Moonkind (Winterling) (16 page)

Twenty-Seven

Fer took off her quiver and set her bow at the side of the double doors, then opened them and stepped alone into the nathewyr.

Dazzle
.

She blinked and then squinted. Her bee buzzed with alarm. It was blindingly bright inside, like looking into the sun. It made black spots dance in front of her eyes.

And the stilth. The air was so heavy that to breathe she had to suck the air into her chest and then push it out again. She took a step forward, and it was like wading through hip-deep mud. Time had stopped here and then stagnated.

The hall was crowded with Lords and Ladies, all glittering with glamorie. They were not Forsworn, but in coming here to hide they had forsaken their lands and their people, and they’d been caught up in the stilth. They needed to change too, to give up the false rule of the glamories.

The end of the room, on the platform where the High Ones usually sat, was even more dazzling—so blazingly bright, she couldn’t even make out any figures.

You are a Lady,
she told herself. This false glamorie had no power over her. The room darkened; the glamories faded, and maybe the pucks’ ability to see truly had rubbed off on her, because she saw the Lords and Ladies as they really were. Some were bent like gnarled trees; others were pale and faded, almost like ghosts; still others were squat and rough-skinned, like toads. They didn’t look beautiful or noble anymore.

All of them were stuck like statues, caught in the grip of the stilth.

“Come on,” she whispered to herself, and started toward the platform at the other end of the nathewyr.

The first time she’d been here the Lords and Ladies had stared at her in disgust, and sniffed as if they’d smelled something nasty.
Not a true Lady at all,
they’d whispered.
Part human,
they’d sneered. But now they looked at her differently. Their eyes were wide, and as she passed she felt them trying to pull away, even as the stilth pressed down upon them.

They almost looked . . . frightened.

Well, they should be frightened, Fer figured. Their lands and their people were dying, and they would die too, if the stilth kept spreading.

She stopped and bent to peer at a hunched mole-Lord who had a long, pink nose and a bald, pink head patched with peltlike, black fur. The mole-Lord’s eyes were tiny, but Fer saw truly: the Lord
was
afraid.

He was afraid of her.

She straightened, surprised. She wasn’t a frightening person. Was she?

Maybe she was. She was a Lady, with all a Lady’s power, and she had demanded oaths from other Lords and Ladies—oaths that had been impossible for them to fulfill. She had wanted them to change everything about the way they lived and ruled. When she had come to the nathe before, to demand that they fulfill those oaths, she hadn’t been careful, and—as far as they knew—she and the puck she’d brought with her had killed the Birch-Lady. Now she was here again, the only Lady with the power to resist the stilth. They had no power at all compared to her.

No wonder they were frightened.

Don’t worry, I won’t hurt you,
she wanted to tell him, but she knew he wouldn’t believe her.

Fer went on faster now, pushing through the stilth to the blaze of glamorie where the nine remaining Forsworn awaited her on the platform. When she reached it, she stopped and examined them carefully.

Their glamories were desperately bright, like sunlight reflecting from hot metal. And inside . . . it looked like the Forsworn were being stretched out to nothingness by their glamories and by the stilth. They were shriveled and gaunt. Their eyes were wide with terror, and with enmity, too.

“Be careful,” she whispered to herself.

Slowly she climbed onto the platform. The pucks, she knew, didn’t think much of her plan to talk to the Forsworn. But maybe it wasn’t so stupid after all. “What I could see before,” she told them, “was your power. But now I see what you really are.” The Forsworn were shriveled, bitter, malevolent creatures, clinging to their power with trembling claws, terrified of any change. She stepped closer. When she continued, her voice rang out through the nathewyr. “I ask you a third time to fulfill your oaths to me and take off your glamories.”

One of the Forsworn Ladies gave a wail of rage; two other Ladies gripped each other’s hands; the rest cowered.

The Sea-Lord—their leader, Fer realized—scuttled a sideways step closer to Fer. His seaweed hair hung dry and limp from his head, and he was hunched into himself. “We cannot remove the glamories,” said the Sea-Lord. His eyes narrowed and Fer caught a malevolent glint. “The fault lies just as much with you, Lady, as it does with us. You should never have demanded such an oath.”

For just a second, Fer felt a tingling of regret. “It’s true,” she admitted, “that I didn’t think through the consequences of asking you to swear an oath to me.” She went on, growing more sure of herself. “But I was right to ask you to take the glamories off. The glamories make power too important. You don’t need them to be connected to your land and people. Even now it’s not too late to make things right.” She bent to look into the Sea-Lord’s eyes. “We brought a shadow-spider with us. If you step through its web, the glamories will be removed. All you have to do is step through. That’s all.”

The Sea-Lord shrank away from her, and the other Forsworn hissed with dismay. “No, Lady,” he spat. “The web will kill us, as it killed Marharren.”

“She seeks our deaths!” the Forsworn Lady wailed.

“No, the Birch-Lady is alive,” Fer explained. And she could prove it. Where was Rook? She turned and peered through the brilliance of the nathewyr. There—a dark blot against the brightness. Rook was standing in the doorway of the hall, not moving. Another dark shape stood beside him. “Come with me,” Fer ordered.

The Sea-Lord nodded, but edged around her. The other Forsworn followed, and she led the shuffling group through the Lords and Ladies to the door of the nathewyr, where Rook and the Birch-Lady waited. The other Lords and Ladies gathered behind them, moving slowly like stone statues come to life.

Fer stepped past the Birch-Lady to stand beside Rook. He had a reddening bump on his neck where her bee had stung him. “All right?” she asked.

Rook gave her a slow nod. “She’s been hiding in Old Scrawny’s room. He’s coming too.”

Arenthiel? She nodded. “Good.” She touched Rook’s hand to keep him out of the stilth, then looked at the cluster of Forsworn and at the other Lords and Ladies, and pointed at the Birch-Lady. “See?” she asked them. “She’s not dead.”

The Birch-Lady stepped forward to meet them. Like an ancient birch tree, she was gnarled, with gray patches at her knobby elbows and knees and a fall of withered, leaflike hair hanging over her face. She had dark eyes set into the mass of wrinkled, barklike skin. She was ancient, but she wasn’t ugly. She gave the gathered Forsworn a brisk nod. “Listen to the girl, you fools. She is right about the glamories. When my glamorie was gone, the puck told me to go back to my land and my people, and so I did. The stilth had been strong there, and the people needed me. But with my oath fulfilled, the stilth was leaving my land, and I could help them.” She pointed at Rook. “Let the puck touch you with his cursed hand, as he touched me,” she said. “It is painful, and you may die of it, but your oath will be fulfilled.”

Beside her, Fer felt Rook give a start. He raised his web-smudged hand. “I promised I wouldn’t,” he said. “You can’t use me to be rid of the glamories.”

Fer knew that Rook was right. The Forsworn couldn’t put it on Rook to take their glamories away. “We have the spider outside,” she told them. “If you step through its web, your glamories will be destroyed.”

“It seems you have left us with no choice,” croaked the Sea-Lord. A spark of malevolence still gleamed in his eyes.

“Your choice is that.” Fer pointed toward the door leading outside to where the spider was waiting. “Or death. For everyone in all the lands. Eventually the stilth will come for you, too.”

The Forsworn trembled at this. Two of the Ladies started to weep.

The Birch-Lady spoke. “Look around you.” She swept her arms wide, showing them the nathewyr, the silent, still Lords and Ladies gathered behind them. “Our broken oaths have caused this. The glamories have ruled us for too long. Take the glamories off, and you will be free of them forever.”

The Birch-Lady had a different kind of power now, Fer realized. Maybe, now that she’d lost her glamorie, she’d given up rule and . . . she’d become wise.

“Come with me,” Fer told the Forsworn. “The stilth is still spreading, and we have to hurry.”

For a long moment the Forsworn hesitated. Fer watched carefully, and she saw the spark of resistance in the Sea-Lord’s eyes go out. He understood what they were facing.

As fast as she could, Fer led them through the nathe, and shuffling, creeping, limping, they followed, and so did all the other Lords and Ladies, dragging under the burden of their glamories. And the stilth came with them. They passed across the lawn, and then through the forest to the gray, viney wall. There the pucks were waiting.

And so was the spider.

Rook stayed close beside Fer. Staying true, yes, but the stilth surrounding the Forsworn was so thick that it would grip him if he strayed too far.

At the nathe’s viney wall, his brothers Asher and Tatter came out to meet them. They had bee stings on their necks too, he saw—Fer’s bees keeping them from the grip of the stilth. Rip was there too, with Gnar and Lich.

“Lady,” Tatter said with a nod to Fer. “The people are cured of their wildling. But the stilth in the Lake is going to make them sick again if we don’t do something soon.”

Rook glanced at Fer. Beside the gaunt, cringing Forsworn, she looked tall and strong and wild. “All right,” she said firmly. She turned to Ash. “And the shadow-web?”

Ash grinned. “There’s enough.”

“Well done,” she approved. To Rook’s surprise, Asher nodded at that, as if her approval was something he actually wanted. Fer turned to him. “Rook, can you ask the spider to spin even more web, for all the Lords and Ladies?”

“I can, yes,” he answered. He gave a low whistle, and the spider lurched out of the shadows at the edge of the forest. At the sight of it, the Forsworn shrank away, trembling. “It’s not going to eat you,” he muttered. Stupid Forsworn. Purring, the spider loomed over him; it reached out with a furred feeler and patted him on the head. He stumbled. “We need more web,” he told it.

The spider scuttled to the edge of the forest and started spinning. Its web took shape quickly; a curtain of dark shadows draped from the low-hanging branches. Finished, the spider backed away.

The cluster of Forsworn stared at the shadow-web. None of them moved.

Even in the still forest, the web wavered. It looked like a puddle of darkness hanging in the air. To step through it might be to step through into dark emptiness, or into death.

“The stilth is the death of us all,” Fer told them. “You can stop it by fulfilling your oaths.”

“The Lady is right,” the Birch-Lady put in. “Be brave, as I was not. Our people need us. Our lands need us. Be true Lords and Ladies.”

“You have been asked three times to fulfill your oaths,” Fer said to the Forsworn. “What is your answer?”

Rook braced himself, just as he knew his brothers were doing, fingering the shifter-tooth in his pocket. If the Forsworn refused to step through the web, there would be a fight.

“We will fulfill the oaths,” the Sea-Lord said suddenly. Crabwise, he edged up to the shadow-web. Rook saw him close his eyes, and then he plunged through the web.

Rook held his breath, expecting the shrieks and moans that the Birch-Lady had made when he’d stripped the glamorie from her with his web-smudged hand.

But the Sea-Lord stepped through the other side of the web. The false glare of the glamorie had been stripped away, and he stood on shaky legs, blinking at the pucks and other Forsworn. He still looked like an ancient crab, and he wasn’t beautiful or lordly. But he looked solid in a way he hadn’t before. To Rook’s eyes, he looked
right
.

The choice. Fer had been right to let them choose.

One by one, watched carefully by the pucks, the Forsworn stepped through the web and came out the other side without their glamories. They blinked, as if looking at the world through new eyes. The two Ladies who had been weeping clung to each other, and they were still weeping, but now they shed tears of happiness.

“They’re free,” Fer said from beside him. “I didn’t realize before. They hated the glamories, even while they were wearing them.”

“Arenthiel told me they were slaves of the glamories,” Rook remembered. “I guess they really were.”

She smiled up at him. “They’ve fulfilled their oaths, Rook. That means we’ve defeated the stilth.”

“It does,” he answered, grinning back at her. He’d helped with it too, and so had his brothers. Soon he could tell her about staying true, and she’d believe him, and all would be well again.

After all the other Lords and Ladies had stepped through the web and been freed of their glamories, Rook followed Fer and the newly freed Forsworn through the opening in the viney wall to the pebbled edge of the Lake of All Ways. There, the crowd of waiting people stood silently watching. Plump seal-people and mole-people, and a couple of mouse-boys, and fern-girls, and the proud skunk-girl and her friends. People from all the lands. They had been cured of the wildling; they could see that their Lords and Ladies were no longer wearing their glamories. Everything had changed.

“Hello,” Fer greeted them, smiling.

They didn’t answer. The air was heavy.

Too heavy.

The bee on Rook’s collar gave a shrill buzz. He tried turning his head to look at it, but he couldn’t move. Out of the corner of his eyes he saw the Forsworn and the other Lords and Ladies huddled together, unmoving. On the other side, his brothers stood still and silent, Fer’s bees buzzing frantically around them.

A step ahead, Fer turned to face him, her eyes wide.

Behind her, the Lake’s surface turned sooty black—as black and blank as any night without stars or moon. Black tendrils seeped from it, creeping along the ground. Whatever they touched shriveled and died.