Thankless Task (part 3)

When Rayne came back downstairs, Pagourie and the Professor were at chess in the Hermopolis Room over a tray of tea and baklava, the curtains drawn closed on the tall windows. Nandana was playing black, and winning. Nearby, Freddy the groundskeeper, a lean satyr with a bristling mustache and a mane of dark curls, sat with one hoof on an ottoman and picked out a tune on a long-necked saz. Next to the low table that held the board and the tea, Gregor picked at a tin trayful of something Rayne did his best not to look closely at.

The other Folk Under had gone back some time before, set to return after dark with reinforcements. Pagourie had stayed behind, ostensibly as a gesture of goodwill, but also because he and the Professor had discovered a mutual interest in tales and sagas, and the little mole-faced man had broken out of his nervousness into animated conversation.

“Master Rayne,” said Nandana, “do come join us, please! Our Wildish friend has been telling me of a whole body of legendry among the Verloren tribe of which I had not been previously aware. If he stays another hour, I shall have to revise my curriculum entirely in the spring.”

“Perhaps, my l—uh, sir, but I’ll still be at least three games down.”

“Well, you underestimate the use of your rook.” Gregor croaked, loudly, from under the table. “Indeed, just so. And how are negotiations coming along upstairs, my friend?”

“They’re… coming. Her Lordship isn’t happy, but I don’t think she’s being given much choice.”

“I thought not. Our Jenny has a remarkable talent for a certain uncompromising method of diplomacy, doesn’t she?”

“Yes,” said Rayne. “As much as you do for tact, Professor.” He gathered his robe around him and stretched out on an empty chaise. “I have to say, though, I feel like I’m not helping things. I can’t help but think whatever it is that’s rubbing Jenny’s fur the wrong way at any given moment is worse when I’m around. I wonder if the time is coming when I’m doing more harm than good hanging around here.”

“Heh, no,” said Freddy, pausing in his tune and setting his lute aside. “Those two have been like that for years, mate. I think half of what keeps ‘em together is knowing the same argument’s waiting there at the end of the day. Just be grateful they’ve quit having to stop and shag each other afterwards every time. Used to be a fight broke out and you could about set your watch.” He grinned. “And look, about that. Jenny learned a long time ago that Her Lordship isn’t a one-person kind of girl, and she had a choice to stay or leave. She chose to stay. Maybe she doesn’t always like it, but it’s how things are, and she’s still here. Much as she takes it out on you and everyone else from time to time, she knows it’s nobody’s problem but her own. And she knows damn well that if it wasn’t you, it’d be someone else. Probably something you oughtta keep in mind, too.”

Rayne sat up. “Well, dip me in chocolate and call me an éclair. Freddy the Faun’s a marriage counselor.”

Freddy threw back his head and laughed. “Not me, squire. I’m a bona fide rakehell, I am. I just call ‘em as I see ‘em, is all.” He picked up the saz again and started plucking at the strings. “But I’m just a handyman, when it comes down to it. What do you think, professor?”

Nandana smiled. “I think that, by and large, the sleeping arrangements of young people are none of my business at all. But I also think you are probably correct. Master Rayne, I wouldn’t trouble myself with this overmuch if I were you. It’s good that you are conscientious, but I doubt very much that any of this has much to do with you. And I think that if Mistress Branleigh wants you here, that is a decision both of you have sufficient wisdom to make.”

“Well, thanks,” said Rayne. “I think I’m about to die from a chronic case of the warm fuzzies, but thanks. Though I can’t imagine this is any fun for our guest to be listening to. My apologies.”

“On the contrary,” said Pagourie. “I find this all fascinating. I’ve been studying human romance for years now. My clan doesn’t have it at all, see. When one of our women is in estrus she selects a harem of mates, and when our litters are born the whole community raises them because, well, they could be yours. But the idea of marriage for life is very strange to us, or sex just for pleasure. Of course, in context it all starts to make sense, but it takes a long time to even begin to understand.”

“Tell you what,” said Rayne. “If you ever do figure it all out, let me know, alright? I’m getting to where I’d trade every fabulous little handbag I own for a simple set of instructions.”

There was a knock at the doorway, and Penrod appeared. “Master Rayne, it would seem your… particular expertise is being sought upstairs, if you don’t mind.”

“Ah,” said Rayne, standing up and drawing his robe around himself with a flourish, “here we go. Maybe it’ll turn out I’m not such a fifth wheel after all.”

*

“Actually,” said Marcie, “it’s kinda… fetching.”

“Shut up.”

“No, really. This could be a whole new side to you, babe. The possibilities from here are endless, if you think about it.”

“Not in a million years.”

Marcie smiled and raised an eyebrow. “Not even if I said it’s kinda turning me on?”

“Not… Look, goddamn it, Branleigh, I’m very fucking vulnerable right here, okay? And do I have to remind you that this is your boyfriend’s?”

Marcie grinned. Right on cue, Rayne walked through the door, stopped, and blinked.

“Not one fucking word from you, Sheba. You got that?”

Rayne rubbed a forefinger on his ridiculous little goatee, and shook his head. “A whole closetful of shoes. A whole year’s worth, for a camera, at this very moment.”

“Only if you saved a pair you could run in. Oh, and go right to hell and fuck yourself.”

“Alright, you two,” said Marcie. “The real question is, does it say ‘helpless damsel’?”

“Hmm,” said Rayne. “I think it says, ‘I just got lucky at the office party,’ actually. Especially if you’re going commando like that.”

Jenny took a breath and closed her eyes. “That is, so help me, necessary to the plan.”

“Ah, right. And I expect you’re going to lose the cigar at some point.”

“Eventually. Right now, it’s calming me down.”

“So I see. Well, alright. You’re sure you want to go with the spaghetti straps? I’m sure I have something that’s a little more Ren Faire.”

Jenny shook her head. “No. No sleeves. It has to be… sheddable.”

“Yes, well, I speak from personal experience when I say it certainly is that. Alright, then. If wardrobe was all we had to go on, I’m not sure we’d fool anybody, even a big fire-breathing lizard. But between this and whatever it is you’re going to do with your Special Mermaid Powers, it might just work. And if nothing else, well, we’ll get you a martini and call it a cocktail party.”

“I hate you with the power of a thousand burning suns.”

“I know, dear. Of course, this is where I should remind you that this was your idea.”

“Shut up. I know.” Jenny sighed and looked down at herself. “Gods. At least it’s black.”

“As within, so without. Yes, alright, I’m going. It’s fine. It works. I don’t look forward to cleaning it later, but that’s frankly a small price to pay.” And, grinning like a fiend, he swept out.

Jenny looked up at her wife, who was failing to hide her own grin behind her hand. “Mar? When this is over, we will never, ever speak of this.”

“No, of course not.”

“Yes, well, at least your mood’s improved. I should’ve known a little crushing humiliation on my part would cheer you right up.” She ran a hand through her hair and sat down, heavily. “All I can say is, this had better fucking work.”

“Oh, my optimism grows by the minute. But, sweetie?”

“Yeah?”

“If you’re going to do that – knees together, okay?”

*

“Master Rayne?” Penrod met him on the stairway, a cut-glass brandy decanter in his hand. “The Captain and Anemone have returned, sir. With… reinforcements. I’m having everyone assemble in the Lune Chamber.”

“Right. I’ll keep them entertained.”

“Very good, sir. I’ll let Her Lordship know.”

“Is that for the guests?”

“In a few minutes, I’m afraid it’s going to be for me, sir. There are… simians.”

“Oh, good.”

The Lune Chamber was designed to be lit by moonlight, a large, round room on the western flank of Hartshorn with a wide skylight and tall, arched windows. A mural ran all around the top of the wall, showing Diana and the transformation of Actaeon. There were no chairs, only some low benches set between the windows. These were mostly full now, the red-orange of sunset showing the outlines of the occupants.

The reinforcements had come in the form of a half-dozen Folk Under of diverse shapes, each one less pleasant-looking than the last, and an equal number of hamadryas baboons on chains, grooming each other and pawing placidly at the carpet. At least one of them had shat messily on the floor, which gave some context to Penrod’s particular distress. The Wildish had also brought with them an array of gaffes, billhooks and barbed harpoons, and several coils of rope, piled nets, and lengths of heavy chain. Argus, a hooked spear on one shoulder, stood with Anemone beside him while a creature with milky skin and a too-wide grinning mouth gave the armaments a last-minute inspection.

Also present were Freddy, the Professor with Gregor on his shoulder, and the household gardener Sagacious Fan, his long hair gathered into a knot and a grim look on his unshaven face. The only member of Hartshorn’s staff unaccounted-for was Jim Flax the brownie, who had no doubt made himself even more scarce than usual when the Folk Under had arrived. Rayne nodded to the house crew and to Argus, and wondered what protocol was in order for the new guests. A few of them were smiling, but they weren’t exactly friendly expressions.

“Hail, hail, Captain,” he said. “Nice gang you’ve got here.”

“Aye,” said Argus. “Vicious bastards.” The pride in his voice was unmistakable.

“That’s… good, then.” He adjusted his robe. “So Her Lordship will be on her way down in a few moments. I believe Jenny’s getting herself together to do the wizard thing, and then we can get this started.”

“So much the better,” grinned Argus. “Hate to keep the coursers waiting.” He indicated the knot of baboons with his thumb. One of them yawned, pink lips drawing back from a mouthful of fangs.

“Ah,” said Rayne. “Yes, I would too.”

“Captain,” said Marcie, striding in. She had put on a long gown over her frock coat, velvety black with silver knotwork at the edges. “Thank you for all this.”

“My Lord.” He nodded his head at her, his eyes all blinking. “Pleasure to be of help.”

“I think we can begin; the sun’s about to go down.” She looked right at Gregor. “That means you’re needed upstairs, buddy. Go.” The raven nodded and croaked, and flapped off. “Captain, would you like to give us the rundown?”

“Aye.” Argus stepped forward. “Alright, it’s like this. The wyrm is fast and strong and mean, and it’s not smart enough to be afraid of anything. So you don’t stare it down, you don’t take it on alone, and you don’t even look like you’re going to be in its way. It’s got a whole list of options for killing you: teeth, claws, tail, fire, even the wings can take you down if it gets enough turning space. If it gives you a choice, and it won’t, keep clear of the head – it’s not just the fangs and the fire, which are damned bad enough, but that bite’s full of carrion too, so it may as well be loaded with venom, even if it doesn’t cut you in half.

“If all goes well with the Magus, it will be coming down over Hog’s Ridge, and it’ll come through the ravine. We’ll have our setup there. We get one chance to spring the trap, and the timing has to be perfect if we don’t want to get the Magus too. So my party, you get no mistakes, or I will see it goes hard for you.

“If the trap goes awry for whatever reason, and it goes back into the woods, we regroup here and try and come up with a second plan. If it breaks away and follows the scent here, we run like all hell after it and perform damage control. I’m leaving Anemone here at Hartshorn, my Lord, just for such a circumstance. Otherwise, we meet up back at Temple Knoll once we send word that the deed’s done, and you can do what you need to do – if the bonds hold. If not, we’ll have to figure out what to with a few score stone of dragon meat.”

“Right.” Marcie nodded. “So, that means the rest of you are on watch around the house. I’ll be with Anemone here in the Lune Chamber. Rayne, you and Freddy and the Professor can take the Sun Room on the south corner. Penrod and Pagourie and Fan, you’re in the turret. Listen for noise in the woods and look for fire. You see so much as a lightning bug flare up, I want to know about it.

“In the meantime, I need to start preparing the gate. Argus, you and the other Folk can go ahead out. I’m sending Jenny up to Temple Knoll already to start this thing rolling. Let’s all be safe, okay? And everyone keep your fingers crossed that she manages to pull this off.”

*

Jenny Haniver, barefoot and with a length of slender silver chain looped around her shoulder, squinted hard in the dying light at the rise of wooded hill looming up ahead. Facing the chilly weather in next to nothing was one thing – she could, with a little concentration, ignore the effects of the cold – but coming out in the near-dark without her glasses was giving her fits. Not for the first or even the hundredth time, she sent out a little curse into the universe that her nearsightedness was a hurdle even her gifts could not quite compensate for, and made a note to herself to take the opportunity, should she ever be given one, to give the Mystery a solid talking-to for thinking it had a sense of humor.

She did have some assistance, however, in the form of Gregor, whose aerial perspective of the lay of the land played out in the back of her head like a second camera. It wasn’t something she could hold in her mind indefinitely, but it was definitely a perk of the bond she’d made, and she sent a little word of thanks up the shimmering thread of emotion-thought that connected them together. The croak of his welcome came in a whisper back to her, a little string of the half-words that were somewhere between actual language and his native discourse of pure concept.

Up ahead of her was the crown of Temple Knoll, a tall, rounded mound of hill that rose out of the surrounding forest a half-mile north of the house. Two-thirds of the way up its slopes, the treeline stopped, giving the Knoll the appearance of a monk’s tonsured skull. There had once been a massive ash tree like a sentinel tower atop the hill, many generations past, but now only the flat stump remained, sheared off right above the roots to make a low dais nearly eight feet across. Around this weathered altar was a ring of stones, like the foundation of a tower wall. Temple Knoll was one of the great focal points of the wild power that ran through Otherwood, and it was also the nearest conveniently open place that wasn’t Hartshorn, two things which had made it the natural choice for the work she had set out to do.

Leaves and twigs crunched under the soles of her feet, layers of dry and damp, sharp and soft. Overhead, the sky was fast fading to purple, the tatters of gray clouds moving across it with the wind. From a nearby oak that had already given up most of its foliage, a flock of sparrows alighted noisily and took off into the dusk.

She sat down on the edge of the stump and slid the chain from her shoulder, looped one end of it around an exposed root, and wound the other loosely around her wrist. This was one part of the operation she wasn’t quite happy about, but it seemed a necessary touch in appealing to the dragon’s nature. And the chain was mostly for show, anyway; it was silver, pliable and soft, and she could break it easily if she couldn’t slip it. That done, she closed her eyes, turned her thoughts inward, and began the workings of a Change.

The great and ancient House Urantica, of which Jenny Haniver is of the latest generation of scions, is descended from the Eldritch themselves, those primal and wild Powers who walked the earth in a thousand shapes in the young days of the world. Among the gifts that come with that blood is the capacity to shift and alter the physical body, in ways great or small. It was not a power Jenny liked to make use of more that she could help; touching it too often brings risks, chief of which is the danger that the user of such a talent becomes less and less human with each Change. This is not always a thing that shows in outward signs; many of Jenny’s family look all too human in shape, but their minds have long ago become something else entirely.

But the powers of the Eldritch can be put to subtle uses, and the alteration Jenny was working on her protean cells was just a little shift, just enough of an ajustment to the chemistry of her body to turn up her natural pheremones to truly heroic levels. She closed her eyes and felt the wave of it flow out of her, into the forest and the hills, long coiling threads of scent reaching tendrils into the wilderness. If she’d done it right, it would be a beacon advertising “frightened girl” across half of Otherwood – a melange of salty sex and blood and her own anxiety. As an added touch, she accelerated the decay of her dead skin cells to give the scent a carrion edge. It would inevitably draw in a host of other scavengers as well, but nothing she couldn’t handle if she needed to – and nothing that would stay for long if and when the intended quarry made an appearance.

That done, she took a breath, lay back on the weathered stump, and gathered her strength. And waited.

*

Below Temple Knoll, in the gully beneath Hog’s Ridge, the Folk Under were already fast at work, moving swiftly and efficiently and in utter silence to lay down the cat’s-cradle web of chain and rope and net hidden just under the fallen leaves and anchored around the trunks of nearby trees. Behind a rise of dry, thorny scrub, Kindekin Weiss had rounded up the baboons and was keeping them silent and still with sharp hisses and bared teeth; even they knew better than to cross him.

In the Lune Chamber, Marcie Branleigh sat in the center of the round floor, curling smoke from the censers set at the four cardinal points almost masking the lingering scent of monkey dung, and opened herself up, like the wide skylight above her, to the twilight and the energies of her realm. If she was calm and centered, she could feel the web of pathways out in the forest, and the doors they went through. She saw the bright threads of power that drew themselves in to the nexus of Temple Knoll, and she began to concentrate on the gates that lay deep in the wood, to urge one of them closer along its line, ready to be opened where she chose.

Upstairs, in the Sun Room, Rayne and Nandana and Freddy the Faun were taking turns at the window seat, watching and listening. The heavy panes had been pulled up, so a steady cold wind was blowing itself into the room, and they were wrapped up against it – Rayne in a heavy wool cloak, the Professor in a thick sweater and scarf, Freddy in a dark peacoat and knit gloves. Currently Rayne was at the window, while Freddy was deep into being beaten by the Professor at a round of checkers.

“You think this is going to work?”

“It has every chance of doing so, my friend. Let’s not give in to doubt so early in the evening. An array of potent forces are, after all, on our side.”

“Yeah, sure. We got a handful of bloodthirsty monsters, their pet apes, two ill-tempered adepts, a bird, and, um, us. Against a big lizard with a flamethrower at one end that eats things the size of elephants. My optimism is waxing like anything.”

Freddy laughed. “Mate, for a bloke in a dress, you sure do seem awful eager to underestimate your friends. I mean, aside from how we got a bona fide Urantica out there, and how Her Lordship’s no slouch with an incantation herself, it ain’t like we’re all helpless babes on our own. I’m a mean enough bastard in a corner, you’ve got the witchy stuff, and I’m sure the Professor’s picked up a thing or two teaching at the wizard college all this time.”

“Indeed, well put, Master Freddy,” said Nandana. “And I should point out as well that this sort of task is part and parcel of the responsibilities of the Lord of Otherwood. Aha, king me.”

“Bugger!”

“The responsibilities of the Lord of Otherwood.” Rayne pulled his cloak close and looked out over the vast stretch of forest under the darkening sky. “As if that hasn’t been in the back of everyone’s mind since last night. This couldn’t have come at a worse time, with both of them being all distracted already.”

“On the contrary. This is no doubt just the sort of thing needed to keep Her Lordship from worrying overmuch about the business still to come. And, indeed, this incident can only work to her advantage if she is successful.”

“If she’s successful. What if she isn’t?”

“In that case, Master Rayne, our problems will all be significantly more complicated than they are.”

*

On Temple Knoll, Jenny felt Gregor’s mental croak slide into her thoughts, and sat up and opened her eyes. There was nothing present that she could see, but he could; something was coming up through the underbrush in an s-shaped wave, and fast. The dragon was on its way.

She stood up, pulling the chain taut, and took a deep breath. The next thing she needed was ready in her mind, waiting only for her to unleash it, coiled like a spring. In the meantime, she kept her thoughts steady and her eyes on the treeline below her.

It broke through with a crash, parting the bramble like water. Its breath was hot and foul, like a burst corpse, the long crocodilian jaws hanging open and the wet tongue lolling to one side. Its horns swept back from behind the heavy hoods of its eyes, rising up above the ground as the head lifted on its long neck and swayed back and forth. Curved claws flexed into the earth as the loops of its coils spilled out if the forest. It stopped, tongue working the air, each of its eyes fixing in turn on the source of the scent it had followed.

“That’s right, you big snake. I am a helpless little fucking princess. Come on up and have a taste. Let me get a real good look at you.”

It hissed and lowered its head, and slithered forward. Jenny slipped her wrist from the chain, slid the dress off her shoulders, and released the thing she had waiting in her head, and Changed.

From the dragon’s perspective, one moment there was food of a particularly choice kind waiting for it, and the next there was not; instead, another of its species, smaller and greener,was coiled there by the tree. To a dragon, this meant either a rival or a mate, and this one was definitely in female phase. The new arrival reared up and hissed, and then slithered off into the woods. For just a moment, it looked to see if the food was still present before it turned and followed.

For Jenny, that moment of disorientation was the exactly what she needed to adapt to the rhythms of the new shape and bring it entirely under control. She was much smaller than the other dragon, so not as strong but faster, which she hoped to all the Powers watching would give her the edge she needed as she slid down the hill and over Hog’s Ridge.

*

Below, in the damp leaves of the gully, Kindekin Weiss kept watch from behind his blind of thorn scrub. He saw first the smaller, lighter dragon come down the hill, the one that was the shape-shifted mage; and then behind it, the one he remembered, the big one. He let the first go though and past, and then as the second followed, he released the baboons.

It is true that a dragon in most worlds has few natural enemies, and so almost nothing it needs to be afraid of. But it is also true that half a dozen fully-grown male hamadryas baboons in attack mode are enough to give any creature pause. As much as the dragon had thought processes when it came to other beings, most of them involved working out whether a given one was more trouble to eat than it was worth; the pack of whooping, bare-fanged simians now bearing down on it were going to take some consideration. The moment it took to weigh this was all the Folk Under needed.

They hauled up on the ropes, and the nets sprang up first all around. They were tough, but not strong enough to hold it; they were meant more as a distraction than anything else, while the chains came into play. They looped out of the leaves as the dragon was turning, so it they came tight as it was doubled and drew it into a squirming, lashing U of scales and claws. It roared then, and reared its neck up, jaws parting.

“The head, the head!” called Argus, but the dragon was already coughing up its burning acid; two baboons were sprayed and went down with a shriek. Then Gol Murra, a huge umber-colored man with boar’s tusks curling from his jaw, stepped in with his long spiked man-catcher and caught the jaws before they could open again, and steered the head down into the leaves. Argus came up with more chain, and the other Wildish all rushed in to help pull it taut. In moments, they had pulled the dragon into a coiled ball of serpentine rage, their muscles all straining in tandem to keep it still. Kindekin Weiss giggled.

“Okay, hold it there.” Jenny Haniver, naked and with leaves in her hair, stepped up and touched a hand to the chains, and whispered a Word; they drew in then of their own accord, and held tight. She stepped back and let out a long breath. “There. Can you get it up the hill now?”

“Aye, Magus,” said Argus. He tilted his head at her, and sniffed. “Are you hurt?”

“Not that I know of… wait.” She touched two fingers to the inside of her thigh, and squinted as she brought them up; dark red glistened on the fingertips. “Motherfucker. It never fails.” She shook her head. “No, I’m fine. Just a little present my body gives me when I Change. Glamorous profession, magic.” She looked up into the trees. “Gregor! Get your feathery ass back home and tell them we’re ready! And to bring me a fucking blanket.”

There was an answering croak and a flutter of wings above, and Jenny leaned back on a tree. Argus turned to his crew. “Right, lads! Up the hill with the wyrm, now, nice and steady!” He turned his head back to her. “You sure you’re alright?”

She smiled at him. “Yeah, I’m good. Just give me a minute. I’ll meet you up there. The chains should hold until I release them, unless Fafnir the Great here knows more about breaking binding charms than he’s letting on.” In the tangle of dragon, a yellow eye blinked at her and glared.

“Very well, then.” He grinned. “We don’t do badly all together, do we?”

“No, not bad at all. Now we just need my wife to come in and administer the coup de grace, and we’ll be golden.”

*

In the Lune Chamber, Marcie Branleigh watched as the hidden map of her realm resolved itself in her mind’s eye, as the portal she summoned slid along the thread to Temple Knoll, ready to open up Elsewhere and return their unwanted guest to its native haunts. She felt calm and serene and perfectly in control; here was what it meant to be Lord of Otherwood, to be Otherwood, poised exactly between its wildness and chaos and the order and rule necessary to keep it in check.

Then she felt the snag.

Something wasn’t right. The gentle motion she was willing on the energies of Otherwood was being obstructed somehow, exactly as if a stitch was snarled and would not move without breaking. She looked closer, and gasped out loud.

The cleanly-laid web of paths and doors she’d felt a moment ago was gone, and what was there was a horrible tangle, as if the same pattern had been overlaid on itself throughout a number of little mutations, so now what should have been a clear line was a mess of intersecting threads all wrapped around and passing through each other. Parts of it faded in and out as she looked, and parts of it shifted, as if being twisted in different directions at once. It made her head hurt, and her heart sink; and then she saw the gates.

Like slow bubbles in a stew, they were opening and closing everywhere she looked, blinking into existence and back out again, tiny wormhole-sized ones and great huge gaps that yawned like chasms, each a world, close or far, shifting and churning, numerous as the stars…

No, no, she thought. Stop…

All paused, just for a brief moment, at the Lord of Otherwood’s command; and then the writhing chaos of her realm seemed to notice her, and the bright energies she had built up around herself. Then the world shifted sideways, and a great lacuna opened up around and under her, and she was gone.

*

Elsewhere, at the borders of another Wood, night had already come, and a red sun sunk low beneath the horizon of crooked and tangled skeleton trees. A road wound along the edges of the forest, and a black coach pulled up along that road, with black curtains hanging heavy across its windows, the driver cloaked and hooded on the seat behind the four coal-colored horses. In the back of the carriage, a pale hand with long fingers pulled one of the drapes aside, and an eye the color of old wine peered out at the wooded ridge and the great dark forest beyond.

Above the trees, the needle spires of the great fortress Castaigne rose and raked the sky, a blacker shadow against the black firmament, its towers and pinnacles like a twisted claw against the stars. It stood on the crest of the massive ridge that rose at the outer reaches of the Marchenwald, overlooking both the forest and the blasted plain beyond. On that plain, a number of little camps were scattered, their fires sending up lines of smoke into the night.

The coach pulled up and stopped before a low wall of stone that ran down from the castle’s foundations, above which a winding and precarious stairway rose all the way to the upper gates. A broad-shouldered figure was pacing back and forth along the wall; it stopped when the coach door opened and its occupant unfolded himself from his seat and stepped down. The driver snapped his whip, and the carriage and team rumbled off in a haze of dust.

“Ach, ye too, then?” said the person on the wall, leaping down and landing firmly on bare feet. He was bare-chested as well, woad smeared across his face and arms; his only garment was a great kilt that draped over his shoulder, gathered with a heavy brooch. Bone ornaments dangled from braids in his hair and beard. He spat. “There’s nae accountin’ fer taste among wizards, is there? Weel, nae matter. ‘S nowt laik it’s a bloody cocktail-pairty, is it?”

“No, it is not, Your Majesty,” said Lord Janos, brushing at his brocaded cuffs and straightening the lapels of his fine coat with his long pale fingers. “And we need not be fond of each other to be pleasant guests together here. If anywhere should be a place of truce for our ancient peoples, this forest would be that.”

“Oh, believe me, Ah’m an mah beist behavior, m’laird,” grinned the MacCaladh. “Ah dinnah exactly have a whole load o’ options, noo, bein’ here all an mah oan an’ all.” He looked up, and a sneer curled his lip. “Ach, and hair comes the bloody ailf, too.”

The sound of hoofbeats approached from the plain. Lord Rushton of the Host, on a white destrier with blood-red ears, reined in and and looked down with a smile crooking his lips. He had a prophet’s beard and a blue spiral tattooed on his forehead, and the sharp points of his ears showed through the cascading fall of his hair; from his lance flew the golden banner of his crest, seven red birds against a rising black sun. “Lord Janos. MacCaladh. I do hope I’m not too late to miss out on a blood feud, gentles.”

“Nothing of the sort, my lord of Faerie,” said Janos, inclining his hairless head. “I am certain we can converse like… civilized people here.” He shot a fanged smile at the MacCaladh, who growled low in his throat. “Speaking only for myself, I intend to keep such conduct as becomes a guest, and the ambassador of my people.”

“Is that what we are? Guests and ambassadors?” Rushton slid from his horse, tiny silver bells on his jerkin sounding as he did. “I might not have known, for all the force encamped on this plain. I wonder what this show is meant to tell us, after all. Especially to bring us to this place each alone and without retinue. The more fools we, I suppose, for agreeing.” He looked down the curve of his nose at the MacCaladh. “If it were only you, MacCaladh, I’d suspect he just wanted a new hearth-rug.”

“Oh, aye, everyone’s a commaidian. One o’ these days Ah’d laik ta see if ye’re still as funny while one o’ mah lads has yer privates in his taith.”

“See, that’s the problem in dealing with your people. I never know whether I’m being threatened or propositioned.”

“Aye? Well, ye’re welcome ta—” He stopped, nostrils flaring, and lifted his head. “Ah, shite. Look.”

They followed his eyes. On the stairway above the wall, three shapes had emerged. They were as high at the shoulder as horses, and half again as long, brindled brown and black. Their bodies moved with a sleek swiftness, tails lashing behind, eyes flashing gold-green before. They were not quite tigers, or hyenas, or giant civets or sable, but something like a primal fore-cousin to all of them, lean, powerful, and full of hungry death. The worst thing of all about them was the mouths, which seemed twice as large as they ought to be and hung open in horrible grins, showing the rows of razor-edged, sharklike teeth.

“Now this,” said a voice above them, “is a moment you should savor: that instant of shared, silent panic when former enemies find themselves all in the same peril, and wonder if they can suddenly trust each other enough to survive it. It’s pure poetry, gentlemen, and I want you all to remember it.”

The flying carpet had apparently emerged from one of the upper windows of the Castaigne, hundreds of feet overhead, and was now drifting down lightly, like a fallen leaf. Above its billowing fringe, its rider could just be seen: little more than a heap of yellow robes, the ends of which fluttered like pennants all round. The three of them froze and looked warily at one another.

“Slow and easy’s your best option, my lords. My cousins have assured me they won’t do anything rash without my say-so, but there are urges of the blood no oath can bar, and I can’t make any promises on their conduct if you make any sudden movements.”

Then the carpet was floating just above them, and its occupant turned to one side to take them all in. He was enormously fat, and draped all over in layers of yellow silk, with only his head and hands showing, the latter delicate and tipped with long laquered nails, the former entirely hairless, with yellow-green eyes that were set just too far apart and a disconcertingly wide mouth in a perpetual crocodilian smile. When he spoke, his voice was sweet and smooth and musical.

“Now, as you contemplate this,” said the Ephesian, “do me the favor of asking yourselves how long it’s been since you saw that look of bloodless fright, that moment of horrible revelation writ large in some poor mortal man’s eyes; and when you shame yourselves with the answer, then ask: why?”

“My lord Covenantus,” said Janos, taking a careful step forward, steepling his long fingers, and bowing, “meaning you no disrespect, but I cannot believe you to have brought us so far only to frighten us and inspire us to be… ashamed.”

“No, not only,” said the Ephesian, raising the carpet up and circling around the three of them. “Not that alone. I have brought you here, to this, the Wood of all shadow and blood, the glorious red-toothed Eden of wild night – I have brought you here, foremost of all, to remind you.”

“Beggin’ yer pairdon, m’laird,” said the MacCaladh, “but what of?”

The Ephesian turned his bulk towards him and grinned. It was a horrible grin. “Of what you are, werewolf king. Of what you all are. Man-eaters, blood-drinkers, baby-stealers; the whisper in a cold room on a dark night; the hopeless hour come alive and ravening and relentless. Monsters. Horrors. Children of the wild darkness. My peers of dread legend. My kin.”

“I know well what I am, my lord Covenantus,” said Rushton. “I beg your leave, however, to assert that how I choose to see to my conduct is my own affair.”

“Oh, of course it is, elf knight,” said the Ephesian with a chuckle. “Nor would I dream of presuming to suggest otherwise. I thought it meet to point these matters out to you, however, in light of the days soon to come.”

“And what days, pray, are those?”

“Ours.” He rose on the carpet above them, above the slavering beasts on the castle stairs. “Events have been set in motion, and the wheel of the ages is about to turn. It is only for you to decide whether you wish to be ascendant on it, or crushed beneath its weight.”

“Noo, hold an,” growled the MacCaladh. “Deal plain wi’ us, man. If ye’re gane ta make threats, come an oot an’ say wha’ ye mean.”

“Oh, no, my lupine friend. You misunderstand me. I’m not making a threat. I am offering an opportunity. The worlds are going to burn, my lords, and soon, make no mistake about that – and I am going to be raising them anew from the ashes. The only question I have for you is: whose Creation, this time, is it going to be?”

*

End of Book One