Gossamyr Read online

  26 Michele Hauj

  "I will muster my troops and prepare for a sure battle. I sense their numbers will only increase as the Red Lady remains unstopped. I have been witness only to those who return to Glam-oursiege. I expect other Faery tribes have been attacked, as well."

  "These revenants, what happens when one does manage to obtain an essence?"

  "That would leave an innocent fee dead, and the revenant would have its final twinclian."

  "Would not the innocent become revenant?"

  Shinn nodded. "You understand this vicious cycle could cripple Faery."

  Further reason to avoid delay. Time must be faced. "I can do this."

  His smile didn't quite reach his eyes. "I know."

  Why did a prinkle suddenly cleave to Gossamyr's spine? This is what she most desired.

  "I should not send you alone."

  "There are none in Faery who can accompany me." For there were none with mortal blood to protect them from the Red Lady's seeking lure. "You'll need your troops here to fight the revenants."

  "Perhaps a pisky guide—"

  "What of Mince?"

  "She is far too aged, and honestly, much too plump to keep your pace. The Disenchantment would take her swiftly."

  Indeed. Gossamyr would not risk the matron, even as she dreaded leaving her maternal influence. The only kind arms she had known following Veridienne's departure, for Shinn did not express his concern with sympathetic touches but with stronger actions, such as teaching her to fight.

  "I will fare well on my own."

  "Mayhap a fetch?" Shinn nodded, pleased with his notion. "Indeed, I will send one along to repeat back to me your successes."

  She liked that he already thought of her success.

  "Now, Disenchantment occurs quickly," he warned. "Once you

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  set foot on the Otherside you've perhaps less than a day before you lose all glamour."

  "I have no glamour!"

  "You've a cloak of glamour." He splayed his fingers before her face, raising a sensation of warmth in her flesh, drawing the shimmer of the fee to the surface. There in the blazon tracing her coles

  larbones and upper chest did she feel the magic, the innate being of her kind. The prinkles dancing on Gossamyr's spine subsided.

  "It has seeped into you over the years," Shinn assured.

  So she twinkled. That did not mean she could perform twinclian. Hers was a false glamour. No flight, no twinclian, no glamour. Lousy fee she had turned out to be. Half-blooded was nothing more than mortal.

  Gossamyr tightened her grip about the staff and strummed her fingers across the clutter of stringed arrets dangling from her braided-leather hip belt. "What of my skills, my speed?"

  Shinn set a hand on her shoulder. Violet eyes looked into hers, as if to leap into her being. "The skills you have honed over the years are yours to own, Gossamyr. Nothing can strip your physical prowess or your battle technique."

  She nodded and slid a hand upon the Glamoursiege coat of arms that she also wore on her hip belt, her family's sigil, it was carved from the same applewood as her staff. "What of my essence, er.. .my soul? Do I have both? Can the Red Lady take either from me?"

  "Your mortal blood—as well, the fact you are female—will serve a boon. The succubus will not have the slightest interest in you."

  Her father's voice, deep and strung with a melodious harmony, vibrated within her. Ever and anon he had protected her—even when that protection had hurt her heart. When all other fee would look upon her with a strange reluctance that would keep them an armshot away, yet still amiable, Shinn stood at her side, his pride in her apparent in the determination that pressed back the naysayers.

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  "Desideriel will be glad of my absence," she remarked.

  "He is a fine match, Gossamyr. We have discussed this overmuch."

  "I do not like him. Do you not sense his distaste for me?"

  "You see things only you wish to see."

  With a sigh she offered a silent agreement. So, too, did Shinn see only what he wished to see.

  So little to look forward to with her marriage to a man who saw only her faults, and yet, she did anticipate taking the Glamour siege reign.

  "I have groomed him." Reluctance cautioned Shinn's voice. "He understands what is expected."

  "As well do I." A marriage for Glamour siege, her heart be cursed to suffer for it. But she did respect her father's choice.

  She would speak to Desideriel Raine. Perhaps look again into his eyes and determine if it truly was only her that thought to see his reluctance.

  Shinn reached for her staff and drew it between the two of them. One toise in length, the steel-hard applewood had been carved by the Glamoursiege sage and fire-forged by dragon's breath. Intricate ribbons weaved into a crosswork of roses and flame about the rich wood.

  "I will not bid you farewell," he offered as he pressed the staff into her hand. "Because you are unable to twinclian, you will have to Passage. There is no way to place you immediately in Paris, so a journey awaits. Take this purse of coin, purchase a swift horse and make haste."

  Slipping a leather pouch from his hip, he then tied it to her belt. His fingers lingered on the coat of arms before relenting and stepping back.

  Gossamyr spread her fingers around the ample pouch, feeling rich with its weight. Never had she required coin, for her father's steward and Mince had seen to her needs and desires. How she would miss Mince!

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  Shinn touched her forehead with his thumb and closed his eyes, imprinting the whorls of his life upon her flesh, connecting with her hidden eye, the all-seeing and all-knowing. No lack of glamour could dispel intuition.

  "Come back to me," Shinn whispered.

  A sudden hollowness in her chest forced her to swallow back a strange sense of loss. It wasn't as if she would never again see him. And Mince, the fretful matron, would only worry should she seek her for a farewell. Such discovery waited her on the Other side!

  "I will," she promised. "Set me off, and I shall succeed."

  "I send you forth with my blessing, child of mine. Make right what you shall, and may you discover the solace to the ache that has been your nemesis."

  With a nod, Gossamyr silently vowed that ache—the mortal passion—would not defeat her.

  The soft press of Shinn's lips replaced his thumb. Gossamyr lifted her head and in the violet gaze looming over her she found all the strength she would ever need. "I am off, then?"

  Shinn stepped back and nodded.

  "Very well, but I've no twinclian. How shall I enter—"

  TWO

  France—1436

  "—the Otherside?"

  The droning alarm of a cicada announced her arrival. Wobbling off balance, Gossamyr swiftly recovered. She bent her knees and, hands spread, scanned her surroundings.

  Every pore on her body sensed the world had changed. The air smelled verdant. Tightly sown moss, plush in density, cushed beneath her bare toes as they curled into the thickness. The musty vapor of earth rose about her. 'Twas a muted aroma of decaying wood and fetid bracken, similar to Faery but.. .different.

  Gone, the Glamour siege castle of blue marble.

  Gone, the crystal Faery sky devoid of cloud or shadow.

  The Spiral forest, why.. .it was gone. She stood on horizontal ground, not a mass of forest and marble and reticulated roots all twined and flowing at the slightest of angles.

  A squeeze of her fingers reassured her staff was to hand. The carved ribbons pressed into her palm tingled with glamour. She had not natural glamour, but over the years Faery had seeped into

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  her being, imbuing her with a latent glamour that could be briefly utilized.

  Gossamyr touched her hip belt, clasping a narrow arret string. Scanning the ground she sighted within the brushy grass bright red toadstools dotted with white warts, closing her into a complete circle. Amanita muscaria; long
ago her mother had taught her the strange name for the mushroom; Latin, she'd named the identifying language.

  Names possess power. A litany fed to her every day since she could remember. Use that power wisely.

  The toadstool circle had risen up below the castle tower overnight. Gossamyr had marveled that the peacocks had walked a wide berth about it. She had been standing in the tower immediately above the circle—indeed, a Passage.

  A copse of pendulous cypress rose to her left, shadowing the thick grasses with a silky gray lacing. Pine and earth and grass flavored the air in a pale mist. Gossamyr drew in a breath. Gone, the sweet aroma of hyacinth. Shinn did not stand beside her, his hands clasped before him. The glimmer in her father's violet eyes was but a twinkle in the air, a breath of fee dust shimmering to naught.

  She reached out, grasping at the absence of all she knew, all she had come to depend upon—Faery. Opening her palm upward, she spread her fingers. Gone.

  But still there.

  Faery was neither here nor there but betwixt and between. Though she could not see him Gossamyr knew Shinn could see her. / will send a fetch. She looked about, but sighted not a hovering spy.

  According to what she had read in Veridienne's bestiary, mortals did have ways of peering in to Faery.

  Indeed?

  A mischievous tickle enticed Gossamyr to test that theory. Tilting her head forward, she peered back through the corner of her

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  eye. Swiftly, she jerked her head the opposite direction and narrowly stretched her gaze.

  Hmm. Not a glimmer or vibration in the sky. No flutter of iridescent wings, not a single flicker as fellow fee twinclianed elsewhere.

  A trickle of panic tittered in Gossamyr's belly. She rubbed her palms up and down her bare arms—the quilted pourpoint stopped at hip and shoulder—and turned about, eyeing the ruffled canopy of treetops. Grapelike clusters of bright yellow laburnum flowers speckled the greenery. 'Twas clearly the edge of the same forest that limned her father's castle. There! She recognized the hoi-lowed-out yew stump—a youngling's favorite hiding spot. But this forest edge was no Edge. There was no risk of falling to a crush of bones amidst the marsh roots should she step off the Edge, for the land beyond this forest stretched on. The Bottom. Everywhere.

  Gossamyr gulped. The Bottom was a dangerous place. But where there were no marsh roots there would be no kelpies. No kelpies meant no werefrogs. Blessings.

  But what situation was she in now?

  She had asked for this mission. And wonder upon wonders Shinn had relented. What was once forbidden now lay before her. The Other side was hers to explore.

  But not to forget: the fate of Faery relied on her success.

  A decisive nod stirred courage to her surface.

  "Champions are made. I will return to Faery the victor."

  Until then—"Achoo!"

  Spreading her arms to adjust her balance, Gossamyr settled a few steps from where she had landed. "Achoo!"

  What tickled her senses?

  Sniffling, she thought briefly her watery eyes were tears. Tears were a sign of weakness, of unfettered emotions. One could not Be amidst a fury of conflicting emotion. She had once cried enough tears for a lifetime, so it surprised now there should be any left.

  Mayhap they were tears caused by the mortal atmosphere?

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  "It is merely the dust." For indeed motes of dust floated, and close loomed a skein of buzzing gnats.

  Turning, Gossamyr scanned the dark emerald lacework of the forest canopy and the blackened trunks of oak trees she recognized, but had known in a more spectacular image. No exposed roots twisting and trailing down the length of the Spiral forest. 'Twas her favorite activity to swing and climb amongst the network of roots, chasing night moths. And where be the canorous frog song that so twinkled from amidst the shadowed roots?

  Shrugging her hands up her arms, she scanned the forest. A rabbity moan brewed in her throat. Gossamyr pressed a hand to her chest. Calm yourself.

  How to return when her mission was complete? She wasn't sure how she had entered the Other side. Born without twinclian—the ability to twinkle in and out from a place—she could only imagine the task had been accomplished via Shinn's glamour.

  Perhaps she should have gotten the return method clear with her father before setting off on adventure. Always, Shinn had tried to crush her penchant for rushing blindly into situations. A warrior must assess and plan. But Gossamyr liked the danger, and the thrill of dashing into the fray—as much as the peaceable kingdom of Glamour siege had allowed. There were the occasional vagrants from the Netherdred that crept into the Spiral; excellent opportunity for Gossamyr to put her training to use. Always, though, Shinn had been there to aid.

  Mayhap she had leaped a bit too far this time? Who would catch her should she stumble?

  The buzz of a large insect spun Gossamyr about to spy a harnessed dragon fly. Pale blue wings spanned the width of her forearm. Zip, zip here; zip, zip there. The bejeweled harness glinted in the sunlight. It hovered before her—see me, I am near—then jet-tied up into the forest canopy.

  "So he did send a fetch." A bit of Faery close by to reassure.

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  A breath of confidence filled Gossamyr's lungs. "Shinn would have never sent me did he not trust I would be successful. I will find the Red Lady and put an end to her vicious reign. If more of those revenants return to Faery, my father will have a full-scale battle on his hands. I must make haste."

  Which way lay Paris? Perched high atop the Spiral in her father's castle down was the only direction she had ever learned. To navigate horizontally instead of vertically would prove.. .interesting.

  Gossamyr searched her memory and envisioned a finely detailed page from Veridienne's bestiary, a map of the mortal city with the various tribes of Faery inscribed over all. Glamour siege sat downsouth of Paris.

  Lifting her foot, she remembered the Passage. A precarious position for one just arrived. Stabbing her staff outside the circle, she swung her legs up and out and landed the ground.

  She stared wistfully at the empty ring of toadstools. 'Twas how the Dancers arrived in Faery. A Passage should, by rights, work both ways.

  Should she? Just a test?

  Gripping her staff, Gossamyr lifted her foot and pointed a toe toward the circle, then...she stepped inside. One foot firmly planted on the ground. Shallow breaths quietly exhaled. The chirring finale of the cicada's song rattled to silence.

  Nothing.

  "Hmm..."

  Removing her foot from the circle, she then tried the other foot, and waited, breath held.

  Again, naught but the pulse beat of her heart inside her ears.

  Looking about she did not spy the fetch. It saw all, she knew. Dare she jump inside with both feet? What if it did work? She would return to Faery. To Mince's sheltering arms. And Shinn's disapproving eyes.

  Her father had granted her this opportunity. She must to it!

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  "I can do this," Gossamyr said. A shrug of her shoulders and a loosening shake of her limbs summoned bravery. "I will do this. I know how to protect myself. I know how to track and defend. Oh yes—" a smile crooked her mouth "—I want some adventure."

  A few strides put her to a narrow wheel path gouged along the horizontal purlieu of the forest. The packed red dirt felt warm beneath her bare feet. She must have landed the edge of Glamour-siege territory, for the Spiral forest spun down to the border between tribes.

  The Netherdreds inhabited the perilous flatlands that surrounded large mortal cities, for their kind thrived in the unstable atmosphere that separated Faery from the Otherside. (Faery simply did not exist in the large cities. Densely populated mortal lands tended to tamper with the Enchantment. As well, the mortals' use of magic drained any Enchantment that seeped too close.) Gossamyr would have to traverse the Netherdred, albeit, she now stood on the Otherside, so there was no fear to encounter any fro
m the nefarious tribe.

  However, if she had come to the Otherside, what then, prevented a Netherdred from doing the same?

  Flicking a keen eye about, Gossamyr assessed her surroundings. Alone. And keep it that way.

  The fetch buzzed overhead, its wings glinting copper against the settling sunlight.

  "Not alone," she reminded. And was pleased for it.

  A skip to her left and she scampered onward. A smile was unstoppable. Her high spirits lended a lightness to her steps. Gossamyr splayed her arms out to her sides. A shimmy of her hips nearly lifted her bare feet from the ground. She felt.. .less heavy.

  "So light," she marveled.

  Always in Faery she had fought her natural awkwardness. Cumbersome in the air there, and often tripping over roots or rocks. Yet here? The air barely skimmed her being. Performing a spin, Gossamyr let out a squeal and set again to her pace.

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  Michele Hauf

  A tilt of head took in the vast horizon. Fascinating to view the sunset from its parallel and not above.

  Fragile wings skimmed the scabbed cut on her cheek, and the skitter of legs tapped at her nose and forehead. Faster than a wing-beat, Gossamyr lashed out, capturing a damselfly by the wings. She dangled the annoying insect before her face and tilted a defiant smirk at the pivoting jade eyes.

  "Thought you possessed swiftness, eh? The air here is better suited to me— Achoo!"

  Nearly toppled from her feet by that powerful sneeze, Gossamyr stumbled and stabbed her staff into the red dirt.

  The damselfly escaped in a spiraling ascent through the crystal sky, a sleek distraction for the fetch.

  A silly grin followed Gossamyr's explosion. While the air seemed to fit her like a charm, it did not want her to get too comfortable.

  Of a sudden, a strange, mournful tune touched her ear. The small clink of saddle furnishings punctuated the song with syncopated notes.

  Gossamyr spun to eye a horse and rider ambling down the path. Her right hand stiffening and fingering the waxed cord of an arret, she homed in on the approaching target and crouched to strike.

  Paris—downnorth

  Aaee aaaa.. .mmm.. .0000....

  The melodious call beckoned him along the rough limestone garden wall, arms stretched to flatten his body and meld with the twilight shadows. Wings scraped against stone, but for the task he did not mind the pain.