As if on cue, they both stared at the hearth. Not long ago she had felt as if someone were watching her right from the blazing fire and from every inch of ground and log wall and every pile, but that was impossible. Some super-powerful being cannot envelop the entire space around them with its power. It cant be everywhere, like God himself. It cant see and feel everything, and braid itself around every millimeter of air around them, and not burn in the flames. No one is capable of lurking in a burning hearth and peeking at everyone from there. No one can suppress the will of all powerful mages by their proximity alone. No one can be everywhere at once. Such a creature simply does not exist. But what if there is? After all, she could feel it. Unless it was a hallucination someone else had sent her. Such a game could have been a good thing, after all, to gain her trust. A lot of sorcerers do that they send a person visions or premonitions on purpose, and then they sit down with him and pretend that they also went through such a thing. Its a clever kind of scam. Rhianon had seen it before, and it wasnt hard for her to figure out the trickster. When you know all the mages tricks, you can somehow parry them. She had learned too much when she had spied on wizards in the palace, including how to instill some sort of fear in a person that benefited you. But there was something else here. Her interlocutor wasnt just trying to instill fear in her, he was afraid himself. She could sense that for sure.
He stared warily at the fire for a minute, then at the wine glass as if he could see dancing fairies in the liquid. He thought long and hard about something, his thin eyebrows furrowed at the bridge of his nose, he even bit his lips with sharp incisors, and then suddenly his eyes sparkled again, joyfully and mischievously.
«Ive got it!» At last he exclaimed. «There is a place here. Well, more or less safe. Anyway, if theres anywhere you can do tricks without worrying, its there.»
He must have meant forbidden «tricks,» so called magic tricks, which not everyone is allowed to do. She didnt care. She was wary of something else. He had been so good at bringing it all up in that «one place». She wondered if he was going to trap her. Sometimes spirits do that to too trusting travelers. And often theyre not spirits at all. She didnt want to end up in an outlaws den, or in some backwoods tract where evil spirits ran wild. And shed heard tales of mortals being enchanted at such secret nocturnal gatherings.
«What is this place?» She wondered.
«Oh,» he smiled slyly. «Its in the middle of nowhere, and no one can get there but us. I mean, no one but me, even if they wanted to, could find their way there, and Im inviting you along.»
«Thats very kind, but I wont go,» she moved his glass and bottle away from the mysterious gold glittering on the table, as if to say that she didnt need it.
«I think well go,» he leaned over the table and grasped her hand with his skeleton palm, as thin and dry as a skeleton. And how strong those withered fingers were.
She flinched, but he immediately loosened his grip. He didnt hurry to drag her, but pointed with his free hand toward something far away, where just outside the window she could hear the snorting of approaching horses and the shouting of horsemen. Someone had come at night, and these men, who looked like palace guards, were in a hurry.
«It would be better for you to spend the night where they cant find you,» the man continued in a lazy tone. «Unless, of course, youd rather spend time with them»
He was evidently sure that she wouldnt. Rhianon emptied her refilled glass in a gulp. It was a pity she wasnt getting drunk. She would need it now. She glanced once more at the commotion outside the window, recognized some of the faces, and pulled the brim of her hat down over her face.
«How are we going to get past them?» She whispered to her companion.
«Do you trust me, then?» He shook off his mottled coat and put out a long dry hand to her as if he were calling her to go with him into a forbidden realm.
«I dont trust you,» she pondered for only a few seconds. «But Id like to believe in luck.»
His eyes lit up with an understanding fire.
Brocade and Flame
He led her to a strange place. Not that it was strange because of its appearance. Just no, it was the same driftwood, moss underfoot, and thin streams covered with fallen leaves. Nothing was drastically different from other thickets, ravines, or glades in the forest. Even the hollows in the trunks were the same as everywhere else, and yet there was something special, heavy and pressing, as if it came from the bowels of the earth. It was only here, nowhere else in the forest.
«We have farther to go», the guide reminded her.
Rhianon nodded and walked on. The view was the same, the trees and stumps all around, and yet something was wrong.
Rhianon felt strangely excited. Fire was about to burst from her nostrils again.
«Come on, little henchman, its freezing in the autumn.»
«What do you mean?» The strange escort seemed to read her mind, and she didnt like it. She never understood how hed managed to get her out of the tavern without the new arrivals noticing, but he had. No one realized it was her, the one they were looking for, no one noticed that they had left at all, and Rhianon was willing to bet that the owner of the tavern was extremely surprised when he realized he was demanding payment from a table that was already empty and not from those he thought had just been seated there. Well, from that one could conclude that casual acquaintances could sometimes be useful. At the very least, it was worth chatting with from time to time, or rather, once you got into special trouble, call him. Thats how it looked so far, unless he was leading her to a place far more dangerous than the one he was taking her from. Rhianon was wary. She knew that such tricks were common to all evil spirits. She could do anything with someone who was already in their care, but somehow she felt no danger, only a little unease.
«What do you mean?» The strange escort seemed to read her mind, and she didnt like it. She never understood how hed managed to get her out of the tavern without the new arrivals noticing, but he had. No one realized it was her, the one they were looking for, no one noticed that they had left at all, and Rhianon was willing to bet that the owner of the tavern was extremely surprised when he realized he was demanding payment from a table that was already empty and not from those he thought had just been seated there. Well, from that one could conclude that casual acquaintances could sometimes be useful. At the very least, it was worth chatting with from time to time, or rather, once you got into special trouble, call him. Thats how it looked so far, unless he was leading her to a place far more dangerous than the one he was taking her from. Rhianon was wary. She knew that such tricks were common to all evil spirits. She could do anything with someone who was already in their care, but somehow she felt no danger, only a little unease.
«Come quickly!» A lean, lanky figure beckoned her into the thicket. His robes, more mottled than fall foliage, stood out among the trees, and his pale, luminous hands were the clearest contrast to the darkness. The skinny, long fingers dared not touch Rhianon herself, but gestured to her constantly.
She was cold. She was not accustomed to being cold. The heat lurking within her warmed her, even slightly scalding her in the bitterest of frosts. And now it was only early autumn, and if she counted the days shed spent away from the castle, it was already October. The winter cold has not yet blown, and the forest, covered with a motley carpet of fallen leaves, feels warm and cozy, and she is so cold that she wraps herself in her coat and does not know how to warm her icy hands.
Its all about this patch of woods. Its not like other places. Theres something in the air itself, in the aura, in the circle of falling leaves. Something whispers and hides, and its everywhere.
Out of the corner of her eye she noticed the stirring in the deep hollows in the oaks and the silent flickering of some strange silvery insects on the bare branches, and sometimes there were piles of glowing mushrooms by the stumps. She noticed on the way only mushrooms growing in bunches and whole rings, and if she suddenly came across one that stood alone by the stump, its colorful cap seemed like someones home. Everyone in the villages believed in evil spirits, in elves and fairies, but Rhianon had long ago realized that if there were magic folk, they bore very little resemblance to the abstract stories about them that the old men could tell. In fact, magic has always turned out to be black and scary. That was what Rhianon believed. She had been convinced of that when she was still in her parents castle. And nothing could dissuade her, not even a smiling fairy, if she suddenly appeared before them right now, such as coming out from behind a tree and summoning them both with her.
Witchcraft has always hidden behind the hypocritical smiles of courtiers, and this witchcraft has not produced winged fairies at all, it has contributed to the sending of pestilence and disease, secret poisonings, spoiling, hundreds of ways to drive a person with spells, while remaining above suspicion. Rhianon despised such people who, hiding behind a corner, slowly and painfully killed others, while they themselves always remained innocent to witnesses. Such were all her friends and vassals. They would never lie and pretend not to believe in anything, but black magic had already enslaved each and every one of them. After all, it was such an easy way to achieve your goal, to take out your enemy, to intrigue, to corrupt those you envy. Spells could not create beautiful creatures with wings, but they killed, brought misery and enmity. If one could believe in a world of beautiful fairies, if one could use enchantments to create or summon an unearthly winged lover to ones empty royal bedroom. But that was impossible. One could only be enchanted to torment each other. The intrigue wove slowly but ruinously. People often sat at the same feast table, expecting each others deaths from one day to the next, but they all smiled sweetly at each other, hiding their thoughts. And Rhianon could read the thoughts of them all, so she alone was getting sick at noisy receptions. She alone by her silence aroused the suspicion, because she could not laugh and joke with those whose secret plans terrified her. So she read and about what they want to do to herself, and she ran away, but if she ran away from the castle, she could again believe that there is a magical world and under the ground, on which she now treads may well be a friendly clanging hammers dwarves smiths.