“Your very presence would keep the men’s spirits up,” said Camille.
“List,” said Liaze, “by riding in haste after the faire is done, we will be at our manors the very next day, all but Camille and Duran and their escort, for of needs they must go at a pace the young prince can withstand. And though I would rather be at my manor with Luc, lending moral support if nought else, there’s little we can do.”
Alain turned to Valeray. “Sire, can we not forgo the final ceremonies here at the faire?”
Valeray frowned and looked at Saissa, and she said, “I think it important we show we are steadfast and let things go on as usual, rather than rushing off as if panic-stricken.”
“Yet, Maman,” said Alain, “if we do nought, then won’t the people think we dillydally in the face of danger?”
“Ah, but we are not doing nought, for already the call has gone out for recruits. Too, the Sprites are flying and bearing the news, and Luc, Roel, Laurent, and Blaise are even now at the manors making ready for a possible war.”
Saissa turned to Valeray, and he added, “Surely Orbane, even if set free this very day, cannot assemble his armies of old in less than several fortnights at best. Non, my sons and daughters, it is as your mother says: we need to show our loyal subjects that we are calm and in control, hence all should be present at the closing mark.”
Again Borel growled in frustration, while Alain took in a deep breath and blew it out. Celeste and Liaze sighed in resigned acceptance, and thus was the matter once again decided.
“Still, there is something we can do,” said Camille, “and that is to try to puzzle out the meanings of these redes. If we succeed, then it should gain us considerable advantage, else the Sisters would not have told them to Laurent, Blaise, and Roel.”
Sieur Emile turned to Valeray. “Why those three? I thought only your get received messages from the Fates. So why have they spoken to my sons, rather than to your children?” Valeray turned up his hands in puzzlement, but Saissa said,
“The Three Sisters have appeared before others, large gatherings for one, so choosing your sons seems no odd event.”
“Yet,” said Camille, “in every case where they did so, one or more of your children were present, Lady Saissa.”
“You were alone when they appeared to you, Camille,” said Valeray.
“Oui, but I came upon them along the shores of the River of Time, where it is said they dwell. -Oh, no, not quite true, for Skuld in her guise of Lady Sorciere, the Lady of the Mere, came to me ere I set out on the quest to find Alain.”
“Yet that was on the estate of Summerwood Manor,” said Alain. “Mayhap that’s why she appeared.”
“Argh!” growled Borel. “Who knows the ways of the Fates?
Not I, my friends, not I.”
A silence fell among them, and then Liaze peered at Luc’s message now in hand and said, “What I’d like to know is the significance of the Reaper’s words. ‘My Lord, I will come when the time is right.’ That’s what he said to Luc.” Liaze turned to Valeray. “Papa, do you know ought of what this means, and do these words carry special import?”
Valeray shrugged. “All I know is in the last war with Orbane, there were reports Moissonneur seemed to be waiting for some special event, yet what that might have been, or this time might be, I cannot say, and he has never spoken ought of it.”
“Hmph,” grunted Borel. “Mayhap the next time I gut and spit conies for him I’ll ask. -But for me, it’s what Skuld said in the Winterwood that gives me pause.
“Those words have sent something skittering about in my mind, yet I cannot catch hold of it.”
Borel glanced at Celeste and she turned up a hand and shrugged. Then she said, “Urd’s rede to my Roel is the most mysterious of all, I think:
“I wonder just what that might mean.”
None had an answer for Celeste.
“You know the most dreadful things said by the three Fates?” asked Liaze. “It was their parting words.”
Liaze turned to Borel and he looked at the message he held.
“Skuld said to Laurent, ‘If you do not give this message to the one for whom it is intended, then all will be lost forever.’ ” Liaze then looked at Alain and he peered at his missive.
“Verdandi told Blaise, ‘Heed my rede, all of it, and make certain you do not send word prematurely, else the world will be fallen to ruin.’ ”
Liaze then looked at Celeste, and she glanced at her message. “Urd said, ‘If you do not solve this rede, Roel, then all as we now know it to be will come to a horrible end.’ ”
“Oh my,” said Simone, and she peered ’round the table from face to face to see nought but grim visages looking back.
Dragonflight
In the light of a waxing crescent moon, Ziv popped from icicle to frozen pond to ice-clad limb to-
The Ice Sprite sensed in the distance afar a great frozen mass, more than he had ever felt before.
Of a sudden he was there. How far he had flashed, he had no notion, and he found himself in a vast conglomeration of ice.
Its mass was nearly beyond his comprehension.
Ziv was far from his home and well into his mission of spreading the warning to all who could understand his unspoken language: the shaman of the snow-dwellers; the sages of the reindeer herders; the wise women of the seal- and whale-hunters; the ice-talkers of the high-mountain dwellers; others.
Too, he looked for Raseri, for Rondalo, for Lady Chemine. Yet he thought they wouldn’t be found in the icy reaches where Sprites of his kind travelled.
But even as he rejected his chances, he saw a great winged shape slide across the arc of the sinking moon and toward one of the peaks. Could it be the Drake he sought? Dark and ruddy it seemed, with splashes of ebon blackness glittering here and there among its deep crimson scales. Its vast leathery wings were stretched out wide as it turned through the air as if to come to a landing on that particular mountain crest.
Ziv threw his senses toward the apex, seeking ice thereon.
. .
“Ha!” roared Raseri as he glided toward the rocky pinnacle.
“That was a pleasure, eh?”
Rondalo lifted an eyebrow. “Pleasure? My friend, your ideas of pleasure are somewhat strange. Exciting, oui, but pleasure?” He shifted his spear onto his back by its sling. “Methinks in the future, should we encounter another Giant, ’twould be best not to set his hair on fire.”
The Dragon laughed. “Did you see how clumsily he cast boulders at us?”
“Had he better aim,” said the Elf, “we would now be in his cook pot.”
“Where is your sense of adventure, Rondalo?”
“Adventure is one thing; foolhardiness another.”
“Pah,” snorted Raseri as he spiralled down toward the snowy crag. “What about the time you set an entire aerie of Great Eagles ’pon us? I suppose that was adventure and not folly.”
“But you yourself agreed we needed a tail feather.”
“Oui, but I was going to politely ask, rather than jerk one out and run.”
Both Rondalo and Raseri roared in laughter, and the Drake came to a landing atop the crest, where the Elf
