Starflower (10 page)

The River was angry.

As far as Glomar could tell, however, it wasn't angry with him. His Path had been long and winding indeed, trailing the Black Dogs. Perhaps Eanrin was right and he should have stuck to the simpler way. One would think the Dogs would take the swiftest route back to their lair, but instead they had led Glomar over hill and dale, doing everything in their power, he suspected, to lose him. Well, they got more than they bargained for! Glomar of Rudiobus was no mean footman. He was Iubdan's captain, a soldier of the field. He knew a thing or two about tracking.

Nevertheless, he frowned grimly as the Path he followed finally led him to the River. If Eanrin took this simpler road, he might indeed have already entered Etalpalli far in advance. Glomar knelt and put his badger's nose to work, snuffling the turf for any sign of the poet. There was none to be found.

Yet the River was angry. Furious, even. Glomar found it growling like a wild animal with unsuppressed ferocity, tearing at its own banks.
But the force of its personality focused elsewhere, farther upriver. What could have caused it so much ire?

Glomar swallowed hard and adjusted his grip on his hatchet. Not that it would do him a great deal of good should the River decide to vent its anger on him. Still, he felt better for handling it. He picked his way from the higher banks down to the water's edge, following the course it cut through the rocks and roots. The River, like all the Wood, was a treacherous sort; one could never be overcautious when dealing with it. Glomar, his face set in stern lines of concentration, made slow but steady progress.

That fool poet thought he couldn't get into Etalpalli. Hmph!

The water rushed faster and faster, churning white foam and dangerous currents only inches away from Glomar's Path. He must be nearing the gate, he thought. He had passed that way once before, and he knew what to expect. There the River's waters fell in great, rushing torrent. There the mists of its wild careening billowed far below. There, with his heart in his throat and his courage grasped firmly in both hands, a man could stand on the brink and gaze upon the gate of the City of Wings.

Only a soul who wished to pass for the sake of another might enter. Glomar licked his lips and thought of Lady Gleamdren. Sweet Lady Gleamdren, who would be Eanrin's fair quarry should Glomar fail. The captain gnashed his teeth. He could never let that happen! Gleamdren was too fine a gem to belong to that brute of a cat.

Within another few paces, Glomar beheld Cozamaloti Falls.

A
T
FIRST
HER
MIND
crawled slowly out of the deep recesses of fading dreams, back into the waking world. Enchantments often cause pain as they break and fall away, especially spiteful enchantments like the River's. They pulled at her, struggling to keep hold even as her body forced her to wake. A smashing whorl of colors and impressions filled her mind, allowing no coherent thought to take form. She was hot; she knew that much. A damp, soaking, dirty sort of hot, sweating from every pore.

Strange, for the last she remembered, she had been shivering.

Every limb was paralyzed and heavy, but her mind was returning to her. She wanted to wake. She did not want those dreams to pull her back down. So she fought the last fading shreds of the enchantment, mentally hurling herself against their hold. The more she struggled, the more she felt the damp and awful heat. But it was better than dreaming.

She strained again, and this time thought perhaps her body moved as well. At last she regained enough consciousness to open her eyes.

And found she was kissing a bullfrog.

Immediately, use of every limb surged back into her body. Her eyes flew wide; her arms flew wild. One hand struck the frog away, the other struck something or someone else. She heard a croak and a curse, and the next thing she knew, she was submerged in water. It closed over her head, stinging her eyes and filling her mouth. Thrashing madly, she pushed herself up again, coughing out a stream and pushing her hair out of her eyes.

For a frozen moment, she stared up into the face of a pale man with fiery gold hair and yellow eyes.

“Quite the clip in the jaw you just gave me, my girl! Come, now, let's make up and be friends, shall we?”

In her haste to turn about and simultaneously scramble to her feet, she slipped and went under again, this time face first. Her hands and elbows sank into mud, and swamp weeds wrapped about her arms and tangled with the ropes still attached to her wrists. But her flight instinct was strong, and though exhaustion threatened to betray her, she shoved forward even before she brought her head to the surface again.

She heard a shout and a splash and felt someone's hands grabbing at her shoulders. With an animal snarl she twisted away, writhing in the muck and kicking. She heard an
“Oooof!”
and a body landed partially on top of her. She pushed out from underneath, managed to gain her feet, and stood a dripping moment, poised to flee but without bearings.

Her gaze met that of the serpent.

ChuMana's long neck rose from the dark water, her flat head looking down. A forked tongue flickered from a mouth that could have swallowed a small pig whole.

A bead of water fell from the girl's nose.

Then she dropped like a stone, not asleep but in a dead faint.

Hri Sora awakened on the brink of a chasm.

She stared down into blackness, and her head whirled with that sickening sensation that was still so new to her: the fear of falling. All in an
instant, she relived that plunge from the heavens . . . that moment when her wings were stripped from her and the mortal world dragged her down.

Then she wrenched herself back from the chasm and sat gasping, her feet inches from its edge.

Slowly, the flames in her head cooled and she was able to open her eyes and survey the world. She remembered her name, and she knew where she was this time. She felt Etalpalli pulsing with the pain of its wounds beneath her. And she remembered the Flowing Gold and her bargain with the Dark Father. What she could not remember was why she was here, on the rim of this drop.

On trembling limbs, she got to her feet and slowly spun about. The memories returned but without pain. She could not, at least at this moment, feel pain. She recalled the tomb of her brother. Poor Ttlanextu.

Heat filled her mouth at that thought. “He was weak,” she said aloud, her words burning the air. “He was weak, or he would never have succumbed to Cren Cru.
I
didn't! It took more than that parasite to bring me down.”

It took only my fire.

The trembling of Hri Sora's limbs ceased in frozen horror. Then she turned to the pit, the black and gaping hole in the ground where Itonatiu Tower had once risen to the sun. She strode to the edge and, though the emptiness falling away below made her sick inside, she opened her mouth and spat fire into the darkness. The flame fell in a ball down and down, deeper and deeper. At last it was nothing put a pinprick of light. Then it was gone.

A moment of stillness. Then screams.

They were so far away that Hri Sora almost missed them. If Etalpalli itself was not so deathly silent, she never would have heard them. But they rose from the darkness and pierced her ears. She hissed and stepped back quickly.

The Dark Father spoke again in her head:
Are you ready to come home to me?

“No!” she snarled. “I will have vengeance first.”

Vengeance upon whom?

“None of your business. Give me my wings.”

Give me the Flowing Gold of Rudiobus.

Hri Sora gnashed her teeth. She remembered now the iron cage up in Omeztli, where her Faerie captive waited. Curses upon this raging fire that kept consuming her mind! Curses upon this frail body that could not support such flame! But she must not let herself grow angry. She must not allow the fire to take her again. How much time had she wasted already? Not that there was any need for haste. Gleamdren was immortal. Etalpalli was unassailable.

And Amarok was going nowhere.

This thought made her smile. No, Amarok never dared leave his self-styled demesne. Not with his children on the loose.

What is that smile for, daughter? Why do you keep secrets from me?

Warmth filled Hri Sora now, a pleasant warmth of anticipation. “Don't you wish you knew?” she crowed to the empty air. “Don't you wish you could read my mind?”

I don't have to read your mind. I can predict your every thought!

“But this you don't know,” she laughed. “And you won't. It's my business, not yours.”

Well, child, my business is your wings. Which you will never have if you fail to give me what I ask.

“All in good time, Father, all in—”

Etalpalli shuddered.

Hri Sora broke off with a gasp and fell to her hands and knees, feeling the ground with her fingers, tearing the rocks with her talons. Her demesne had been linked to her spirit the moment she was crowned queen. Though she'd burned the city, this link was unbroken. She felt every shudder, every change.

She felt now the intruder nosing along the edge of her borders. Beyond her world, out in the Between, but so close.

“You want it, don't you, my Etalpalli?” she whispered, stroking the trembling stones like a pet. “You are hungry for more deaths. Were not all my people enough to satisfy this newly awakened appetite?”

What a crude animal your demesne has become. I'll leave you to your games, daughter. But don't forget our bargain.

The Dark Father's voice receded into the pit. Hri Sora hardly cared.
Rising, she sped her gaze to the far reaches of her land and on into the Wood Between. There he was, one of the Merry Folk, testing the strength of her gate. He'd never get through on his own, selfish little beast that he was. Ttlanextu had been weak, but he was no fool when he set those boundaries in place!

Yet just as the king could make the rules, so the queen could break them. Hri Sora raised a hand and, with a twist of her wrist, opened the Cozamaloti Gate.

“Light of Lumé be doused forever, look what you've gone and done!”

It was unclear if Eanrin spoke to the serpent, the girl, or even the bullfrog as he scrambled up from the muddy water, rubbing his middle where he'd been viciously kicked a moment before. He was soaked through, his hair plastered to his head, his cloak clinging to his body. But he darted forward to lift the fainted girl from the murk and thump her back to be certain she hadn't swallowed more water. She lay limp as the dead against him, and he muttered a stream of curses.

A shadow fell across them both, and Eanrin looked up into the face of the bullfrog. Only it was no bullfrog now. It was a prince.

“Dragon's teeth,” Eanrin snarled.

The prince was tall, dark, and perhaps what mortals considered handsome. His clothing, though slimy as a frog's hide, was of fine weave, all blue and silver. In that hasty first glance, Eanrin decided he was probably not from the same Time as the girl in her skins. Time being unpredictable, it was possible for princes and princesses of different eras to meet when once they entered the Wood Between. Eanrin (though he paid little attention to mortal history) estimated a good thousand mortal years between girl and prince.

The prince swept a bow both to the poet and the fainted maid, saying, “Fair creature of untold beauty! How long have I awaited the deliverance brought by your sweet kiss?”

“Enough blathering,” snapped Eanrin, adjusting his hold on the girl, trying to brace her so he could stand. “She's unconscious and cannot
hear you. Just as well if you plan to speak in clichés.” He gave the girl a shake. “Come, this is ridiculous. One doesn't faint upon waking from an enchanted sleep! Rise and meet your rescuer; there's a good girl.”

Though her skin was dark, it wore a chalky pallor. Eanrin feared she had died from her fright, but when he put an ear to her mouth, he found she still breathed.

“Spitfire!” the poet swore in relief. With more sloshing and wallowing, he managed to get himself upright, the girl in his arms. Her neck was limp, and her mass of hair trailed over his arm. “Here,” he said to the prince. “Take her. I've had quite enough of this heroics nonsense. And have I mentioned that it's none of my business?”

The prince blinked at him. “She isn't mine.”

“She is now. She kissed you out of your froggishness, didn't she? Take her and deliver her kingdom like a man, then marry her, why don't you?”

The poet staggered a step forward, intending to drop the girl in the prince's arms. But the prince stepped back. “M-marry?” he said. “Oh, now, Sacred Lights!”

Eanrin offered the prince the coldest possible of stares. “Don't tell me you have any complaints?”

Thunder rumbled in the heavy sky above. Prince and poet startled and hunched their shoulders, as though afraid the heavens would drop on them. “Oh, I'm certainly not complaining,” said the prince. “Much obliged for the rescue, of course. But—”

“But what?”

“Well,
marriage
. . . I am expected to marry well.”

“To a princess, I would imagine?” Eanrin shrugged the girl in his arms. “This one is as much a princess as you'll ever find. She drank from an enchanted River. Who but a princess does that? True, she's not much to look on right now”—She wasn't. The wet skins she wore stank of swamp and clung to her limbs. Her hair stuck to her face and neck and sagged in a heavy, tangled lump down to the swamp water. Mud covered every visible inch of skin yet failed to disguise the sickly color of her cheeks—“but she'll clean up well enough. And she rescued you, by Lumé, from a fate amphibian! Just the girl to bring home to mum and dad.”

The prince rubbed the back of his neck. A drop of rain landed on his nose. More drops began to fall, dimpling the pools around them. The poet began to growl.

“The thing is,” said the prince, “I need to find myself a bride with a certain amount of dowry. Never mind why. But this girl . . . I mean, look at her. Princess or not, one must wonder if she'd recognize the value of a gold coin if it hit her in the eye!”

Eanrin felt the dampness of ChuMana's realm seeping into his bones. Even his smile had been soaked from his face. “You won't take the creature because she has no riches?”

“It's a sad business, I know,” said the prince with a sigh. “But what is a man to do? So, I'll just be moving along, then. When she comes to herself, give her my thanks. It has been a pleasure, and her kiss was nothing to frown upon, take my expert word for it. Farewell, princess! Farewell, stranger! I must take my leave—” He turned.