Es with my sword. Jem Alan laughed at me. He had me put out on the back road like a servant. I had twenty years service, Mauritane. Twenty years.'
'I'm sorry for that,' said Mauritane.
Gray Mave's lips drew down in a feeble snarl. 'I had only ten years left before I started my pension.'
He sat up, struggling against the wound in his chest. His shirt was undone, and blood had already soaked through Silverdun's dressings.
'Jem Alan refused me my wages, and the fee for my cottage was due the next day! He told me I should jump on the nearest fishing boat and go back to what Hawthorners do best.'
Gray Mave sniffled. 'But I could not go on a fishing boat. I'm terrified of the water, you see. Every time I go near the sea I have terrible premonitions of death. This Gift of Foresight is no gift to me. It's a curse!' He spat, and what landed on the snow was marbled red.
'So I did the only honorable thing. I made a noose and I stepped into it.'
'And that is when I arrived,' said Mauritane.
'No, no,' said Mave, staring into the fire. 'Much happened between those events.
'I… shuffled out of my body and I rose upward. Up, up, into the sky, like a bird. The air around me grew dark as night and the stars came out. There was something swimming between the stars. Something awful, like a snake made of water, with a dragon's wings! It was hideous, this thing. And then it spoke to me in a woman's voice.
She said I could not go on yet, said that she wanted me to do things. And she said if I did not do them, then I would be sent somewhere… somewhere evil. She showed me the place. I cannot describe it. Like a mouth, a great mouth. With eyes.'
Gray Mave looked at Mauritane and his eyes were glazed and unfocused. 'I agreed,' he said, sobbing again. 'I agreed. Anything to avoid that mouth, those dripping eyes. She said you were coming to find me and that I should go with you. She said that I was to report to her master of our progress, our plans. She said if I gave you over to her master, she would let my spirit ride past the evil place.'
He sniffled. The sound was a quiet roar. 'It was your fault, don't you see? It was your fault to begin with. I said yes. I agreed. And that is how I have betrayed you.'
Mauritane's jaw was set. 'To whom have you betrayed us? Who is the creature's master?'
Mave covered his eyes with his hands. 'He is Hy Pezho, Black Artist of the city of Mab!'
'Traitor!' Mauritane shouted. He drew back his sword and held it over Mave's head.
'Yes. Please,' said Mave. 'Please do it.'
Mauritane hesitated. He looked across the campfire to Raieve, who was beginning to recover from her icthula trance. He thought he saw something in her face like pity. He lowered the weapon, deferring to her better nature.
'I cannot kill you, Mave,' he said. 'You have dishonored yourself, but not of your own accord. Besides, there is nothing to be done about it now. Silverdun tells me you will be dead of your wounds in a few days. Perhaps you can make peace with yourself before then.'
Gray Mave fell backward onto the rocky ledge by the fire and rolled into a fetal position, cradling his bloody chest within his arms.
They rode on, Mauritane holding Mave's reins while Silverdun continued his watch for dangerous shifting places along the road. The sun overhead was bleached white, distant.
Past the river valley, the land grew more level. Mountains appeared in the distance, purple and indistinct.
'Those are the Western Mountains,' said Silverdun. 'We're close. We should be at Sylvan with time to spare.'
Mauritane nodded. He divided his attentions between Gray Mave and Raieve. Mave rode slumped in the saddle, looking as though he might lose consciousness and fall to the ground at any moment. Raieve looked little better, though she did seem to be improving, however slowly. She swayed unsteadily in her seat, a faraway look in her eyes. Every few minutes she looked at Mauritane, her face flashing recognition, then looked away again.
The path they followed skirted the same broad river they'd seen earlier in the day, following its bends across the land. Though the road was more level, the growth of trees and brush became denser and they made no better time than before.
As the sun bent toward the west, something appeared ahead of them, a small figure seated atop a huge spherical boulder at the side of the path. They rode closer and Mauritane could see that it was a young Fae girl, perhaps eleven or twelve years of age. She was sitting on the rock with her legs drawn up to her chest, her arms wrapped tightly around them. She wore loose-fitting garments of a pliable, smooth fabric: a pair of long blue breeches fell to her feet, holes torn in the knees, and her cloak was shiny and puffy, like a burgundy cloud.
She spoke a greeting to them in a language unfamiliar to Mauritane's ears, waving shyly in their direction. When they were nearly upon her, she stepped down off of the rock and stood in the road. She spoke again, the same greeting. From here, Mauritane could see that the tips of her ears were badly injured; on either side of her head were tight-fitting bandages soaked through with blood, and the high points of the ears were missing entirely; they stopped well below the top of her head.
To Mauritane's surprise, Satterly started and rode forward, speaking in what appeared to be the same tongue. The girl laughed, said something back. The two of them held a brief, rapid conversation, smiling and pointing both at the other riders and down a narrow trail that angled from the main path into the woods.
'This is amazing,' Satterly finally said, turning away from the girl. 'She's human,' he laughed. 'And she's not alone. There's a settlement…'
Satterly was cut off by the sound of several resolute clicks that emanated from the brush.
'Don't move!' a voice bellowed in halting Common. Three human men stepped from the brush, dressed in a similar fashion as the girl, who now ran away giggling down the path. The men carried weapons of some kind, long metal tubes affixed to bases that resembled the wooden stocks of crossbows. 'These weapons spit fire!' shouted one of the men, again in Common Fae. 'So beware!' He was tall and lean, with a thin red beard and long hair tied back in a ponytail.
Satterly spoke out again in the human tongue. It was fast and incomprehensible, slurred syllables that ran into one another making each sentence sound like a single improbable word. The man responded with a lengthy tirade, pointing toward the Fae members of the party with a dark look on his face.
Satterly swallowed. He turned to Mauritane and said, 'He says his name is Jim Broward, that we're all under arrest, and that you'd all better say your prayers.'
Chapter 25
Hy Pezho was enjoying tea in his new accommodations when the second sprite arrived. The tiny creature buzzed in through the thick damask drapes, drawing a line of sunshine across the splayed antique Thule rugs on the wooden floor. Hy Pezho's sitting room looked out over the violet hangings of the Royal Complex. From where he sat waiting for the sprite, he surveyed one of the most desirable fore views in the entire city, second only, perhaps, to Mab's. It was a fine thing.
'A message I have,' sang the sprite, when it was in speaking range. It continued singing, off key, 'a message I have for Hy Pezho! For Hy Pezho- that's the person who gets this note! A message, a message, it's my job to deliver it. Hey, Hy Pezho, don't say no!' The sprite finished its song with a tiny flourish, landing on the huge oak table in front of Hy Pezho. A bowl of fruit sat on the table; the sprite did a back flip onto a pear and sat.
Hy Pezho looked around carefully, then leaned toward the sprite. 'Speak,' he said.
'This message is full of names and dates and things. I should probably have some of that tea to settle my little brain first.'
Hy Pezho reached into a pocket in his tunic and pulled out the tiny dried body of the first sprite the Awakened One had sent. He tossed the remains on the table.
'Ay-yi-yi!' said the sprite. 'Looks like she got on your bad side. What did she do?'
