Snubbing and snukking, the girl looked through nearly black, tear-filled eyes at Liaze and said, “Thank you for the cloak, madame, but I am crying for I know not the answer to a riddle.”
“A riddle?” said Liaze.
The child pulled Liaze’s head close and murmured in her ear: “Feed me and I live; give me a drink and I die.”
“Are you hungry?” asked Liaze.
The girl looked at Gwyd and then at Twk on Jester, and she managed a smile. “Non, madame,” she whispered. “That is the riddle, you see.”
“Ah,” said Liaze. She frowned in thought for a moment, and then brightened and said, “The answer to that riddle is ‘Fire.’ ”
Of a sudden a darkness enveloped the child, and the girl grew, and Gwyd gasped and Twk cried out in surprise, while Liaze stepped hindward and drew her long-knife.
And the darkness vanished, and now before the trio stood a toothless crone with black eyes. She wore a dark, shapeless robe, and she cackled in glee.
And there came to Liaze’s ears the sound of looms weaving.
Liaze sheathed her blade and bowed and said, “Lady Doom.”
“Doom?” squeaked Twk. “Lady Doom?”
“Urd,” said Gwyd, bowing.
“Heh! Fooled you, did I?” The crone gaped a gummy grin.
Liaze nodded and said, “As did your sisters, Lady Urd.”
“Well, ye have given me your cloak, but I return it,” said Urd, holding out the garment to Liaze.
As Liaze donned the cloak, Urd said, “I have come to give you a message.”
Liaze nodded. “I would have whatever aid you can give.”
“Heh, it’s in the form of a rede,” said Urd.
Twk groaned, and Gwyd sighed mournfully, but Liaze nodded.
Urd shook a knobby finger at the Brownie and the Pixie on Jester and said, “If you three keep your wits about you, you can aid.”
“Three?” said Twk. “Jester, too?”
Urd cackled and glanced at the dimming twilight, then turned to Liaze and, as the sound of weaving looms grew louder, said:
Precious steps will get ye there,
As up black glass ye steeply fare,
Do not dismount as ye try,
Else by fire ye will surely die.
On the flat ye can set foot,
But nowhere else do place y’r boot.
Remember war; loose the cry,
So ye and y’r love will not die.
Urd then cackled and turned to Gwyd and Twk and Jester. “I hear you have treasure.”
“A-aye, Lady Urd,” said Gwyd. “Would ye hae some o’ the coin we took fra the Trolls and Goblins?”
“Pah, what good is gold or silver to me?” the crone asked. She turned to Twk and said, “And I hear that you and your rooster disturb folks at night. Heh!”
“Oui, Lady Doom. W-would you have me stop?”
“Heh! No. It’s a fine thing that you have done in training y’r chicken to crow on command in the dark.” Again Lady Urd cackled in glee, and then she glanced once more at the vanishing dusk, and the sound of looms swelled and Lady Doom disappeared, leaving only the sigh of chill wind behind as full night fell o’er the land.
“Are the Fates somehow entwined with your family, Princess?” asked Twk.
Liaze took in a deep breath and let it out. “It would seem so.”
“J’st as are entwined these witches ye told me about,” said Gwyd.
Liaze nodded. “Hradian, Rhensibe, Iniqui, and Nefasi.”
“Rhensibe is the dead one, oui?” asked Twk.
“Oui,” replied Liaze. “And I wish they were all very much dead.-Come, let us ride.”
“What about the rede we just heard?” asked Twk.
“We’ll deal with that as we go, for there is no time to lose.”
On toward the mountain they fared, puzzling over Lady Doom’s rede, yet they only knew that it had to do with getting to the top of the black mountain to reach Luc, and little else. Oh, they did understand that none of them were to set foot on the dark slopes, for should they do so, then somehow, according to Lady Urd, they would die by fire.
As they rode onward, the sky clouded over; there would be no stars this night. Liaze lit a lantern, and on they fared.
By dead reckoning, they reached the base of the black mountain with but a candlemark or so to spare, and Liaze wept in relief as she looked at the conical slopes leading up to a flat-topped crest.
“Ah, lass, ye weep out o’ gladness that we made it,” said Gwyd, “but now ye hae t’get t’the top.”
“I’ll ride Nightshade up,” said Liaze.
“Och, Princess,” said the Brownie, “that be no easy task.”
“Your meaning?”
“See how the sides o’ the mountain gleam in the lantern light? Now we ken why Lady Doom said, ‘Precious steps will get ye there, / As up black glass ye steeply fare.’ Princess, this be obsidian; it be up a glass mountain ye would ride.”
36
Liaze dismounted from Pied Agile, and Gwyd jumped to the ground from Nightshade. Twk wakened Jester and mounted the wee saddle, and the rooster fluttered to the ground. Untying the tethers, Liaze said, “Glass mountain or no, we cannot delay. I will ride to the top and awaken Luc.”
“What if you cannot rouse him?” asked Twk.
Liaze looked at Gwyd. “If I cannot awaken him, will the life-giving elixir aid?”
“Aye, it should, but if he be in an enchanted sleep, ye’ll hae t’go slow, else he’ll strangle.”
“How much should I give him?”
“A sip should do,” replied Gwyd, “a spoonful or so.”
Liaze slipped the decanter of elixir into the stallion’s saddlebags.
“Oh, Princess,” said Twk, “will you be safe?”
“As long as I do not step on the slopes, or so Urd implied.”
“And what about Nightshade?” asked the Pixie. “He will be setting foot upon the mountain; will he be safe?”
“Remember the rede, Twk. Urd said ‘Do not dismount as ye try,’ ” said Gwyd, now lighting a second lantern.
“Ah, I see,” said Twk. “The princess has to ride to the top, else Lady Doom would not have told her to not dismount. Horse steps: those are the ‘precious steps’ of her rede.”
At these words, Gwyd fell into reflection, as if trying to catch an elusive thought.
Liaze checked her bow and quiver, and she took up her lantern and mounted Nightshade and set off up the slope of the obsidian mountain, glass chips flying in his wake. And even as the stallion clattered up the slant, now and again a hoof slipped, but the steed fared on.
Up he went and up, his breath blowing white in the air upon the frigid black mountain, Liaze urging the stallion higher, and still his shod hooves skittered now and again.
