A Glimmering Girl (15 page)

“Oh, Kaelyn!” Igraine jumped in without asking and took hold of Kaelyn’s hand.

“Hmph,” Maxim said. With tender care, he put a pillow under Kaelyn’s head and pulled a thick quilted blanket up to her chin.

He climbed up onto the driver’s bench. “Hey now, Mavis,” he called to the pony. “Let’s go then.” The wagon began to roll.

“That isn’t Mavis,” Kaelyn said to the goblin’s back. “She’s a different color altogether.”

“Old Mavis is…” For the first time, the goblin’s rock-solid self-assurance faltered, and there was a catch in his voice. “This is new Mavis. I couldn’t think of another name.”

They came to the road near the cave. Traveling southwest would lead to the Ring road and on to Igdrasil, a two-hour drive in the wagon. Igraine had never cast a summoning spell for the boat without having her eyes on the Severn Sea, but if she could do it from the Ring road, Velyn would be waiting for them when they arrived at the shore. Kaelyn seemed a bit stronger since the goblin’s arrival. They might just make it.

But Maxim turned northeast.

“What are you doing?” Igraine said. “This is wrong. We need to go to the Ring.”

The goblin glanced over his shoulder with a raised eyebrow and an incredulous look that nearly stopped her heart. A strange noise came from Kaelyn—and Igraine realized she was laughing. Then the goblin burst out laughing.

“Are you two crazy?” Igraine said. “This isn’t funny!”

Igraine’s tormentors only laughed harder as the wagon turned into a tunnel on the side of the hill. How could she have never noticed this before? The opening was wide enough for cart and pony with some room above their heads to spare. The smooth walls and fairly level floor indicated the passageway wasn’t natural. It had been dug into the dirt and was shaped to order.

Maxim inhaled deeply and blew out his breath with an appreciative “Ahh!” and in sympathetic reaction, Igraine did the same. The air was sweet with the smell of clean dirt. Cool, not cold. Candles in wall sconces lit up, then self-extinguished as Mavis pulled the wagon along.

“This is a goblin tunnel,” Igraine said. “We’re in a goblin tunnel!”

“You think?” Kaelyn said.

“Here we go,” Maxim said.

The solid tunnel floor dipped and lurched sideways. Igraine felt like throwing up—and then the world started to spin.

« Chapter 14 »
Coffee and a Secret

12th century. The island of Avalos

Igraine awoke to sunlight, open windows, and birdsong. A light breeze stirred the curtains in the bedroom of her little cottage on Avalos. She stretched, feeling rested and restored—as if she’d slept for days.

What a wild dream… finding Glimmer Cottage as a falcon. If only it could happen in waking life! Igraine chuckled, remembering how she’d annoyed the obnoxious priest. And then she’d become a fish, caught in a net by… that man. She sat up and caught her breath.

The man at Nine Hazel Lake.
A small dart of disappointment stung her heart. His image filled her mind—her fisher king. It had been so real! She could recall it in detail, even now.

Inside the hunter’s cottage, she stood by a fire, confused. Naked. Heat from the flames warmed her skin, but her bones shook with cold. The man stared at her bare feet, and his gaze traveled upwards. She felt it, as if it conveyed warmth, moving over her knees and thighs. She felt no shame, no fear. He found her sex, her hips, her belly, lingered on her breasts, drank in her arms, her hair. No lust in his expression, but hunger—and wonder.

Igraine felt the hunger too.

Their eyes met. It felt like falling and falling—and at the same time being caught up, lifted to heaven. Had she transmogrified? Was she him? Were they two instances of the same soul, living different lives here on earth?

Brother Sun, Sister Moon—what’s happening to me?

O, cruel dream! Why had she run?

“What was his name, Igraine?” she asked herself. “You said it in the dream.”

Unlike with most dreams, he didn't fade now. Oddly, she perceived him more clearly, with the utter certainty that he was real.

She got up and threw on a silk tunic. The apple blossom jewels lay on her dressing table, and she sprinkled them randomly through her hair. Their tiny wyrded tendrils grabbed on, winding themselves in place as sweet peas affix to a beanpole.

On the way outside, she took a pear from the bowl of ripe fruit by the front door and finished it before she reached the path to the main abbey. When had she last eaten, and what? It must have been Kaelyn’s stew at the cave.

“Sun and moon.
Kaelyn.”
It all came back in a rush. Kaelyn. The goblin.

Igraine ran to the main abbey. She had to see Zoelyn, had to find out what had happened. Kaelyn had to be all right.

The entry hall was empty, but voices sounded from the corridor to the acolytes’ wing. Igraine followed the muffled conversation to a door that had been left ajar and let out a sigh of relief. One of the voices belonged to Kaelyn. Igraine stopped when she heard her own name spoken.

“Don’t dismiss Igraine so lightly.” The old woman sounded much stronger.

“If you say so.” The goblin, Maxim.

Igraine remembered the tunnel and the twisting nausea. He’d brought them to the island after all.
But how? And how long did I sleep?

The creature grunted. “I saw nothing remarkable in her.”

It wasn’t right. It wasn’t fair. How dare he call her unremarkable! Why would Kaelyn discuss her with a goblin at all?

“Oh? Igraine will free Boadicea,” Kaelyn said. “I call that somewhat remarkable.”

Wait... who was Boadicea?

Apparently the statement confused the goblin too. “Can… can this be true?” The gruffness left his voice, and he sounded quite vulnerable.

“I have seen it, Maxim.”

“Kaelyn… you lighten my spirit. If only I could tell her—but the abomination is never far from Idris’s reach.” The goblin spat out the regent’s name.

Idris.
Ruler of the Dumnos fae. Igraine knew a little about the fae; Kaelyn had told her the basics. Idris was guardian of Prince Dandelion and Princess Narcissus. In place of their slain mother, Queen Sifae, Idris sat on the Moonstick Throne until such time the prince would be ready to take it.

“You can’t tell Boadicea. Nor anyone,” Kaelyn said. “Telling fate changes fate.”

“Wouldn’t it have been nice if someone had let Merlyn in on that detail,” Max said.

“I too learned it the hard way.”

“Hmph. Ten thousand pardons if I don’t cry for your hard life.”

“Why, Maxim. Was that a joke?”

Another grunt. Or maybe it was a goblin chuckle.

“Why do you think I live in a cave?” Kaelyn said. “To keep away from people. It’s off-putting to sit down to soup and to suddenly see my dinner companion prostrate with an arm missing and his innards gushing over the floor. It’s hard enough seeing things about people I don’t know… and torture knowing the fate of someone I love.”

Igraine’s head was spinning. In the blink of an eye, her entire world had transmogrified. And Kaelyn! There was so much more to the old woman than she’d ever let on.

“Then you shouldn’t have told me,” Maxim said.

“Perhaps not. But you’re shorter and uglier than I’ve ever seen you, my friend. You needed some good news, and you’re the one living soul I trust with a secret.”

Igraine’s ears filled with the sound of her blood rushing.
Igraine will free Boadicea.
A thousand questions competed for her attention. Kaelyn truly had the sight.

What else did she know?

Who was Boadicea?

The door swung open, and she had to jump back to keep from being stepped on.

“Hmph. Igraine, then.” The goblin tilted his thick head up and squinted, as if reassessing her.

“Good morning, Maxim.”

“Hmph.” With a nod, he went on his way, still shuffling, but with a lighter step than she remembered.

“Igraine, is that you?” Kaelyn indeed sounded stronger. The healing powers of Avalos were already at work.

Igraine expected to find her mentor in bed, an invalid. Instead Kaelyn was outside her room on the open-air terrace ensconced in a hanging chair large enough for two. She lay on her side, propped up by pillows, with a plate of food sitting on the cushion in front of her.

“How are you feeling?” they both asked at the same time.

“Better.” They both responded.

Kaelyn laughed and popped a blackberry into her mouth. “Sit down, dear.” She indicated an identical chair opposite hers. Between the two fantastical hanging chair-couches was a low table laden with fruit, cheese, nuts, and bread—and Igraine’s favorite drink.

“The
Vengeance
came!”

Twice a year, the ship from the mundane world was allowed to find its way through the mist of Avalos and weigh anchor in Fallen Bay at the island’s northernmost reach. The ship brought all manner of treasures from faraway ports: silks, ceramics, glass bowls, dates, olives, oranges—and coffee beans.

The pear hadn’t nearly been enough. With an eye on the pot of coffee, Igraine fixed a plate of food for herself.

“So,” Kaelyn said. “Now you’ve seen a goblin tunnel, and you’ve been transported by goblin magic.” She picked up another fat blackberry. “How
are
you feeling? Does your altered eye see a different world?”

“Goblin magic.” Igraine poured a cup of coffee and stirred in honey and cream. “I didn’t realize a goblin could do such a powerful spell—any spell, for that matter.

“The fae don’t
do
magic, Igraine. The fae
are
magic.”

“It’s odd to think of goblins as fae.”

“Fae of the highest order,” Kaelyn said. “The most gifted, the most noble—”

“So Zoelyn says.”

Igraine had been a practicing wyrder since her magic came in when she was eleven. She’d lived in the wyrding world all her twenty-three years, first at Avalos and then with Kaelyn. Yet it felt like she’d learned more in one cycle of sun and moon than all the other days of her life.

Now that Kaelyn mentioned it, she
did
feel different today than the day before Wennie’s birthday. But she couldn’t explain the difference—or even describe it.

“What’s this?” An odd object lay on the table beside the sugar bowl, a long brass tube, wider on one end and narrower on the other, both ends made of glass. “A container of some sort?” But it held nothing, and the ends were sealed.

“It’s called a scoping glass,” Kaelyn said. “Point it at the lake and look. No, the other way… through the small end.”

Igraine complied—and jumped. “Oh!”

Maxim appeared in the glass, close enough to touch. She reached out for him and grabbed empty air. Without the scope, he was gone—but she saw him in the distance, on the bridge going to Mistcutter Island.

“What is this device?”

“Velyn finagled it from the captain of the
Vengeance
,” Kaelyn said. “He brought it to me this morning hoping to cheer me up, sweet boy.”

A pleasant eagerness rose within Igraine at the thought of Velyn, and she shifted in her chair. Maybe she’d invite him to her cottage while she was on the island. Her mind drifted. Did her fisher king have any interesting tattoos?
My fisher king…

“To you every man in the world is a sweet boy.” Igraine felt her face go red and raised the glass to her eye. “You probably think that goblin is a sweet boy.”

“Matter of fact, I do, Little Miss Clever Cauldron. As you might, when you learn to see differently.”

Again Maxim seemed near enough to touch. His sour expression was clear enough, as well as the intricately carved buttons on his embossed leather waistcoat and the shimmer of the collar on the blouse beneath—
what?

“Kaelyn, I believe your goblin is wearing glimmermist!”

“What of it? The stuff is his creation.”

“Goodness.”

“I suppose he had no idea what to expect when he came to my rescue. He had prepared for battle. How heroic.”

“Kaelyn.” Igraine set the glass down. “Are all goblins so grumpy?”

“No. Which is surprising, considering,” Kaelyn said. “Maxim is a special case. Many and many years ago, when he was young and full of himself, he made a terrible mistake. It so angered the high gods that they cursed all of goblinkind. He’s been
goblin non grata
in the Blue Vale ever since.”

“
Goblin non grata
.”

“Heh.” Kaelyn’s eyes twinkled. She
was
feeling better. “At the time, my great aunt Morwenna gave him sanctuary. He lived here for a hundred years or so.”

“A fae at Avalos.”

“No one was happy about it, especially Maxim. But in true Maxim style, he made the best of it, kept busy. He made the abbey’s windows and showed the colony at Fallen Bay how to blow glass bowls and the potion bottles we love so well. He constructed the two bridges to Mistcutter Island, and together he and Velyn built the
Redux
, which keeps a true course no matter how rough the sea or how thick the mist.”