Starflower (13 page)

And he started off through the Wood, following a brightly lit Path, singing as he went:

“Oh, woe is me, I am undone,

In sweet affliction lying!

For my labor's scarce begun,

And leaves me sorely sighing

After that maiden I adore,

Who something, something, something more . . .”

He called back over his shoulder, “Thus does the poet's work progress! Do, please, withhold all judgment until further notice.”

Newly christened Imraldera stared after him. Then with a sigh, she picked up her feet and made them follow her noisy guide. For now, she would let her path wander with the poet's. But soon, she would have to part ways with him. She would have to plunge alone once more into the threatening Wood.

Etalpalli shuddered.

The towers had stood vacant for a hundred years. The streets were crumbled, melted from that old fire. Like a sad and lonely graveyard, the city had stood undisturbed in the ruins of its once fair demesne.

So when a stranger fell through its gates and landed hard upon the stones, the city trembled to its core. And somewhere, deep within that tangle of streets, two Dogs started baying.

Hri Sora, returned to the summit of Omeztli Tower, gazed with far-seeing eyes across the many spires to the edge of her city and saw the intruder. The fall had been, apparently, much greater than he had expected. She smiled. Her little deceptions could still govern the borders of her realm, ruined though it may be. The man had landed on the stone and fallen, his face twisted in pain. She watched him reach down to one ankle, which was already showing signs of swelling. Yes, that fall had taken him by surprise. Cozamaloti was not to be underestimated!

“What are you staring at?” The petulant voice of her prisoner rang through the otherwise silent air. “I don't recall ever seeing you so alert. You look almost conscious!”

“We have a visitor,” Hri Sora responded without looking around.

“A likely story,” said Gleamdren with a sniff. “Who would come calling on . . . wait a moment. My suitors! They've arrived!”

“Suitors? No.” Hri Sora smiled as she watched the poor captain struggling to get to his feet. “Only one.”

“What?” Gleamdren pressed herself up against the bars of her cage, her sulky eyes wide with disbelief. “You're teasing me. I demand you let me see!”

“You can make no demands here,” said Hri Sora, turning suddenly. “You are bound by my pleasure, Gleamdrené Gormlaith.” Nevertheless, she lifted the cage by its handle, not caring how it swayed. Gleamdren, unbalanced, fell to her hands and knees. “But it is my pleasure,” Hri Sora continued, “that you should see.” And the dragon carried her prisoner to the edge of the roof and held out her arm.

Gleamdren gasped. She hung suspended over a drop of unbearable length. As the cage swung, she caught glimpses of the red stone so terribly far below. Without the cage, she would not fear. Heights never bothered her little head, and she would gladly cast herself from the highest peaks of Rudiobus Mountain. Such was her nature, flighty as she was. But not in a cage, without freedom of movement. Not with those iron bars surrounding her, pulling her down . . .

But the dragon did not let go. “Look,” said Hri Sora.

Gleamdren looked and gasped again as her gaze sped across the miles, seeing over the distance with such unnatural clarity that she felt dizzy. “What are you doing to my eyes?” she demanded.

“Giving you my sight. Behold your suitor, queen's cousin!”

And Gleamdren saw Captain Glomar writhing on the stone street at the city's edge. She frowned, her fear forgotten. “Where are the others?”

“What others?”

“My suitors. Where are the rest of them?”

“There are no others.”

“You're wrong. There should be a dozen at least. More, even!”

“Only one.” Hri Sora's smile was cruel and cold. “And that one not for long.” She raised her other hand, gleaming with long black talons. She snapped her fingers.

Gleamdren saw the movement of darkness deep in the city. The flow of a black shadow that was deeper than shadow, moving like a living animal through the streets. And even at that distance, she heard the baying.

“I have put the Black Dogs on his trail,” said Hri Sora. “They'll drive him into my city. He will never find you, Lady Gleamdren. Unless, of course, you tell me what I wish to know.”

Gleamdren watched that blackness flowing like spilled ink, drawing ever nearer to where Glomar lay still, clutching his swollen ankle.

“Tell me the secret of the Flowing Gold,” hissed the dragon. “Tell me, and I may even now let him go.”

The voices of the Dogs were the death tolls on a booming bell.

“Tell me,” said Hri Sora. “Tell me what I need!”

Gleamdren's face was pale and cold, as though a piece of her had died as she watched the scene being played out below her. At last she pulled
herself to her feet and walked unsteadily across the swaying cage floor to the other side, where she could face the dragon. Though the iron made her dizzy, her small white hands grasped the bars, and she raised her gaze to meet the dragon's as she said:

“I cannot believe there's only one. I have scores of beaux! Are you sure there aren't more knocking at your gates?”

Hri Sora nearly flung the cage over the roof's edge then and there.

T
HEY
TRAMPED
THROUGH
THE
FOREST
for what seemed both forever and an instant, though the light never changed. All was still, yet Imraldera sensed that life moved through the blurry shadows just beyond the Path she trod behind the poet. Life, and death as well.

How long had it been since she'd last eaten? Since she'd last sipped water that was not ensorcelled? Her steps shortened and she stumbled.

Eanrin whirled about, his eyebrows drawn into an irritable line. “You mortals are such a poorly put together lot, it's a wonder you survive as long as you do! You look as though you're ready to fall into little pieces, and who will be left to pick you up?”

She glared at him but could not suppress a relieved sigh when he continued, “Sit down and rest. This is as safe a place as any. Can't have you fainting on me again, especially once we come to Cozamaloti Gate.”

This name meant nothing to Imraldera. But it didn't matter. Though she hated to demonstrate any weakness in front of the Faerie cat, at the word “rest,” her knees gave out beneath her, and she sank gratefully into
a cushion of soft moss, resting her head on her crooked arm. She was too tired even to sleep.

Eanrin prowled about the periphery of the grove of silver aspens, his long nose sniffing and twitching so that she almost thought him in cat form. “This was a Haven once,” he declared at last.

She watched him, offering no response.

“A Haven of the Farthest Shore,” he went on, for he never required encouragement to talk. “Built by the Brothers Ashiun, two knights who came to these worlds from across the Final Water. Run down beyond recognition now, isn't it?” he added, tapping one of the tree trunks and shaking his head dismissively. “That's what happens with knights. Everything begins new and shining, the worlds all praising their virtue! It ends like this Haven. Abandoned. Empty.”

But Imraldera, her eyes slowly traveling about though she was too tired even to lift her head, saw how gently the trees swayed in some almost imperceptible breeze. There was nothing here to disparage, she thought. Vines climbed the trees, spreading their curtains of many-colored flowers among the branches, including gleaming starflowers. It was wild, but it was beautiful in its very wildness.

Imraldera's breath caught in her throat. In a single instant (very like when she had first seen that the cat was also a man), she saw that the grove was also a chamber. A beautiful round room with walls of dark wood and diamond-shaped windows through which golden light poured upon a floor of green marble. She lay not on a bed of moss but on a pile of silken cushions, their colors faded. Yes, the windows were broken, the marble was chipped, and in many places the ceiling had fallen in, crumbling walls with it. But it was, nevertheless, the richest, the most beautiful room Imraldera had ever seen. More lovely than her wildest dreams could have conjured.

She blinked again, and the vision was gone, replaced by the aspen grove. But the image of what she had seen remained in her head.
This is what holy places should be,
she thought as her eyes slowly closed.
Holiness should be beautiful. Not bloodied.

A sob caught in her throat. Still lying on her side, she covered her face with her arms, hiding herself. And she fell into fitful dreams.

“Will you let me take your name with me?”

Sun Eagle's eyes are dark as the night, but with a bright golden quality shining in their depths. When he looks at her, she believes he sees her . . . not the lowly woman's child, or the mute servant who must always keep her head down and obey. She thinks he sees who she is, the person hiding inside. The person who longs for a voice.

“It would give me great pride to carry your name. The name of Panther Master's daughter.”

Shyly, she holds out her hand. A blue clay bead painted with a white starflower rests in her palm. She offers it to Sun Eagle, who smiles in return.

But his smile melts. His face elongates. And then it is not Sun Eagle who stands before her, but the High Priest.

“You belong to the Beast!”

She runs in the dark. The tunnel closes in, and she cannot breathe the air here. She will suffocate, yet still she must run and run, though the rocks cut her feet and her eyes cannot discern two steps down her path.

Behind her, just at her ear, someone is breathing. . . .

“Wake up, princess. Wake up, I say!”

Imraldera's eyes flew open, and she gasped. She lay in the grove of aspens. Everything around her—the smells, the sounds, the feel of moss beneath her hands—was comforting and safe. Even the sight of that cat-man, his eyes expressing something between concern and irritation, was a relief.

I am far from the Land,
she told herself as her racing heart slowly calmed.
I need never return.

Eanrin, who was on his hands and knees beside her, drew back, his eyes narrowed. “It's time to move on,” he said. “Cozamaloti is near, and I can't afford to waste any more time on you.”

Despite these harsh words, he offered a hand and helped her to her feet, holding her arm until she had steadied herself. Her muscles ached and her head whirled, for she was still hungry. The cat-man watched her closely.

“Your dreams stink,” he said at last, then turned and led her from the Haven, back into the Wood.

A little swing hung from the roof of the iron birdcage. Just a single bar suspended between two delicate threads, but Gleamdren's weight was featherlight, and she balanced on it with ease, swinging back and forth. She held on to a thread with one hand. With the other, she played with a strand of her long flaxen braid, which was coming undone.
“I would behold the luster of her hair,”
she sang under her breath,
“And seek the arms of Lady Gleamdrené.”

Her hair wasn't so lustrous now, was it? After hours and days, weeks, perhaps, without a comb! One by one, she had lost her hairpins, and now only three remained to hold any semblance of style in place. “Not that it matters,” she whispered. She huffed a sigh.

In the distance, she heard the howls of the Black Dogs. They were on the move, she guessed. Perhaps Captain Glomar was giving them a bit of a chase, despite that swollen ankle of his. Well, Lumé light his path . . . but it wouldn't do Gleamdren a lot of good if only Glomar showed his sorry face! What kind of reputation could she hope to boast if she returned to Rudiobus with only one of her gallants in tow?

The Dragonwitch, as Gleamdren was beginning to think of her captor, perched on the edge of the flat roof, bundled up like a gargoyle in the tatters of Gleamdren's own nightdress and her lank, colorless hair. She might be watching the city below, feasting upon the sight of the Black Dogs hunting down their helpless prey. More likely, she was asleep. Or at least that version of sleep dragons know: an outwardly frozen stupor while their insides burned.

High towers notwithstanding, Gleamdren decided that captivity was as boring a lot as she'd ever known.

“So I've been thinking,” Gleamdren spoke out loud, with little real hope that Hri Sora was listening. “It does seem a bit odd for you to want the Flowing Gold, doesn't it? Queen Vartera wanted it to flatter her vanity—she is a stuck-up pig, for all she's a goblin! Nidawi the Everblooming made a snatch for it once, just for a lark. Even the Mherking tried to find it as a gift to woo Linaherea, the mortal girl he fancied.

“But you? You do nothing for a lark, and I can't imagine you vain. It doesn't make sense, you being so glum and unattractive. My best guess is that you want it as a gift for someone, like the Mherking. Ugly as you are, you probably have some trouble getting a fellow to notice you. Am I not right?” Gleamdren simpered on her swing, patting at her limp hair. “I'm something of an expert in these things! So yes, I think that must be what this is all about. But it's not that knight you were in love with long ago, is it? I remember the story from the
Ballad of the Brothers Ashiun.
He died, didn't he? Or his brother did. I can never keep it straight.”

The swing creaked as it swung, the only sound besides Gleamdren's prattle and the distant howls of the Dogs. The Dragonwitch herself might have been a stone gargoyle for all she moved or responded.

“But you don't want the gift for the knight.” Gleamdren licked her lips. She was playing with fire, she knew. “You mentioned someone else a while back, when you were having one of your . . . fits. You want the gold for this Amarok, don't you?”

The explosion was beyond what Gleamdren expected. The blast of it knocked her from her swing. She had the good sense to curl up in a ball and tremble as waves of heat and smoke rolled over the little birdcage. When at last she dared look up, she was surrounded in such a thick cloud of black, she could have sworn the Black Dogs themselves had descended upon her.

Instead, two burning eyes cut through the smoke. Hri Sora gazed in at her captive.

“There is only one gift I will ever give Amarok,” she said.

When the smoke finally cleared, Gleamdren was alone atop the roof under the blistering sun of Etalpalli.

Give her back! Give her back to me!

Eanrin heard the voice of the River long before he saw it. This stretch of the Wood was otherwise silent, as though the trees themselves were afraid of attracting the River's notice. The poet-cat shivered at the voice.
They were drawing near to Cozamaloti. He had never seen the gate before, did not know what it might look like. But he had passed in and out of many realms of Faerie in his day, sniffed out dozens upon dozens of hidden gates. He knew the signs and smells. And he knew that Cozamaloti was near, possibly on the edge of the River itself.

But they could not hope to pass through the gate without the River's compliance.

“Iubdan's beard,” he swore, pausing in midstep, his nose high, his tail low (for he was in cat form at the moment). He'd hoped the River would have forgotten Imraldera by now. A vain hope; rivers have long memories.

He looked back at the girl. Her head was down, and she moved slowly, though always just keeping pace with him. Despite the few hours' rest he'd allowed her at the Haven, her eyes were glassy with fatigue. She didn't seem to understand the River's voice. That should make things easier.

The trees tended to point as the two made their way along the Path, especially the aspens, which are terrible gossips as it is. The girl was a sight, Eanrin had to admit. So dirty, her hair a mess of twigs and leaves, the rough-skin dress she wore torn at the hem. At least her face was lovely.

The cat swore again. What was he doing? Never in all the centuries of his life had he considered altering course to help a mortal creature! Much less allowing one to shadow his footsteps like this. Even now, if he stopped and truly thought about it, everyone would be much better off if he left her here. After all, dragging her along to the River was no end of dangerous for her, but he couldn't, for Gleamdren's sake, turn aside from his own quest. No, it would be much better to slip away now, to vanish into the shadows and let her learn to fend for herself.

It was all the fault of the Hound
.
They said, when once you saw him, your life was forever changed.

“Dragon's teeth and tail!” the cat whispered through his fangs. “Changed, like the Brothers Ashiun, no doubt. And look what happened to them. Dead. Or disgraced. And they, so noble! I'll be dragon-kissed before I follow in their footsteps.”

Imraldera stumbled.

Eanrin, before his reason could catch up with his reflexes, took on his man form and caught her. Her hands gripped his sleeves as though they
were her final lifeline, and her face pressed into the front of his doublet. An almost inaudible moan escaped her lips, cutting him to the quick.

“Steady, Imraldera,” he murmured, gently setting her back upright. “Steady.”