as he stepped into the water, somehow her hands were within his leather jacket and rubbing across his chest and down his abdomen and lower still. And her breath was sweet and her lips inviting, and her eyes were filled with the heat of passion, and she raised her mouth toward his.
“No,” he said, his voice but a whisper, and he turned his head aside as he waded. “My heart belongs to another.” Yet in spite of himself, he began to harden.
“Ah, but, mon cheri,” she whispered, her voice husky with need, “it would be a mere dalliance, and not as if it were something serious. Will you not lie with me?”
“Non, mademoiselle,” Borel replied, and he waded on.
“Do you not find me beautiful, desirable? Do you not want me?” Then she laughed, somehow her hands down in his leathers. “Ah, yes, I see you do.”
“Mademoiselle, that you excite me, I cannot deny, yet-”
“She is a succubus!” shouted Flic, drawing Argent and taking to wing.
But even as the Sprite darted toward the prince, Borel reached the opposite bank and knelt to set the demoiselle to her delicate feet, and the moment he did so, she transformed into a barefoot, toothless, doddering crone in black robes, and as if from a distance, there came the sound of a loom.
Even as Flic cried out and reversed course, “Lady Doom,” said Borel, yet kneeling.
In the twilight the black-eyed, wrinkled crone gaped a gummy smile and said, “Heh.”
“She Who Forever Fixes the Events of Time Into the Past,” said Borel.
The crone nodded but said, “More like the dustbin of history, Prince Borel.”
“Lady Urd,” said Borel, standing and bowing, and as he did so he took her hand and kissed her fingers.
“Heh, bold,” said Urd, again flashing a toothless grin. “but I think a kiss on the hand is not nearly as thrilling as bold caresses, eh?” She cackled in glee.
Borel laughed. “Indeed not.”
Sobering, Urd said, “You did very well, my lad, for you were sorely tested. Others would have certainly succumbed.”
“My Lady Urd, to, um, lie with Fate seems a rather risky proposition.”
“Heh. Perhaps not to lie with Fate is even more risky… a woman scorned, you see.”
“Madame, as I say, my heart-”
“Yes, yes,” snapped Urd, “given to another. I know.”
“Lady Urd, are you here to help me?”
“Of course, and you have borne me across water, as you did Skuld and Verdandi, my two elder sisters.”
“Don’t forget, he fed them, too,” shouted Flic, “and so my prince is well ahead in the favor game.”
“Cheeky little thing, isn’t he,” said Urd, her mouth grinning widely, her gums showing.
“Yes, my lady,” said Borel.
“Nevertheless he is right, Prince Borel: you are ahead in the favor game.”
“Will it buy your help?” asked Borel.
“You have met the first requirement by doing a favor for me, but still you must answer a riddle before I can aid, for I am bound,” said Urd.
“Then you do know I have the answer to the riddle of the Sphinx as well as the answers to the riddles you and your sisters posed to Camille, and those most recent riddles posed by the Ladies Skuld and Verdandi?”
“Of course, of course,” said Urd.
“Then ask away, Lady Doom,” said Borel.
Urd looked afar at Flic, and the Sprite groaned but yelled out, “I would not fall behind!”
“Heh,” barked Urd. “Cheeky indeed. Well, here it is, young man: “If Flic were in a Spritely contest
For several objects to find,
But in some manner unknown to him
He had fallen behind-”
— Urd looked at Flic and cackled, and Flic groaned and turned his back to her- “And there was a single object left
Down in a dip on a dint-filled plain,
How should he go about searching
And be the one to win?”
“I wouldn’t fall behind, I wouldn’t fall behind, I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t,” muttered Flic on his limb beside now- sleeping Buzzer.
“My Lady Doom,” said Borel, “one way is to fly very high so as to see down into every dip on that dint-filled plain.”
“Indeed,” said Urd, again cackling at Flic.
“My lady, the aid?” said Borel.
“Eh, eh, yes, of course,” said Urd. “Now let me see, there is something you need to know, and it is this: “The Endless Sands run forever,
But search as you have this day,
And you will find her never,
Yet there is indeed a way:
“Seek the black oak sinister
Beside the twilight wall,
Behind it a narrow portal,
Yet beware the fall.
“And this I will tell you for nought: it lies afar and you cannot rest.”
“Can you say no more, Lady Urd?” called Flic. “I mean, he fed two of your sisters, and so he is ahead.”
Urd nodded, and held out her hand, and of a sudden Buzzer appeared therein, and she whispered to the sleeping bee, yet what she said neither Borel nor Flic could hear.
She handed the bee to Borel and said, “Now the scales are balanced. But I warn you: remember all you were told, else you will fail in the end.”
“But which way do we go, Lady Urd?” cried Flic, yet the sound of the loom swelled, and then vanished as did the Lady Doom.
45
“My lord, she did not say which way to go.”
“The direction is in the aid she gave,” said Borel. “ ‘Find the black oak sinister,’ she said.”
“My lord?”
“Sinister, leftward, Flic. We have been going the wrong way from the outset, for we chose dextral.”
Flic growled and said, “I knew we should never have trusted that slapped spit, for Dame Fortune oft plays dastardly tricks.” Then he groaned. “All that searching we did, and all of it away from instead of toward.”
“Take heart, Flic, for now we simply must find the black oak next to the twilight bound.”
“My lord,” said Flic, “there were no black oaks nigh the border the way we came.”
“None?”
“None, my lord. It means we must go all the way back to where we started and then beyond to find Lady Urd’s dark tree.”
Borel sighed. “She warned us: ‘And this I will tell you for nought: it lies afar and you cannot rest.’ ”
“Oui, my lord,” said Flic, “those were her very words.” Flic glanced at the gibbous moon, the orb nearly full and now some four fists above the horizon and on the rise, and he said, “And there is but a day remaining.”
Borel, too, looked at the moon in the night sky. “Less than a day, my friend, for even as does the sun set on the morrow, so shall the full moon rise. We must find that black oak well ere then, for we know not what we will face in the Endless Sands.”
