Гарри Тертлдав: The Enchanter Completed

“What?” Aedra replied. “Surely not. It’s, it’s merely oracular.” She drew breath. “No book I’ve studied holds that such doings are evil, or have such power. And hitherto I have but toyed with arcana. I’ve less skill than any village witchwife, and what can she do of more import than healing a minor sickness or forewarning against travel on some bespoken day? Does she thereby raise the Unseelie?”

“This is no village, this is the wildwood,” wailed Trillia. “A spirit indwells at Ardair.”

“Aye, that’s been known from time beyond reckoning. But has it caused fiends to lair nearby? Why, yourselves are more magical than anything I can attempt.”

“In wandering, we encountered—hunters,” Rani replied with a shudder that seemed to go through them all. “That alone was cause to flee those territories.”

“Theirterritories,” Aedra said firmly. “My father possesses huntsmen’s lore. I’ve gained some from him. Beasts of prey keep within bounds. You’ve never had trouble hereabouts, have you?”

“N-nay,” confessed three or four together.

“Doesn’t that show there’s naught dangerous? We’re not far from human habitation. I daresay it’s scared them off long since. Were you but able to stay in place through your lifetimes, you’d suffer nothing.”

Ferain snatched the opportunity to assert himself. “Besides, what Halfworld creature can withstand this cold steel I carry?” he declaimed.

The ellils fluted and scattered, like fallen leaves in a gust. “Come back!” Aedra called. “Come back, do. I said he’s clumsy.” She cast him what he guessed was a hard look. “Andyou keep back, hear you? Hold your brags bottled. If you spoil this undertaking, I’ll incline to think father’s right.”

“I pray pardon,” he forced.

She gazed aloft. “Would you not like to watch my spellcasting?” she suggested. Ferain judged glumly that she had a smile for them, if not him. “Even if it fails, you cannot have seen the likes before.”

That lured their quicksilver tempers. Doubtless she’d known it would. They swept low to dance about earth and brush, in and out among the trees. Their laughter pealed, chimes at the rim of human hearing. Aedra clucked to her horse and rode onward. Ellils made a skipping glory around her head and lanterns leading her. Ferain followed as best he could.

Bracken screened a trail that branched off, still more pinched and twisty. The ellils led them down it. Often a horse stumbled on a root or a withe seen too late whipped a rider. Thus did Ferain lose his ostrich-plumed hat. He dared not ask for a halt. That fed his smoldering resentment. Humans must have trodden this way now and then, but not for many years, save Aedra. Her dreaminess appealed to these fantastical folk; they took her to everything marvelous that they knew of.

As his steed plodded on, Ferain saw lights come by twos and fours through the murk, from right and left but mostly from ahead. They waxed in sight, they gathered in shifting clusters, until perhaps half a hundred ellils had joined the party. Their merriment rang thin and sweet. He supposed their Halfworld senses had told them across miles that something interesting was afoot. With nothing better to do, he watched them. Over and over, he saw couples withdraw for a while. They returned with self-satisfied expressions.

Must they tantalize him?

After an interminable span, the trail abruptly gave on a glade about a hundred feet across. Forest loomed like a black wall around it. The moon stood almost full. Doubly bright after the nighted woods, it veiled most stars but frosted the leaves and silvered the grass. The well lay at the middle. It appeared to be actually a spring, walled by a low coping. Who had brought those lichenous boulders, how long ago, and why? Time had forgotten. From the saddle Ferain caught a glimpse of glimmer on the water within. Herbs crushed underhoof were pungent. The ellils swarmed into the open.

“Halt,” Aedra said. “We are here.”

“So I deemed,” Ferain grumbled. By moonlight and ellil light he saw her frown. “Oh, I’ll hold my tongue.”

She jumped to the ground. He climbed down, aware of a sore backside. “Shall I moor—shall I tie the horses?” he asked.

“Nay. Hang reins over muzzles, let them graze free.” The note of exasperation was unfair, he thought. He wouldn’t expect her to know a sheet from a halyard.

“You can then rest,” she told him. “This may take hours. I’ve never essayed such a spell erenow, and what I’ve found in books is not very clear. But I trust a kindly spirit will respond.” Her voice softened. “And I trust it will advise me to go abroad with you, Ferain.”

“Won’t you take food first?” he blurted. He was belly-growling hungry. And it had been her idea to bring supplies.

“Not until afterward. Fasting sharpens vision.” Impatience broke through. “Eat if you must. Keep aside, though, in the shadows.”

He felt stung anew. Yet as she left him, he saw in the moonlight the raptness coming upon her. What a many-sided soul she was. While life with her might occasionally be difficult, it could never become wearisome.

If the stupid spirit would rise and give the right answers. Why couldn’t she simply think things over like a sensible person?

He took bread, cheese, and wineskin from a saddlebag and went to the dark side to sit down, rather gingerly. The ellils flurried above, everywhere along the perimeter. As Aedra paced to the well, they fell silent; but on those nearest him, Ferain read a childlike curiosity.

Aedra dropped to her knees, bowed her head above folded hands, and murmured. Moonlight whitened her athwart the blackness beyond.

She rose, lifted her arms to the sky, and spoke words unknown to him.

Thrice she solemnly danced around the well—a sort of bransle, he thought—while her chant soared lovely to hear.

She knelt again, leaned over the coping, and scooped up a double handful. She held it toward the moon before she drank.

Ferain tore off a chunk of bread and munched.

“O nameless Presence,” Aedra crooned beneath heaven, “with my song and spell I conjure you, with my heart I make offering. Come of your mercy, come from your waters bearing your wisdom, grant me your insight as woman to woman, lover to lover. By the Great Mother do I summon you, by the Fates, and by the One Above All. Arise, arise, arise.”

A mist flowed from the well. The ellils could not stay back anymore. They twittered, they fluted, they tumbled inward until their glowing hid the moon.

Out from under the trees, out from the unseen east, flew a darkness. The length of a man it was, with scything wings. Fangs gleamed bone-white. The eyes were fire pits. Swift as a wind, it was in among the ellils.

“Lupask, lupask!” they shrieked, scattering. The snaky neck swung, jaws snapped, talons clutched. It caught one, blood spurted in drops like stars, the little being struggled, flapped, and went down the gullet. The hunter tilted, overtook another, and devoured her in passing. Air whistled.

Aedra reeled to her feet. Ferain dashed toward her. The mist retreated into the well. Prudently, flashed through him.

“Help them!” Aedra screamed.

As always when in peril, his mind ran so fast that time seemed sluggish. He saw that no ellil could outfly the lupask, that it would reap a score or worse before the rest had gotten away, and he knew it cared nothing about him or her unless they annoyed it, but then it would attack, and he must not endanger her, nor must he fail her— “Get it down!” he bawled. “Down where we can fight!” He hurried off to brandish his cutlass at a distance.

The horses neighed, panicked, bolted into the forest. It would be a long walk home, he thought. If he lived. May they fall over the reins and break their fool necks. But then he’d better compensate Recor—