Moonkind (Winterling) (3 page)

Four

Overnight, Fer had decided. “I’ll come,” she told Lich and Gnar in the gray hour before sunrise. But she’d only been back from visiting Grand-Jane in the human world for a night. She knew the message was urgent, but her first responsibility was always her land and its people, and she had to see to them before she left. “Tell the High Ones I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

The Way that was like a door into her land was only open at the turn of day into night or night into day. In a little while, dawn would arrive and Lich and Gnar would go back to the nathe. In the gray, chilly air, Gnar looked like banked embers; a dusting of ash lay over her black skin. “But you
will
come, Lady Strange, won’t you?” she asked.

“I said I would,” Fer answered.

“The spark here is worried,” Lich said.

“I
am
worried,” Gnar agreed. “Nothing has happened yet, but because of the changes you’ve brought here, it feels like something is about to happen. Those Lords and Ladies—the ones who came with Arenthiel and us on the hunt, when we—you know . . .”

“When you attacked my land and its people, you mean,” Fer finished.

Gnar’s eyes sparked. “Yes, that’s what I mean.”

“We’re very sorry about it,” Lich put in soberly.

“We are,” Gnar said, then went on impatiently. “The thing is, O Strange One, the Lords and Ladies who came on the hunt—the ones who swore an oath to you that they would take off the glamories, remember?”

Fer nodded. Of course she remembered. Gnar and Lich had taken off their glamories and the land had opened and swallowed them up, and the other Lords and Ladies had sworn a binding oath to take their glamories off too, and then they had slunk back to the nathe.

“Well,” Gnar said, “Lich and I were able to remove our glamories because we hadn’t been wearing them for very long. The rest of the Lords and Ladies didn’t take off their glamories.”

“A few of them tried,” Lich put in, “but they couldn’t abide the change. They soon put their glamories back on again.”

“They swore oaths to you, Lady, and now that the oaths have been broken, they are forsworn,” Gnar said.

Fer’s stomach clenched. It was exactly as she’d feared. She knew very well that a broken oath was a really serious thing in this world, and would have serious consequences.

“The forsworn Lords and Ladies are a danger to everyone,” Gnar finished. “We can’t ignore them until it’s too late.”

“I know.” Fer nodded. At least Gnar had said
we
instead of assuming the problem was Fer’s alone. “I really will come as soon as I can. Okay?”

Gnar nodded, and the coals at the ends of her braids flared.

At that moment, the sun lifted into the sky and the Way opened.

“See you tomorrow!” Fer called as Gnar and Lich stepped through.

Or the next day. First she had to be absolutely sure the stain of the broken oaths hadn’t touched her land. Then she’d talk to the High Ones. They were wise; they might have some advice for how to deal with what Grand-Jane had called
consequences
.

Rook wasn’t sure whether Fer would be glad to see him or not. All summer long, he’d been avoiding her. When she’d gone to the nathe for that stupid contest, he’d gone with her, and he would have betrayed her then, given the chance. After that, she’d saved his life—again—but she probably wasn’t very happy with him.

Still, he
hadn’t
betrayed her after all, had he? And he was tied to her with that strange thread. He could feel it, warm and alive, thrumming in his chest. It meant they were friends, didn’t it? Sort of? And that meant she’d help him, if he asked.

He’d tried explaining the thread to his brothers, but they wouldn’t listen.

“A puck can’t be tied to a Lady like that,” Rip had said.

“Are you saying I’m not a puck?” Rook shot back.

“I’m not, no,” Rip growled. “Just break it. It’s a binding. You’re better off getting rid of it.”

“No,” Rook had said, stubborn. He’d broken the thread twice before, once when Fer had trusted him by helping him get into the nathe, and the second time when he’d been about to betray her. If he broke the thread a third time, his friendship with Fer would be gone forever. He was surprised at how fiercely he’d fight to keep that from happening.

“She’s still a Lady,” Asher had put in. “We don’t accept rule from anyone, not even her.”

“This thread doesn’t have anything to do with rule,” Rook argued. “And I’m not doing it your way this time.”

“Look, Pup,” his brother Ash had said. “You can do it any way you like. Just use your Lady to do the test on a glamorie, all right?”

All right. He was the one with the shadow-web stuck to his hand, so he was the one who needed to find a Lord or Lady to see if what his brothers had planned would work. And Fer was a Lady, so she had to be the one to help him do that.

Before going through the Way to Fer’s land, he shifted into his dog shape. Teeth were a good defense in case he ran into any of Fer’s idiot wolf-guards.

Night blurred into day, and the Way opened. As he stepped through, somebody passed him going the other direction. Two somebodies. He felt a wash of flames and then a damp breath, and whoever it was went past and away, and then he was through.

He padded into a clearing flushed with the early, pink light of dawn. Fer stood in the middle of it. He froze, eyes narrowing. She looked different than she had in the summer, when he’d last seen her. Wilder. More powerful, too, but not in the way that the glamorie-wearing Lords or Ladies were powerful. Some other way.

Before, she’d always been glad to see him. This time she frowned a little. “Hello, Rook.”

Well, fine. He lowered his head and growled.

“Oh, are you supposed to be fierce?” she asked.

Yes. He showed his teeth and growled again, deeper.

She raised her eyebrows. “Rook, your tail is wagging.”

It was, curse it. Stupid betrayer of a tail.

“Other than that,” she went on, mock seriously, “you do look extremely dangerous.”

Grrrr. He spat out his shifter-tooth and blurred into his person shape.

Fer blinked and stepped back. “Wow,” she said. “You look different.”

He looked down at himself. It really had taken about ten baths, but Asher had stolen some excellent soap, so he’d finally scrubbed all the slime and stench off himself. All except the shadow-web stuck to his left hand. He kept his fist clenched so Fer wouldn’t see how it tracked like a bit of blackened net across his palm.

His brothers had stolen some clothes for him too, so he wore the long, embroidered coat, high-collared silk shirt, trousers, and the soft leather boots of a Lord, all in shades of cream and rich brown, and he’d combed his hair back and tied it neatly with a bit of string.

Now Fer was frowning again. “Hmm,” she said slowly. “You coming here dressed like that. You’re up to something, aren’t you?”

His brothers thought he should lie to Fer, use her like he had before to get what they wanted. He could see the result of that, right in front of him. She didn’t trust him anymore. Still, he had to try. “You don’t have your glamorie, do you?”

Fer narrowed her eyes, suspicious. “No, I don’t. Why do you ask?”

Hm. That’s what he’d thought. He’d have to try the other plan. “I have to get to the nathe. Will you take me there?”

She stared. Then she gave a sharp shake of her head. “You must think I’m really stupid, Rook. I am going to the nathe, but there is no way I’m taking you with me.”

Curse it. He’d have to try something else. Like telling the truth. The thread in his heart thrummed, as if it liked the idea. “I am up to something, yes,” he said carefully. “My brothers have a plan.” They hadn’t told him yet what that plan was, probably because they hadn’t figured it out yet exactly, but he trusted them to get it right. “We need your help. Will you help us?”

“No,” she said firmly.

He pulled his left hand out of his coat pocket, where he’d been hiding it. “Fer, look at this.”

She stepped closer to see.

He opened his hand. The muck-spiderweb looked like a net of black lines smudged across his palm.

“What is it?” she asked. She bent her head, inspecting it. “Does it hurt?”

“It doesn’t feel like anything,” he answered. He explained about how he and his brothers had gone to see the moon-spinner spider. “That’s where glamories come from.”

“Ohhh,” she breathed, looking up. “Spun out of moonlight. That makes sense.”

“This,” he said, holding up his hand, “is from another spider, one that spins its web out of shadows.” After they’d left the chasm, he and his brothers had crossed the rock plain again, to the spire where the moon-spinner spider spun its glamorie webs.
Just a test,
Asher had said, and Rook had bent to touch the glamorie with his web-stained hand. At the touch of the shadow-web, the sparkling silver net had turned black and crumbled away. The rot had spread, creeping across the glamorie and up the web that stretched from the spire to the ground. As the rot reached the moon-spinner spider, it scrabbled away, but then the rot caught it and its body turned black, like glass smudged with soot. All around it, the spider’s web hung in greasy tatters being shredded by the wind.

Then the wind had gusted, and the last of the glamorie turned to oily dust and blew away over the surface of the rock.

“We need to test this on a Lord or Lady,” Rook explained, closing his hand around the shadow-web again. “It’ll destroy the glamorie they’re wearing, we think.” His brothers would hate what he was about to say, but he would say it anyway. “We want the same thing, the pucks and you. You don’t like rule, or glamories, and we don’t either. Maybe we can work together.”

Fer straightened and paced away, looking around at the birch trees that edged the clearing, at their leaves shivering in the breeze and turning gold under the rising sun. Then she looked down, as if she could see deep into the ground under her feet.

He watched, wary. What would she decide?

She turned back and took a deep breath. “The glamories are a big problem. You’re right about that. Some of the Lords and Ladies swore to take their glamories off and they didn’t. They’re forsworn—oath breakers. But . . .” She shook her head. “I’m not sure if destroying their glamories is the right thing to do. I don’t know if that will fix the broken oaths.” Her voice lowered as if she was talking to herself. “No, it probably wouldn’t work.”

He wasn’t quite following. “What wouldn’t work?”

“Using your web to force the forsworn Lords and Ladies to give up their glamories,” she explained.

He didn’t get it. “Why not force them?”

“Because that’s not how I do things. I don’t think it would count as a fulfilled oath anyway, if they were forced. I’ll have to ask the High Ones about it.” Then she narrowed her eyes and pointed at him, and that pointing finger reminded him suddenly of her grandmother. She wouldn’t put up with any trickery, that meant. “If I let you come, will you help me?”

“If I can, I will,” he answered truthfully.

She nodded slowly. “All right.” She paused. “If we meet the Lords and Ladies—the forsworn ones—you’ll be able to see what they really are, won’t you? With your puck-vision? Like if they’re stained or wildling, like the Mór was?”

He nodded.

“Good. Then you can come, and you can help with that. But we’re there so I can see the High Ones, not for you to test your web. You have to promise that you won’t touch any Lord or Lady with that shadow-web unless I say it’s okay. Do you promise?”

“I do, Fer. I promise,” he said, and the heart-thread in his chest gave a warm thrum, and he grinned, suddenly and surprisingly happy that she had decided to trust him again.

Five

Leaving Rook to exchange growls and narrow-eyed glances with the wolf-guard Fray, Fer went up to her house in the Lady Tree. During the summer, her house had just been a roof with silken cloth for walls, more a tent than a house. Now that fall had come, it was time to put the real walls up, with rugs hung on the inside for warmth.

She felt the urgency of the
consequences
pulling at her. She couldn’t spend the time she wanted making sure all was well in her own land; she’d have go to the nathe the next time the Way opened. She talked to a few deer-women about keeping an eye on the bark-borer beetles in the deep forest. Then she mixed up a healing tea for the badger-man’s cough and sent one of her wolf-guards to bring it to him. After that, she took a long nap because she’d been up all night—coming through the Way from Grand-Jane’s house, and then meeting with Gnar and Lich. When she woke up, she got ready. If Rook was going to look all fine and fancy for their trip to the nathe, then she had to dress up too.

Fer rummaged in the wooden trunk where she kept her clothes, pulling on her patch-jacket over her ragged T-shirt. Grand-Jane had stitched the jacket with powerful protective spells, and Fer kept cloth bags full of magical herbs in its pockets too. For her, it was stronger than any armor.

In the trunk she found her bag of herbs and medicines that she always carried with her now, along with a tiny stoppered jar of Grand-Jane’s honey; she put all of that into her jacket pocket. Then she changed into the pair of jeans with the smallest holes in the knees, and found some socks and her sneakers and put those on too. Twig came in then with her wooden comb.

“Sit on the bed, Ladyfer,” the fox-girl said. Fer obeyed. Twig lifted the snarled mass of Fer’s hair and dropped it again. “It’s so tangled,” she said with a sigh, and raised the comb.

“Twig!” Fer sat up straighter. “Can you cut it off?” Her long hair was so much trouble: combing the snarls out, relying on Twig to keep it neatly braided. “Will you, I mean?”

“Yes,” Twig said, and went to fetch a knife.

While she was gone, Fer called her bees to her. They were the Lady’s bees, whose buzzing hums only she could understand. They flowed in through her house’s doorway and buzzed around the room in a golden swarm. She’d only bring one of them with her to the nathe. The one bee settled on her patchwork sleeve. “The rest of you stay here, all right?” she asked. “I won’t be gone long.” As an answer, the bees swarmed out the door past Twig, who was coming back in.

Twig grinned and held up a knife. “Nice and sharp,” she said, and started hacking away at the clumps of Fer’s hair.

While Twig worked, Fer closed her eyes. She had a thread tying her to all the people in her land—a bond between them—and it told her if they were happy, or if they needed her, or if they were worried about something. Now that Rook was here, she could feel a thread tying her to him, too. It wasn’t the same, though, as the connection she had to her people. It was warmer, somehow. It made her want to trust him. She was glad the thread was there, whatever it was.

“Ooh, that’s a bad knot,” she heard Twig murmur. She pulled at a snarl.

“Ow,” Fer complained.

“Keep still, Ladyfer,” Twig said. “It’s your own fault.”

It’d be her own fault too, if Rook had tricked her. He was a puck, after all, and she knew what that meant, despite the thread that connected them. He played by puck rules, and his promises might not be trustworthy.

Still, she needed his help with this. She would just have to be careful.

“All done,” Twig said, and stepped back to survey her work.

Fer ran a hand over her head. Her short hair felt light, like chick-fluff. The back of her neck felt bare.

“We should come with you,” the wolf-guard, Fray, said from the doorway.

“We should,” Twig agreed.

Fer stood up, brushing the last long strands of chopped-off hair from her shoulders. “It’ll be a quick trip,” she said. “I won’t be away for too long. I need you to stay here and make sure everything’s all right while I’m gone. All right?”

Twig and Fray nodded grudging agreement and followed Fer down the ladder to the ground, where Rook was waiting.

Fray stalked past Fer and up to Rook; she grabbed the front of his coat and snarled something down at him.

Rook twisted in her grip and growled something back. Then she shoved him, and he stumbled away. “Stupid wolf,” he muttered as Fer came up.

“Can you blame her for not liking you very much?” Fer asked.

He didn’t answer, but Fer heard dark grumblings as he followed her to the Way. They waited in silence while the sun sank behind the trees. The sky darkened and the air grew chilly. Finally the first star appeared. Fer’s bee lifted from the sleeve of her jacket and circled them once.

“You’ll be on your best behavior, won’t you, Rook?” Fer asked.

Looking unusually serious, he nodded. “I will, yes.”

“Remember, you promised,” Fer said as the Way opened.

“I won’t forget.” Rook reached out, and she took his hand, and they stepped through the Way together.

Rook stayed quiet as he followed Fer from the Lake of All Ways to the nathe. Fer was taking a chance on him—he was well aware of it—so he’d try not to be too tricksy.

The nathe was the center of all the lands. It wasn’t a palace, exactly; it was like a huge, bark-covered tree stump, with moss creeping up its gray walls and roots that plunged deep into the ground. Inside, rooms and passages and a great hall called the nathewyr had been carved out of the wood.

No puck except for him had ever visited the nathe, and the last time he’d been here, they’d tried to kill him.

As he followed Fer up the gnarled steps that led to one of the nathe’s many doors, they were met by a nathe-warden, a guard with rough, brown skin and greenish hair that reminded him of willow-wands. The warden glared at him.

Rook bared his teeth in a sharp grin, and felt for his shifter-tooth in his pocket.
Go ahead, willow-warden,
his grin said.
I’m ready for you
.

“Lady Gwynnefar,” the guard said, “you are welcome to the nathe, but this puck is not.”

Fer shrugged. “He stays, or I leave,” she said, and swept past the warden. Rook ducked past the guard too, to catch up with her. As they stepped into a polished hallway, she glanced aside at him. “It’s amazing how many people don’t like you, Rook,” she said.

“Well, I don’t like them either,” he grumbled. And he hadn’t actually bitten the nathe-warden. He
was
on his best behavior, after all.

She kept walking. They were passing through a long hallway lit by glowing crystals when a short, gray-skinned stick-person with a tuft of green hair on its head popped out of another hallway. When it spoke, its voice was surprisingly deep and rough, like bark. “Lady!”

Fer stopped; Rook stepped up beside her. “What is it?” she asked.

The stick-person bobbed a bow. “My master. Arenthiel. He wishes to see you. Come!” It pointed toward the other passageway.

“We-ell, I don’t know,” Fer said slowly. A lock of her short-cut hair curled over her forehead and she brushed it away. “I came here to see the High Ones.”

“See them, too,” the stick-person said. “See Arenthiel now. To talk.”

Fer frowned, but Rook could see that she was about to agree. “Wait,” he interrupted. “Arenthiel is your enemy, Fer.” And the enemy of the pucks. “It could be a trap.”

“Rook, we’re in the nathe,” Fer answered. “It’s not a trap. Arenthiel was broken after he lost the contest and failed to steal my lands from me. You were asleep when it happened, but if you’d seen it, you’d know that he’s not any threat to me.”

“Oh sure he’s not,” he muttered.

“Just talk!” put in the stick-person.

“I’m going to see him,” Fer said. “Do you want to come with me?”

Rook nodded. “They’ll toss me out if I don’t.” Or worse.

They followed the stick-person through hallways that were strangely empty, as if all the people who lived there were hiding away in their rooms like frightened rabbits in their burrows. Waiting for something to happen. They went up some winding stairs to an ornately carved and polished doorway, where the stick-person bowed them inside. The room was circular, carved from the dark wood and polished, with gleaming crystals set in niches in the walls. On a couch made of plump green pillows sat a shriveled, ancient creature with a face like an apple with a bite taken out of it and then left to rot.

“Hello, Arenthiel,” Fer said.

Rook blinked and looked again. It really
was
him. Arenthiel. Fer’s old enemy, the one who’d tried to steal the Summerlands from her, but failed. Instead of killing him, she’d sent him home to the nathe.

Arenthiel’s withered face cracked into a toothless smile. “Hello, Lady,” he said, and reached out with a wrinkled claw of a hand.

Fer took half a step toward him, then stopped. Not so quick to trust, Rook was glad to see.

The old creature’s face fell, and then he trembled into a cough that made his whole body shake.

Fer crossed the room and knelt by his side. “That sounds awful,” she said. “Have you been sick for a while?”

Arenthiel’s only answer was another pitiful cough.

But Rook was sure he caught a glimpse of mischief in Arenthiel’s eye. “Fer . . .” he started to warn.

“Shh,” she interrupted. Then she spoke to the stick-person. “I’ll need some hot water in a cup,” she ordered.

The stick-person bowed and left the room, returning in just a moment with a mug full of steaming water. Fer took it, busying herself with a bag of herbs and a jar of honey she pulled from her patch-jacket pocket. Then she handed Arenthiel the tea she’d made, helping him curl his withered hands around the mug.

Rook stood staring down at Arenthiel.
Old Scrawny
, the pucks had named him. Arenthiel, who hated pucks and had wanted to hunt his brothers down and kill every last one of them.

The old creature took a sip of his tea and then grinned up at him. “You’re still alive, are you, young Robin?” Arenthiel asked in a high-pitched, creaky voice.

Rook didn’t bother answering such a stupid question. “Fer, you shouldn’t be helping him,” he said.

She put away the last of the herbs and got to her feet. “He seems pretty harmless to me.” She looked from him to Arenthiel and back again. “Do what you came to help me with, Rook. Look at him with your puck-vision and tell me what you see.”

Before when he’d looked into Arenthiel Rook had seen through the shell of beauty he wore to hide his rotten core. It hadn’t been a glamorie that he’d worn that had made him beautiful; it’d been because he was kin to the High Ones, or so he claimed. Now, on the outside, Aren was a wrinkled husk; Rook expected to see rot on the inside, but it wasn’t there. Old Scrawny was withered all the way through, but with no taint of evil.

“Well?” Fer prompted.

“He looks all right.” Rook shook his head. “But he’s probably up to something. He’s a troublemaker.”

“Takes one to know one,” Arenthiel put in with a cackle.

Grrrr
. Rook took a threatening step closer.

“Rook.” Fer shook her head, then turned to Arenthiel. “Your servant said you wanted to talk. The tea has valerian in it and it’ll make you sleepy, so you’d better make it fast.”

The ancient creature was already blinking. “Wait,” he muttered, and reached out with his withered stick of a hand. “Lady. Wait.”

Fer crouched beside him again; Rook edged closer to listen.

“Must tell you,” Arenthiel said in his cracked voice. “I am here in the nathe, at the center of all things, but I cannot leave these rooms. Cannot do anything. The High Ones’ power is waning; they keep to their rooms too. Those who broke their oaths. The Forsworn.” He paused to give a dry cough. “Their power grows. You must be careful. Be careful, Lady. They are here in the nathe.”

“They’re
here
?” Fer gasped.

“Be careful of them,” Arenthiel muttered, his eyes dropping closed. “Be careful of you.”

“Don’t worry,” Fer said, and took the mug from his hands, setting it on the floor. Getting to her feet, she gently eased Arenthiel back against the pillows. The old creature sighed, and slept.