have to seek him out, and you have already wasted seven days. Take my two gifts and go, and go alone, but for one of my gifts. Unlooked-for aid will come along the way.”
“But I would have the aid of Borel and Celeste and Liaze,” cried Camille. “The aid of Lord Kelmot, too.”
Only silence answered.
“But I don’t know where east of the sun and west of the moon might be. Oh, please, my lady, tell me where I should be bound.”
But the figure remained silent.
Frustrated, Camille circled ’round the water to confront the Lady of the Mere, yet when she came to the massive oak, all she found was a strange burl in the dark hollow at the base of the tree, a gnarled stick within.
“Where are you, Lady?” called Camille, tears stinging her eyes. “I am in desperate need.”
But an onset of chatter of a nearby bird was all that answered her anguished cry.
All ’round did Camille turn, seeking the seer somewhere in the glade or among the trees of the Summerwood. And then her shoulders slumped in defeat, for she knew she would not find the lady, for the glowing limb of the sun had risen above the horizon.
And still, nearby, a bird chattered.
“Oh, Lady,” groaned Camille, leaning her head against the oak, “you were no aid at all.”
Suddenly the bird fell silent.
“Was she here?” came a query.
Camille looked down. Lord Kelmot and his lynx now stood at her side. “The sun had risen,” said Kelmot, dismounting, “so I came to find you. And again I ask, was she here, the Lady of the Mere?”
Camille nodded. “She was. And she told me Alain lay east of the sun and west of the moon.”
Kelmot blanched, his catlike eyes widening in alarm. “Oh, my lady, how dreadful.”
Sudden hope blooming, Camille asked, “Know you of this place?”
Kelmot shook his head. “Nay, I do not.”
Camille frowned and turned up her hands. “Then why did you say-?”
“Camille, that the Lady of the Mere was here at all means that dire events are afoot, and we must gather a warband and find that place east of the sun and west of-” Kelmot’s words abruptly stopped, for Camille had pushed out a hand to halt his speech, and she was shaking her head. “What?” he asked.
“She told me that I must go alone,” said Camille. “That unlooked-for help would come along the way.”
“Were those her exact words?”
Camille’s brow furrowed. “Her exact words were, ‘East of the sun and west of the moon is where your prince does lie. And this I will tell you for nought: a year and a day and a whole moon more from the time you betrayed him is all you have to seek him out, and you have already wasted seven days. Take my two gifts and go, and go alone, but for one of my gifts. Unlooked-for aid will come along the way.’ ” Camille’s eyes widened in remembrance. “Oh, two gifts. But where-?”
Camille looked about the glade, seeing nought but things natural to the Summerwood: the sward, the water of the mere, the cluster of reeds within, a small patch of briars nearby, a silent bird in among the thorns, and the trees ’round the marge of the mead. Then she looked in the hollow of the oak. Nothing therein but the strange burl and the gnarled sti- Wait! Camille reached in and took up the stick. It was a walking staff, and it had a carved festoon of flowers winding ’round the shaft and up to a dark disk just below the grip at the top.
“This is surely one of the gifts,” said Camille, showing the ornate find to Kelmot.
“No doubt,” agreed the Lynx Rider. “But she said there were two.”
A flurry sounded nearby, and the bird in the thorns-a sparrow-chattered frantically, alarmed by Kelmot’s lynx, the cat, belly low, now creeping through the grass toward the briars. Yet the bird did not fly.
Suddenly Camille gasped. “Lord Kelmot, call off your lynx!”
Kelmot frowned, but spat a hissing word, and the lynx flattened in the grass, but did not take its eyes from its would-be prey.
Camille strode to the briar patch, Kelmot following, and all the while the bird chattered. “ ’Tis a wee, black- throated house sparrow and trapped,” said Camille as she worked her way inward. “Oh, my, but he is injured, his wing caught on a thorn. Mithras, it has stabbed right through a wing joint.”
Kelmot stood outside the briars. “What has the bird to do with aught?”
As Camille carefully eased the bird’s wing from the thorn, she said, “Remember the words of the seer, Lord Kelmot: ‘Take my two gifts and go, and go alone, but for one of my gifts.’ From her words I deem one of her gifts is a companion.”
“Ah, I see,” said Kelmot, nodding in agreement. “Alone, but for one of her gifts. Yet, Camille, what makes you think this bird is that gift?”
“Well, there is this: I heard not the sparrow until after the Lady of the Mere was gone. Ere, then, I deem he was absent.” The sparrow now in hand, Camille worked her way out from among the briars. As she stepped forth, she glanced at the lynx, and then frowned at Kelmot. “Will you, can you, keep your cat away from the bird while I tend to him?”
A look of indignation crossed Kelmot’s tiny face, yet he said, “Most certainly, Lady Camille.” He turned to the lynx and spat-hissed a word or two.
Now it was the cat who looked offended, and it turned its back to them all: Camille, Kelmot, and the sparrow.
Kneeling at her rucksack, Camille took a small jar from within, and, making soothing sounds, she applied a daub of salve to the injury. “I think he may never fly again,” she said, sadness tingeing her words as she carefully folded the wing shut.
Kelmot frowned and asked, “Think you this sparrow will be a willing companion?”
“Let us see,” replied Camille, setting the sparrow on her shoulder.
Now free from Camille’s gentle grip, “ Chpp! ” chirped the bird in alarm, and it tugged on one of Camille’s golden tresses, and, pulling, it leapt down into a high vest pocket, tugging the end of the lock in after. Then it peeked back out over the verge at the disgruntled lynx.
Camille smiled and whispered, “Tiny brown sparrow, sitting in a tree, scruffy little soul, just like me, would you be an eagle, would you be a hawk-”
“My lady,” said Lord Kelmot, “mayhap you are correct in that this is the second gift, but I would have us search more, for in events dire enough for the Lady of the Mere to speak, one cannot be too cautious.”
Camille sighed, but nodded, and back to the oak they went.
Long did they look-in the hollow and about the base of the oak and in the limbs above, Kelmot and the lynx climbing to do so, ’round the mere and in among the cluster of reeds, and across the sward-yet they found nothing else that seemed to apply to the words spoken by the seer, and all the while the sparrow rode in Camille’s vest pocket, occasionally chirping quietly, its gaze, whenever possible, on the cat. Finally, Camille said, “Lord Kelmot, the staff and the sparrow: I deem they are the gifts, for there is nought else here.”
Kelmot sighed, but nodded in agreement. “Even so, though I know not where is a place east of the sun and west of the moon, I would go with you, but for the words of the Lady of the Mere.”
Camille sighed. “I was going to ask Borel and Celeste and Liaze to accompany me, and when you came to my aid, I would have asked you as well, Lord Kelmot. Yet, ‘Go alone,’ she said, ‘but for one of my gifts.’ ” Camille smiled down at the sparrow. Its tiny brown eyes peered into her eyes of blue. “ Chpp! ”
“Scruffy little soul, will you go with me?”
“ Chpp! ”
She laughed and turned to Kelmot.
“It appears I have a companion, though I know not where to go.” Camille frowned and then said, “Tell me, Lord Kelmot: would anyone in the Forests of the Seasons know where this place east of the sun and west of the moon might be?”
Kelmot shrugged. “Mayhap, yet I know not who.”
“What of Witch Hradian or Wizard Caldor or Seer Malgen? Would they not know?”
“Oh, Lady Camille, there is that about each of them I do not trust, and I would not like to place the fate of Prince Alain into the hands of any one of the three, for they might lead you astray.”
“Why so?”
“Hradian strikes me as false in some manner, my lady, she with her sly eyes. Malgen seems quite unsound.
