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“Exactly. The silver protects us.”
“But, Papa, if the Silver Caul keeps the goblins out, why must we wear silver, too?”
Because there are worse things than goblins, he nearly replied. It was the race that called themselves the sidhe that were the worst of all, for they seduced mortals with promises of otherworldly delight, leading them to vanish out of sight and time. Your own mother was snared by one of them, he almost said, but he caught himself. They were treading dangerously close to questions for which he must carefully consider the replies. He pushed aside the curtain and peered out into the night. It was coming up to dawn. The low-lying clouds overlay a sky of lighter gray. Time to stir the oats he’d set to cook last night in the great iron kettle nestled in the warm forge, to check for damage left by the now-passing storm, to try to decide what to tell the child if her questions led them to the subject of her mother, and if she were old enough to know even part of the truth. “Not now, sweetheart. I’ll tell you the story later. I promise. But ’tis so late, it’s early, and I must be about my work. You go back to sleep for a bit, it’s too cold to be running about early today.” He kissed each one of her grubby little fingers in turn, noticing how pink they were beneath a thin layer of grime, then rose to go. He resolved to remember to drag the bathtub from the shed beside the kitchen before nightfall. Her eyelids were already beginning to droop.
“But, Papa?” Her voice stopped him at the door. “The Silver Caul? That’s what keeps the goblins away? For real?”
“There are no goblins in Brynhyvar, Nessa. I promise. So back to sleep with you, now, like a good girl.”
“Yes, Papa.” She shut her eyes with a sigh.
He ducked his head beneath the uneven frame of the low doorway and paused to look over his shoulder at the little face lying on the pillow. Dearer to him than all he owned, dearer than life, she was. He had lost her mother to the sidhe, and he was determined such a fate should never befall her daughter. Such a headstrong little thing, she could be, so like her mother, curious and engaging. But if she seemed more interested in the fire and the forge, hammer and tongs, than in the tools of more womanly pursuits, so much the better. Better her mind be full of iron, he thought, than the sort of empty-headed nonsense which had contributed to her mother’s disappearance.
The child curled on her side, one round cheek pillowed on her open palm, a scrap of threadbare blanket nestled beneath her chin. A line from an ancient lullaby ran through his head. The might of Bran protects thee, the Faerie Queen shall bless thee, no goblin claw will rend thee. But he took no comfort in it, for he expected no blessing from that quarter. He would see to it that if ever goblin or sidhe touched so much as a hair of his daughter’s head, she would be well-prepared to defend herself.
1
Now
The fat spider leapt lightly along the serrated edges of the stone spikes which rose like a lizard’s spine along the high back of the throne of the Goblin King. It scampered across the rough stone, anchored from above by a nearly invisible filament, darting just inches from the leathery maw of Xerruw, the Goblin King, who leaned upon one elbow and watched it with detached interest. So easily he could flick it into oblivion with a snap of his tongue. Its legs waved frantically as it manipulated the gossamer strands, as if it sensed a predator. But, though he watched it with a hungry intent, Xerruw’s mind was not bent on food. Spin, little spider. You have reminded me of the value of a trap.
A smoky fire burned fitfully in the stone pit in the center of the cavernous hall, and a dull gray light filtered through the arrow slits set within the soaring arches of its central tower. A cold draft whined down from the upper reaches, but Xerruw, if he noticed the chill at all, gave no sign. He sprawled across his massive throne, which had been carved out of a boulder bigger than the huts of men, in that last happy age when the goblins reigned supreme and the sidhe cowered beneath the banks of rivers and glens, hiding in the noon, hunted at night like luminous fish flitting through the dark depths of the primeval forests. Those were the days of glory, he reflected, as he picked his teeth with the fingerbone of a human child.
It was an ancient fingerbone, worn sliver-fine from long years of gnawing—they’d not been fortunate to find a child roaming in these lands for more time than he’d care to remember—but he liked to fancy that it retained a hint of the sweet flavor of young man-meat, enough to envision a time still to come when, free of the fetters of sidhe magic, his kind could hunt both the human herd and the sidhe at will. So he watched the spider, sucking on his bone, while in the niches carved into the rock beneath his seat, three hags muttered among themselves as they crouched restlessly on their nests of lumpy eggs, ceaselessly complaining of the lack of meat.
His gray eyes were nearly closed, and he appeared lost in thought, his attention wholly focused on the spider, but he knew that three of the six guards dicing opposite the hags were cheating on the others, and that the goblins sharpening their weapons closest by the door mumbled mutiny. Let them, he mused, enjoying the worn smoothness of the bone against his teeth. Long years he’d sat, brooding on his throne, biding his time, plotting his strategy, awaiting the very news he’d received yesterday.
For the sidhe Queen was in whelp—the sidhe witch who dared to style herself Queen of all Faerie. It was only a matter of time now, and her power would falter, her magic naturally diminish as the birth approached, giving him at last an opening, a foothold, a chance to once again claim all of Faerie for his own. In the past weeks, he had begun to sense it—a subtle but unmistakable weakening in the complex webs of power which held the border of the Wastelands, where her forces had driven his kind after the last war. And this time, they would attack—not just with blades and spears, arrows and bolts, the weapons of sheer brute force. No, this time he would try something worthy of a sidhe’s own cunning. He would succeed where the others of his kind had failed, catching the complacent sidhe off guard when they were most critically vulnerable. Like the spider, he mused. And like the spider, he would weave his own trap and wait.
A chill draft suddenly blasted through the hall, and the hags screeched and cackled, rocking back and forth on their haunches to protect their eggs. The blast of air was accompanied by a thunderous boom—the sound of the inner gates closing. The scouting party had returned. But even as he was about to shift positions and settle more comfortably to await their report, Xerruw bolted upright, for he caught, just beneath the acrid smoke of the fire, a scent, at once coppery and sweet, earthy and sour, threading like a strand of yarn through the smooth texture of the air. He snarled in the direction of the hags, and rose to his feet as Iruk, the Captain of his Goblin Guard, strode in, his fellows jogging behind him, a blur of dull gray limbs and black metal in unison. The guards stopped gaming and sharpening, and looked up, sniffing expectantly. Then the hags caught the scent and their keening cries of pleasure erupted in a hungry harmony. A snarl and another hard glare silenced them, but they licked their lips and stared back at him with eager eyes.
“What is this you bring?” he asked suspiciously, for the unmistakable aroma of man was in the air, and he knew already what lay within the hide-bound burden Iruk bore across his shoulders.
“Great Xerruw.” Iruk circled around the fire pit, stopping at the very base of the throne. He glanced at the hags, who squatted over their nests, crooning softly, as though he half expected them to leap at him. He knelt, staggering a little beneath the weight of his burden, then bent his neck and let it roll to the first step of the throne. He pulled away the hide and the still body of a human male sprawled at the base of Xerruw’s throne, fresh blood congealing on his skull and at his throat.
Xerruw stared down at the offering. His nostrils quivered and saliva flooded his mouth. But even as a ravenous hunger swelled from the pit of his belly, making it nearly impossible not to rip off the closest limb, misgiving made him raise his head and scan the faces of the guards who stared back at him with unabashed glee. Saliva ran down their jaws, and their maws quivered, nostrils flaring. The last time they’d tasted human meat was countless ages past. It was a testimony to their allegiance to him that they’d returned the carcass intact. One of them was missing.
He looked down at the dead human. It had been a big male, dark and hairy, with burly arms and massive shoulders. Strong on him, beneath the scent of blood and flesh and sweat and urine, hung the smell of smoke and burning metal. His face and beard were damp and he was nearly naked except for linen breeches and the amulet he wore around his neck. In the unsteady light, it shone with a clear, soft gleam. Xerruw’s lip curled and his eyes narrowed at the sight. “Silver,” he muttered. “This should not be.” Silver was anathema to sidhe and to goblin, humankind’s only sure defense against goblin teeth and sidhe magic. “I like this not,” he said at last, shaking his heavy head. “Where did you find it?”
“By the lake. Upon the farthest shore. He did not know he’d slid across the border. We took him unawares.” Iruk dragged one claw through the gelatinous clot on the human’s neck, and held it out to Xerruw. The scent of the fresh kill exploded like fire through Xerruw’s veins and he licked his lips without thinking.
“Do you not see the silver?” Xerruw gestured down.
Iruk shrugged. “Base metal, most like. We carried him here well-wrapped—there was no problem.” He threw the clot at his lord’s feet, and gazed up at him expectantly, awaiting some sign of acceptance of the kill. Xerruw squatted down, coiling his tail beneath his haunches, sniffing suspiciously. Iruk was probably right. The amulet must indeed contain a fair portion of base metal. He examined the clothing the human wore. The linen was coarse, the heavily muscled body bore testimony to a lifetime of hard labor. But the hide they’d used to wrap the human in was slightly singed where the amulet had rested, and above it, he could feel a tingle emanating from it, a shimmer in the air. It had potency, enough, then. The amulet must be cast into the deepest part of the lake, where he instinctively knew the dark waters would neutralize its corrosive effect. He pulled his dagger from his sheath and cut the leather cord around the neck. He held the amulet out to Iruk by the cord.
Iruk stepped back with a hiss.
“Throw this in the lake whence it came.” He pushed it closer to Iruk’s face.
Iruk hissed again as the amulet swung near his jaw, jerking his head well out of reach.
“So maybe this metal is not so base, my Captain?”
“So maybe this is not so much mortal meat, my lord. Shall I throw it in the lake, too?”
“Where is Bukai?”
Their eyes collided in a challenge, as a low growl of impatience rolled through the growing crowd.
“He fell beneath the water. The mortal killed him.”
Xerruw snarled, low in his throat, and shook the amulet. “Take it.” With a growl, Iruk grabbed it by the cord and dropped it into a pouch he wore at his waist. It made a slight hiss as the troll-hide closed around it. Xerruw smiled grimly. He bent and ripped a single ear off the mortal with a languid wave of his claw, and, holding it high, shook it, then crammed it into his mouth for all to see. He ripped the other ear off and tossed it to Iruk. “Get that thing out of here now,” he spat out through the mouthful of flesh and blood and gristle.
Iruk nodded, satisfied, turned on his heel and stalked from the hall.
A cheer erupted from the doorways, where the inhabitants of his castle were creeping forward from their dens, drawn by the seductive scent. The hags exploded into gleeful shrieks, and the rest of the scouting party raised their arms and leapt over the fire pit, tails whipping high, joining the dance. Ogres and goblins bellowed, and more hags rushed from the cellars below to prepare the feast. He reached down, and dragged one long claw through the gelatinous clot, which oozed a metallic-smelling steam, and licked the blood slowly, thoughtfully, while his court capered and pranced around him.
The silver’s clear gleam troubled him, the apparent ease with which the human had slipped into Faerie troubled him. He stared down at the hide, where the silver had left a deep mark. Amid the general rejoicing, he felt wary, suspicious. He unfolded his long frame and settled down into his throne, where the spider rested in the middle of a meticulous web. What could account for the presence of silver in Faerie?
The spider scampered higher, as the cacophony rose. Xerruw put the fragile fingerbone in his mouth once more, and crunched down harder than he intended. At once, it snapped into a shower of shards, dissolving into dust on his tongue. He gazed at the stub remaining between his fingertips. There were more goblins now, soldiers from the barracks, hags from the innermost recesses of the keep, capering around the fire pit, leaping high over the flames. Let his people dance. Perhaps this human was a sign—a sign that soon all of Faerie would be his. His mind reeled, as instinct overwhelmed reason. The sweet human scent was sweeping him away into an ecstasy of expectation. He looked around the crowded hall, and forgot the puzzle of the silver amulet, forgot the sidhe witch Queen, forgot everything but the ripe rich aroma that thickened around his head like fog. The bloodlust surged through his veins like a burst dam.
We must grow strong. We must all grow strong. And we will grow strong. He rose to his full height and joined in the rising chorus with a roar. “We will all grow strong on human meat!”
2
“I’m going and you can’t stop me.” The flicker of the lone lantern caused shadows to quiver across Nessa’s face, but the expression in her dark eyes was one of steady purpose.
Griffin closed his own against thumb and forefinger, rubbing away the dry grit of exhaustion. The fat candle within the lantern hissed and spat a gob of tallow. It landed with a sizzle on the dead goblin, which lay between them, slack-faced and limp-limbed, on the straw-strewn dirt of the lean-to next to Farmer Breslin’s barn. The stink of singed hair mingled with the putrid odor already rising from the corpse, and Griffin had to swallow hard against a wave of nausea. “It’s madness and I can’t let you. Your father would kill me—”
“Not if I kill you first.” She gave him one hard look, shot from under full brows which arched in a feminine replica of her father’s own, then looked down at the corpse, assessed it as dispassionately as she might a lump of ore, then shifted to a more comfortable squat beside the body.
The villagers’ decision to place the body in the sty had less to do with proximity or place than concern for the fact that all animals downwind of it within a certain radius whimpered and pulled on their tethers, or pushed against whatever confined them, and it was hoped that the odor might be masked somewhat by the smell emanating from the sty. But the earthy aroma of the pigs was like perfume compared to the reeking miasma which clogged Griffin’s nose. He steeled himself against the stench, and leaned over the body, his voice a husky whisper. “What if you can’t find him? What if you can’t get back? What if everyone thinks you’re mad when you return and won’t have anything to do with you? Why can’t you just wait for the Duke’s men?”
In spite of her obvious resolve, Nessa grimaced as she gingerly touched the clammy flesh which hung slack on the goblin’s face, and this time, the look she shot him was one of utter disdain. “What do I care what they think? Those old biddies do nothing but whisper about me, but they were all quick to rush to the house tonight, weren’t they? Bothersome hens—it was just a chance to poke their noses into the pantry and the kitchen and the bedrooms and make nasty comments about you and me. They don’t care about Papa, they care about sticking their faces in other people’s troubles—not so they can do anything, but so they can talk about it. And the Duke just raised his standard against the King. How much time do you think he’ll spare a missing smith?”
“I should think he’ll make time for a dead goblin. If he doesn’t come himself, you know he’ll send some—”
“Maybe, eventually. But by that time, it may be too late. My father could be dead. Or lost forever, like my mother.” Her mouth hardened and she reached into the leather sack for the small ax.
“What are you doing, Nessa?” Griffin stared at her in horrified disbelief. These last few hours were like a long bad dream that refused to end. It had started when Jemmy, the herder’s boy, had run up from the lake shouting that a goblin lay floating in the water.
The village had reacted as one body, men and women and children, all running pell-mell to the sandy shore, where the thick, hide-clad corpse bumped up against the traps set just at knee depth. The men had waded in, dragging it away from the traps with branches, teasing it ashore. A general gasp had arisen when they’d turned the body over, and the stuff of nightmare and legend lay revealed. Long rows of serrated, jagged teeth in a wide leathery maw, slitted eyes and ears like bat wings, and a hard, leathery hide that ended at each hand in three-inch claws. A jagged wound, curiously singed around the edges, disgorged the contents of its entrails, purplish and glistening with foul-smelling slime.
It was decided that despite the lateness of the hour—the last rays of the sun had long since been swallowed up by shadows—a messenger must be sent to Killcarrick Keep, where it was hoped that the Sheriff, if not the Duke himself, would be in residence. It was during the discussion as to who should go that Nessa had raised her clear voice in one anxious question. “Where’s my father?”
But Dougal, who had left the smithy much earlier that afternoon than was his custom, ostensibly to check the very traps that his apprentice, Griffin, had set just that morning, was nowhere to be found. Despite their usual censure, a flock of clucking women descended on Nessa, while the men patted Griffin’s back and muttered encouragement. He’d been left standing at the smithy gate, while the tide of women swept past, bearing Nessa inside in a swirl of skirts and a flutter of shawls, watching it all with a growing sense of foreboding. It was common knowledge that Nessa’s own mother had been swept into the OtherWorld, carried away by a knight of the sidhe who’d induced her to remove her silver, and Nessa had always been regarded as slightly touched, slightly tainted, as if she had possibly inherited some susceptibility they did not want to share. Dougal’s unorthodox method of raising his daughter had drawn harsh criticism, too, for while the goodwives of the village were inclined to be sympathetic to the motherless girl, they strongly disapproved of the freedom he allowed her, the smithing he’d taught her. Each of them had approached the blacksmith about taking the girl under a wing; all of them had been rebuffed. Dougal was above noticing most of it, but these last few years had been hard on Nessa. Griffin had watched her bear it, with the same sort of silence as she watched them argue that there was only a coincidental connection between the goblin and the smith’s disappearance, since there was no sign of Dougal’s amulet.
But Griffin could well imagine the emotions swirling behind Nessa’s shadowed eyes. At nineteen, she was part sister, part rival, part secret love. She adored her father—that had been clear to him from the very beginning, when he’d joined the household as a twelve-year-old apprentice when she was barely ten—and endured the growing distance between herself and the other villagers stoically. In a world without Dougal, Griffin wondered what would become of Nessa. Under Dougal’s tutelage, she had gained much proficiency as a smith, and was, to Griffin’s mortification, his equal in skill if not in strength. The smithy would of course be hers, someday, on Dougal’s death. But was she truly equipped to make her way in the world, he wondered, as he shooed a gaggle of curious giggling girls from her tiny bedroom. She was so different from all the other girls, possessing only what knowledge of housekeeping as Dougal had—what villager would marry her? And how many of Dougal’s customers would frequent a female blacksmith? She would need a man to handle the heavier jobs. That thought gave him a grim satisfaction, for he had fallen in love with Nessa years ago. But now was not the time to think of any possible future. Here was an opportunity at last to show how much he cared for her. And so he hung back, hovering, watching, listening, wondering how best to help, turning the possibilities over in his mind.
The day had begun badly, for something was clearly weighing upon Dougal from the moment he got up. At breakfast, Nessa asked her father who the two visitors were late last night, two visitors Griffin hadn’t even heard come in. Dougal replied with the same hard look as the one with which she’d just answered Griffin. At Griffin’s first opportunity, as he was putting the breakfast dishes to soak, and Nessa was hauling in a sack of coal for the fire, he asked her, “What visitors? When?”
“Last night—long after you were snoring. If you hadn’t been so quick abed you’d have heard them, too.” She answered him in a quick whisper, for Dougal had said little at breakfast. His eyes were hooded, his mouth grim.
“I hauled ore all day,” he protested. “Did you get a look at them? How long were they here?”
“Not long. Papa knew one of them, for I heard him cry ‘You!’ Then they lowered their voices, and spoke a while but I couldn’t hear what they were saying underneath your snores. Then they left—and I heard him working, long into the night.”
“What was he mak—” he started to ask, but Dougal bellowed for the coal, and Nessa hefted her burden. There was no further opportunity to ask more, and when Dougal left the smithy, earlier than normal, muttering about the traps, they had watched him uncover a narrow bundle wrapped in cloth from beneath a pile of gear, and looked at each other with questioning eyes. “That’s what he was making last night,” Griffin had said, as the smith disappeared down the lane in the direction of the lake. “Let’s follow him, and see where he goes with that.”
“Let’s not,” said Nessa, smarting under the rough side of her father’s tongue, for his mood had been dark all day. Griffin could only imagine what she thought about that now. If only they’d followed, they might have a better idea of Dougal’s fate.
As the dinner hour approached, Griffin had laid down his tools, expecting to go down the lane to pick up the evening loaves from the herder’s wife, Mara, whom Dougal paid to bake, since Nessa didn’t know how. It was yet another reason the goodwives whispered, and a chore Griffin assumed to spare her their sometimes ill-tempered comments. But then Jemmy had come charging down the lane, heralding the news about the goblin, and the bread was forgotten, along with everything else, save Dougal.
As the night lengthened, Griffin stayed on the periphery of the activity, fetching wood and water as required, watching over Nessa from afar. She sat at the rough kitchen table, stone-faced and calm, accepting a knocker-full of hard corn whiskey, tossing it back with such ease even Griffin was astonished. Out of Nessa’s hearing, the women argued amongst themselves in lowered voices, alternatively scolding and silencing each other until Griffin wondered how Nessa could sit with such silent dignity. When the last of them had finally departed, it was well after midnight. But instead of going to her bed, she had risen to her feet and rolled her shoulders back in the same stretch with which she approached fire and forge, and reached for the small ax which hung beside the door.
“What are you doing?” he’d asked, puzzled by her obvious purpose. The fire illuminated her tunic. The stains of the day were lost in the play of shadow and the homespun fabric was pinkish in the red light. Her skin was rosy from the fire, color high on her cheekbones, her dark eyes focused with such calm determination, that, as she turned to face him, holding the ax, he was momentarily afraid of her. She looked like the Marrihugh, the warrior goddess, standing there beside the fire, her bare arms round with defined muscle, forearms corded with veins, fingertips still black with soot. Her shoulders were broad, her back was straight. She was not as tall as her father, but she was strong from a girlhood spent hammering molten metal over an anvil. “What are you doing, Nessa?”
“I’m going to find him,” she replied, in the same matter-of-fact tone she might’ve answered a customer.
“At this hour? The woods were searched—where do you mean to look?”
“I’m going into the OtherWorld, into TirNa’lugh. It’ll soon be dawn, and that’s the best time.”
He’d reached across the space that separated them, and grabbed her arm. “Nessie, that’s madness.”
They were just about the same height and she stared back at him, shaking off his arm. “Where else to look? The goblin appears, my father is missing. What else to think but that they are connected? Why else would my father just go off?”
Griffin stared at her, his mind a mad whirl. “Nessie, please—” How to say gently that Dougal might lay dead beneath the water? Dead within the forest? If Dougal had indeed killed the goblin, wasn’t it possible that the goblin had killed him? “Be reasonable. There’s nothing to prove he’s gone into the OtherWorld. What if he’s just lying somewhere—hurt or…even dead?” He whispered the last.
“I won’t believe that.” She lifted her chin in a challenge, her eyes hard nuggets of iron in her flushed face. He had stared at her as she dropped the ax into a leather sack, buckled her dagger around her waist, and wrapped her cloak over her shoulders. Then she slung the sack over her shoulder. “Not one of them—” she dismissed the whole village with a jerk of her head over her shoulder “—would dream of looking for him in the OtherWorld, and it will take an order from the Duke before anyone else dares.” Without another word, she left the house.
He scampered after her, up the hill, in the direction of Farmer Breslin’s sty. She had not replied to any other questions, nor even spoken until just now, when they were kneeling on either side of the goblin. He bit his lip, trying to think of something to say that would convince her to stay, but he knew her in this mood. Arguing was useless. She gripped the goblin’s matted hair and tugged, but the body had hardened into rigor and the head wouldn’t budge. “Then I’ll come with you.”
She rocked back on her heels, regarding him with surprised gratitude. “I know you’d come with me if I asked you to. According to the stories, if I’m alone I’ll have a better chance of getting across the border and into the OtherWorld.”
“And a better chance of getting out if we’re together. What if you run into something like this?” He gestured at the goblin.
“It’s at dusk the goblins hunt.”
“How can you believe the old stories?”
“You mean you can look on this and not?”
He shook his head, mind reeling with frustration and fatigue. “Of course I believe, we all believe now, I suppose. But how do you know the legends are right about everything? What if some of them are wrong? And what if you stumble into a nest of…of these?”
“I can take care of myself.” She patted the dagger which lay in the curve of her waist like a lover’s hand.
“Nessa, will you listen to me? This is madness. You must be moonmazed already if you think you can actually get into the OtherWorld and come back, let alone bring your father back, if that’s truly where he is. I—I mean, the OtherWorld is a big place. Where do you intend to look?”
“I’m going to the Queen, and I’m showing her the goblin’s head. Goblins shouldn’t even be able to get into Brynhyvar. Haven’t you ever heard of Bran Brownbeard?”
“Of course I have but maybe not every story’s true. Don’t you think you should at least talk to Granny Wren?”
“Granny Wren?” Her skeptical tone was a perfect echo of Dougal’s, an octave or so higher.
“She’s a wicce-woman, Nessa, surely you should talk to her before you go—”
“What’s corn magic got to do with goblins? There’s more to this than either of us understand, Griffin. Those visitors last night—the ones who came in so late? Papa recognized one of them, but the other was a sidhe. I saw the eyes when he drew back his hood, just as Papa ordered me back to bed. You think it’s coincidence that one of them comes to the forge late last night, when all decent folk are long abed, and then a dead goblin washes ashore upon our very lake? The same time as Papa disappears? Well, I don’t. For all I know, or you know, or anyone else for that matter, this was all part of some trap to snatch him into the OtherWorld. My mother was lost there, and I won’t lose him, too.” Momentarily her expression melted, as her mouth turned down and her eyes flooded with tears she blinked away hard. She squared her shoulders, mouth set once more in its firm line, and Griffin groaned inwardly. He knew that look. It was the one she habitually wore whenever Dougal set a challenge before them both. “I won’t let them have him. I don’t have time right now to listen to a wicce-woman repeat some ancient story all of us have heard a thousand times. I’ll find Papa and bring him home if it’s the last thing I do, I swear.” She got to her feet and swung the ax over her shoulder. Her hair tumbled down her arms and she thrust it back impatiently. Her father’s insistence that she keep her black curls long was his one recognition of his only child’s sex. “Stand back.”
Aghast by her casual savagery, Griffin moved back as she brought the ax down, the blade grazing the goblin’s slack jaw by a hair. It bit through the flesh and gristle and stopped with a dull thud in the neckbone. She tugged the blade free and raised it once more, heedless of the red slime dripping from it, and in one smooth motion, brought it all the way down again. This time the blade buried itself in the earth, and the head lolled back, rolling slightly to one side on the slight grade. Nessa handed Griffin the ax, picked the head up by the hair and shoved it without flinching into the sack. From somewhere close, a cock crowed experimentally. “I have to hurry.”
She slung the sack over her shoulder and picked up the lantern, as he flung the ax aside with disgust. Easier by far to make a new one, than to imagine cleaning off that gore. “What am I to tell everyone?” he whispered.
“The truth, of course. Oh. Here.” She set the sack down and felt beneath her tunic for the slender cord which held her silver amulet. She bent her head and worked it over her chin and through the tangled length of her hair. “Take it.” She held it out and stamped her foot as the cock crowed again. “I don’t have much time.”
He caught it as it dropped from her hand, then stumbled after her, his mind roiling with disbelief and desperation. With sure steps she strode up the road, through the silent, sleeping village. The crunch of their feet on the cold gravel was the only sound, their breath curling in long white plumes through the predawn air. Not even a barking dog marked their passing. At the smithy gate, she paused. “No sense in you coming any farther.”
He hesitated. What would Dougal want him to do, other than locking her in the root cellar? Nothing seemed viable, but a thought occurred to him. “Wait,” he said. He ran into the house, grabbed a round loaf of bread and a hunk of cheese that one of the women had left. He reached for his own pack, a treasured gift from Dougal at last Solstice, and shoved the food inside. He ran back outside and thrust it at her. “Remember, you mustn’t eat or drink anything of the OtherWorld.”
She favored him with a quick surprised smile, then nodded and slung it on her other shoulder.
“I don’t think I should tell anyone the truth, Nessa, about where you’ve gone. Not unless you don’t come back after a day or so, all right? People already—” he hesitated, loathe to hurt her with a reminder of the shadow under which she lived. “Already talk.” Their eyes met, and hers were steady, full of sure and certain purpose.
“I guess you’re right,” she said.
It occurred to Griffin that he might never see her again. He wanted to take her hand, to tell her all the things he rehearsed alone at night. He was not ill-favored, they worked well together, surely the smithy would someday be hers. They were already a good team. Marriage was not such a ridiculous possibility.
Despite the chill, her face was covered by a fine sheen of sweat, and he thought she had never looked more beautiful. The words felt like a cork in his throat and he felt the moment passing, slipping away as inexorably as the night. He seized her by the shoulders and pressed a hard desperate kiss on her mouth. Her lips were warm and firm and she didn’t immediately recoil. Then she pulled away, and he half thought she might hit him. “Just come home,” he said by way of apology.
She raised her chin and squared her shoulders. “Count on it.”
Then the cock crowed once more. “Hurry,” he said, awed and grateful that she had neither slapped him nor wiped away his kiss.
With a nod of farewell, she strode down the road, veering off toward the thick stand of trees which lay between the village and the lake. The lantern bobbed in rhythm to her steps, twinkling like a star.
“Nessa. Don’t eat or drink anything!” he called after her, wishing the words were sufficient to change her mind and bring her back. But once Nessa made her mind up to do something, it was always easier to get out of the way.
“Best bank that fire,” her voice floated back to him on the wind. “Papa will have your head—” The rest was lost, carried off by the freshening breeze, into a half-heard murmur. The lantern flared once more as though she turned to wave, and then it blinked out, swallowed by the trees. He raised his hand, both in blessing and farewell, and saw a dark trickle edging down his palm to his wrist. He had clenched the amulet so hard, his hand bled.
The thick hide sack barely suppressed the reek of goblin flesh. Nessa shoved the heavy bulge on its leather strap behind her, trying not to think of the thing which nestled now on the curve of her rump. She squinted through the trees. The black forest rose around her, the tree trunks silent as sentries beneath the still star-studded sky. White mist swirled in mossy hollows, and a dense odor, musty and faintly sweet, rose from the forest floor and permeated the chilly air. But the scent of morning was on the light breeze which stirred the few leaves that clung to the late-autumn trees, and just now, behind her, where the village lay sleeping in the predawn quiet, she thought she heard another cock crow. She had less time than she’d hoped.
The soft squish of spongy cress beneath her boots assured her that she followed the thin line of the narrow stream that, snaking beneath the trees, led down to the lake. Streams such as this were called Faerie roads, and usually avoided. For the stream itself was nearly invisible, buried by the thick cover of fallen leaves, their edges crisp and sere. The stories said that water was one of the surest conduits between the mortal world and the OtherWorld, the one called TirNa’lugh in the old language. And it was said, it was during the in-between times and in the in-between places, when and where things were no longer one thing, and not yet quite another, that one was most likely to slip into this intersecting reality.
She quickened her pace, breathing hard, and out of force of habit, groped at her throat with one cold hand, forgetting for a moment that she had removed her silver amulet. For the first time in her nineteen years she was without silver. She felt naked and somehow wicked.
Well, it was wicked. Griffin was right. She dismissed his clumsy kiss as a product of anxiety and fatigue. And disbelief that she would do something so irrational. To accidentally fall into TirNa’lugh, victim of a sidhe’s spell, was one thing. But to remove one’s amulet and to deliberately seek to enter the OtherWorld, was an action so preposterous, Nessa knew of no one who’d attempted it. No one should know better than she the dangers lurking there. Surpassingly beautiful, with voices like music, a sidhe was capable of weaving enchantments so profound that humans willingly gave up home and family to follow their sidhe obsession, trapped out of mortal time, lost to all previously held dear. And, if some hapless mortal did find his or her way back, if he or she had tasted Other Worldly food or drink, he would refuse all human food, thus, to sicken and finally die. Or, even if he could force himself to take nourishment, he would find that while only a year or two had seemed to pass in the OtherWorld, tens or even hundreds of years would’ve passed in the mortal world, and everyone ever known was either old or dead, while his own body withered like an autumn leaf. Once it was known that she had deliberately removed her silver and walked into TirNa’lugh, the villagers were likely to add madwoman to their list of gossip. Enough of them believed she was tainted in some way by her mother’s actions, even though Nessa had been less than a year old when her mother had been spirited away by some sidhe lord who’d tricked her into removing her silver. Now she existed only as a faceless name in her daughter’s memory. Once she had asked her father why he had not sought to rescue her mother, and he had been silent a long time, as if carefully considering his answer. “Well,” he’d finally said. “There was you, you see.” And in those simple words, Nessa felt the pain of his choice.
Nessa tramped on. She would not lose her father. She steadfastly refused to even consider the possibility that he was dead. He could not be dead. He was all the family she had in the world, and she would not accept the idea of a life without him. Trouble was brewing in the land, civil war and general unrest sparked by a King gone mad and a foreign-born Queen whose large family eyed Brynhyvar with hungry speculation. Dougal had spoken of moving up to Castle Gar, and hinted that their skills might soon be needed on a greater scale than ever before. She would not face the village, the world, and war without him. She would find him or die herself.
