“Tomorrow,” she said, as they sat around the fire after nightfall, “we’ll enter Faerie. After that, ’tis in the hands o’ fate.”
“What makes it so dark in that direction?” asked Holger.
Alianora stared at him. “Truly ye’re from afar off, or else a spell is on ye,” she said. “All folk know the Pharisees canna endure broad daylight, so ’tis forever twilit in their realm.” She winced. The firelight etched her young face redly against wind-whining blackness. “If Chaos wins, mayhap yon dusk will be laid on the whole world, and no more o’ bricht sunshine and green leaves and blossoms. Aye, I suppose indeed I am with Law.” She paused. “And yet does Faerie have an eldritch beauty. Ye’ll see for yourself.’”
Holger looked across the blaze at her. The light shone in her eyes, stroked her hair and the gentle curves of her body, then wove her a mantle of shadow. “If I am not being rude,” he ventured. “I can’t understand why a pretty girl like you should live in the wilds among… among others than your own kind.”
“Oh, ’tis no hard riddle.” She gazed into the coals. He could barely hear her voice above the night wind. “The dwarfs found me as a babe lying in the forest. Belike I was some crofter’s child, stolen in the harrying which ever goes through these marches. The robbers thought to raise me for a slave, then wearied o’ the idea and left me. So the little folk, and the animals their oath-brethren, raised me up. They were good and kind, and they taught me a mickle. In the end they gave me this swan dress, which they say once belonged to the Valkyries. By its power, I, though not shapestrong born but o’ common human sort, may change as ye’ve seen; and thus I may dwell safe. Now go whither ye will, said the dwarfs. But I couldna care much for the smoky halls o’ men. My friends were here, and the space and sky I maun have to be glad. That is the whole o’ ’t.”
Holger nodded, slowly.
She glanced back at him. “But ye’ve told us only a whit about yoursel’,” she said with an unsteady smile. “Where be your home, and how came ye hither without traversing lands o’ men or Middle World and learning wha’ they were?”
“I wish I knew,” said Holger.
He wanted to tell her the whole story, but thrust the impulse back. She probably couldn’t understand any part of it. Besides, he might be wise to have some secrets in reserve. “I think a spell was laid on me,” he said. “I lived so far off that we’d never heard of any of these places. All at once, here I was.”
“What micht your realm be called?” she insisted.
“Denmark.” He swore at himself when she exclaimed:
“But I’ve heard o’ yon kingdom! Though far from here, it has a wide fame. A Christian country, north o’ the Empire, is ’t no?”
“Ummm… well… that can’t be the same Denmark.” Hardly! “Mine lies in—ah—” He hated to tell her an outright falsehood. Wait a minute; his old junkets around the United States. “I am thinking of a place in South Carolina.”
She cocked her head at him. “Methinks ye’re hiding summat. Well, as ye wish. We border folk learn not to be overcurious.” She yawned. “Shall we to bed?”
They huddled together in the shelter, seeking warmth as the night grew more cold. Several times Holger wakened with a shiver and sensed Alianora breathing by his side. She was a sweet kid. If he never found his way back—
6
THEIR DESCENT next morning was rapid, if precarious. Often Hugi yelped as Papillon’s hoofs slipped on the talus and they teetered over a blowing edge of infinity. Alianora stayed far overhead. She had a hair-raising sport of turning human in midair and going back to swan shape just in time to break her fall. After watching this Holger needed a steadying smoke quite badly. He couldn’t light the pipe until Hugi showed him how to use the flint and steel he now carried in the pouch at his belt. Damnation, why couldn’t they have matches in this world?