Once Upon a Winter's Night (53 page)

“Come, come, girl,” growled Olot. “Name the challenge.”

Camille looked at the Bear and then at the slaves, then turned to Olot and said, “Riddles. A game of riddles.”

The Bear settled back on his haunches, even as a murmur whispered through the slaves.

“You have named the challenge,” said Olot, “and these shall be the terms: again I say the riddle must concern something within this great throne chamber.” Olot laughed, his gaze sweeping about, for well did he know the room, free of debris though it now was.

A murmur of dissatisfaction rumbled through the slaves, for these terms meant that many a riddle could not be posed.

But Camille looked about the chamber and agreed.

“You ask; I answer,” said the cham.

Again Camille nodded, then she said:

Olot looked stunned, glancing back at Chamum Te’e-foon and Chamumi Dre’ela. And Dre’ela held up the shuttle dangling about her neck and said to Camille, “This, you stupid girl: a weaver’s shuttle.”

Camille frowned and said to Dre’ela, “It was your father’s to answer, but this once I will accept interference.” Camille then turned to the cham. “Is that your answer, too?”

“It is,” said Olot, both cham and chamum beaming proudly at their very ugly offspring, Dre’ela simpering at Olot and Te’efoon in return.

“Perhaps you shouldn’t have listened to your daughter, sire, for you lose,” said Camille.

“
What?
” Roared Olot and Dre’ela and Te’efoon together. “What else can it be?” shouted Olot.

Camille pointed to the base of the overturned throne and said,

And there under the throne a spider was repairing the last of its web, weaving back and forth between the legs of the upset chair of state. “The answer is a spider,” said Camille. “Now I’ll take my Bear and leave.”

Some of the slaves laughed at the cleverness of this chit of a girl, many of those from the household of Summerwood Manor clapping. But at growls from the Goblins and the brandishing of swords and spears the mirth was swiftly quenched.

“Three!” roared Olot. “You must pose three altogether, and should you lose even one, then you lose all. Those are the terms.”

At this the Bear growled, and so did some of the slaves, but Camille nodded her agreement, saying, “Three it shall be, my lord, yet this time and the next you and you alone must answer.”

The Troll cham glanced at his daughter and wife, and then at the golden-haired girl he would most dearly like to bed. Finally he nodded his agreement.

Camille again glanced about the chamber, and then she said:

Chamumi Dre’ela pulled the golden spool on its cord from ’round her neck, and she began tossing it up and catching it, even as she stepped in front of her sire and glared at him and jerked her head toward the bobbin.

Olot looked at her and growled, “You were wrong the last time, daughter.” He gazed about the chamber, and then laughed and said:

And then it was the cham who pointed at the upset throne, where the spider turned a captured fly ’round and ’round as it wrapped it in webbing. “The answer is a fly,” crowed Olot. “The fly is spun up in webbing for the spider to hang in his larder.”

As slaves groaned, for surely Camille had lost, Camille said, “This time you should have heeded your daughter, sire, for she had the answer all along: it is a spool, a spinning-wheel spool.”

“See!” shrieked Chamumi Dre’ela in fury.

“Spool?” roared Olot.

“Indeed, my lord,” replied Camille.

The slaves now hooted aloud at clever Camille’s second outwitting of the cham of Goblins and Trolls.

“This is trickery,” roared Olot. “No more riddles with double answers, answers which you can pick and choose the one I do not guess.” The cham flexed his great thews and said, “For the third and last challenge, I want a physical contest, not one of twisted words. And recall, should you lose this one, then you lose all.”

Camille was stunned, for although she was keen of mind, what could she physically challenge the Troll with? And it had to be something within the chamber.

’Round she looked, and ’round, but nothing came to mind. Finally, in despair, with tears in her eyes Camille looked at her beloved Bear, her beloved Alain. And there, matted in the Bear’s fur was a great blob of candle wax, the wax she had spilled on Alain that terrible night when all had been snatched away, the wax a sign of her betrayal of him. But then she realized that the very thing which had doomed him might also be his salvation.

She turned to the Troll cham and announced, “The third and last challenge, sire, is to clean the Bear of candle wax, but no single hair of the Bear’s fur may be harmed, else you lose.”

Shoving Olot aside, plucking and pulling on the Bear’s fur, scraping with her talons, Dre’ela tried her best and failed, the wax stubbornly clinging to fur. And the Bear did growl all during the trial, yet he stood quite still.

Chamum Te’efoon snarled, “Out of the way,” and she shoved the chamumi aside. And with sweat beading on her knobby, bald head, she, too, plucked and clawed at the growling Bear, her talons a bit more dainty, if dainty could be said of Troll talons. Yet, she had no better success than did her daughter.

Olot hurled the chamum aside, and he clawed at the wax, to little effect, and the Bear added a show of teeth to his growl. Then Olot whirled on Camille and snarled, “This is an impossible task. None can do so. I declare the contest null and void.”

“But if I clean it,” said Camille, “then you lose, agreed?”

Sneering, Olot nodded his concurrence.

Camille reached into her pocket and pulled out the third and last gift: the golden carding comb, the comb Skuld told her to hold on to till the end, for then it might do her some good.

“Not fair,” snarled Dre’ela.

Te’efoon nodded and called out to Olot. “Our daughter is right, for this pretender has a comb.”

But Camille replied, “The only rules were, whatever the contest, it had to concern something in this chamber, and this comb was certainly in the chamber.”

A rumble of agreement muttered among the slaves.

Camille knelt before the silent Bear and combed the fine, fine teeth through his fur, and in but moments, all the wax was gone, and not a hair on the Bear had been damaged.

“Now I will take my Bear and leave,” said Camille.

“Never!” cried Olot. He turned to the Goblin guard and bellowed, “Kill her!”

“For the Lady Camille,” shouted Lanval, turning to the nearest Goblin and smashing a fist in its face.

“For the Lady Camille,” shouted Blanche, kicking a Goblin in the gonads even as Renaud crashed a bench over another’s head.

And the hall erupted in sound and fury, some slaves grabbing up whatever came to hand and attacking the foe, while others fought with nought but fists, feet, and teeth. The Bear roared and reared up, and with mighty blows smashed aside Goblins left and right, keeping them back from Camille, though she shrieked and flailed away with her staff whenever one did come nigh.

Even so, the Redcap Goblins had bladed weapons—spears and tulwars and scimitars—and nearly all of the slaves did not, though a few here and there had managed to wrest a blade away from a downed Goblin. And so the tide turned, for bronze sheared through hands and arms and legs, necks and guts, and slaves fell, pierced or hacked or slashed, and red blood streamed in rivulets across the floor.

But then—
Boom! Doom!
—the great doors to the castle came crashing inward, and, led by a tiny sparrow, the Dwarves, with their axes and war hammers and maces swinging, rushed into the fray, Big Jack and Lady Bronze among them and slaying Goblins with every strike.

Redcaps fought with fury, yet the iron of the Dwarves shattered goblin bronze, and Redcaps shrieked and tried to flee, only to be cut down from behind. Te’efoon and Dre’ela fled screaming up the stairs, but, just as they reached the high landing above, Scruff flew into the face of Te’efoon, and she reeled back and lost her balance, and she reached out to grab on to anything to save her from the long fall, her talons snatching Dre’ela’s necklaces of stolen gold, and shrieking, together they tumbled over the edge to plummet headfirst to the stone floor below, skulls cracking open like rotten melons, necks snapping like twigs.

Chirping, Scruff flew back down to Camille and alighted on her shoulder, yet she paid little heed; all the battles had ended but one, and Camille cried out in distress, for with battering fists, Olot hammered back the Bear, staggering the massive bruin. Yet this enraged the Bear, and, mad with unbridled fury and striking mighty blows, he savaged the Troll cham, smashing him to the floor. But Olot threw up a hand and squealed, “Remember my curse: if you kill me, then you yourself are slain.”

“Oh, Bear,” cried Camille, “I would not have you die.”

And in that moment the Bear hesitated, but Big Jack shouted, “Well, Troll, I am not so cursed!” And with a single blow of Lady Bronze, Olot’s head went flying.

And with the last bane gone, the Bear vanished, and there stood Alain.

And so it was at that very instant, at the instant Camille’s Alain had been set free, it was high noon above, with the new moon lagging on one side of the zenith and the sun just passing beyond, and in that moment the island could truly be said to lie east of the sun and west of the moon there at that time and place.

Yet even as Camille rushed into Alain’s arms, she looked about at the dead and the dying—slain Goblins and slaughtered slaves and three very dead Trolls—and at the grief-stricken survivors, those with loved ones dead, and at the wounded crying out for aid. And Camille burst into tears and clutched at Alain and buried her face in his shoulder, for even more death had come, and it was all because of her, or so it was she did think.

Both Kolor and Lanval called for the untouched survivors to begin binding the wounds of the injured. And as most of the Dragonship crew and many of the household of Summerwood Manor set to the task, both the captain and the steward turned toward Alain and Camille. But then Kolor started and gasped in disbelief, and he breathed, “Maiden, Mother, and Crone, but am I seeing true?” And he pointed at the dais, where an ebon-cloaked, hooded figure appeared . . .

. . . and then another . . .

. . . and then one more . . .

. . . and all the Dwarves did kneel.

D
ark as ravens, the three figures stood unmoving, the hoods and hems of their black cloaks outlined respectively in silver, gold, and jet. Two held staves; one did not. All in the hall before them fell silent, but for the groans of the wounded and the sobbing of Camille. Then the silver-trimmed figure stepped to the edge of the dais and said, “Weep not, Camille, for you did well.”

Camille looked up into Alain’s face and then disengaged from his embrace and turned toward the dais. “Lady Sorcière,” she gasped, and wiped at her tears ineffectually.

The figure cast back her hood, revealing silver eyes and silver hair, and Camille curtseyed low and said, “Forgive me, Lady Skuld, I took you for someone else.”

Even as Skuld smiled enigmatically, the other two figures cast back their hoods, revealing golden-eyed, yellow-haired, matronly Verdandi, and black-eyed, white-haired, toothless, ancient Urd. And all the Dwarves dropped their gazes, for surely it would be unwise to stare into the face of Destiny, be it beginning, middle, or end.

And though the three Fates now stood before the assembly, Camille thought she could faintly hear the sound of three looms weaving.

Amazement in his eyes, for there stood Wyrd and Lot and Doom, Alain bowed, and all former slaves who were able bowed and curtseyed as well, Big Jack lowering Lady Bronze and bowing, too.

“Pish, tush,” said Verdandi, waving a negligent hand.

“This is no time for formalities. Instead, care for the wounded.”

As Dwarves and Humans resumed the task of tending the injured, Skuld looked at Camille and said, “Although what Fate gives, most assuredly Fate can take away, we three would be most appreciative if you would return the gifts to the givers.”

“Oh, indeed,” said Camille, and she took the carding comb from her pocket. “Here is one”—she stepped forward and gave over the golden comb to Skuld—“but I’ll have to get the other two, for the shuttle and bobbin are on—”

—Yet of a sudden the shuttle was now in Verdandi’s hand and the bobbin in Urd’s. Camille was relieved, for now she wouldn’t have to touch Dre’ela’s corpse. And then the golden gifts vanished, as if returned whence they had come.

Camille looked back at Alain, and he yet held wonder in his eyes, for not only were the three Fates standing before him, but it appeared his love had had dealings with them. She held out her hand and he stepped to her and took it, and together they faced the three Sisters.

With her stave in hand, Verdandi lifted the gold-trimmed hem of her cloak and stepped down from the dais and looked up at Big Jack and said, “Would you walk with me?” Big Jack bobbed his head and offered his arm, and together they moved among the those who were injured, Lady Verdandi saying a word here and touching a cheek there, and all seemed the better for it.