“Of course, Princess,” he agreed gloomily. “Of course I trust you.”
It didn’t sound like he did, but she decided to let matters be. For one thing, his momentary fright had stopped him from talking. The relief she felt from that alone was a blessing.
The wood sprite fell into step beside her without speaking, did not glance at her or make any attempt at an acknowledgment. Within half a dozen paces, he had moved ahead of her and was leading the way. Mistaya followed dutifully, knowing that when you came into the country of the fairy-born, you required a guide to find their city. Without a guide, you would wander the woods indefinitely—or at least until something that was big and hungry found you. Even if you knew the way—or thought you did—you would not be able to reach your destination unaided. There was magic at work in the lake country, a warding of the land and its inhabitants, and you needed help in getting past it.
They walked for another hour, the forest around them darkening steadily with the coming of twilight and a further thickening of the trees. The look of the land changed as they descended into swampy lowlands filled with pools of mist and stretches of murky water. They walked a land bridge that barely kept them clear of this, one that was narrow and twisting and at times almost impossible to discern. Their guide kept them safely on dry ground, but all around them the swamp encroached. Creatures moved through the mist, their features vague and shimmering. Some were unidentifiable; some were almost human. Some emerged from the murk to dance atop the water’s surface. Others dove and surfaced like fish. Ephemeral and quicksilver, they had the appearance of visions imagined and lost.
Mistaya could feel the fear radiating off her companions.
“Everything is fine,” she reassured them quietly. “Don’t worry.”
More of the wood sprites appeared, falling into place about them until they were thoroughly hemmed in. Poggwydd and Shoopdiesel were practically hugging each other as they walked, the latter making little hiccuping noises. But the sprites were there to keep them safe, Mistaya knew—there to see that they did not stray from the path and become lost in the tangle of the woods and swamp. Some of the denizens of this land would lead them astray in a heartbeat if the opportunity presented itself. Sprites, naiads, kelpies, pixies, nymphs, elementals, and others for which there were no recognizable names—they were mischievous and sometimes deadly. Humans were less able in this world, more vulnerable to temptation and foolish impulse. Humans were playthings for the fairy-born.
Nor were these the most dangerous of such creatures. The true fairy-born, the ones who had never left the mists that surrounded Landover, were far more capable of indiscriminate acts of harm. In the mists, there were no recognizable markers at all and a thousand ways to come to a bad end. The fairies of the mist would dispose of you with barely a moment’s thought. No one could go safely into those mists. Not even she, who was born a part of them. Not even her father, who had done so once and almost died there.
But she felt some comfort in being here, in the lake country, rather than in the fairy mists that ringed the kingdom. Here the River Master’s word was law, and no one would dare to harm his granddaughter or her companions. She would be taken to him safely, even through the darkest and murkiest of the woods that warded Elderew. All she needed to do was to follow the path and the guides who had set her on it. All she needed to do was to stay calm.
Even so, she was relieved when they cleared the black pools, gnarled roots, wintry grasses, and mingled couplings of shadows and mist to emerge once more into brightness and open air. The rain had slowed to a drizzle and the skies overhead, visible again through the treetops, had begun to show patches of blue. The fetid smells of the deep forest and the swamp faded as the ground rose and they began to climb out of the lowlands they had been forced to pass through. Ahead were fresh signs of life—figures moving against the backdrop of a forest of huge old oaks and elms that rose hundreds of feet into the air, voices calling out to one another, and banners of bright cloth and garlands of flowers rippling and fluttering on the breeze from where they were interwoven through the tree branches. Water could be heard rushing and gurgling some distance away, and the air was sweet with the scent of pines and hemlocks.
As they reached the end of their climb and passed onto flat ground, they caught their first real glimpse of Elderew. The city of the fairy-born lay sprawled beneath and cradled within the interlocking branches of trees two and three times the size of those they had passed through earlier, giants so massive as to dwarf anything found elsewhere in Landover. Cottages and shops created multiple levels of habitation both upon and above the forest floor, the entrances to the latter connected by intricate tree lanes formed of branches and ramps. The larger part of the city straddled and ran parallel to a network of canals that crisscrossed the entire city beneath the old growth. Water flowed down these canals in steady streams, fed by underground springs and catchments. Screens of mist wafted at the city’s borders and through the higher elevations, a soft filtering of sunlight that created rainbows and strange patterns.
To one side, a vast amphitheater had been carved into the earth with seats formed of grasses and logs. Wildflowers grew at the borders of the arena, and trees ringed the entirety with their branches canopied overhead to form a living roof.
Poggwydd gasped and stared, wide-eyed and for
