Chevalier! Exactly so.”
Celeste frowned and said, “But I don’t understand.” Roel smiled. “The last line of the riddle asks, ‘Can you give me this thing’s name?’ That question can be answered with a yes or a no. The name itself is not the riddle, but the question at the end is.” He turned to Urd and added, “But my true answer, Lady Doom, is, ‘Yes, I can give you the name.’ ”
“But you don’t have to,” said Urd, still grinning.
Frustrated, Celeste said, “Oh, Roel, tell me. Please, I want to kn- Oh, it’s a river, isn’t it?” Roel broke out in laughter. “Oui, cherie. River it is.” Urd squinted an eye and pointed a knobby finger at Celeste and said, “And you think you are not good with riddles? My dear, you have answered all three: mine, Verdandi’s, and Skuld’s.”
“But I didn’t say ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ to the question,” said Celeste. “Instead I spoke the name; hence did I or did I not answer the riddle?”
Urd smiled somewhat enigmatically and said, “Give it some thought, my dear.” She glanced at the sky and said, 244 / DENNIS L. MCKIERNAN
“But now we have little time left, and I have come here to provide you aid.”
Roel sighed. “A puzzling rede, Lady Doom?”
“That, and a vision and a gift,” answered Urd.
“A vision?”
“Oui. But first the rede.”
And as the thud of batten and the clack of shuttle swelled, Urd glanced along the duskwise crossroad and intoned:
“Shift to a different trail?” protested Roel. “But we are just two twilight borders from-”
“Hush!” snapped Urd, glancing at the diminishing dusk, growing darker with the onrush of night. “There is no time for this tomfoolery. Instead, step closer and. .
see.”
With nought but a whispered word, a dark basin appeared in her hands, and it was filled with an ebon liquid. Celeste and Roel moved to stand before her.
“Peer into my farseeing mirror,” said Urd.
The princess and her knight looked into the blackness, yet only glittering reflections of emergent stars above did they see.
“Lady Doom,” said Roel, “there is nought to-” Ripples disturbed the surface, the reflected stars dancing in the flux.
“I said hush, Chevalier. Now both of you, clear your minds.”
Again Roel stared within the basin, and slowly an image began to form. It was. . it was. . two figures. .
two men. Gradually they came into focus. Roel gasped, then whispered, “Laurent. Blaise.” The likenesses wavered and began to fade, and Roel clamped his lips shut and stilled his breathing.
With his silence the images strengthened, and Roel saw that they had grimaces on their faces and they were drawing their swords, as if readying for battle, yet to Celeste it seemed they were smiling and sheathing their swords, as of a battle finished.
Of a sudden the likenesses vanished, as did the basin, and Urd looked again at the darkening dusk, for night was nearly upon them.
“Here,” she said, “you will need this,” and she held forth her hand to Celeste, something gripped within.
The princess reached out, and Urd dropped the gift into Celeste’s palm, and as the sound of looms swelled Urd said, “I will tell you one more thing, and it is this: left is right, but right a mistake; you will fail if the wrong path you take.”
And now the rack of shuttle and the thump of batten surged in crescendo. . and then vanished altogether, as did Lady Doom.
The dusk disappeared as well, for night had fully fallen.
Staring in bafflement, Celeste peered through the wan starlight at the gift Urd had given.
It was an obsidian spool of shadowy thread.
30
Choices
Roel slammed a fist into palm. “Shift to a different trail? But we are so close-just two borders to cross-and there are but eight days left before Avelaine will be lost forever. We simply must rescue her ere then.” Celeste reached out and took Roel’s hand and unclenched his fist and smoothed his fingers. “Cheri, we must follow Lady Doom’s counsel. If we do not, we will fail.”
Roel sighed and nodded. “It’s just that. .” His words trailed off.
“I know, my love. I know. We’ve come to an unexpected crossroads. Yet the Sisters see what might be, what is passing, and what is nevermore, and so we need to heed their guidance.”
Roel shook his head and then softly intoned:
After long moments of silence, Roel said, “I wonder what this gray arrow is?”
Celeste shrugged. “Whatever it is, and whatever it is to be used for, we will not succeed without it, and Urd did say that we needed to fetch it. Hence, we must find it.”
Roel nodded. “I note that when she told us to shift to a different trail, Urd glanced along the road in the direction you name ‘duskwise,’ and ‘sundownward’-a bearing I would call ‘west’-and she did tell us to take the sinister path; and certainly toward sundown is the leftward way from where we stand-here on what I would name the south side of the road-and we stood here when she said it. What does the map say lies in that direction? And will it take us to the Changeling realm in time?”
“Let us make camp, and then we will look,” said Celeste.
And so they unladed the geldings and unsaddled the mares and curried and watered and fed them, and they laid out their bedrolls and made a small fire from scrub and an armful of branches gathered from a nearby thicket.
As they ate, Celeste unfolded the map, and by lantern light and firelight she traced out a path duskward to reach a boundary crossing. “Hmm. . here is what we are to look for at the crossing itself, yet somewhat after the crossing, on a duskward bearing, it is marked
She showed the chart to Roel, and he shrugged and said, “I haven’t the slightest notion either. But look, if we keep going sinister, the next crossing after is very close.”
Celeste stared at the map and blew out an exasperated breath and said, “And just beyond that crossing the chart is marked
“Elven realm?”
“Where live Elves,” said Celeste.
“Under the hills, you mean?”
Celeste laughed. “Roel, in Faery some Elves do live under the hills, but others dwell as do we.”
“I see,” said Roel. “In the mortal realm, though, ’tis said Elves betimes are seen abroad, but for the most they remain under the hills.”
“A strange notion,” said Celeste. “Still, I wonder about the marking:
Roel peered at the map. “Perhaps it refers to an Elven realm as you have guessed, cherie, but what about the
