Gossamyr Page 6

  Caged and taunted, kept as a pet...

  "My lady?"

  A schusch of wind danced the leaves overhead into a rising cheer. Nearby, Fancy snuffled over a patch of clover.

  'Twas only her name complete which would give away her power. The mortal had no means to discover that. "You may call me Gossamyr."

  "Gossamyr." He whistled through the space in his teeth. "What sort of name be that? Gaelic? Irish? Not a bloody Scot, are you?"

  "You talk too much."

  "And you are far too impudent for a woman." He danced with his speech, as if it a natural extension of his thoughts. Into a circle about her, but too far for her to touch or even scent. "What be your destination? And whom have you left behind? Surely there is a father or husband who mourns your absence. And so alone."

  "I am not alone—achoo!—I am with you."

  He eyed her staff, held at shoulder level like a pike ready for launch. "Mayhap not. But there is something about me you should know."

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  "What be that?"

  A splay of his beringed fingers before him caught the fading sunlight in a rainbow of glints. Moving his hands like snakes slinking through the air, he bemused with his extravagant motions. "I have always had a weakness for sparkly things." Another wink seemed to please him immensely.

  Sparkly things? Gossamyr felt a strange warmth rise in her face. She lowered her staff and looked away so he could not see her discomfort. The blazon must be shed. Soon.

  "I merely require direction to the next village," she said. "Is it very large? I must purchase a swift horse and, as you suggest, some clothing."

  "Yes, I favor a fine dress of damask for you. And long red ribbons for the plaits in your hair."

  Gossamyr snorted and flipped the silver-tipped end of one of her thick plaits back over her shoulder. "Ribbons? Do you romance me, then? I'll have you know I do not succumb to a man's charm so easily—

  "Bloody hell!"

  Gossamyr froze, the tone of Ulrich's voice alerting her to the vibrations now obvious in the ground. Vibrations increasing in strength and moving toward them. She'd been so busy chaffering she hadn't been paying attention.

  "Don't look now, Gossamyr, but you are soon to discover consorting with Jean Cesar Ulrich Villon III is not for the faint of heart."

  Gossamyr did look. And what she saw loosed her demon-take -me smile.

  The silhouette of a wide, squat figure barreled toward them. Dust plumed about it in a furious cloud. It wasn't a man. It wasn't even mortal.

  Danger had arrived.

  FOUR

  Gossamyr swung her staff, bending into a defensive stance. She hooked the applewood parallel beneath her outstretched right arm. Peripheral vision sighted Ulrich, stalking up beside her, his fists bared and swinging for fight. "If you've not a bigger or pointier weapon, then stand back!"

  "I've the will to survive, my lady, so you stand back."

  "I know what I'm doing!"

  "As do I!"

  "Do stay out of my way!"

  She spun to catch the bogie in the gut with the steel-hard staff. Impact shook her feet from the ground. Tottering two steps to the left, she found her balance.

  Ulrich yelped. She spied him shaking a fist that obviously had more impact on himself than the bogie's hindquarters.

  The beast let out a yowl and gripped her staff. The span of that grip covered a third of the longstaff. Gossamyr leaned backward to counter the attack. Landing her derriere shocked stinging prin-kles up and down her spine. Shaking the vibrations from her skull

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  she leaped to her feet, drawing the staff before her in a half arc of

  warning.

  o

  Bogies were dumb as wood, but when enraged were difficult to contend. Usually they were more breath than roar—and oh, did their foul breath wield a malodorous bite. Their square bulky bodies were solid as stone, save, their bald, flat heads; the skull proved thinner than parchment. Only problem was climbing the mountain of bogie to reach the prize.

  A vicious wind of foul breath and gnashing incisors rose up behind Gossamyr. She spun, prepared to defend. The bogie shrieked and tumbled midair, soaring over her head, and landed the ground behind her.

  Gossamyr pierced Ulrich with a dagger of a look.

  The man countered with his own cocky wink and a tilt of the crossbow he wielded. "I'm keeping my distance!"

  Rolling and shrieking, the squat brown bogie stirred up the dirt from the ground in a billowing cloud. The crossbow quarrel— wedged in the bogie's gut—splintered and was crushed to pulp. Now the beast lay prone, its skull level with Gossamyr's shoulder.

  "Leave him for me!" Gossamyr yelled. Levering her leg back to force momentum through her body, she swung hard, meeting wood to skull. The definite dull crunch of shattering skullbone thundered in her ears.

  A deft twist of her staff placed it like a spear in Gossamyr's palm. Stabbing it into the bogie's eye, the applewood met with little resistance. The body shuddered, jittering the staff in her sure grip. The ground shook. The mule brayed. Yowls to stir up a slumbering swamp beast from a bed of muck assaulted the air. With a final shudder of stout hairy limbs, the bogie gave up the ghost. The stench of such finality coiled into the air, wilting the freshness with a heavy veil.

  Brown matter oozed from the skull. Gossamyr tugged out her staff and tamped it on the ground to clean it off. The ooze clung.

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  "Nasty bit of business that," Ulrich commented.

  Heavy breaths panted over her lips, but a smile stole Gossamyr's disgust. She had done it. Her first challenge—alone, without Shinn looking over her shoulder—and she had been successful. The

  o

  thought to retreat hadn't even occurred. Danger had approached and she had stood at the ready.

  "Yes!" Gossamyr said in an elated whisper.

  Crossbow tilted against his shoulder, Ulrich stomped over and studied the oozing carnage. "Now that shall leave a mark."

  Spinning on the insolent, Gossamyr landed her staff with a click aside the crossbow. "I am going to leave a mark on you should you persist in interfering."

  "My lady." He pressed out a placating hand. "There was a challenge to be met!"

  "Expertly mastered by me!"

  "You? Ha!"

  "You laugh? I—"

  "It was my quarrel brought down the thing."

  "I killed the beast!"

  "Yes, and with great savor, I note. The thing is dead as a doornail." Ulrich strode to the mule and, flipping open a tattered saddlebag, poked about inside. Drawing out a small horn, he uncapped what Gossamyr guessed to be cleaning oil for the weapon.

  The fetch fluttered down from the sky. She offered it a smart bow. Danger annihilated. Shinn would be pleased. Circling the beast to take in the carnage, the fetch then alighted into the crystal sky to twinclian in a shimmer of dust.

  Unaware of the exchange, Ulrich tucked the oil horn inside the saddlebag and strapped the crossbow across Fancy's back. So he had assisted. Next time she would not allow him such opportunity.

  "I cannot promise to stand idly by should such need again arise." Ulrich strode by Gossamyr, finger to lips in thought. "It is my manner, fair lady, to help when a damsel requires saving."

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  Damsel? Gossamyr slid a look to the left then the right. Where be this damsel? She was the only— Ah. So he thought...?

  She spread her shoulders back, lifting her chest. Fisting her fingers before her, she hissed, "Do I look like I need saving?"

  Dancing blue eyes took in her obstinate pose in a quick cap-a-pie flight. "Actually.. .no."

  "Just so. In the future keep your mortal weapons to yourself."

  "Indeed? Mortal weapons. Ahum." He assumed a haughty pose, thumbs hooked at the waist of his striped hose, one foot stretched forward and his body cocked at an angle. "So says the damsel with the sparkly throat."

  "I—" Gossamyr slapped a palm
to her throat.

  "I suppose I must thank you," he added.

  "For saving thee?"

  He chuckled. "No, for reminding me of which I forget. There is a damsel in need of rescue. And she will not argue my help. I must be off."

  "Saving damsels? What sort of pitiful, unoriginal quest—" She stabbed a proud thumb into her pourpoint. "I've a mission to save the—"

  "The what?" Mirth tickled Ulrich's lips into a slippery smile and now his tone danced teasingly. "The world? Is not such a quest reserved for armored knights and champions wearing their lady's favor on their sleeves?"

  "I am not here to save your world. It is my world I.. .must save." Bogies and blight! Very sly, Gossamyr. Really blending well. Why did she not simply reveal her fee origins and hold out her wrists for the chains?

  "Ah! I see. There is a separation between our worlds. But since you claim not to be a faery, I can only then assume you speak of the minuscule world that populates the inside of your skull."

  Ulrich approached and made show of tilting his head this way and that as he looked into her eyes. A vicious preening. The look

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  was so familiar, like that of a fellow fee who deemed Gossamyr lesser because of her half blood, and yet, the rank of her father elevated her above all. Fluttering beringed fingers near her head, he insulted with silent menace. "My master once treated a victim of psychomachia."

  "Psycho-what?"

  "It is one who lives within their own mind. Entire worlds are invented. An extraordinary life is led walking through the imaginary world, while the victim's very feet tread the earth of reality."

  Gossamyr stepped right up to the man to meet his mocking stare. The embroidered trim of his cape brushed her knees. Must and earth surrounded his air. No longer did anything about him appeal, not even his fine white teeth. "You. Are rude."

  "And you are most snappish. And much too close. Have you no sense of propriety? Back off, warrior woman."

  She hooked her hands at her hips and fixed him with the mongoose eye.

  "Not at all the same," Ulrich muttered as he stepped away and drew a glance down her form. A sorry shake of his head shook his loose curls. "In twenty years women have truly lost all their graces. Pity."

  "What do you mumble about now?"

  "Nothing that concerns you, Faery Not."

  That moniker, most cruel, set Gossamyr to a stomp.

  "Very well." Ulrich slapped his arms across his chest and faced her again with that preening expression. "I promise to stand back and allow you all the glory next time we are set upon by supernatural beasties."

  "It was a bogie."

  "If you say so."

  "I do."

  Next time? Hmm... Very possible, considering they walked the edge of the Netherdred, and would soon have to cross through it to reach the mortal city of Paris.

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  A scan of the horizon sighted a line of lindens and a wispy ghost of smoke, likely a fire roasting a family's evening meal. The distant yowl from a night creature gave her wonder to the rampant wolves her mother had documented in the bestiary. Not so vicious as a Netherdog, frequently found wandering the sandy borders of the marsh roots, but certainly ferocious. She'd had no time to gather expectations of her journey, but already it proved more perilous than she might have imagined.

  Adventure? Yes, please. She could stand down any threat that challenged.

  / hope, a small voice deep inside whispered.

  "I wonder what it was doing here?" she said with a glance to the block of bogie lying in a growing puddle of brown ooze. "Is it common for bogies to charge from out of nowhere? Such creatures generally keep to cinder caves and the night. For all the rage it possessed, one would think we'd done it a grievance."

  "Do you wish me to answer according to my world?" Ulrich tugged at the saddlebag, secured to Fancy's flank. "As opposed to your skull world?"

  With a glance to the battleground, peppered with brown bogie blood, Ulrich let out a heavy exhalation. He squeezed an eye shut at the blast of setting sun that beamed him in the face. "Never, in my extremely pitiful life, have I seen one of those things. Said life being much too short of late. Or be it too long?" A tilt of his head revealed the modena on his cheek. "But I trust you have encountered such? You knew exactly how to take the thing out."

  "Training."

  "Oh? Did I miss something in my schooling? Attack and conquer abecedarian?"

  She delivered him a sneer to match—nay, defy—his mockery. "Just answer me this: are we close to a village? I tire, and have worked up a hunger."

  "One would never guess from the brilliant sparkle you put out."

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  His constant reminder she glimmered troubled. A touch to her throat discovered the highest agraffe was open. The carved bone clasp had broken, most likely during the fight.

  "A village? Indeed, Aparjon lies just ahead. But tell me, why do you not simply fly there? Ah!" He made show of bending and peering around to study her shoulders. Gossamyr twisted her back away from his view. "No wings!"

  "We have already discussed this."

  "Indeed. Not a faery." Now his jesting tone returned and that brilliant smile flashed like a beam of sunlight. "But plenty faeries do not have wings."

  "How know you such?"

  "Every child learns the facts before they are out of infant skirts." He made a merry skip and danced around Gossamyr. "Faeries come in all manner of shape, size and wing. Some walk amongst the mortals undiscovered, some flitter up to a man's ear to stand inside it. But one thing they all have in common is a glimmer—" he drew his palm between them in a curtain of fluttering fingers "—that sheen of the unnatural."

  The blazon.

  "Though, I must say, you do appear a trifle.. .faded."

  "What mean you by that?"

  Ulrich pointed to the hem of Gossamyr's pourpoint. "Your clothing. The leaves look as though they are fading. More so than when we first met."

  Gossamyr touched a curve of supple hornbeam at her waist. Indeed, the leaf had lost some of its glossy resilience. The arachnagoss threading was strong, but no more so than the outer layers it stitched together. She smoothed a hand over her braies. They felt secure; amphi-leather was virtually indestructible, even a fire-forged blade must draw a precise line to cut through.

  A bend of her arm tugged a crack in the leaves at her shoulder.

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  "I must make haste," she said and picked up her pace along the dirt path.

  "And so I shall hurry alongside you, Faery Not."

  They walked onward, Ulrich leading Fancy as he ventured first. His strides were light, jumping to kick a stone in the path, as free as the air made Gossamyr feel. When he finally spoke, though, he sounded suspicious. "You are quite skilled in defense and attack."

  She smirked. "And you are adept at getting in the way."

  "Why, thank you, fair lady. It is a skill. Pity 'twas my last quarrel. Though, rest assured, I can hold steel to the enemy should the need arise. That is.. .if I had steel." He patted his hips and scanned the ground. "I seem to have misplaced my dagger a few leagues back."

  "Would that be when you won the prize dripping down your forehead?"

  "Do you think it will leave a mark?" He touched the wound.

  Ever changing, the man's moods. From suspicion, to anger, to a teasing charm. Despite the danger his learning of her origins could pose, Gossamyr found it difficult to dislike the man. For he tread the earth as if he had wings. To have him accompany her even a short distance could prove a boon. She would study him, prepare for future contact with mortals. They weren't so different from the fee. Even his deep voice she had grown accustomed to.

  "So, Gossamyr who isn't from Faery, I did notice you were particularly surprised at your success over the beast."

  Gossamyr tripped ahead, enjoying the warm air skim her bared flesh. Right, was the only feeling she could summon. She spun in a dancer's twirl and rejoined Ulri
ch's side, "It is the first time I have engaged in hand-to-hand combat."

  "Ah. Well then, good show, Faery Not."

  "Don't name me that—achoo!" Halted in her tracks, Gossamyr grasped her head.

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  "Touche!" Turning to walk backward Ulrich smiled at her. The gap in his teeth distorted his mirth. "So you like to dance?"

  Skipping, Gossamyr shrugged and offered an unexpected "I think so!"

  "You take marvel at your own wonder." "It is just, the air.. .1 feel light." "Pray tell what the air is like whence you hail?" "Not like here," she called out and jumped to the grass to skip through the cool blades.

  o

  Flight had ever alluded her, no matter how often she had attempted it. Which had been often in the rose garden behind the castle buttery. Mince had once witnessed her fruitless attempts and had laughingly joined in. The matron's small wings, attached to a generously rounded body, had served little more than to lift her shoulders. She could not leave the ground, either. It had bonded them in laughter, and a smirking confession from Gossamyr, which revealed her jealousy of the winged ones.

  "You are the daughter of Lord de Wintershinn," Mince had stated simply. "You needn't envy; you are envied."

  Mayhap. But Gossamyr had not missed a single averted gaze or cruel stare in her lifetime. Envy hurt. And the only way to overcome was to prove herself. She needn't the Wintershinn name to stand proud; to defeat the Red Lady would prove her worth and perhaps put to rest the suspicious whispers.

  She spun now, and leaped into the path immediately before Ulrich. He had no wings, and yet, he took to the air in his strides. And that made him all the more appealing.

  "The dirt from the fight," Ulrich commented as he angled forward to study her. "It covers your face."

  Gossamyr wiggled her nose. Another sneeze tormented.

  "It is bone,"he said of her dirty covering. "It hides your glimmer."

  "Bone?"

  "That means good."

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  "Then why not say good?"

  "For the same reason you say mortal. We have our own slangs, do we not?" A click of his tongue beckoned Fancy onward.

  Gossamyr paralleled him but a leap to his left. He suspected; she knew that he did.