The wolf bent its head and gently lowered Susan down next to the well, though she still felt the impact. It then drank briefly, backed up a few paces, and lay down, turning its head to lick the area around the sword, while being careful to not actually touch the weapon.
Susan wriggled and rolled a bit farther away to a softer patch of ground and tested the cord around her wrists. She felt part of it give way, possibly enough to squeeze one hand free, but the wolf also stopped licking its wound and looked at her. Susan lay still, and waited until it went back to its business before trying the cord again, this time more surreptitiously.
A male blackbird started a hopeful warble from a tree nearby, but there were no human noises. The ancient wood was as it had been for centuries, unspoiled by people, those who had lined the natural spring with stones long since vanished, and the way to it forgotten by all but the creatures of the Old World. There were people living within three miles of the wood, but no footpath or trail came near the dell, and even those who had walked in the forest all their lives would be astounded to hear of the existence of the well in the dell.
Susan was trying to ease her left hand up and out of the binding cord when the waters of the well began to froth and bubble. She heard it first, and had to roll on her side to see what was happening.
The waters of the spring were flowing over the rocks that lined the edges, and the surface was beaten to a froth, as if a fierce wind were blowing across the well. But there was no wind, the dell was as placid as ever, the surrounding trees quiet, leaves undisturbed. Sunshine was creeping in from the rising sun, banishing shadow. It looked like it was going to be a beautiful day, at least as far as the weather was concerned.
A hand of transparent, swirling water reached out from the well and gripped a stone, narrow fingers flexing, long nails of white froth digging deep. This was followed by another hand, there was a moment of scrabbling for a grip, and a woman of water emerged to stand at the edge of the well. She was near transparent, clear water swirling and eddying from toes to head. But her eyes were black and rusty like the spots on a brown trout, her mouth was two lines of green pondweed, and her hair looked like a wig, a mass of blue-green rushes that sat unsteadily atop all the swirling water.
Susan lay quiet, and looked from the water woman to the wolf. The latter whined pleadingly and lowered its head in submission.
“What brings the Fenris of Onundar Myrr to my well, with so strange a burden?” asked the woman, glancing at Susan. Her voice was ageless, soft and liquid, but somehow distant, as if it came from all around, not from her pondweed lips, which hardly moved at all. A minnow slid from her mouth as she spoke. She caught it on her palm, the fish splashing into her hand to swim away up the inside of her arm.
The wolf whined again.
The water woman left the well and traipsed across the turf, leaving not so much muddy footprints as a muddy swath behind her. She walked the length of the wolf, who lay with its snout down in abject misery, and ran one watery hand through the fur along its flank. She came to where the sword projected above the crusted trail of blood, and stopped.
“Sa! Sa! This is star-iron and not to be touched by such as you or I, Fenris. The sword must be withdrawn . . . yet I cannot do it.”
The water woman looked back at Susan as she spoke. Though her face was transparent liquid, and only her eyes and lips had color, Susan thought she saw an expression there. A hint of a lifted eyebrow, though the woman had no eyebrows.
“I’ll take it out,” said Susan. “If you free me.”
The wolf growled, but subsided as the woman touched one watery finger to its enormous snout.
“The Fenris will want to take you up again,” warned the woman.
“I will have the sword, then,” said Susan, though privately she thought this wouldn’t count for much against a monster who must weigh twenty tons. “And it is wounded and weak.”
The wolf growled again, and showed its teeth.
“She,” corrected the woman. “This Fenris is a she-wolf. If the sword is left in the wound, she will . . . in your terms . . . die.”
“I said I’ll take it out. If you untie me.”
“For a mortal you are remarkably unperturbed by my presence,” said the woman. “Or that of the Fenris. Most mortals I have met are greatly frightened, and run screaming, or collapse and gibber.”
“I’m . . . I’m only half mortal,” said Susan. It felt very strange to say that, but she instinctively felt she should not show weakness. A slight tinge of memory made her add, “Besides, I’ve met someone like you before, I think. From the brook at home . . . funny, I always forget, and then I remember, and then I think it was a dream. . . .”
“Half mortal?” asked the woman. “You appear entirely mortal to me. . . .”
She drifted closer, never moving in a straight line, and knelt by Susan’s side. Reaching out with one careful fingertip, she touched Susan’s forehead, leaving a faint wet patch on her skin. “Ah. Some little magic of your own, over animals and suchlike. But the promise of far more to come, perhaps, from your mighty father. But not yet, not yet, Susan.”
“You know my name! And my father? Who is he?”
“A being older and far greater than I,” said the woman, not answering Susan’s question. She looked back at the Fenris. “I know your name as I know the names of all living things about my
