Gossamyr Part 10

Gossamyr bent her legs and knelt over him, trying to a.s.sess his condition. Eyes closed, and his breathing still fast, was all she could remark. No cold-yet she had felt his flesh to be as ice when gripping his hands. She scented not blood, but when she thought to touch his face- check for wounds-she recalled the bruise. A touch would not be welcome to his tender flesh.

Pus.h.i.+ng up, Gossamyr stood and struggled with the c.u.mbersome cloak. The heavy fabric twisted between her legs. "Blight!"

Ulrich remained on his back. Short bursts of laughter continued, so she judged him safe. But sound?

Plodding up from behind, Fancy nudged her warm nose into Gossamyr's palm. With contact, fear flowed out from her. A glance to the crossroads sighted only stillness. Whatever had threatened was now gone. She took a breath and expelled it in a lip-fluttering blast.

"The saddlebag," Ulrich asked in a gasping voice as his laughter settled. "Is it safe?"

"Exactly where it should be." Gossamyr bent and this time stroked aside a clump of hair from Ulrich's temple. No fear in touching this mortal. Secretly, she felt daring to do so. "What happened to you?"

"A d.a.m.ned crossroads,"he said in a tone that blamed her for not guessing the obvious. Moving up to prop on his elbows, he blew out a bl.u.s.ter of breath. "I wasn't paying attention, and walked right into the center of the infernal place. h.e.l.l would be most pleased to open a tavern right there." He gestured forcefully toward the spot he had stood. "Plenty of doomed souls for the taking."

"What has a crossroads to do with whatever it was that tormented you?"

"You don't know?"

She shook her head. "When we joined hands I felt something. . .so icy, I could have frozen."

"Ah. Yes. The chill of death. Do not faeries have their lost souls? Suicides and murders? They gather at crossroads."

"Who?"

"The souls! Lost and misdirected souls wandering a purgatorial nightmare. They convene at crossroads because that is where we mortals bury the forsaken."

"Ghosts?"

"Not exactly. Souls, Gossamyr. Souls. Disembodied and searching."

She turned to look over the place where Ulrich had battled. Souls? The revenants cannot commence the final twinclian without an essence. "Like...revenants?"

"I know not what a revenant is."

"They are-" Skeletal flying beasts with wings. She clasped both elbows. Better to keep that information to herself. "Why could I not see them? Did you see them?"

"Not in a physical way. But believe me, I felt their icy, possessive bones everywhere. Had you not dragged me away I would have been trapped until dawn guiding those d.a.m.ned souls to Hades. So horribly the same!"

"Guiding them? I do not understand. Be this magic?"

"Far from it. Let's walk, shall we?"

Ulrich stood. Bell-wavering forward a few steps, he turned and groped Fancy's flanks to steady. Had she not known him sober Gossamyr would have guessed him soused. "Distance, my lady, we need to get Jean Cesar Ulrich Villon III far from this horrific place. I can yet feel them leering at me, waiting for me to stumble back onto their domain."

She squinted, yet sighted nothing but gray shadows upon darkness. A chirr of crickets resumed their night symphony, and a snort from Fancy drew her attention around.

"Come, my fas.h.i.+onably challenged misfit." Ulrich slapped a palm to Fancy's flank and the mule stepped into motion. "Let's be away."

They resumed the path, Fancy trotting hastily to keep pace with Ulrich's swaying strides. Gossamyr skipped alongside on the border of gra.s.s. Every third step she stabbed her staff into the ground and swung forward. "So, you are truly well?"

"Soon enough." He noted her swinging steps and smiled. "Just a little begroggled is all. My head will clear as I move farther from h.e.l.l's stain. What of you? I heard leaves tearing."

"Still all together," she said. "So... you were guiding those souls?"

"Not by choice."

"But...you...do all mortals have such an ability?"

"Ah! You are not up on we mortals, my lady. Your disguise wears thin. Methinks I can see the glimmer on your hands."

The night did not grant such perfect vision, so Gossamyr did not even check. He lied in an attempt to get her to reveal herself. He guessed he knew her. He did know her. And she sensed no danger from him. But she must remain wary.

Or must she? A scan of the sky did not sight the fetch. What horrendous danger must she encounter to bring s.h.i.+nn to her side? Or was the lord of Glamoursiege too busy with the revenants to leave?

She whispered blessings for her father's safety.

As for help, she did not need it. Champions were bold. Be bold, be bold, be not too bold. A statement Gossamyr had once read in the bestiary, written in gold text below the image of a charging knight.

"This talent of seeing and guiding souls is not a common one," Ulrich said, drawing to a halt. A stretch of his arm to the sky and he announced with less than his usual flare, "I am...Shepherd to Lost Souls."

Their closeness allowed Gossamyr to see the grin slip onto Ulrich 's face. Did he mock her? "Shepherd to Lost Souls?"

"Another of my royal appointments. One I've tried desperately to shuck, but it is the only one that ever really sticks with me. I was born one. Will die one. Likely, I shall perish at a crossroads, inundated by the miserable hordes that seek Hades." Ulrich reached to grip Gossamyr's shoulder. A firm grasp that demanded her attention. Here in the darkness she could not see his expression. "Truth?"

"Please."

"I am a guide for lost souls. Families either hire me before an imminent death to ensure their loved one goes the direction they believe it should- Heaven or Hades-or I am called upon after a death to guide a lost soul."

"How are they lost?"

"Ah, you see, they either aren't sure they led a good life and deserve Heaven, or well, would you go to Hades if you knew you should?"

"Heaven and Hades are not familiar to me. Be they in France?"

He gasped. Clutching one of the silver talismans about the chain at his neck he displayed a cross in the ill night. A holy symbol a.s.sociated with the mortal church. Veridienne had once fas.h.i.+oned one from holly sticks for Gossamyr, but she had broken it when shoving it in a sap hole to collect a sweet treat. Ulrich's Heaven and h.e.l.l may be very similar to the fee's sacred resting places.

"Infernal and Celestial?" she tried.

"Yes, yes. The same."

Be that so? She wondered if the fee twinclianed to the same place as did mortals. It seemed unlikely.

"How do you guide them? Do you just point?"

"If only it were so easy. I trance. Then, I communicate with the soul-"

"Can you see it?"

"No." He smoothed both hands over his scalp, pus.h.i.+ng back his tousle of curls. An extravagant gesture into the air startled Gossamyr back a few steps. "But I can feel it!" Ulrich announced with such declaration she thought him preaching doctrine. "And the sensation gives me a picture of the person, most in their death state. Murders are a nasty picture. As well, suicides." A forceful exhale lowered his shoulders and he toed a crop of clover that Fancy had taken to chewing. "Must we go on about this? I want to clear the crossroads from my mind."

"So you do not enjoy this ability?"

Ulrich turned up a palm and twisted on the rings circling his fingers. "It is my way; I have accepted it."

"And yet you've performed many other jobs?"

"One of many unsuccessful attempts to replace this particularly vexing profession. At all means I try to avoid what happened back there. It drains me. Makes me grumpy. Much like a tired faery princess."

"A what?"

"Well, I've guessed, haven't I?"

Gossamyr s.h.i.+fted, her toes hanging over the thick cleft of gra.s.s edging the path. Why was it so difficult to be forthright when she wanted to? An affection for mistruth had never been hers.

Because the dangers of the Otherside had been preached to her since she could understand. They capture and keep faeries. A truth ill.u.s.trated not two jigs earlier. Should she have tried to free the caged fee? For what hope but death, for the Disenchanted, upon return to Faery, could never hope to regain Enchantment.

Yet you left her to live a tortured existence. Could she have given the fee death to end her suffering?

Gossamyr s.h.i.+vered. No, likely not.

"So many lost souls," she noted, "each wanting your complete attention."

"Exactly. Once again we change the subject. Well! Neither are graveyards a pretty spot to wander."

"You bury your dead."

"A wise observation for a mortal."

"No questions, Ulrich, not...now. Please?"

"Yes, we are, both of us, exhausted."

Gossamyr nodded. "Onward then."

"I require rest, my lady. I wager you could slip to Nod if only you'd admit such."

"What of that castle ahead?"

Ulrich stared off toward the horizon. A jagged line rose above a lush forest of trees. The single tower of a large castle-what once might have been a formidable stronghold-drew a black blot in the gray sky.

"Looks to be abandoned." He squinted. "On second thought, it looks to have been torn from its ramparts. Let us cross the meadow to that copse of trees and make camp."

"But if the castle is abandoned it may provide shelter." Gossamyr strode ahead while Ulrich trundled through the tall gra.s.ses. "A wall or two is all we need. Mayhap a bed?"

"My lady of the annoying questions," he called as his steps took to jumping dashes to navigate the meadow. "The few things that see a castle abandoned are plague, famine or siege. Either of the three leaves a heap of dead in its wake. And where there are dead, there are souls. Dozens of them, surely. Just...waiting."

"I see." Gossamyr turned and skipped after him. She would not subject him to further horror. She overtook Ulrich and rushed up to the trees. "Then we camp here, and I'll scout the remains in the morning."

"I've a blanket in my saddlebag."

A nest of thick moss at the base of an ax-tormented oak tempted for but a moment. Gossamyr settled down and tucked her feet under her legs. "The evening is warm. I am not accustomed to night coverings." Actually she often slept nude. And wouldn't bare skin feel much better right now than this itchy cloak? "I will keep the cloak if you would grant it."

"Please do. I shouldn't wish your virtue compromised."

"My-" She snapped her jaw shut. Virtue. Yes, the mortals were not so accepting of bared flesh.

"Sweet dreams." Fabric snapped. Ulrich laid out the blanket on the opposite side of the trunk. "I wonder, do you dream of mortals?"

With her staff clutched near to ready, Gossamyr closed her eyes. "Cease, Ulrich."

But her thoughts remained busy.

This information about Ulrich and his skill with souls intrigued. Gossamyr sought a woman who stole essences, which were similar to the mortal soul. Could the soul shepherd see a fee essence? And if he could, would it serve her a boon or merely a belated warning to an already stolen life?

Either way, he may prove valuable to her quest.

Now, to dreams of...Paris and mortals.

The decimated ruins of what had once been a great castle lured Gossamyr from the red dirt pathway. She had woken this morning to find the midportion of her pourpoint crumbled, where she'd bent her gut to curl into a comfortable position. The bottom half had fallen away as she stood. Ulrich's whistle had prompted her to tie the corners of his cloak about her waist in a wrapped manner that didn't so much conceal her bared belly as keep the cloak to hand should the remainder of her clothing sift away to dust.

Disenchantment attacked her Faery vestments. Yet, the braies remained complete. Her staff, the arrets and the Glamoursiege sigil were also whole. A curiosity. How soon before all fell from her body in a glimmer of dust?

The fetch darted ahead of her, veering back and skimming overhead, then turning to bank tightly toward her. Fancy wandered the border of the castle wall, picking amongst the fallen stones and charred ramparts for a choice blossom of her favorite, clover.

"Hasn't been abandoned overlong!" Ulrich called. He remained a good distance from the ruins. What he determined a "safe zone" from the lost dead.

Again the nuisance fetch darted at her. Wings flicked the crown of her head. Gossamyr batted at the insistent insect. "Be gone!" It was as if the dragon fly did not want her to go up to the castle.

Which only made Gossamyr all the more determined to do so. Dodging the fetch's incoming flight, she bent and ducked under the insect and ran up and over a pile of fallen limestone blocks.

Her feet melding to the moss-frosted stone, she stood at the entrance to what might have once been the bailey. Rusted iron spikes stuck in a charred length of wood. The clawed bottom of a portcullis? Gossamyr stilled and closed her eyes. The caw of a raven soared overhead. She could scent but the gra.s.s and a patch of nearby clover. Nothing unseen brushed her flesh. (Not even the fetch. Wise creature.) Which merely proved she could not sense what Ulrich had been born to see. Intriguing, his skill, though it be a vexing burden to bear.

No more vexing than the burden of half blood.

Desideriel has agreed to the marriage. Be that the reason for s.h.i.+nn's need to pair her so quickly? Did he not want a half blood ruling Glamoursiege? It was a startling thought. One Gossamyr had not before considered. It made sense. But that s.h.i.+nn had not expressed such concern to her hurt.

The gentle hum of wind softened as she entered the destruction. Ignoring her conscience's dreadsome notions, Gossamyr poked through the rubble with her staff. Ulrich's guess might be correct; this castle had not been abandoned for more than a few years of mortal seasons.

A tattered tapestry, lifted with the end of her staff, displayed vibrant indigo and amber threading in the crease where the sun had not found purchase. A pod of bronze beetles were shook to the ground. She watched their haphazard scurry to find a shadow; pretty how the sun reflected on their hard iridescent sh.e.l.ls like animated jewels.

A deep breath drew in the lightness of the world. Stretching out her arms, Gossamyr teetered playfully as she jumped from one stone to the next. Flight was hers in this lightness of being. No need for wings, merely a breath lifted her high from the usual.

She kicked aside a dented steel bascinet and squatted beside what looked to be human remains-a skull, the jaw cleaved in two to separate the teeth with a perfect line. Only a heavy slicing weapon could have done such. Much as she craved danger, Gossamyr said blessings she had not been raised when Glamoursiege had been a warring tribe. s.h.i.+nn had intimated to his violent history in his attention to her training. Strife was far and rare in Faery, for the mortals thrived on opposition.

But tendrils of strife had now seeped into her home. What may become a full-scale battle of revenants versus her people must be stopped.

"What do you suppose happened?" she called as she marked what might have been the length of the keep. Wood beams spanning a thickness to match her torso bracketed the fieldstone hearth, the remaining rib-work that had supported what must have once been a formidable fortress.

"War." Ulrich's voice echoed easily across their distance. "Indifference. Greed. It is a common thing."