And Caldor is a pretentious ass, perhaps a mountebank. In fact all three could be such. If so, any or all would send you astray, and a year and a day and a whole moon beyond would find you at no good end.”
Camille nodded, for Kelmot’s opinions as to the nature of these three magi echoed her own. “Tell me, my lord, which way lies Autumnwood?”
“Yon,” replied the Lynx Rider, pointing. “But I thought you were not now going to ask Prince Alain’s kith for-”
“I’m not,” said Camille. “If none of the siblings are to accompany me, then that means I should not go into the Autumnwood, Winterwood, or Springwood, for surely Alain and Lanval and Blanche and the remainder of the staff would not have vanished into any of those three demesnes, for if they had, then Borel or Celeste or Liaze would make certain that all could return to the Summerwood. Hence, I shall go the opposite way, for surely a place east of the sun and west of the moon must lie elsewhere. Besides, if I went therein, Liaze and Celeste and Borel would insist on coming with me, and as you know-”
“-You must go alone,” said Kelmot. “Even so, by the same reasoning, Lady Camille, I can lead you to the far marge of the Summerwood and by the swiftest ways, for surely Prince Alain and his staff are not within these bounds either, but somewhere deeper in Faery beyond.”
“In Faery?”
Kelmot nodded. “Indeed, for I ween that nowhere in the mortal world could there be a place lying east of the sun and west of the moon.”
A faint smile crossed Camille’s face. “Only in Faery, indeed.” Camille took up her kit and the staff. “Let us be gone, then.”
And together they went, the Lynx Rider on his cat, Camille striding at his side, with a sparrow in her upper vest pocket.
A day and a half later-“Shall we press on, Scruff?”
“ Chpp. ”
“Au revoir, Lord Kelmot,” said Camille.
“Be safe, my lady,” he replied. “And this I advise: ask the traders, the travellers, the merchants, the mapmakers, and the elders in particular, for they are most likely to know where such a place might be. Go with my benediction: may you find that which you seek.”
Camille nodded, and, gripping the garland-carved stave in hand, she stepped through the wall of twilight and into another realm of Faery beyond.
Dennis L. McKiernan
Once Upon a Winter's Night
19
Grass: hip-deep, thick-stalked, jointed, and green, with nodding heads of seeds. Camille had stepped through the twilight border to come into a vast sea of such, stretching away toward snowcapped mountains in the distance afar. To left and right the verdant plain extended to the horizon and beyond. Far off to the right as well, dark clouds rose into the sky, building in the afternoon warmth.
Now that the lynx was beyond the twilight, flapping and scrambling, one wing held awkwardly, the sparrow managed to clamber out from Camille’s vest pocket and to her shoulder.
Camille glanced at him sidelong. “What do you think, Scruff? Left? Right? Straight?”
“ Chp. ” The sparrow cocked his head and peeked ’round her chin to look into her eye.
Camille grinned. “Ah, but you are no help. For me, I think we’ll go straight ahead, for to the left I see nought but grass forever, and to the right I deem a storm is brewing. Aye, straight ahead we’ll go; perhaps if foothills lie along the mountains, we can climb a tall one and be high enough to see some sort of town or farm or the like, if one is nigh, a place where we can ask directions.”
And so she set out toward the mountains, travelling generally westward, she thought, yet in Faery, in spite of the moon and sun and stars, none could be sure of directions, or so she had been told by her pere, though how he would know, she could not say.
Across the early afternoon she walked, trudging- swish, swash — through the heavy grass, her rucksack and bedroll and waterskin slung, her festooned stave barely aiding. At times she came to hidden swales, dips in the land, and down she would go into the dint, where the plants were taller than she. It was difficult travel, for the grass did sorely impede, dragging against her as it did, slowing her considerably.
Of a sudden in midafternoon, “ Chp! ” chirped the sparrow, and, pulling on a lock of Camille’s hair, down into the high vest pocket he fluttered, where he chattered frantically and tugged on her tress.
“What is it, Scruff? What is the matter?” Camille looked all ’round, yet she saw nought but empty plain. But then a shadow glided across the tall grass, and she glanced up to espy a red-tailed raptor soaring in the sky above, sweeping to and fro in a hunting pattern.
“Ah, I see. First a lynx and now a hawk. Perils dire, eh, Scruff?”
Yet she received no answer from the sparrow, the wee bird silent and hiding in a pocketful of golden hair now that the hunter was near.
“Peril to you, indeed, Scruff, but peril to me?… I think not,” said Camille, smiling, as she strode onward.
Suddenly, the hawk stooped, its wings folded, only the tips guiding, and just ere striking the grass, it flared. Camille continued to watch as she walked onward, and sometime later, up struggled the raptor, and in its talons it bore the remains of an animal-rabbit, marmot, or what, Camille could not say. “Well, Scruff, there is life herein after all-hawks and small game though it be.”
When the raptor could no longer be seen, once again Scruff scrambled to Camille’s shoulder, as across the plain she went.
In the far distance to her right-north, she thought-the dark clouds now towered into the sky, and lightning stroked the ground and flashed from cloud to cloud, at times illuminating the darkness from within. Distant thunder rolled across the grass, a mere grumble from afar. And rain fell down in long grey streaks, like wind-driven brooms sweeping o’er an endless plain.
“Oh, Scruff, let us hope the storm does not come this way to drop its bounty on us, for there is no shelter for as far as the eye can see.”
But Scruff made no comment, and Camille pressed forward, glancing now and again at the remote storm, too far away to be of immediate concern. Too, it seemed to be moving away, or so Camille hoped-northward, she believed.
On she went and on, the mountains seeming no closer, and when the sun stood in late afternoon, regardless of the distant storm, she stopped awhile to rest and to take a meal, stamping down the grass all ’round to make a space to sit. Then she plopped down and set the sparrow to the ground beside her.
“Some nest, eh, Scruff?” she asked, as she rummaged through the rucksack for hardtack and jerky. But the sparrow was busily nipping seeds from the felled grass, and pursuing an insect or two, and he answered not.
As she ate, Camille wondered if only hawks and small game and insects dwelled in this grassland, for she and the sparrow had so far seen nothing otherwise. And there was no smoke on the horizon to indicate a dwelling or community.
Time passed, and Camille fetched a cup from her rucksack and filled it with water. After she had drunk, she again filled the cup, but this time she offered it to Scruff. The sparrow hopped to the rim and dipped in his beak and raised his head to swallow, then did so again and again until his thirst was quenched, then he hopped into the cup itself and fluttered and flounced in the water. Laughing, Camille said, “Oh, Scruff, I suppose I’ll not drink from that vessel again, at least not until it is washed. Yet I know how you feel, my sparrow, for would that I, too, had a bath. But I couldn’t very well bathe in front of Lord Kelmot, now could I? Nor you in front of his lynx. And since you and I have been on our own in this land of grass, we’ve not come across a stream or pool. Mayhap we’ll find one when we reach the foothills, or the mountains beyond.”
The sparrow hopped out from the cup and fluttered and shook, though awkwardly with its injured wing.
