The Barrow (49 page)

Erim shrugged. “Haven't seen him yet this morning.”

Gilgwyr turned, exasperated, looking at the dozen or so tents, Athairi and Aurian, spread out around the camp amongst the wagons and picket lines for the horses. He was just about resolved to start poking into the tents at random,
Stjepan could be in any one of them, after all
, he thought, when he heard Erim call out behind him: “Gilgwyr!”

“Yes?” he snapped, foggily trying to decide which tent to start with.

“Your pants.”

What's wrong with my pants?
he wondered, and then he looked down. It took him several moments to realize he was looking at his penis.

“Right, thanks,” he said. He looked at the tents around him for a moment in confusion, before turning back to Erim. She pointed at one of the Athairi tents to his left. “Right. Thanks,” he said, and then plunged back into the tent.

“We can't take the risk of passing through a major city,” Stjepan had argued with him, standing on a small rise well out of earshot of their fellow travelers and Athairi hosts, busy preparing the morning meal or praying in both the old way and the new to the Dawn Maiden. “Even assuming that the Court did not order the use of a magical Sending to send out warning, or that the priests of the city temples have not sent spirit messengers to alert their brethren, we know that heralds bearing news of the events in Therapoli will have reached Truse yesterday, and be in Westmark today, and in Newgate the day after. They will be traveling twice our speed on the best road in the Kingdoms.” Gilgwyr had made exasperated noises in protest, but Stjepan had stifled them with a raised hand. “And if you separate from us, how are we supposed to meet later? We could set a meeting date and time, but if you were to miss the appointed hour, we'd have to leave without you. What's so important that you would risk missing the culmination of our journey?”

“I don't know!” Gilgwyr had cried, his face contorted with fear and confusion. “Don't you see?
That's the whole fucking point! I don't know!
”

He knew of course that Stjepan was correct; but still he had paced and raged and fumed at the pain in his head and the vague, fading sensations of the night's dreams, until at last the pain had lessened a bit and the fit of pique and anger had passed. They had stood together amongst the flat, chiseled stones, Stjepan staring down at the cursed stones with a melancholy anger, and Gilgwyr staring off at the horizon to the south, not saying anything to each other. Until Gilgwyr finally sighed and said wearily, “Right, let's go.”

His unhappy mien stayed with him all throughout the day's travels, and into the night when they set camp. His dreams that night were just as beautiful as they had been of late, and again they had that undercurrent of fear and dread and pain, though the sharp pain that had driven him to the brink did not recur, and the fear had a duller quality to it, as though it was just the mind's echo of past terror, and not some present danger.

The next day their journey became rougher, which did little to improve Gilgwyr's mood; after consulting with Arduin, Stjepan decided to lead them across the northern edge of the Manon Mole in order to descend down into the Reinvale on the southern side of that valley, so that they could perhaps claim to be coming up from visiting the Watchtowers on the southern coast when they tried to cross the Eridbrae at the bridge at Erid More. Several times on the hill roads they passed small nameless hardscrabble homesteads or villages or beneath half-ruined keeps, the eyes of suspicious locals in dark leathers and homespun cloth watching with curiosity or with calculation. But most of those calculations came up in their favor; a glance from Stjepan or from one of Arduin's increasingly grizzled-looking knights and the Wheel of Fortune spun aright for them, and they passed down out of the hills and down into the valley without incident, following the shallow northern edge of the Neris Wold.

Long years had passed since Gilgwyr had seen any of the great western woods, and even the simple sight of the Neris Wold and its tall trees and gloomy,
fae
-haunted interior was enough to make him wish like he'd never left the Sleight of Hand. The Wold was marked by a preponderance of purple leaf plums and copper and purple beech trees, giving the canopy a dark reddish-purple cast that it shared only with the Tiria Wold to the northwest. Beside him on the rumble seats Leigh had drawn himself into a tight ball, and he held a small horn-shaped amulet made from black jet. Gilgwyr looked at him quizzically. “A spirit bane,” Leigh had whispered. “Can never be too careful.”

Gilgwyr nodded sagely back at him.
You're a crazy old fucker
, he thought.

Leigh swiveled around to look forward at their progress, and saw a hooded face peering out of the coach from the open shutter of its side door's window. He reacted in alarm.

“My Lady!” cried Leigh. “Do not let the spirits see your face! Else they will follow you to take your beauty for themselves!” Annwyn looked startled; those were the first words that the enchanter had spoken to her during the whole of their journey so far, and she quickly withdrew back into the interior of her coach, and the shutters slammed shut.

Leigh turned back with a sigh of relief. “By the gods, that was close.” He realized that Gilgwyr was staring at him, eyebrows raised. “Ha!” laughed Leigh. “You'll see! Mark my words: the Neris Wold is the haunt of the Brazen Court of the
Fae
. They love nothing more than to dally with mortals, which is all fine and good and a right pleasure until they try to steal your face or your cock right off your body.” He made clawing, snatching motions with the gnarled fingers of one hand.

Gilgwyr stared at him for a moment longer. “You're a crazy old fucker,” he said slowly with a smile. “And you're fucking making my head hurt.”

As the Dusk Maiden rose and night fell, they turned down some shepherd's paths and set camp in rolling green hills dotted with brush and tree stands, just out of sight of both the Neris Wold to their south and the walled town of Stonham, whose lights were visible from the top of the next rise to their west. Stjepan intended them to slip around the southern side of Stonham in the morning and make their way in a broad arc down the valley so that they came up on Erid More and its bridges from a southern route; Erim and Sir Theodore were chosen to head into Stonham early in the morning and buy some fresh bread and other supplies, as they were starting to run low of what they had bought in Vesslos and traded for with the Athairi.

“Do you want to go with them in the morning?” Stjepan asked while they were about the campfires.

Gilgwyr's heart leapt eager for a moment, but then he thought about it. “Stonham? Under . . . Sir Ishal Garbras, currently a vassal of Caewyd, Earl of Erid More, right?” he asked. Stjepan nodded. Gilgwyr groaned and sighed, waving him off. “Oh, why bother? It's too small a town . . .”

Stjepan shrugged.

Gilgwyr's sleep that night was fitful, his beautiful dreams coming and going, sometimes with an echo of the distress and pain of the previous night, the pleasure teasing and tantalizing him but refusing to stay. He tossed and turned until suddenly he awoke in the grips of a hold and the sensation of weight bearing down upon his body; Leigh was on top of him, one hand pressed firmly over Gilgwyr's mouth, the other bringing his finger to his lips to shush Gilgwyr into silence. Gilgwyr struggled half-heartedly for a moment and then froze. The tent flaps were open slightly, as was Gilgwyr's wont at night so that he fell asleep seeing the stars and sky, and Leigh was staring off intently through the opening out into the dark of the camp.

A fear gripped Gilgwyr's spine then, and he struggled to turn himself over so he could look properly out the tent flaps, but Leigh held him firm. He was surprised at the enchanter's strength. Leigh rummaged about in his robes with his free hand, and then brought his hand over Gilgwyr's face. He worked his pinched fingers for a second and a fine powder fell into Gilgwyr's startled eyes. Gilgwyr struggled in earnest then, his eyes stinging and watering, his hands clawing at Leigh's face and the hand clamped over his mouth, and he almost screamed out in terror. Then the pain receded and the interior of the tent seemed suddenly to glow in a silvery blue light.

Oh thank the gods, it was just the White Elixir
, he thought, the relief flooding his body as his eyes adjusted to the Second Sight. Leigh brought his free finger back to his lips for a second in silent admonition and then pointed out the tent flaps as he slowly released his grip on Gilgwyr's mouth and shifted his weight. Gilgwyr turned over until he was on his belly, holding his breath until he could see out the tent flaps.

The New Moon hung like a black portal in the Heavens, but with the Sight the camp was twilight bright and glowed silver under the vault of stars in the night. He noted that the campfires had all gone out, which was unusual; the watch should have kept them kindled until morning. But he could see the sleeping shape of two armored knights just beyond the next tent.

A tall silvery form stepped gracefully through the camp, delicately and deliberately placing one foot after the other in an exaggerated tiptoe, as if it were engaged in some slow dramatic dance. Its skin (or clothes, Gilgwyr was not sure) shimmered and sparkled, and a cloud of small white lights danced about it like fireflies. Gilgwyr could not readily identify a gender for the
fae
creature, its body was long and lean and willowy and it moved with a preternatural grace. Its hair spiked up above its head like the thickly entwined limbs of some magical white tree, and it wore a half-mask of some sort—or at least Gilgwyr very much hoped that what he saw was a mask. Its mouth was exposed beneath the half-mask, with sensuous full lips on display. Despite the sense of danger, Gilgwyr could feel himself grow hard at the sight of it. He wondered what he would see if the Elixir had not given him the Sight; nothing at all? A bird or a wolf stepping through their camp?

The walking creature was followed and flanked by two companions that appeared very much the same, but which crept gracefully along on hands and feet as though they were pantomimes imitating spiders or dogs. Their arm and leg movements were exaggerated in large sweeps up and down, as they played the faithful hounds to their upright master. They appeared to be following a scent or a trail, but not along the ground as a bloodhound might; they would creep forward, and then raise their heads up and slowly flick their tongues out as though tasting the air, and then creep forward a step or two again.

Gilgwyr didn't budge, but he began to calculate the reach to his weapons, as useless as they might have been against the
fae
. His rune-marked rapier was sheathed to his right, but Leigh's body lay heavily atop him to that side as the enchanter peered with him out the tent flaps. He had tucked a sharp dagger down on his right side, which was now (having turned over) on his left, and he slowly, inch by agonizing inch, started to snake his left hand down toward the hilt. He felt Leigh's grip on his shoulder tighten in silent warning, and his hand froze.

The
fae
passed on the other side of the doused campfire in front of their own small tent and began to approach the pavilion tent that had been set up for Annwyn and Malia. Gilgwyr immediately wondered at the enchanter's warning from earlier in the day;
are the
fae
aiming for that tent because they are looking for Annwyn, or just because it's the fanciest-looking tent?
he wondered. They stalked and crept closer and closer, and Gilgwyr held his breath, trying to will his heart into calm and praying that Leigh had some sort of magical charm to drive them away, as otherwise he was afraid that a confrontation with the
fae
would be very one-sided.

Just as Gilgwyr was sure he wasn't going to be able to take it a moment more and that his lungs would burst, Stjepan stepped into view and casually placed himself between Annwyn's tent and the three
fae
. He appeared to have perhaps just woken up, though he had breeches and boots on, along with an untucked and unruly looking shirt. An amulet of some sort glowed and dangled from a chain around his neck. His sheathed falchion was in his right hand, held slightly behind his body away from the
fae
.