The Seelie King's War Page 5

  ALITH GATHERED THE soldiers around her in a circle, her face sterner than Snail had seen it so far, though not as angry as when she’d cursed the runaway Groan.

  “There will be just four of us going ahead,” Alith said. ‘The rest of you will stay here, with Mums in charge.”

  “Begging your pardon, sir!” It was Snaggle. “She’s not senior.” He looked a bit miffed, and Snail guessed that he was the one who should have been chosen.

  “No, she’s not,” Alith said smoothly, “but you and Snap will be coming with me. I need the most competent scouts and fast-thinkers. I will be guarding m’lady, but I need your swift arrows at the ready as well. Mums, Fen, and Pad have other skills we need here at our base camp. Swiftness, slyness, and brotherhood to make sure any message of disaster gets back to the palace. One of those three will be sure to bring it home.”

  The way she spoke, softly, distinctly, without rank or rancor, and the way the others listened without an interruption, not even a mew of protest, made Snail realize that they were all thinking that this was a valedictory speech, a farewell. Alith didn’t expect them all—or indeed any of them—to make it through the next few days. But she wouldn’t say such a thing aloud in case it turned into a fey curse that would bring disaster down upon them all.

  As if, Snail mused, disaster needs any help right now.

  “May I say a small amen?” It was Mums, the last of the troop whom Snail would have expected to ask any such thing.

  Alith nodded, and Mums began: “May the Light carry us on our journey, may the Light . . .”

  Snail stopped listening, because suddenly she was thinking that no one in the Unseelie lands would have ever asked for help from the Light. Those two opposing forces, Light and Dark, were at war here. In the in-between sat the changelings, the humans. Whom do we ask for help? she wondered.

  That was when she heard a round of muttered As you will it that went around their circle. Alith’s whispered As you will it was the final punctuation before everyone returned to task.

  While the men collected their scattered gear and rounded up the horses, Alith took Mums and Snail aside, putting her arms around them both so that it looked as if they were saying a simple goodbye. She began to speak rapidly with such quiet passion, only the three of them could hear.

  “You are to send the Greens after us, once a hand’s length of sun has passed. And then another hand’s length, and you come after. None of you are to be seen, them by us, or you by them. Stay far enough away not to be spotted, near enough so that you can hear any disaster that might come upon us. If we can be safely rescued, do it. But if it is too late, bring the message back home, sparing neither horse nor self. Let bodies lie where they fall.”

  Mums nodded.

  “And, m’lady,” Alith finished, turning to look directly at Snail, “if you so much as turn around to show that you are looking for someone, even by the smallest twist, I shall throttle you myself, mission be damned. These warriors are risking their lives for you. Understood?”

  Snail nodded. In a way, she was glad to have something to do, even if it was a negative: no turning, no looking, no showing she was expecting to be followed. Glad and—for the first time—truly terrified.

  Mums turned and left, to go back and help with the horses.

  Snail waited till Mums was too far away to hear and said to Alith, “May I have a sword?”

  “Can you wield it?” Alith’s eyes seemed to be smiling.

  “A knife, then? I killed a carnivorous mer with one but three dozen days ago. Maybe less.”

  “A knife it is,” Alith said.

  Snail suspected Alith knew that she was already carrying two knives. One in each boot. A third, though, especially one given by Alith, would make her feel part of the troop, not just a package to be delivered. She suspected Alith knew that, too.

  Alith unbuckled a small sheath on a long leather thong from around her waist and handed it to Snail. “It was given to me by my father on my Gift Day.”

  Snail hadn’t been at the Seelie Court long enough to learn about such things. She tied the knife in its sheath around her waist by the leather thong, saying, “Gift Day?”

  “The day following the discovery of my gift for fighting.”

  Snail stared at the commander, suspecting she was being leg-pulled, but Alith was looking very serious. “And should we both get through this alive, you can return the knife—blooded or not—when we come victoriously home.”

  “I will,” said Snail.

  “And if I do not make it back, bring it to the capital and give it to my son. His Gift Day is soon. He has been studying with his father’s Horse Guards and has chosen that way.”

  “Son?” For some reason it had never occurred to Snail that Alith might have a life outside of this small troop. That Alith was a mother astonished Snail.

  Alith turned away and looked sidelong at the sun, already making its way over the firs and heading across the meadow toward Father and the White Ladies. She rubbed a hand across her head, as if her head hurt, or as if she’d a memory of longer hair. Looking again at Snail, Alith added abruptly, “His name is Alicanson, and he is thirteen years old.” She turned and called to the men, “Mount up.”

  “I will remember,” Snail said. She wasn’t certain if Alith had heard her, for she made no movement to indicate she had. Just in case, Snail repeated what she’d said. “I will remember.”

  But Alith had already moved on.

  7

  ASPEN’S LONG FALL

  As he fell, Aspen screamed. He screamed first for fear that he would hit bottom. Then, that he never would. When he tired of screaming, he shouted for the Archivist. There was no answer, and though he thought they had fallen together, in the dark there was no way to know. Aspen reached for him but touched nothing. There was only darkness and the sensation of falling.

  He stopped screaming and just fell.

  At first he thought his eyes were playing tricks on him. A pinprick of orange below his feet, flickering enticingly in the distance. But as he fell toward it, the light grew larger, and Aspen could see that it was a fire. A big fire. In a big cavern. The light reflected off of wet, stone walls, and young stalactites drip-drip-dripped onto three figures gathered by the fire.

  That was all Aspen noticed before he was consumed with watching the ground rushing toward him and wondering how badly it was going to hurt when he hit. But he looked over and in the glow from the fast-approaching firelight could finally see the Archivist, who was sitting calmly cross-legged in the air.

  Whatever is happening, he does not seem too worried about it.

  And, indeed, their descent slowed until they came to a stop, floating two feet above the stalagmite-littered ground. Aspen heard water and glanced behind him and could just barely see the fire reflected in the waves of an underground river. There was something familiar about the area but Aspen couldn’t quite place it, and just then the figures around the fire began to chant.

  “Fascinating,” the Archivist breathed.

  “What?” Aspen whispered. He didn’t know if the figures could hear him. He suspected that he and the Archivist weren’t completely there. “What is this place? Who are they?” He cocked an ear toward the chanting, but it was either guttural nonsense or in a language he didn’t know. “And what are they doing?”

  “I do not know,” the Archivist replied, sounding as if he’d never uttered those words before. “Let us observe.”

  Aspen did not ask how the Archivist planned to observe without any eyes.

  The chanters were old women, tall and thin, with long, stringy white hair and faces the light blue of a frozen corpse. They were dressed identically in grey-brown robes that hung past their feet and trailed on the stone behind them. Before them on the ground lay a pale figure with long straight limbs and eyes that, even closed as they were now, bulged from the head
like an insect’s.

  “The Sticksman!” gasped Aspen, for that was the figure on the ground. He was bigger than Aspen remembered, his limbs more fleshy, his face less bony and bug-like, but it was definitely the Sticksman. Or one of the twins from the professor’s troupe. They did all look the same.

  He’s certainly not dressed like the Sticksman, Aspen thought. The Sticksman had worn a black, hooded robe that was worn and water-stained. This creature was wearing old-style finery, good enough for the king’s court.

  Suddenly Aspen recognized where they were as well: the cavern below Wester Tower of King Obs’s Keep. Snail and he had come through here when they had escaped the Unseelie lands. They had paid the Sticksman to ferry them down the river to the Shifting Lands, escaping both the attacking Border Lords and treacherous Old Jack Daw.

  His eyes adjusting to the gloom quickly, Aspen looked back toward the Sticksman and the old women and now saw that there was a fifth figure skulking among the stalactites. The figure was squat but not short, a smallish troll perhaps or a broad-shouldered elf watching the proceedings from the shadows.

  The women’s chanting seemed to be reaching a crescendo. They turned their hands to face forward, and just past the prone Sticksman there was now a thin tree sprouting from the stone.

  It was odd to see something green and alive in amongst all this dead, dark stone, and Aspen felt magic at work. Old earth magic: solid, stolid, everlasting.

  Then the tree began to grow. It grew like any other tree, but swiftly, a season’s work done in an instant. Branches shot out, budded a mere moment later. In a breath, leaves thickened, turned red and gold, fell off. New leaves appeared green and full before the old leaves hit the cavern floor. In ten breaths, the tree was as tall as a peasant’s shack, a glorious young oak with thick green foliage.

  The women’s chanting changed tenor, suddenly lower and slower than before. Each syllable shook the tree, shaking the green leaves off .

  It has stopped growing, Aspen thought.

  The branches were bare of leaves now, and as Aspen watched, the branches themselves grew withered and thin. Then one by one, they snapped off with a dry crack and fell to the ground. The women’s chant slowed even more and the trunk of the tree drew in on itself, becoming thin and grey. Eventually, the once-proud tree was no more than a long, thin stick stuck into the rock.

  The women stopped their chant. One walked to the dead tree while the other two bent and reached out for the Sticksman. He was gaunt now, with arms and legs as thin as the just-deceased tree and still-closed eyes bulging from a bony face. He looked much like the creature Aspen had first met at the dock.

  Or rather when I will first meet him, Aspen thought. Or perhaps when I will have first met him. Frowning, he shook the thought from his head, deciding that worrying over the correct grammar for what was happening was not at all useful. “Or had happened.” Without meaning to, he spoke out loud.

  The Archivist glanced at him inquisitively, and Aspen said, “Time travel is confusing.” As if that explained everything.

  The Archivist shrugged.

  One of the women now wrenched the long stick from the ground as the other two lifted the Sticksman to his feet. His legs didn’t look strong enough to support his own weight, and indeed, Aspen could see that the women were holding him up. The woman with the stick came over and placed it in the Sticksman’s hand. When he grasped it, a convulsion shook him so violently, it tore him from the women’s grasp.

  For a moment, Aspen was afraid the Sticksman would fall, but the stick seemed to give him strength, and he stood on his own now.

  Then one of the women spoke in a language Aspen finally understood.

  “This is memory,” she said in oddly accented Old Elven. She tapped the top of the stick.

  “This is blood,” said another, tapping the stick just under where her sister’s hand lay.

  “This is life,” said the third, putting both her arms around the other two. All three turned their heads toward the Sticksman, speaking as one.

  “Never let it go.”

  The Sticksman opened his pale blue eyes finally, turned toward the women, and nodded once.

  “Is it done?” the skulking figure asked as he stepped into the firelight. He was grey-skinned and heavily muscled with a face that looked like it had been clumsily carved from stone. However, he wore a tunic of fine cloth, and the jeweled hilt of a huge sword poked out of a scabbard slung across his back.

  “Is it done?” he asked again, louder this time, as if the women had not heard him, even though they were right in front of him. He spoke in the language of the Unseelie Court, but oddly accented, like the old women.

  They nodded as one. “He has no memory of what he was,” said the first.

  “Nor do any of his blood,” said the second.

  “And he shall live forever,” said the last.

  “As long as he holds the staff,” the skulker said. It sounded half a question.

  “There must always be a Sticksman, and he always holds the staff,” the first woman said. It was not exactly an answer.

  The Sticksman looked up as if recognizing his new name. He focused on the skulker. Then he spoke. “You do not need passage. And shall not for some time.” He turned toward the three women. “You will require it far sooner than you thought.”

  Then the Sticksman turned and strode purposefully toward the river. The river was barely visible in the darkness, but Aspen swore the waters rose and began to move toward the approaching Sticksman, making a newer, closer shoreline.

  One wave rose higher than the rest, cresting over the Sticksman, but without a splash. Instead, the black water draped itself around the tall creature, becoming a long, hooded robe. A simple, wooden boat followed behind the wave and settled on the shore nearby. Nobody was aboard. The Sticksman turned and faced back toward the cave, standing tall and still.

  He was just as Aspen remembered seeing him the first time.

  He is the Sticksman for certain.

  “It is a great service you have done me,” Aspen heard the skulker say, and he wrenched his eyes away from the Sticksman to see that he was addressing the crones.

  “And our payment . . .” the first woman replied. The other women nodded silent assent. All three leaned in, avarice glinting in their eyes.

  “About that,” the skulker began, and then in one snake-swift motion whipped his huge sword out of its scabbard and lopped their heads off.

  The heads clunked to the ground and the bodies crumpled moments later. The skulker gave a courtly bow to the corpses. “I am sorry, ladies, but this is business . . . and history.” He swept his free arm out in a circle that encompassed the stones, the river, the Sticksman—and the fallen bodies. “And this business can have no witnesses. Nor can this history.” Then he stooped to pick up the first of the bodies and carried it toward the river, whistling a pleasant hornpipe as he walked.

  “Interesting,” the Archivist said, and Aspen almost shushed him for fear that the murderous skulker would hear them. But the killer showed no sign of hearing anything but his own whistled tune of contentment.

  Because we are not really here, are we? Aspen was now sure of it. But if we are not here, did it really happen? He was not as sure of that.

  The skulker placed the women’s bodies one at a time in the Sticksman’s boat, then topped each corpse with a head, though whether they were the correct heads, Aspen could not tell. He doubted the skulker cared. The skulker handed the Sticksman a palmful of coins. “Give the ladies to the mer,” he said, “and here are coins to smooth their crossing.”

  The Sticksman nodded, got into the boat, and poled it away. It disappeared into a mist.

  “It appears,” the Archivist continued, “that your questions have been answered.”

  “What do you mean, answered?” Shocked, Aspen shouted, “What just happened? Who
is the Sticksman? And why must there always be one?”

  The Archivist shook his head. “Those are not the questions you asked. I cannot answer them.”

  Aspen would have stamped his foot in frustration if he weren’t floating in the air. “Why not? I—I am the king, and I demand you answer them!”

  “I am sorry, Your Grace, but there is naught I can do.” The Archivist shrugged. “I fear our observation is at an end.”

  “Wha—” Aspen began, but suddenly all the breath was sucked from his lungs. His ears popped and the cavern went dark. A great weight pressed on his chest and he thought his ribs would pop as well. But the weight was gone as quickly as it had come, and the lights came back on a moment after.

  They were in the Catacombs of Lost Knowledge beneath the Wizard’s Tower.

  “I trust you can find your way out, Your Highness,” the Archivist said, and pointed to the rope ladder. “Our time here is at an end.” Then he put his chin to his chest and slumped his shoulders, his arms suddenly hanging limp at his sides. If he had been a torch, he would have just guttered and died.

  What just happened? What is the meaning of what we saw? And why have I wasted my meager time on this when I have a war to lose? Aspen had a fistful of questions but didn’t ask any of them aloud. It was clear he would get no more from the Archivist.

  Shuffling to the rope ladder, Aspen climbed up listlessly. When he reached the top, the Welcomer pulled him up and asked, “Did you find what you seek?”

  “I do not know.”

  The Welcomer nodded his cowled head. “We get that a lot.”

  WHEN ASPEN STEPPED through the Eldritch Door, which was blank on this side, he found himself back in bright daylight. The sun shone in the same spot as when he’d entered, as if no time at all had passed.

  And perhaps none has, he thought. Shaking his head, Aspen stomped back across the invisible bridge and into his castle. He was practically trembling with anger—at the wizards with their games and their magic, at the Unseelie and their usurper king, Old Jack Daw. He was even mad at the Sticksman and the old women, though they seemed—if not entirely blameless—certainly long dead.