Shadow Hand Read online

  “You idiot son of a stubborn mule-jenny!” Lionheart cried. “Get your dragon-eaten hide back up here where it belongs! What are you thinking, climbing down the gorge at night?”

  Foxbrush, from his precarious position, tried a tentative movement. He’d stepped on something that had suddenly scuttled with rather too many legs for comfort, startling the scream out of him. One misstep more and he would plunge into the rocks and trees below and probably never move again. He tried to swallow his beating heart back down to his chest.

  A string of curses overhead and a quick scramble of rocks alerted him to Lionheart’s swift descent. Foxbrush set his teeth and, still pressed to the rock wall, began sidling down the trail once more, feeling out each step as he went. “Stop!” Lionheart called to him, but Foxbrush wasn’t about to obey.

  “You’re not the prince anymore, Leo!” he growled, grinding the words through his teeth to keep them from chattering. “You don’t give the orders!”

  Another explosion of angry curses rained down, along with an avalanche of pebbles. Lionheart, in his fury, lost his footing and slid several feet, clinging to stones and tearing his hands and shirt as he went. In this manner, Foxbrush and Lionheart raced each other down the rock wall, and they could not have been in greater danger of their lives when the Dragon first fell in fire from the sky.

  The Wood watched. And the Wood laughed. And the Wood put up shadowy arms to receive them.

  Foxbrush managed to reach the gorge bed with his limbs intact. He was only a few yards ahead of Lionheart by this time, and he needed every advantage. His legs rubbery with terror and physical exertion far beyond any he’d made in he could not remember how long, he stumbled toward the Wood and all but fell into the fringes of the first trees.

  Immediately he wished he’d done practically anything else.

  The light changed. This was often the first sign to those who stepped into the Between that they had left their world behind them. Foxbrush stepped from darkness into what might be midafternoon. It was difficult to say for certain. What little light penetrated the canopy of branches overhead fell in bright pools upon lush green growth and splashed against dark trunks and heavy-laden boughs. Where that light (which may or may not have been sunlight, for no sun or sky could be seen) fell, the greens turned to emerald, the browns to gold. The sound of night insects vanished into a perfect, watching stillness.

  Foxbrush began to tremble. He opened his mouth, perhaps to pray, perhaps to curse. But he had opportunity for neither, for he was grabbed by collar and shoulder, swung around, and slammed up against the nearest tree trunk.

  Lionheart glared down at his cousin. There were so many things to despise about Foxbrush aside from the hair oil plastering his head, though that had collected such a thick layer of dirt and dust that the hair’s original color was indeterminable. His features were so soft, so well tended, so freshly scrubbed. His eyes were too squinty. He was babyish and weak and everything most loathsome in a man.

  Perhaps the thing Lionheart disliked most, however, was how dreadfully similar Foxbrush’s face was to his own.

  “You have to go back,” Lionheart said.

  Foxbrush made a pathetic attempt to wrest his cousin’s grip from his shoulder. Lionheart merely pressed him more firmly into the tree. Foxbrush snarled, “You’ve had plenty of opportunity, Leo! You’ve had every chance in the world to play the hero, and it’s not as though you’ve done a rip-roaring job of it!”

  Lionheart, by some superhuman effort, managed to not punch his cousin in the nose. “Rip-roaring or otherwise, I won’t accomplish anything with you along.”

  “I’m not asking you to take me along,” Foxbrush replied, giving up the fight against Lionheart’s grip and focusing his attention instead on making the most obnoxiously superior face possible. “I’ve come on my own, and I intend to continue on my own. Daylily can’t have gone far, and I’ll find her, and I’ll tell her what I want her to hear. And dragons eat the lot of you!”

  “You?” Lionheart nearly laughed. “You are going to find Daylily? Here? In the Wilderlands?”

  “You think I’m not man enough?” Foxbrush cried. “You think you can intimidate me? You think I’m scared of you?”

  Shaking his head, Lionheart released his cousin and took a step back. “You’ll find far worse than me here in the Wood, Foxbrush. Go back. Get out of here while you still can.”

  For a moment more, they stood quietly facing each other. Then Foxbrush sniffed loudly and started walking. Without an idea in his head, he plunged into the vast Wood Between, arrogant as only a mortal can be. But Foxbrush always was an idiot.

  Lionheart hurried after, debating the merits of clunking his cousin upside the head and dragging him back to the Near World. He had just convinced himself of the wisdom of this plan and was searching for some likely clunking weapon when he noticed something he never would have anticipated, not in his wildest dreams.

  A Faerie Path opened at Foxbrush’s feet.

  Faerie Paths are a strange phenomenon to those unacquainted with the ways of the fey. Lionheart, despite his recent journeys into the Wood Between and the Far World beyond, still did not think he quite grasped what they were or how they worked. He knew there were hundreds of them, thousands perhaps, invisibly winding through the Wood, and each one belonged to a different Faerie king or queen. Some were safe for mortals to walk. Most were dangerous, even deadly. And the Wood itself would lay the more dangerous Paths before the feet of the foolish and do everything in its power to lead them astray.

  But Lionheart recognized the Path at Foxbrush’s feet. He had expected to find it for himself.

  “Wait,” Lionheart said, catching his cousin by the shoulder. Foxbrush tried to shrug him off, but Lionheart held tight and pointed. “Do you see that?”

  “What?” Foxbrush looked where Lionheart indicated and saw nothing but forest floor.

  All in a rush, Lionheart considered many things. Where he walked in the Wood, shadows and trees obscured his way. Where was the Path his Lord had promised? Where was the Way that would be made for him in darkness?

  He considered—and this with a curse—that serving as a Childe of Farthestshore was not nearly so straightforward as he might have liked.

  “I think,” he said with utmost hesitancy, “that perhaps you should come with me after all.”

  Foxbrush narrowed his eyes at Lionheart, and bile rose in his throat. He knew better than to take at face value anything his cousin said. “Is this a trick?”

  “Maybe.” But it wasn’t. Lionheart prodded Foxbrush again. “Go on. Standing there looking stupid won’t find Daylily.”

  Foxbrush rubbed his nose. His eyes stung with the dust of his climb, and his knees were weak with fear he did not like to admit. Nevertheless, he took a single step.

  The sylphs were upon them before he could take a second.

  8

  SHE CAME TO HERSELF UNWILLINGLY, the song of the sylphs still echoing in her brain but distant enough now that she could discern up from down once more and even remember her own name: Daylily, Lady of Middlecrescent. Soon to be queen.

  What was she doing in the middle of a forest in . . . Oh! Great Lights Above! Was this her wedding gown?

  The rest of her memories crashed back down upon her with such force that she groaned and dropped her head to the dirt. Her hair, which had been so carefully crimped and curled and pinned into an impressive tower that morning, lay in mats down her back, every pin plucked away, every curl pulled straight by the curious fingers of the sylphs.

  But she had escaped. Slowly her heart resumed its regular beat and she drew a long breath. She had escaped the wedding, escaped Foxbrush, escaped the future they had for her.

  She had saved them all.

  She sat up and pushed her hair back from her face. And she saw the bloodstained warrior.

  Daylily was not one to scream. She did not scream now. Her eyes widened, and her breath drew in sharply and refused to release for some moments. Sh
e could feel her heart ramming against her throat, then plummeting down to the pit of her stomach. But she sat still, holding her hair back with both hands, the ruins of her gown spread in a circle about her. She met the warrior’s gaze and did not flinch.

  His eyes were black as Aja ink, and his equally black hair was so long that he had braided it back from his forehead. Though his face was young, the expression was not. Judging by that expression alone, Daylily could have believed she gazed into the eyes of an old man . . . an old man who had seen and dealt more than his share of death.

  He crouched before her like a panther prepared to spring, his eyes intent. His clothing was savage: skins and coarse cloth forming a loose garment with a sheathed knife hung on its leather belt. He was a figure out of primitive legends, cruder by far than any artist might have painted him, for how could an artist imagine such utter dirt and blood and roughhewn living?

  But when the young man stood, he moved like the son of a king or lord, more dignified than a dandy such as Foxbrush could ever dream of being. He was no taller than Daylily herself, yet it did not matter. He was master here.

  Daylily’s legs felt weak, and she feared if she tried to stand she might fall over. So she remained seated where she was but lifted her chin with a calm hauteur that would have struck Prince Foxbrush down in his tracks. “I am Lady Daylily, daughter of the Baron of Middlecrescent,” she said, her voice cold as a winter morning. “Who are you?”

  “Sun Eagle,” said the warrior, and something that might have been a smile flashed briefly across his stern face. His nose wrinkled as he drew a deep breath of her scent. Many scars marked his dark skin in cruel, pale lines, and his cheeks and neck were stained with dried blood.

  “Do I owe you thanks?” Daylily asked, willing her voice not to tremble. “Was it you who called off those . . . things?”

  He said nothing. Daylily wondered if perhaps he did not understand her. He circled her where she sat, studying her intently and sniffing again. She forced herself not to turn and follow his movements, to sit quite still, like a rabbit in the field, hoping the hawk will pass on overhead.

  He came around in front of her, and once more she glimpsed a flicker of a smile.

  “Crescent Woman,” he said.

  His accent was almost too strong to understand. But somehow the words shifted around in her mind, becoming comprehensible as by magic.

  “Crescent Woman,” he repeated. “But your hair is like fire.”

  By this time Daylily was fairly certain she could control her limbs, so she stood slowly, arranging her skirts. The hem was ripped into ribbons; the sleeves hung in rags from her elbows; and with every move she made, more pearls fell from the trimming.

  The warrior looked her over, his gaze curious, as though he saw things that he knew could not be and yet could not deny. He frowned, a fierce expression when coupled with all that dried blood. “You speak with the voice of a man or a boy child,” he said. “It is strange to hear in a Crescent Woman’s mouth. Yet you have the smell of my people, my land. Were you sent by my father to find me? Are you some diviner or witch?”

  “Certainly not,” Daylily replied. “I told you, I am Baron Middlecrescent’s daughter.”

  “Elder Middlecrescent?” the warrior suggested.

  She did not respond. But a suspicion bloomed suddenly in her mind, a suspicion so strong, it was nearly a certainty. She did not want to accept it. Yes, she’d entered the Wilderlands. Yes, she expected the unexpected. Only, not this. This was impossible.

  They studied each other, each slowly peeling back layers of unbelief at what this study revealed. Daylily was a private young woman. She was so private, in fact, that she had long since become unused to anyone noticing anything beyond the surface version of herself she permitted to be seen. At times even she began to believe that the surface Daylily was the only Daylily in existence.

  So when the warrior suddenly narrowed his eyes and said, “What is that inside you?” she nearly collapsed again upon the spot.

  “Stop looking at me!” she gasped, though she could not tear her own gaze away from his.

  “Why?” asked the warrior, his voice soft. “What is that? What don’t you want me to see?”

  “Nothing!” she replied. “Leave me alone.”

  She wanted to run, to flee deeper into the Wilderlands. Even to be swallowed into the vortex of the sylphs’ dance would be preferable to this! But the warrior’s eyes held her rooted. And then she glimpsed something else, something moving behind his black pupils.

  “What is that inside you?” she asked.

  Let us show you.

  “Let me show you,” said the warrior. He took her face between his hands.

  ———

  The passage between minds is not so great as one might expect. Indeed, for incorporeal beings it is but a step once the gate is open.

  The gates of Daylily’s mind, which she had thought so heavily fortified, opened easily to the one who now sought entrance.

  It found itself on a wide, blank plateau. The sky was dark as a moonless midnight, but the ground shone as though illuminated by a pale sun, though there was no sun to be seen. Desolation spread in vast, lonely sweeps, but here and there green places could yet be seen.

  Searching, searching, searching for the lost . . . But the search is easier with eyes, with a body, even here in the landscape of a poisoned mind. So assume a body, assume a shape, assume . . .

  Sun Eagle stood on the plateau. Or, if not Sun Eagle, then Sun Eagle’s form. A fine, strong, stolid form; a worthy host. And the thing inside Sun Eagle turned him to survey the world of Daylily’s mind. In the distance, it could still discern some places of growth where her memories remained unsoiled. It saw a field of rolling grass across which two mounted horses raced, their riders laughing in wild joy, urging, “Faster! Faster!”

  But the green faded away into the desolation. The riders, flying so swiftly on their steeds, vanished the moment they left the lawn and stepped upon the wasteland. When they were gone, the green died and became part of the sorry whole.

  The thing that was Sun Eagle continued turning in place. Dragon poison. This mind was full of dragon poison.

  Good. That is good. They—we—I can use a mind like this!

  A bird sang, and the form of Sun Eagle spun about, teeth bared in warning, hand falling upon the hilt of a stone knife. No bird could be seen, however. Instead, there was yet another place of growing life, closer than the last, near enough that every detail could be seen, clear and sharp as only mortal eyes perceive such things. It was a mountain stream shielded by trees thick-laden with greenery and flowering vines. Smooth stones formed a natural bridge across the stream, and on the far bank sat a lad just verging on manhood, handsome and fresh faced, a little sad.

  “She loved him.”

  The thing that was Sun Eagle did not startle at this voice. Unlike the birdsong, this rough growl, agonized and dripping with fury, was expected.

  Ah, it said, using Sun Eagle’s mouth, and it turned, using Sun Eagle’s body, to look upon the speaker. So you are what she’s hidden inside herself.

  A red she-wolf crouched on the cracked and suffering ground of that barren landscape. Every muscle in her body tensed as though prepared to spring, to tear, to destroy. Such could never be, however, for she was chained. Each paw was secured in rusty manacles that tore into her flesh, and from each manacle stretched a short chain that fastened to a stake driven deeply into the earth. The wolf could no more escape than fly.

  But she strained against her bonds, and when she strained, the world of Daylily’s mind quaked.

  “She bound me,” said the wolf. Saliva dripped from her panting jowls.

  Why? the thing asked with Sun Eagle’s mouth.

  “She does not know what I will do should she let me free,” said the wolf.

  And what will you do?

  Here the wolf laughed. It was not a pleasant sound. “Why don’t you free me?” she asked. “Free me and find o
ut!”

  The thing inside Sun Eagle did not tremble, but the body itself took a step back. It was, after all, only mortal.

  Just then, voices drew its attention back to the scene by the mountain stream. A girl was crossing the stream. She wore rich green and a bonnet askew on her bounty of red hair. She carefully lifted her skirts as she stepped from stone to stone and asked, “What are you doing?”

  “What are you doing?” replied the memory of the boy on the bank. The wolf and the thing that was Sun Eagle watched the girl and the boy sit together and talk beside the cheerful water.

  “She thinks of him often,” said the wolf.

  Who is he?

  “Lionheart.” The wolf sounded sad. “She thought she would marry him. She thought she would live happily ever after. She thought this place”—the wolf cast baleful eyes across the great expanse of loneliness—“would be green and thriving forever.”

  The thing that was Sun Eagle watched through Sun Eagle’s eyes. Though the sky was dark, in this small corner of memory golden sunlight shone through the branches and sparkled on the water, growing brighter as the two young people talked.

  Then a name was spoken: Rose Red.

  As sudden as the snuffing of a candle, the sun went out. The girl with the red hair stood. “We’d best be on our way,” she said, and there was no sunlight in her voice anymore either. “I left Foxbrush in a bramble somewhere, and I doubt that he’s extracted himself. I don’t suppose you brought a pair of gloves?”

  She recrossed the stream, and the lad followed. The moment they stepped into the desolate ground they, like the two distant riders before them, vanished. The thing watching from Sun Eagle’s eyes saw the stream thin until it was nothing but a slow, muddy gurgle.

  She hates him now? the thing asked using Sun Eagle’s mouth.

  “She would rend him to pieces,” said the she-wolf. “I would rend him to pieces.”