Гарри Тертлдав - The Enchanter Completed

“I didn’t know she’d stay out after sunset,” Recor said, almost plaintively. “My scoldings, my bans availed naught.”

“But here I am,” Ferain told Aedra. “Will you or nill you, alongside you or behind you, I’m coming too.”

“Not even though I go to learn whether you and I—”

He interrupted her. “Not even then. I must needs live with myself.” He braced his soul. “I could, however, give up this aim of a fresh beginning—if there’s the one way we can find to one another.”

Gentleness and a certain wisdom came over her. “Nay,” she said quietly, “that would always lie between us and fester. Let me go tonight in peace. I think—I dare hope the Good One will manifest herself and tell me to give you your desire.”

“Just the same, you’ll fare with a guard, best me but anyhow a fellow who can fight, or stay home.” It was as bold a gamble as any he had made, staking his whole happiness. “Otherwise I must bid you farewell. Mayhap some luckier man will prove worthy of you.”

A part of him felt confident. And he had read her aright. “Well, thisis a matter concerning us both—” He heard the reluctance, but the words were enough.

“Improper!” harrumphed Recor. “Scandalous! I’ll not have it!”

Thus he tempered the steel. “Do you impugn Captain Grancy’s honor?” she demanded coldly. “Or mine?”

He hunched in his chair, all at once aged. “Nay, of course not.”

Victorious, she laughed, trod over to him, and ran a finger down his cheek. “There’s my old dear. Stop fretting. Everything shall end well. Wait and see. Now, we have two horses left us. Have Paer saddle them. And, oh, aye, put some provisions in the bags.”

They clattered over the cobblestones of Wheelbarrow Lane, beneath the overhangs of half-timbered houses, onto smoothly paved Tholis Way. This end of the avenue lay near enough to the Longline that Ferain had had time to hurry back to his ship and fetch a cutlass. He glimpsed her masts above a roof. A feeling akin to homesickness tugged at him.

Trolls and tribulation, he didn’tbelong on a horse! It knew as much, too. It skittered, balked, tossed its ugly head, answered to the reins like a barge in riptides to the helm. Traffic of pedestrians and wagons made things worse. He hoped desperately that the nag wouldn’t shy and trample somebody, or throw him from his seat. Aedra effortlessly controlled her own mount. Her glances at him turned less than adoring.

Somehow they won across King’s Newmarket, over the Imperial Canal bridge, past the armory, and out the Eastport. Seilles had long since spread beyond the old walls, but not very far in this direction, for the land rose steeply on the left, cliffs and crags, rocks and ravines, gorse and scrub; and only two miles ahead began Samyr Wood. Level sunlight soaked its green with amber. Shadows stretched. The air lay quiet, cooling though still mild, still bearing odors of spurrey and wild thyme. A few early swallows glided by. Except for a faint buzz from their insect quarry and the clop of hoofs on stone, silence deepened.

Aedra edged nigh, reached across, and stroked a soothing hand along the neck of Ferain’s horse. “Calm, poor Udo, calm,” she murmured. “He means you no harm. This is but a small jaunt. Soon you’ll graze on savory herbs.” She looked at her companion. “Don’t haunt on the reins like that. You hurt his mouth. He’s sensitive.”

“Huh!” grunted the sailor.

“It would likewise help if you made better use of your stirrups. You sit him like a sack of meal. And that unnecessary sword of yours slats his barrel.”

“His what?” If only the barrel held rum.

“Oh, no matter. He should feel easier in the forest, when I’m leading. But do take care. We venture in among beings shy and frail.”

“I’ve heard that some are not,” Ferain retorted, largely out of irritation. “The wolves may be gone, but don’t goblins, drows, lupasks, and suchlike prowl the wildwoods yet?”

Aedra shivered. Her forefinger drew a fivepoint. “No ill-omened croaks, if it please you.” She touched heels to her steed. It trotted faster, in front of his.

Aye, this outing had gone unlucky, Ferain thought. Sour, at least. She didn’t really want his company. Even the sight of her legs, in tight hose under the hiked-up skirts, ceased to give cheer.

At the edge of the forest the highway bent east-southeast toward plowlands, meadows, and farmsteads. A path led off it, broad, for hunters and merrymakers. The last rays of sun were losing themselves amidst oak, elm, beech, and other sorts he had no names for. Soil muffled hoofbeats. Fragrance lingered.

After a while Aedra turned off onto a trail that wound away into the depths. Bracken rustled as the riders brushed by. Overarching, boughs and leaves made almost a ceiling. Yard by yard, the pair rode into a twilight that swiftly thickened. Ferain wondered how she proposed to find the bloody well, but caught the question between his teeth.

A nacreous glow hove in view, and another and another. They bobbed forward. It was their wings that shone. He dropped hand to hilt. “What the Pit!” he barked.

“Silence,” she commanded over her shoulder. “Frighten them not. They’re ellils.”

He didn’t ease much. Aye, though he’d never seen any before, he’d heard about them and that they were benign, playful but never actually tricksy. However, from childhood on he’d been taught wariness of the Halfworld. Certain happenings later had borne it out for him. What other things might stalk through this murk?

“I expected the little darlings would spy us, know me, and hasten to light our way,” said Aedra with a tenderness that ought to have been aimed at him. She drew rein and lifted her free hand. “Why, you’re Trillia, aren’t you? How gladsome to find you.”

The tiny female fluttered down to perch on her wrist. A dozen or so wheeled and dipped around, males as well. They seemed to fly in couples, often closing in for a brief caress. One male hovered near Aedra’s friend.

Ferain could just catch what she sang: “Wondrous that you’re back, sweet lady. What brings you? Who’s yon hulk? If he’s with you, may he have the welcome of the forest.”

“Ferain Grancy is he, from off the sea,” Aedra answered. “Fear not if in his ignorance he botches the wildwood peace a bit. He thinks I need him here for a guardian.”

“Ooh, your lover?” Trillia giggled and gestured at the nearby male. “Behold mine for this while—Rani. You’ve not met him earlier, for he and a few more have newly come to this part of Samyr in their wanderings.”

“But I’ve been told about you, my lady Aedra,” Rani called as he whirled about her head. “How you bring garden flowers and tales from your world. We’ll guide you twain to a bed of soft moss beside a purling brook, that you may rejoice with us.” He flitted by Trillia and ran both hands over her. Ferain, who had keen eyes, saw what was chiefly on what passed for his mind.

Probably the young woman blushed, though all he could discern through the gloom, by skittering Faerie lights, was that her lashes dipped. “Nay, I’m on a grave matter,” she said quickly. “I regret having no roses or violets for your delectation, nor time for chatter and song. I’m urgently bound for the Well of Ardair to seek a sign.”

Trillia fluttered up. Ferain read alarm on the dainty wee face. The ellils flapped around, agitated beyond their usual flightiness. They whistled and shrilled in some language not human.

Rani gathered courage, perhaps to impress his inamorata. Wheeling before Aedra, he piped, “You’d cast a spell—and there? Nay, I beg you! It could summon horrors forth from the night.”