Street Fair (12 page)

The two beasts, each with eyes the same glowing green as the earlier wights, were followed by their apparent master. He was the biggest of the wights yet, wearing only light armor, his skin covered in twisting tattoos, a couple of them glowing faintly green.

The big figure drew a claymore from over his back, swinging down hard at Justin, who barely managed to get his sword up in time to parry. Sparks flew from the Claiomh Solais on impact. Prevented from standing, Justin scrambled back as best he could, keeping his sword up and on the defensive, with the wight following close after.

The doors to the tomb shook with Cassia's obvious efforts to escape. Every time they did, one of the runes on the wight's skin glowed brighter, and Megan guessed it was some magic that allowed him to shut the door, and keep it closed against the satyress's powers, since they hadn't found any enchantment on the door itself. "He's using magic
and
using a sword. That's not fair!" she called to the others.

"We noticed. Can we discuss fair later?" Lani called back, backing away from the advancing hound. As it was about to lunge at her, Jude barreled into its side, unable to knock it down, but at least throwing it off enough that Lani was able to avoid being trapped. The dog turned and snapped at the leopard, who darted back, taking a few scratches from a graze with the undead hound's teeth, but avoiding anything worse from the bite.

After diving at Lani, the falcon quickly engaged Ashling and the Count, the two birds wheeling and darting about in the sky, with Ashling having to hold on tight during the evasive maneuvers. Amidst the attacks, a few black feathers flew, floating down to the ground after each close call.

Focusing purely on defense, with the advantage of the magical sword, Justin was managing to stay alive, but wasn't able to get up or get in any attacks of his own. He was running out of room to keep sliding back. The wight's sword, Megan guessed, had some kind of enchantment of its own, given that it hit the flaming sword repeatedly without breaking.

Considering that and the glowing runes, she started into the counter-spell song, the one Ashling had run her through the most. She was three notes in, almost sure she was seeing the glowing tattoos fade slightly, before she remembered her earlier use of the song, of her throat seizing up. Megan fell silent pre-emptively.

Lani returned the favor to Jude, diving at the monster hound's hindquarters, throwing it off balance as it tried to lunge. Because of her interference, the snapping jaws missed, and it took a claw rake across the face, though that didn't slow it down at all. It whirled, the motion flinging Lani away, sending her tumbling in the grass. Jude got in another slash with his claws, cutting deep into the dead flesh, but it didn't show any signs of slowing down the hound.

The falcon clipped the Count, who floundered, starting to tumble, then managed to pull back up. As the falcon dove to follow up, Ashling leapt off the Count's back, managing to grab onto one of the falcon's wings, changing its trajectory enough to make it miss. The larger bird rose again, with the pixie clinging on tenaciously, trying to buy her mount time to recover.

"Megan, some help!" Lani yelled, backing away from snapping jaws again, as she and Jude alternately tried to keep the hound off balance. Megan started towards Lani, then paused, looking to Justin, trying to figure out whom to help, and how. Everyone was in trouble, and the quickest spells to come to mind were all either less than relevant or less than singable.

Justin was backed up against a tree, fighting as best he could just to fend off attacks from the larger warrior, who was far quicker with the huge blade than he should have been. Still, Justin was managing to keep himself alive and armed despite the heavy blows.

He started to stand, bracing himself against the tree, but ducked back down under a furious swing, hitting the ground as the claymore flashed over his head. Megan guessed he had hoped to bait his opponent—and maybe get the other sword stuck in the tree to create an opening. If so, the effort failed, as the claymore cut right through the tree in a single blow.

Megan remembered one of the songs from the book: a simple one in basic C major—for practical purposes, anyway, since old-style music probably wasn’t written with modern musical theory in mind. Megan tried to focus. The point was there were no sharps, no chance at all to sabotage herself. She remembered it had worked, but other songs had worked quicker—and had easier lyrics. With so little practice, she couldn't remember the strange Gaelic words. Th-something? La-something? She tried humming, but there wasn't enough power to it.

The falcon finally shook Ashling off, sending the pixie tumbling, flapping her tattered wings furiously to slow her fall. The Count managed to get under her, aiming his dive in time to let Ashling grab on and swing back into riding position.

Megan had to help now. She knew whom, and she knew how—if this worked. She started to sing the most familiar words that fit the melody, and hoped that Ashling would know the tune, at least. “Thistle, Lavender, Mulberry and Mauve.” It was just a selection of pastel shades of pink and purple, but Megan sang it with passion.

Indeed, Ashling seemed to recognize it, as she and the Count flew towards Megan as fast as they could, as the song built up. With the others continuing their desperate battles, all showing the signs of their fatigue, with the close calls getting closer, Megan forced herself to focus on her timing. The falcon saw his targets retreating towards the formerly confused girl and flew after them, picking up speed. As the Count got close enough, Megan caught the pair, holding on as she sang louder. Just as the Falcon's talons closed within inches of her face, a powerful blast of wind blasted it backwards, sending the bird spiraling towards the hound. When it hit the other beast in the flank, accustomed to the other pair attacking every time it focused, the hound whirled and snapped, clipping the falcon before it could dart away.

"Ashling, the door! I'll keep the bird off you."

"Megan, I told you, house windows are one thing. That thing is way too heavy for one pixie."

"Just counteract his closing magic, or whatever. Cassia will do the rest."

The figure with the claymore noticed the surge of bardic magic, buying Justin a moment as the wight considered Megan. Before he could rush her, Justin went on the offensive. The wight fended off the attack cleanly, clearly more than a match in pure skill for the young warrior, but worried enough about the Claiomh Solais that he couldn't ignore the attacks to go stop Megan from grounding the falcon.

While the Count was likewise kept on the ground amidst the magical winds, Ashling was able to drop to the ground and dart towards the door, casting her best opening spells.

The heavy door crashed open a few moments later, and an enraged Cassia barreled out of the tomb with Maxwell at her side. Lani was given a badly needed respite as the two cats teamed up on the hound, letting Lani crawl away to catch her breath and check the severity of the cuts she'd taken so far. Cassia trusted the cats to handle themselves and moved to help Justin, slashing down furiously at the wight. While his skill may have been sufficient to ward off Justin, Cassia was a different matter, and several cuts hit home. The undead shrugged most off, until she managed to lock swords with him, tying up his defense.

A moment later, Justin took advantage, taking the wight's sword arm off at the elbow. A thrust followed, and the flaming sword buried itself in the wight's chest. The green eyes went out, then were replaced by white flames.

With another swing, Cassia took his head off. As soon as he fell, both the falcon and the hound dropped, flesh rotting and crumbling away until both were nothing but skeletons, their animation apparently tied to their master's.

Megan moved towards Lani, and Justin staggered over as well. Finally, they collapsed beside her. All three sat together, trying to recover their breath as Lani continued to check her injuries. The Count slowly hopped over, and the cats lay down nearby. Cassia came to check on them, showing especial concern for Jude's numerous deep cuts from the fight. Ashling set at tiny hand on the Count's wing in tired silence.

Finally, there was a breathless voice. “'Thistle, Lavender, Mulberry, and Mauve'?” Lani asked, an eyebrow raised.

“I didn't exactly have time to check the liner notes in the middle of combat. We don't even have the songbook with us. Anyway, it worked, so those are the words now.”

“I can't believe a filked song worked,” Lani said.

Ashling shrugged. “It's nothing new. Okay, sure, hers were kind of overly clean by traditional standards, but still...”

Megan was just recovering enough to head back for the wight to collect his cloak, as they had the others, and perhaps get a better look at his sword, when she saw movement.

At first thinking the wight was somehow getting back up, she screamed. Then she recognized the figure crouched next to the body, removing the wight's cloak.

"Robin," Cassia spat, sounding like it was a curse word.

"Don't worry, Cass. Just leaving." he responded with a smirk, tucking the cloak over his arm.

"What do you even want it for?" Megan ventured, holding up a hand to try to keep Cassia from doing anything they'd regret.

"Well, that's a complex question. Why is it wanted? Because apparently to wield sacred power, you need the sacred around—for a very, very
special
definition of sacred. But really, as to why I'm getting it? Just for laughs."

"Sacred? What?" Megan tried, confused.

"Nuh-uh, that's all the clues you get," Robin said. “Goodbye.”

Cassia lunged, but by the time she reached him, Robin had either disappeared in a flash of tiny, sparkly lights, or appeared to well enough that the spectacle let him slip away.

Chapter 17: Ice Cream

The walk back seemed to take forever, though Megan's efforts to combat the fatigue with some of her magic helped. There were some efforts to discuss the implications of Robin's words, and what the Butterfly Collector might want, but most were cut off by Cassia's snarling, Ashling's wild suppositions and comments—usually pertaining to the Butterfly Collector's ancestry, preferences, and mental capacity—or, most often, by simple exhaustion.

They emerged back into the noise of the Goblin Market, right near a drink stand staffed by a woman dressed in vines and accessorized with pinecones. As the drinkseller and Cassia exchanged grins and nods, Justin, picking up the bass case from where he'd stashed it there, put the Sword of Light back inside. He had to stop for a minute to rest before hefting the case up over his shoulder.

The Count perched on one of Megan's slouching shoulders while Ashling climbed over to the other. “We need to talk to the king,” the pixie said.

“How are we supposed to find him, if he's even here yet?” Megan asked.

“Let's try the picnic area.” And Ashling began giving rapid directions to which everyone had to catch up.

Not far from the bazaar was a small grassy field, crowded with the oddest picnic scene Megan had ever seen. Instead of the usual wooden benches, the area was lined with heavy stone tables. The stark gray of the stone was contrasted by the brightly colored umbrellas and canopy tents, many of the latter garishly decorated with streamers, bead curtains, and personal touches that ranged from the silly to the macabre, sometimes in the same tent—such as the canopy adorned with dolls and stuffed animals... and sometimes just their heads, or the tent decorated in what first appeared to be translucent white silks, until one noticed the numerous spiders crawling around on and in the spidersilk curtains. Some of the crowd skipped the tables, settling in the grass, or on blankets, assembling in mixed groups that were every bit as odd as the wild displays.

In the center was laid out a midnight-blue blanket, over which a handful of white-winged sprites fluttered. Megan could see that they were clutching papers, parchments, and what may have been a tiny smartphone. Sitting beneath this chattering whirl, his coal-black hair flowing down over his rough silk shirt, was the Unseelie King, quietly eating ice cream.

“Dad?” Megan asked hoarsely.

He looked up. “Megan! You look exhausted. Come sit down, all of you. Would you like some ice cream, dearest?” He raised his spoon. “The moonlit mist flavor is excellent, but I can also recommend the narcissus.”

"I've never heard of those flavors. What are they?"

"Precisely what they sound like. Moonlit mist takes a while to collect, but for those with the palate for it, you can taste Luna's favor. Narcissus is, well, less subtle, but I like it, anyway."

Megan finally settled on the moonlit mist, while Lani stuck to strawberry. Riocard sent a couple of sprites off to place their orders, scrawled on fancy parchment scraps, while the girls settled in.

Once she'd gotten off her feet for a few moments, Megan launched into the explanation of their adventure, though she glossed slightly over the issue of having bartered away a portion of her magically relevant musical capacity. It was embarrassing, and they had a lot of ground to cover. Cassia laid out everything they'd acquired. Ashling explained a few of her slightly more probable scenarios for what the Butterfly Collector might be up to.

Riocard listened to all of this: the chase in the market, the half-map, Mag Tuired, the missing banner, the tombs, the grave-poem about Balor and his 'pallbearers,' the Gray Lady, the wards, the death trap, the tactical charts, Robin Goodfellow, and the stolen shroud.