Gossamyr Part 6

"It was my quarrel brought down the thing."

"I killed the beast!"

"Yes, and with great savor, I note. The thing is dead as a doornail."

Ulrich strode to the mule and, flipping open a tattered saddlebag, poked about inside. Drawing out a small horn, he uncapped what Gossamyr guessed to be cleaning oil for the weapon.

The fetch fluttered down from the sky. She offered it a smart bow. Danger annihilated. s.h.i.+nn would be pleased. Circling the beast to take in the carnage, the fetch then alighted into the crystal sky to twinclian in a s.h.i.+mmer of dust.

Unaware of the exchange, Ulrich tucked the oil horn inside the saddlebag and strapped the crossbow across Fancy's back. So he had a.s.sisted. Next time she would not allow him such opportunity.

"I cannot promise to stand idly by should such need again arise." Ulrich strode by Gossamyr, finger to lips in thought. "It is my manner, fair lady, to help when a damsel requires saving."

Damsel? Gossamyr slid a look to the left then the right. Where be this damsel? She was the only- Ah. So he thought...?

She spread her shoulders back, lifting her chest. Fisting her fingers before her, she hissed, "Do I look like I need saving?"

Dancing blue eyes took in her obstinate pose in a quick cap-a-pie flight. "Actually...no."

"Just so. In the future keep your mortal weapons to yourself."

"Indeed? Mortal weapons. Ahum." He a.s.sumed a haughty pose, thumbs hooked at the waist of his striped hose, one foot stretched forward and his body c.o.c.ked at an angle. "So says the damsel with the sparkly throat."

"I-" Gossamyr slapped a palm to her throat.

"I suppose I must thank you," he added.

"For saving thee?"

He chuckled. "No, for reminding me of which I forget. There is a damsel in need of rescue. And she will not argue my help. I must be off."

"Saving damsels? What sort of pitiful, unoriginal quest-" She stabbed a proud thumb into her pourpoint. "I've a mission to save the-"

"The what?" Mirth tickled Ulrich's lips into a slippery smile and now his tone danced teasingly. "The world? Is not such a quest reserved for armored knights and champions wearing their lady's favor on their sleeves?"

"I am not here to save your world. It is my world I...must save." Bogies and blight! Very sly, Gossamyr. Really blending well. Why did she not simply reveal her fee origins and hold out her wrists for the chains?

"Ah! I see. There is a separation between our worlds. But since you claim not to be a faery, I can only then a.s.sume you speak of the minuscule world that populates the inside of your skull."

Ulrich approached and made show of tilting his head this way and that as he looked into her eyes. A vicious preening. The look was so familiar, like that of a fellow fee who deemed Gossamyr lesser because of her half blood, and yet, the rank of her father elevated her above all. Fluttering beringed fingers near her head, he insulted with silent menace. "My master once treated a victim of psychomachia."

"Psycho-what?"

"It is one who lives within their own mind. Entire worlds are invented. An extraordinary life is led walking through the imaginary world, while the victim's very feet tread the earth of reality."

Gossamyr stepped right up to the man to meet his mocking stare. The embroidered trim of his cape brushed her knees. Must and earth surrounded his air. No longer did anything about him appeal, not even his fine white teeth. "You. Are rude."

"And you are most snappish. And much too close. Have you no sense of propriety? Back off, warrior woman."

She hooked her hands at her hips and fixed him with the mongoose eye.

"Not at all the same," Ulrich muttered as he stepped away and drew a glance down her form. A sorry shake of his head shook his loose curls. "In twenty years women have truly lost all their graces. Pity."

"What do you mumble about now?"

"Nothing that concerns you, Faery Not."

That moniker, most cruel, set Gossamyr to a stomp.

"Very well." Ulrich slapped his arms across his chest and faced her again with that preening expression. "I promise to stand back and allow you all the glory next time we are set upon by supernatural beasties."

"It was a bogie."

"If you say so."

"I do."

Next time? Hmm... Very possible, considering they walked the edge of the Netherdred, and would soon have to cross through it to reach the mortal city of Paris.

A scan of the horizon sighted a line of lindens and a wispy ghost of smoke, likely a fire roasting a family's evening meal. The distant yowl from a night creature gave her wonder to the rampant wolves her mother had doc.u.mented in the bestiary. Not so vicious as a Netherdog, frequently found wandering the sandy borders of the marsh roots, but certainly ferocious. She'd had no time to gather expectations of her journey, but already it proved more perilous than she might have imagined.

Adventure? Yes, please. She could stand down any threat that challenged.

I hope, a small voice deep inside whispered.

"I wonder what it was doing here?" she said with a glance to the block of bogie lying in a growing puddle of brown ooze. "Is it common for bogies to charge from out of nowhere? Such creatures generally keep to cinder caves and the night. For all the rage it possessed, one would think we'd done it a grievance."

"Do you wish me to answer according to my world?" Ulrich tugged at the saddlebag, secured to Fancy's flank. "As opposed to your skull world?"

With a glance to the battleground, peppered with brown bogie blood, Ulrich let out a heavy exhalation. He squeezed an eye shut at the blast of setting sun that beamed him in the face. "Never, in my extremely pitiful life, have I seen one of those things. Said life being much too short of late. Or be it too long?" A tilt of his head revealed the modena on his cheek. "But I trust you have encountered such? You knew exactly how to take the thing out."

"Training."

"Oh? Did I miss something in my schooling? Attack and conquer abecedarian?"

She delivered him a sneer to match-nay, defy-his mockery. "Just answer me this: are we close to a village? I tire, and have worked up a hunger."

"One would never guess from the brilliant sparkle you put out."

His constant reminder she glimmered troubled. A touch to her throat discovered the highest agraffe was open. The carved bone clasp had broken, most likely during the fight.

"A village? Indeed, Aparjon lies just ahead. But tell me, why do you not simply fly there? Ah!" He made show of bending and peering around to study her shoulders. Gossamyr twisted her back away from his view. "No wings!"

"We have already discussed this."

"Indeed. Not a faery." Now his jesting tone returned and that brilliant smile flashed like a beam of sunlight. "But plenty faeries do not have wings."

"How know you such?"

"Every child learns the facts before they are out of infant skirts." He made a merry skip and danced around Gossamyr. "Faeries come in all manner of shape, size and wing. Some walk amongst the mortals undiscovered, some flitter up to a man's ear to stand inside it. But one thing they all have in common is a glimmer-" he drew his palm between them in a curtain of fluttering fingers "-that sheen of the unnatural."

The blazon.

"Though, I must say, you do appear a trifle...faded."

"What mean you by that?"

Ulrich pointed to the hem of Gossamyr's pourpoint. "Your clothing. The leaves look as though they are fading. More so than when we first met."

Gossamyr touched a curve of supple hornbeam at her waist. Indeed, the leaf had lost some of its glossy resilience. The arachnagoss threading was strong, but no more so than the outer layers it st.i.tched together. She smoothed a hand over her braies. They felt secure; amphi-leather was virtually indestructible, even a fire-forged blade must draw a precise line to cut through.

A bend of her arm tugged a crack in the leaves at her shoulder.

"I must make haste," she said and picked up her pace along the dirt path.

"And so I shall hurry alongside you, Faery Not."

They walked onward, Ulrich leading Fancy as he ventured first. His strides were light, jumping to kick a stone in the path, as free as the air made Gossamyr feel. When he finally spoke, though, he sounded suspicious. "You are quite skilled in defense and attack."

She smirked. "And you are adept at getting in the way."

"Why, thank you, fair lady. It is a skill. Pity 'twas my last quarrel. Though, rest a.s.sured, I can hold steel to the enemy should the need arise. That is...if I had steel." He patted his hips and scanned the ground. "I seem to have misplaced my dagger a few leagues back."

"Would that be when you won the prize dripping down your forehead?"

"Do you think it will leave a mark?" He touched the wound.

Ever changing, the man's moods. From suspicion, to anger, to a teasing charm. Despite the danger his learning of her origins could pose, Gossamyr found it difficult to dislike the man. For he tread the earth as if he had wings. To have him accompany her even a short distance could prove a boon. She would study him, prepare for future contact with mortals. They weren't so different from the fee. Even his deep voice she had grown accustomed to.

"So, Gossamyr who isn't from Faery, I did notice you were particularly surprised at your success over the beast."

Gossamyr tripped ahead, enjoying the warm air skim her bared flesh. Right, was the only feeling she could summon. She spun in a dancer's twirl and rejoined Ulrich's side, "It is the first time I have engaged in hand-to-hand combat."

"Ah. Well then, good show, Faery Not."

"Don't name me that-achoo!" Halted in her tracks, Gossamyr grasped her head.

"Touche!" Turning to walk backward Ulrich smiled at her. The gap in his teeth distorted his mirth. "So you like to dance?"

Skipping, Gossamyr shrugged and offered an unexpected "I think so!"

"You take marvel at your own wonder."

"It is just, the air...I feel light."

"Pray tell what the air is like whence you hail?"

"Not like here," she called out and jumped to the gra.s.s to skip through the cool blades.

Flight had ever alluded her, no matter how often she had attempted it. Which had been often in the rose garden behind the castle b.u.t.tery. Mince had once witnessed her fruitless attempts and had laughingly joined in. The matron's small wings, attached to a generously rounded body, had served little more than to lift her shoulders. She could not leave the ground, either. It had bonded them in laughter, and a smirking confession from Gossamyr, which revealed her jealousy of the winged ones.

"You are the daughter of Lord de Winters.h.i.+nn," Mince had stated simply. "You needn't envy; you are envied."

Mayhap. But Gossamyr had not missed a single averted gaze or cruel stare in her lifetime. Envy hurt. And the only way to overcome was to prove herself. She needn't the Winters.h.i.+nn name to stand proud; to defeat the Red Lady would prove her worth and perhaps put to rest the suspicious whispers.

She spun now, and leaped into the path immediately before Ulrich. He had no wings, and yet, he took to the air in his strides. And that made him all the more appealing.

"The dirt from the fight," Ulrich commented as he angled forward to study her. "It covers your face."

Gossamyr wiggled her nose. Another sneeze tormented.

"It is bone,"he said of her dirty covering. "It hides your glimmer."

"Bone?"

"That means good."

"Then why not say good?"

"For the same reason you say mortal. We have our own slangs, do we not?" A click of his tongue beckoned Fancy onward.

Gossamyr paralleled him but a leap to his left. He suspected; she knew that he did.

"I wager you are safe from wonder so long as you do not favor bathing. Though your clothing-"

"Will be changed anon. I need only locate a seamstress. Mayhap something bright, like yours." She glanced over Ulrich's attire. The cloak swung merrily with his strides, intermittently revealing the tight striped hose he wore.

"I'm afraid a change of costume won't be so easy in Aparjon," he said. "'Tis a very small village, as most villages are. It is not fortified, which will prove bone. Our entry will not be questioned. If I recall from my travels there is a stable behind the one lone tavern that rents out to riders. Plead to Luck to find a horse for purchase, especially a swift one. As well, it may be difficult to get a room for the night." He turned and scanned back down the road.

"Dead as a doornail," Gossamyr rea.s.sured. And who decided when a doornail was dead? "What lends you to believe I wish to stay the night in the next village?"

"You said you were tired?"

"Yes, but a rest and some hearty fare will serve. I am off to Paris."

"Indeed?"

Ulrich handed Gossamyr Fancy's reins and skipped ahead, turning to walk widders.h.i.+ns in front of her. His cloak billowed as he gestured and filled the air with the rumbling tones Gossamyr found she favored more and more.

"I cannot resist questioning when there is so much of interest about you, fair lady. Whence do you hail? And, skill aside, what finds a lone woman trekking to Paris with so little fear of danger?"

"I am in search of a...woman. She goes by the moniker of the Red Lady."

She picked up her pace in hopes of the man stumbling, but he tread backward with ease. His arms pumping, his robe splayed open with each stride, to reveal long legs and ankle-high suede boots with pointed toes.

"And where in Paris does she reside?"

"I know naught."