Here be Monsters Read online

  “ ‘Might be’ is bad enough,” a woman choked out.

  “Well, we shall go and see.” Gregory picked up his reins. “When you stop for the night, friends, camp on high ground and set sentries to watch all about.”

  “As you say, sir,” said a man with military bearing—a retired trooper, Allouette thought. “But how shall you fare against such horrors?”

  “I shall call upon the witch who defeated the ogres,” Gregory answered, “and perhaps a wizard, too.”

  The people looked about them frantically again. “Are they here?” “Where?”

  “Hard by you.” Allouette reached out and caught Gregory’s hand. “Come, wizard. Let us ride to this riverbank.”

  “Even so, witch,” Gregory rejoined, and the two rode away, leaving the peasants staring after them.

  The lowering sun gilded all the world as they neared the river—and saw before them the towering wall of fog, glowing like red gold in the sun’s rays.

  “How lovely.” Allouette shivered. “But how menacing, when such beauty may hide horrors!”

  Gregory’s eyes glazed as he probed the mist with telepathy. Then he shuddered, coming back to the here and now. “There are bloodthirsty creatures within, with mind-sets such as I have never known—but they are few. We shall fare well enough against them.”

  “Perhaps we ought to call up allies.” As Chief Agent, Allouette had been able to call on scores of men and women to aid her in her battles.

  “We shall call if we have need,” Gregory said thoughtfully, “but I think that you and I together are sufficient for anything that we might meet. Shall we ride?”

  “Oh, very well!” Allouette kicked her heels against her horse’s sides and rode forward.

  The golden mist closed about them and the horses began to become nervous.

  “They smell monsters,” Allouette said.

  “Something foul, at any rate.” Gregory wrinkled his nose. “But it has more the smell of decaying plants than of supernatural villainy.”

  Then the horses stopped.

  “Gee-up.” Gregory kicked his horse, but it only dug in its hooves and put down its head.

  “They are wiser than we,” Allouette said, “and refuse to go on—but I confess that curiosity has gripped me now, dear heart.”

  “Let us see if we can lead them.” Gregory dismounted and went ahead of his horse, tugging gently on the reins. The animal resisted for a minute, then grudgingly began to follow—but slowly.

  “The ground squelches underfoot!” Allouette said, disgusted. “We must be nearing the river.”

  “Nearing?” Gregory stopped for a moment in surprise. “We have ridden far enough that we should have crossed it!”

  “How then?” Allouette stared at him, but saw only his silhouette in the mist. Instinctively, she reached out to grasp his hand. “Has the river run away?”

  “Rivers always run,” Gregory said practically. “Walk warily, love. We may find our steps wetter than we wish ere long.”

  They started ahead—but Allouette’s right boot wouldn’t come free. “Gregory! I am stuck!”

  “Here, I shall pull you free.” Gregory turned back—and nearly fell on his face. “Mine, too! I cannot lift my foot!”

  “Foot?” Allouette plucked up her skirts, looking down, and saw with horror that the mud had risen about her ankles. “I cannot see my feet! I am sinking!”

  “We have blundered into a bog in the fog,” Gregory groaned. “Hold tightly, and I shall try to rise above it!”

  He exerted all the strength of his mind in levitation, but his feet scarcely budged.

  “There is more than mud holding us down,” Allouette cried with the thin edge of panic in her voice. “There is magic in this!”

  CHAPTER

  3

  “Now I shall call for help,” Gregory said, relenting, and set his mind to searching for his brother and sister.

  Allouette joined him with all the fervor of the desperate. Just to play safe, she called out, “Help! Any who hear us, come aid!”

  “A rescue, a rescue!” Gregory cried.

  “Wherefore, brother?” called a voice from the fog. “What could have overcome you?”

  Gregory stared. “Geoffrey? How came you here?”

  “Why, you called, did you not? Call again, brother, and keep calling, or we shall not be able to find you!”

  “We?” Allouette asked with dread.

  “Your prince and liege,” Alain’s voice called. “Sing high, damsel, or we shall blunder right past you!”

  Allouette groaned instead.

  Geoffrey shouldered out of the fog. His mouth twitched at the sight of them, but he had the grace not to laugh. “Alain, find a long limb of a tree! Our friends are bogged down.”

  “As you say.” The prince materialized out of the mist, saw them, stared, then gave himself a shake, knowing it was impolite. He extended a fallen branch. “Will this reach?”

  “Yes, thank Heaven!” Gregory shoved the stick over toward Allouette.

  “Aid me, Geoffrey,” Alain said. “Leverage is against me.”

  “It rarely works for me.” Geoffrey bent down to take hold of the wood.

  “Hold fast, dear,” Gregory urged Allouette while his eyes commiserated—it had to be very unpleasant, being rescued by your former intended victim. He wondered if it would be worse if she had been rescued by Cordelia and Quicksilver, her former rivals. With a look that said she did it only to please him, Allouette shivered and took a tighter hold on the branch.

  Geoffrey and Alain began to pull. For a moment, there was no sign of progress; then, very slowly, Allouette began to move.

  “Heave!” Geoffrey cried. As Allouette began to move more easily, he called out, “Good fortune that you did not go very far into the mud!”

  “No fortune at all,” Gregory called back. “You try taking more than two steps in this glue! On second thought, do not!”

  “If you say so,” Geoffrey said equably, and started his next pull as Alain ended his. Inch by inch, the two of them hauled Allouette to safe ground. She came up the last yard on her knees, eyes downcast. “I—I thank you, sirs.”

  “My pleasure,” Alain said gravely. “I am glad to be of some use.”

  “Rare talk, for a crown prince!” Geoffrey slapped him on the shoulder. “Haul in our other fish.”

  Alain pushed the branch out over the mud again. Gregory caught it, then held on grimly while the two young men pulled. The mud did not give him up easily; he felt as though it were pulling on him just as strongly as his brother and friend. Then a mighty sucking sound announced his liberation and he began to move slowly toward the shore.

  “Up with you, now!” Geoffrey yanked him by the collar and lifted, and Gregory came to his knees with solid ground under him. “I was never so glad for honest sod!” he said fervently.

  “Nonetheless, I find myself unsure.” Geoffrey surveyed his brother critically. “How say you, Alain? Is he too small to keep? Should we throw him back?”

  But Alain’s gaze was on the woman who sat gazing down at her muddy skirt and boots, clearly fighting back tears. “Aye, a shame it is to see so pretty a traveling cloak and such handsome boots so besmeared with foulness. Yet take heart, damsel—they can surely be cleaned. The skirt is of stout linen, is it not?”

  “It is, Your Highness,” Allouette said, her voice low.

  “I appreciate the courtesy,” Alain said gently, “but if we are to be kin, you should call me by name.”

  “I cannot!” Allouette cried, and the tears flowed. “I deserve whipping at your hands, not kindness!”

  Gregory was beside her in two steps, enfolding her in his arms. “Yes, darling, I know—kindness and courtesy can cut worse than hatred. Still, the prince means you well.”

  “I do indeed,” Alain said gravely, “and would rejoice if all citizens of this land could so good-hearted toward one another as you have proved toward Gregory.”

  Allouette burst into sobs, co
mpletely undone not just by the words of praise alone, but by the plain sincerity of their speaker.

  Geoffrey for once took his cue from Alain. “I have broken lances with many a foe who afterwards became a friend, and I hope you shall prove such a one.”

  “I shall, I shall!” Allouette choked.

  “Come then, sweet chuck,” Gregory said. “You will not break a lance on my brother, I trust!”

  The tension of the moment stretched out thin as a thread of silk; then Allouette gave a strange sort of strangled laugh.

  Geoffrey grinned, relaxing a little. “Come, shall I call you sister? For you, most certainly, shall call me rogue!”

  “I shall call you a brave and courteous knight.” Allouette finally managed to look up at him, then turned to her fiancé. “How shall I bear to live among so kindly a family?”

  “By being kindly to them,” Gregory replied, “and you have made a brave beginning.” He looked up at his brother and his friend. “Shall we wend our way onward, then?”

  “Why not?” Geoffrey said. “Where had you in mind?”

  Gregory shrugged. “I know not, brother, save that peasant folk directed us to this mist. It was from here, they said, that the ogres came.”

  “Ogres?” Alain tensed, glancing to left and to right.

  “We saw no ogres,” Geoffrey said, frowning. Then his brow cleared. “But we did find three huge piles of witch-moss! Well done, indeed! I trust they did not injure you before you disintegrated them.”

  “It was Allouette did that,” Gregory said, “and she suffered not at all.”

  “But he did!” Allouette said. “The last great hulking brute struck him with its club! I wish I could have torn it to bits!”

  “I think you did better than that.” But Alain’s voice was oddly cool.

  Allouette glanced up anxiously. Which had put him on his guard again—her skill with telekinesis or her anger?

  Geoffrey frowned with concern. “Are you hurt then, brother?”

  “It is only a bruise,” Gregory said, “though I suspect it may penetrate to the bone.”

  “Not so far as that.” Allouette laid her hand on his arm, quick to reassure. “I probed with thought. It is only in the muscle, and it will heal.”

  Geoffrey gave her a quizzical glance, as though trying to classify her—friend or foe? “Still, you should ride,” he said to Gregory. “We go farther into this mist, then?”

  “Aye, but warily,” Gregory told him, then turned to Allouette. “Will you lead my horse, so that I can bind my attention to thoughts all around us?”

  Now, the last thing Allouette wanted was to be left effectively alone with her two former targets. “Do you lead me, dea . . . sir wizard, and I shall scan.”

  “Gregory is best of us all at that,” Geoffrey objected. “Even his name means ‘watcher.’”

  “And I have been too much a watcher of life and not enough of a doer, until my love came along.” Gregory squeezed her hand. “Nay, brother, my Allouette is quite equal to the task.”

  Alain eyed her thoughtfully, and Allouette had to resist a very strong impulse to read his thoughts. No need, though, really—she knew he would be thinking, She kept watch on us well enough, after all. Still, when he spoke, his voice was kind, though reserved: “I had not known you were as skilled as Gregory, lady.”

  “In some things, Your Highness.” She tried to meet his eyes but failed.

  “Come, I am Alain to you now, even as I said.” His tone warmed. “Mount and be sentry for us, then, while Gregory leads us through this cloud come to earth.”

  Geoffrey brought her horse up to her, telling it, “There now, none blame you for not pulling your mistress out of the mire, and certainly not for staying out of it yourself. Do you bear her proudly, then.”

  Allouette mounted, wishing that she would be able to believe him as easily as the horse did, if he told her she was not to blame. That, though, would never happen—she had done what she had done, and though those actions had been founded on misconceptions, biases she had been taught, and a world made far worse than it needed to be, she was nonetheless responsible for her own actions. Admittedly, once she had confronted those festering memories and discredited them, she seemed to be a different person entirely—she looked back on her days as Agent Finister, at the things she had done and that had been done to her, and the Chief Agent seemed to be a different person entirely.

  Still, she could not rebuild her life as though she had never been stolen from her mother and reared with lies, half-truths, and manipulation as ever-present as the air she had breathed. She could, however, accept the responsibility for what she had done as Agent Finister, make what amends she could, and live the future so that it would make up for the deeds of her past.

  And, of course, cherish this strange, powerful, but tender man who, against all logic and common sense, loved her so deeply. She wondered if being loyal to love could redeem her.

  As they rode, Geoffrey and Alain conferred in low tones. Allouette scarcely noticed, because Gregory had posed her a difficult question.

  “There is an old saying, love, that once may be chance, twice may be coincidence—”

  “But the third time is enemy action?” Allouette turned to him, puzzled. “But three ogres is surely one mischance, not three!”

  “A point well taken,” Gregory said, musing. “But the mist persists. What if more monsters come from it?”

  “Why, we shall dissolve them again.” Allouette shrugged. “You cannot mean to let them wander about the land, can you?”

  “No—but I was wondering at the source of a mist that produces monsters.”

  “But that is no riddle! We have already dealt with it—it is but a matter of gathering moisture into droplets!”

  “Indeed it is,” said Gregory, “but who gathered them?”

  Allouette started to answer, then stopped, brow knit. “You mean that someone may be making mist and monsters both.”

  “I had thought that,” Gregory said. “That would be two incidents, would it not?”

  “It could still be coincidence,” Allouette said, but her expression belied it. “The mist could be natural, the ogres could have been abroad early, and the children could have put the two together in their minds and thought the mist had borne the creatures when it had really been only happenstance.”

  “Children would be likely to see such where it is not,” Gregory agreed.

  “But we must consider the possibility that they did not.” Allouette scowled. “Who, then, crafted both?”

  “Surely we shall know if we meet a fourth monster,” Gregory said, “though since we go seeking them, perhaps we are making the very pattern that we look for.”

  “Perhaps,” Allouette said absently.

  Gregory looked at her, realized she was already deep in thought, and said, “I shall bear these tidings to my brother.”

  “Aye, do,” Allouette said.

  Gregory turned back to Geoffrey. As he did, Alain pushed his horse forward. In a minute he was riding beside Allouette, who was still deeply concentrating on the problem. Alain knew the signs and rode in silence.

  All at once Allouette looked up, eyes widening in alarm. “Your Highness! I had not meant—”

  “Nor did you,” Alain interrupted. “You were puzzling out our common enemy, for which I am grateful. Have you worked out who or what it might be?”

  “There is still too little information to risk an answer,” Allouette said with chagrin.

  “But enough to raise a question?”

  Allouette stared at him. “How did you know that, Highness? You do not read minds!”

  “No, but I have spent much time with the Gallowglass family, and I know the signs.”

  Allouette turned back toward the front, watching him out of the corners of her eyes. “Does the lady Cordelia do such guesswork, then?”

  “Constantly,” Alain said, “and I have grown to trust her intuition enormously—though she tells me the cost of her
intuition is high. However, the education is certainly worth it.”

  Allouette frowned at him, not understanding, then saw his lips curve upward a little. “It is a jest!” she accused.

  “I had to have it explained to me, too,” Alain confessed. “I asked her if she would prefer that I spoke of her having a hunch, but she answered that Notre Dame was not her church.”

  Allouette stared, then gave a peal of laughter, though she tried to muffle it with her hand.

  “Ah, I see you know the tale of the bell-ringer,” Alain said, smiling. “I did not, when she first told it me, so she gave me the book and told me to read it.”

  “Surely that is quite impertinent conduct, from a subject to her prince!”

  “But quite appropriate between fiancés,” Alain rejoined. “Besides, it was an enjoyable tale.”

  “And the ringing of church bells will never seem the same to you?” Allouette couldn’t help a smile.

  “It does have a peal,” Alain acknowledged, and grinned as she tried to throttle her merriment. “Pray do not deprive us of the musical sound of so merry a laugh, lady!”

  “That must have been your reply to Cordelia,” Allouette accused.

  “You mean that, like the bell, I might have tolled her so?”

  Allouette stared again, then broke into a full and open laugh. “Prince, I had not known you knew how to jest so!”

  “Just so?” Alain asked. “Nay, surely, lady—I must have learned something of wit, for I was surely not born with it. I can appreciate its quality, but when it comes to good jesting, I can only sit and applaud, and thereby be—”

  “A clapper?” Allouette asked with a covert smile. “Fie, Prince Alain! Must you wring every last drop of laughter from these bells of yours?”

  “A touch!” Alain cried with delight. “A distinct touch! I had known you could not be so serious as you feigned!”

  “Ah! Fane would I be witty!” Allouette sighed.

  So the two former adversaries rode, trading jests and witticisms, and if some of them were far older than either of the two and nowhere nearly worth the amount of laughter they brought, that was all to the better for healing of wounds. But Alain was the sly one in that exchange, for while he distracted the lady with humor, her fiancé was reassuring his brother about her.