Moonkind (Winterling) Page 16

  Beside her, Fer felt Rook give a start. He raised his web-smudged hand. “I promised I wouldn’t,” he said. “You can’t use me to be rid of the glamories.”

  Fer knew that Rook was right. The Forsworn couldn’t put it on Rook to take their glamories away. “We have the spider outside,” she told them. “If you step through its web, your glamories will be destroyed.”

  “It seems you have left us with no choice,” croaked the Sea-Lord. A spark of malevolence still gleamed in his eyes.

  “Your choice is that.” Fer pointed toward the door leading outside to where the spider was waiting. “Or death. For everyone in all the lands. Eventually the stilth will come for you, too.”

  The Forsworn trembled at this. Two of the Ladies started to weep.

  The Birch-Lady spoke. “Look around you.” She swept her arms wide, showing them the nathewyr, the silent, still Lords and Ladies gathered behind them. “Our broken oaths have caused this. The glamories have ruled us for too long. Take the glamories off, and you will be free of them forever.”

  The Birch-Lady had a different kind of power now, Fer realized. Maybe, now that she’d lost her glamorie, she’d given up rule and . . . she’d become wise.

  “Come with me,” Fer told the Forsworn. “The stilth is still spreading, and we have to hurry.”

  For a long moment the Forsworn hesitated. Fer watched carefully, and she saw the spark of resistance in the Sea-Lord’s eyes go out. He understood what they were facing.

  As fast as she could, Fer led them through the nathe, and shuffling, creeping, limping, they followed, and so did all the other Lords and Ladies, dragging under the burden of their glamories. And the stilth came with them. They passed across the lawn, and then through the forest to the gray, viney wall. There the pucks were waiting.

  And so was the spider.

  Rook stayed close beside Fer. Staying true, yes, but the stilth surrounding the Forsworn was so thick that it would grip him if he strayed too far.

  At the nathe’s viney wall, his brothers Asher and Tatter came out to meet them. They had bee stings on their necks too, he saw—Fer’s bees keeping them from the grip of the stilth. Rip was there too, with Gnar and Lich.

  “Lady,” Tatter said with a nod to Fer. “The people are cured of their wildling. But the stilth in the Lake is going to make them sick again if we don’t do something soon.”

  Rook glanced at Fer. Beside the gaunt, cringing Forsworn, she looked tall and strong and wild. “All right,” she said firmly. She turned to Ash. “And the shadow-web?”

  Ash grinned. “There’s enough.”

  “Well done,” she approved. To Rook’s surprise, Asher nodded at that, as if her approval was something he actually wanted. Fer turned to him. “Rook, can you ask the spider to spin even more web, for all the Lords and Ladies?”

  “I can, yes,” he answered. He gave a low whistle, and the spider lurched out of the shadows at the edge of the forest. At the sight of it, the Forsworn shrank away, trembling. “It’s not going to eat you,” he muttered. Stupid Forsworn. Purring, the spider loomed over him; it reached out with a furred feeler and patted him on the head. He stumbled. “We need more web,” he told it.

  The spider scuttled to the edge of the forest and started spinning. Its web took shape quickly; a curtain of dark shadows draped from the low-hanging branches. Finished, the spider backed away.

  The cluster of Forsworn stared at the shadow-web. None of them moved.

  Even in the still forest, the web wavered. It looked like a puddle of darkness hanging in the air. To step through it might be to step through into dark emptiness, or into death.

  “The stilth is the death of us all,” Fer told them. “You can stop it by fulfilling your oaths.”

  “The Lady is right,” the Birch-Lady put in. “Be brave, as I was not. Our people need us. Our lands need us. Be true Lords and Ladies.”

  “You have been asked three times to fulfill your oaths,” Fer said to the Forsworn. “What is your answer?”

  Rook braced himself, just as he knew his brothers were doing, fingering the shifter-tooth in his pocket. If the Forsworn refused to step through the web, there would be a fight.

  “We will fulfill the oaths,” the Sea-Lord said suddenly. Crabwise, he edged up to the shadow-web. Rook saw him close his eyes, and then he plunged through the web.

  Rook held his breath, expecting the shrieks and moans that the Birch-Lady had made when he’d stripped the glamorie from her with his web-smudged hand.

  But the Sea-Lord stepped through the other side of the web. The false glare of the glamorie had been stripped away, and he stood on shaky legs, blinking at the pucks and other Forsworn. He still looked like an ancient crab, and he wasn’t beautiful or lordly. But he looked solid in a way he hadn’t before. To Rook’s eyes, he looked right.

  The choice. Fer had been right to let them choose.

  One by one, watched carefully by the pucks, the Forsworn stepped through the web and came out the other side without their glamories. They blinked, as if looking at the world through new eyes. The two Ladies who had been weeping clung to each other, and they were still weeping, but now they shed tears of happiness.

  “They’re free,” Fer said from beside him. “I didn’t realize before. They hated the glamories, even while they were wearing them.”

  “Arenthiel told me they were slaves of the glamories,” Rook remembered. “I guess they really were.”

  She smiled up at him. “They’ve fulfilled their oaths, Rook. That means we’ve defeated the stilth.”

  “It does,” he answered, grinning back at her. He’d helped with it too, and so had his brothers. Soon he could tell her about staying true, and she’d believe him, and all would be well again.

  After all the other Lords and Ladies had stepped through the web and been freed of their glamories, Rook followed Fer and the newly freed Forsworn through the opening in the viney wall to the pebbled edge of the Lake of All Ways. There, the crowd of waiting people stood silently watching. Plump seal-people and mole-people, and a couple of mouse-boys, and fern-girls, and the proud skunk-girl and her friends. People from all the lands. They had been cured of the wildling; they could see that their Lords and Ladies were no longer wearing their glamories. Everything had changed.

  “Hello,” Fer greeted them, smiling.

  They didn’t answer. The air was heavy.

  Too heavy.

  The bee on Rook’s collar gave a shrill buzz. He tried turning his head to look at it, but he couldn’t move. Out of the corner of his eyes he saw the Forsworn and the other Lords and Ladies huddled together, unmoving. On the other side, his brothers stood still and silent, Fer’s bees buzzing frantically around them.

  A step ahead, Fer turned to face him, her eyes wide.

  Behind her, the Lake’s surface turned sooty black—as black and blank as any night without stars or moon. Black tendrils seeped from it, creeping along the ground. Whatever they touched shriveled and died.

  Fer, watch out! he wanted to shout, but his words were stuck in his throat.

  Her bees howled around her, and she whirled to face the Lake. She saw it.

  The stilth. It had gathered its strength in the Lake, and now it was coming for all of them.

  It was too late, Rook knew. The stilth had won.

  Twenty-Eight

  Fer staggered back. The Lake of All Ways seethed and bubbled; coils of shadow seeped from it.

  The Forsworn had fulfilled their oaths; the Lords and Ladies had removed their glamories; everything had changed. But, Fer realized, it hadn’t been enough.

  Her heart pounding with sudden fright, she took another step back from the Lake. Beside her, Rook stood with his head lowered, caught in the stilth. Everyone was caught; she was the only one who could move. The heavy air pressed against her; every breath was a struggle.

  What could she do? They were all going to die—she had to do something!

  Her bees settled around her in a cloud, as if pr
otecting her.

  “The stilth is in the Lake,” she realized. It was in all the Ways. It was everywhere. The stillness and death of changelessness.

  Never forget that you are human, her grandma had told her once. And she had never, ever forgotten it. Being human meant she made changes happen. She herself was change. She remembered how the stilth in the Lake of All Ways had pulled away from her. From her human-ness.

  She took a step toward the Lake, and her shoulder brushed Rook’s.

  At her touch he stirred. He drew a ragged breath. Then, “Fer, what are you doing?”

  With a shock of cold, she realized what she had to do. “I’m going into the Lake to fight the stilth,” she answered. Into all the Ways, all at the same time. “It’s the only way to stop it.” She was about to take another heavy step toward the Lake when she felt Rook’s hand seize hers. He stepped up beside her. “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “What’s it look like?” he answered. His face was pale and set. “I’m coming with you.”

  She shook her head. “Rook—” Her voice faltered, and she took a steadying breath. “It’s going to be dangerous. We might not be able to come back.”

  “I know that,” he said. His hand gripped hers more tightly.

  “You can’t come,” she insisted. The air had thickened even more, and darkness was rising up all around them.

  Rook’s yellow eyes glared at her. “I won’t let you face this alone, Fer. I’m staying true to you, all right?”

  Staying true? He’d told her what that meant to a puck. “Rook, you can’t,” she whispered.

  “Leave it,” he growled. “Let’s just get this over with.”

  She nodded. They were beyond friendship now. “Thank you.” She squeezed his hand, and turned with him to face the Lake.

  Her breath sounded harsh in the silent, heavy air. One breath, then another. One step, then another. The grate of pebbles under her feet. Rook’s warm hand around hers.

  Slowly she bent and, using her Lady’s power, she opened all the Ways. She stood. The stilth rushed around them, a silent roar. Rook’s lips moved, but she couldn’t hear his words. It was time. She and Rook started to step into the stilth-filled Lake.

  Then, from behind them, a voice rang out like a trumpet—“Wait!”

  She cast a quick glance over her shoulder.

  The sky was black and the land was wrapped in the dread silence of the stilth. But light was coming. Like beacons in the darkness, the High Ones strode, with Arenthiel hobbling by their side. The stilth parted around them like black fog; they glided past the Forsworn and the Lords and Ladies and the pucks and all the people who were balanced on the very precipice of death. They came to stand before Fer and Rook at the edge of the Lake of All Ways.

  The two High Ones looked as calm as ever; their faces were still and lovely—but they were weary, too, as if they were using the last of their waning power. “Lady Gwynnefar,” one said in her musical voice; they both bowed their heads in greeting.

  All Fer could do was stare back at them.

  Beside them, wizened, old Arenthiel gave Fer a grin and a sideways, hidden wave. “Lady Fer,” he said. “And the young puck with her. I knew you would stay true, dear Rook.”

  Fer gave Rook a quick, astonished glance. He was friends with Arenthiel?

  As an answer, Rook shrugged.

  “Lady Gwynnefar,” one of the High Ones repeated. “We three come to help drive back the stilth.”

  Fer found her voice. “It’s too late,” she explained. “I have to go into the Lake to fight it. I’m part-human. I understand why it has to be me.”

  “No, it does not,” the High One said. “For too long we have resisted change. Here, now, we embrace the change you bring to us, Gwynnefar. And you show us now why we must no longer trust to oaths to bind us together.”

  Fer nodded. From the very start she had known that oaths were wrong.

  “But we cannot be unbound from one another,” said the other High One. “What shall bind us instead, Gwynnefar?”

  Fer asked herself the question. What bound people together? It wasn’t a hard question, but it was one only her human self could answer. “Love,” she said simply, because it was a simple, human answer.

  At the sound of her voice, the people and the Forsworn and the Lords and Ladies stirred.

  In the Lake, the stilth continued to churn; its deathly, black smoke towered over their heads and spread across the sky.

  Love, Fer thought. Love for her people and her land—the same love shared by all the people here. “We don’t have to do this alone,” she said to Rook, and raised her hand that was holding his so that all the people could see it. Then she turned and offered her other hand to one of the High Ones. With a wan smile, the High One took her hand. The other took Rook’s hand, and then came Arenthiel, and then all the people and the Lords and Ladies were linking hands along the banks of the Lake.

  Against them, the stilth roared and swirled.

  Fer felt her human half so strongly. She was caught up in a river of time, hurtling along, days slipping past like seconds. At the same time she felt how love transcended time, how it was stronger and deeper than any oath. She felt her connection to her land and the people, and to all the people standing on the bank of the Lake.

  Together they were a wall against the stilth. It battered against them like a huge wave—powerful, deadly—and stalwartly they flung it back again. The tendrils of stilth retreated to the lake. It gathered its strength for one last, battering rush; Fer felt its heavy, crushing weight and darkness, and against it she called up her love for her land and for all her people, for Twig and Fray and for Phouka’s wildness and for the pucks laughing around the fire, and Grand-Jane’s comforting embrace, and most of all she called on Rook staying true to her, on the steady warmth of his hand in hers.

  The stilth shrank back. Its black tendrils drew in until only a writhing cloud of darkness swirled at the center of the Lake. It hovered there, contained but not defeated.

  Fer found that she was panting for breath; beside her, Rook looked pale and weary, but he’d fought hard too; he’d had his tie with his brothers and with her to draw on. Along the edge of the Lake, the other Lords and Ladies and all the people were trembling and leaning against one another for support.

  The two High Ones and Arenthiel—three High Ones—stood together. All three seemed dim, as if a light within them had gone out. Arenthiel gave an exhausted, rattling cough that shook his frail body; the other High Ones bent over him like drooping flowers.

  “Are you all right?” Fer asked, worried, keeping an eye on the last of the stilth in the Lake. She had her knapsack full of herbs and medicines; she could make them a healing tea if they needed it.

  One of the High Ones shook her head. With a frail hand she pointed at the remaining stilth that hovered in silence at the center of the Lake. “It waits for us,” she said wearily. “We have ruled here for too long, Gwynnefar. The nathe has been a place outside of time, without change. Now change has come and our time here is over.”

  “Wait,” Fer gasped. What was the High One saying, exactly? “You can’t—”

  “The change will be hard for everyone,” interrupted the other High One.

  “Will these lands fade?” the first High One put in. “Will the people die out? Or will they change and love and thrive? It is up to you, Gwynnefar. Will you help them?”

  She nodded, suddenly understanding what had to happen. “I will,” she promised sadly.

  “And you, too, Rook,” Arenthiel added.

  “I will, Old Scrawny,” Rook said, his voice rough.

  “Well, then!” Arenthiel said, and, leaning on the other High Ones, he turned away.

  Slowly the three High Ones paced to the Lake, where all the Ways stood open. They reached up, and like pulling curtains of darkness after them, gathered the remaining stilth into themselves. Calmly they stepped into the Lake, and the stilth swept after them like the hem of a long dress.
The darkness receded. The three High Ones went away—into all the Ways—and they were gone.

  Twenty-Nine

  Fer found herself crying against Rook’s shoulder. His arms were wrapped around her. She cried for the brave High Ones and Arenthiel, gone forever, and for the sudden release of all of her exhaustion and fear. The tears kept coming.

  “You’re getting my shirt all wet,” came Rook’s grumpy voice.

  She gulped down another sob. “Sorry,” she said with a watery sniff. She looked up.

  The sun shone down, warm on her shoulders. Her bees buzzed happily overhead, golden-bright against the blue, late-afternoon sky. She heard the quiet lap and rush of the Lake’s waves on the pebbled shore.

  She stepped away from Rook and rubbed the tears off her face. All around them, the people, free of the stilth, were stretching, smiling, looking at the world with wondering eyes. Several were gathered around the Lords or Ladies who had once been Forsworn. There were hugs, and more tears, and barks of joy from the seal-people as they found the Sea-Lord.

  She took a deep, steadying breath, and then waded into their midst. The High Ones had given her a job to do, and she would do it. “Listen, you people,” she shouted. But there were too many of them, and they were too excited.

  Then, a ripple in the crowd, and Phouka pushed through to her. He shook his head and snorted. “Good idea,” she said to him, and grabbed his mane, pulling herself onto his back. “Hey!” she shouted, and now all the people could see her and hear her. After a few moments they quieted, listening. She caught the Sea-Lord’s eye, and nodded at him and at the other formerly forsworn Lords and Ladies. “Your lands have been poisoned by the stilth,” she said loudly. “It’s gone now, but the lands won’t recover so easily. You’ll have to go back.”