet to achieve such polish and orderly lines in his own haphazard local men. And had he not been thoroughly dead and thus lacking a heart to beat loudly in his chest and echo in his temples, he might have experienced an alarming sense of being closed in, even though these were the forces of an admitted ally. . . .

At some point, as he observed the various Field Marshal banners and divisions, suddenly the drums ceased and there was only wind and eerie silence. The bristling sea of blood-red pikemen and their needles of steel parted on two sides, and from the center rolled a regal carriage trimmed in gold, driven by beautiful white horses that were decidedly alive. It was followed by an honor guard of high-ranking mounted knights.

The carriage stopped, and the footman hanging on to the back ran to open the doors and pull out the retractable stair.

The doors parted, and there was a shimmer of glorious black sable, and a delicate booted foot appeared, followed by the rest of
her
.

The Sovereign of the Domain, Rumanar Avalais, stood up on the step and then descended to the beaten snow, adjusting her stylish fur hat with her slender black-gloved fingers. Her wrists were draped in ropes of diamond bracelets over the kid gloves, like constellations of stars over a night sky. Underneath the sable cape, its nether side lined with ermine, peeked a pomegranate velvet riding habit.

The Sovereign was a true beauty. Her platinum wig ringlets framed a perfect oval face with impossible blue eyes. And Hoarfrost met the look of those eyes with a stunned glare, and a jaw that would have fallen slack had not his frozen facial muscles held it fixed in place.

At Hoarfrost’s side, Lady Ignacia Chitain of Balmue dropped into a deep curtsy.

The Sovereign took a step toward Hoarfrost, and then slowly strolled around him, examining him up and down with a close scrutiny and a perfectly unreadable countenance.

It occurred to Hoarfrost that he was being appraised like an expensive thoroughbred stallion, before a purchase decision was to be made. And so he towered over her, a giant of frozen lake debris and snow and old blood, a wild briar thicket of hair frosted with crystalline ice. And he observed her in turn out of his fixed round marbles of eyes, daring her not to cower from his terrifying round-eyed glare.

At last, the remarkable sky-blue eyes blinked, and a faint smile gathered on her lips. “Hoarfrost,” she said, and her features came alive. “You are a splendid creature! You will do very well.”

Duke Hoarfrost gaped. “Oh, is that so? I will do well, you say?
I?
And what of
you?
Your Royal—what does she call you, Shininess?” and he turned to Lady Ignacia who gave him a quick, disturbed glance, before muttering softly, “Her Brilliance. . . .”

“Yes, yes, that’s right,
Her Brilliance!
” Hoarfrost picked up, and again trained his face upon the Sovereign. “We’ll just have to see how truly Brilliant you are, in your fancy carriage and with your Army of pretty boy tin soldiers, all lined up in rows!”

“Ah, and do you approve?” said the Sovereign, completely disregarding his tone and looking around them lightheartedly, as though they were out on a picnic. She moved, hands lightly spread outward at her sides, almost whirling in place like a girl, and her sable and ermine cape whirled around her, lighter than snow. Another moment, and she would be laughing, it seemed to Hoarfrost, and her laughing voice would sound precisely like a tinkling spring, soft and crisp and sparkling like bubbly wine that some of the fancy sops at Court so loved to drink.
 . . .

He forcibly made himself stop thinking along those lines, because it was almost a strange thing, an unnatural thing, that his thoughts were suddenly so buoyant and lighthearted, at the mere sight of her, this strange woman who appeared out of nowhere in his presence and made his usually sluggish thoughts gallop like rabbits that needed skinning—

Damn, there he was doing it again.

Or maybe, it was all
her
doing. . . .

And Duke Ian Chidair, known as Hoarfrost, made himself stop and look at her closely, with a measure of caution, in an attempt to understand who and what she really was.

There had to be a good reason why this foreign queen held such a great influence over so many. He was going to find out.

“Hoarfrost!” The Sovereign stopped circling him and looked up at the distant battlements of Letheburg, where the dead were packed tight as fish, straining against the invisible warding barrier. “Why are you and your army still out here, and not
in
there, within those walls?”