Dennis McKiernan - Once upon a Summer Day

“Nay, my lord, ’tis not what we seek but a golden ash instead.”

As he loped onward Borel growled and said, “I’m beginning to wonder if Lady Doom has arranged this apurpose.”

“My lord?”

“Three trees have we seen standing alongside the marge: copper, silver, and gold,” said Borel, “a timeless progression in fables. But usually when the gold of that trio is encountered, so too is success at hand.”

“That might be the case in hearthtales, my lord,” said Flic, looking back, “and perhaps here as well, for each of those trees-the copper, the silver, and the gold-might signify that something marvelous lies across the border and in the sands beyond. Yet we cannot pause to see, for no black oak is nigh, and the sun ever sinks toward his setting, and the unseen moon ever nears her rise.”

Borel ran onward, up slopes and down, splashing across streams and shssh ing through tall grasses, woodlands ever on the left, the twilight bound on the right.

And in late afternoon, “A tree alongside the border, Flic.”

Flic looked at the broad limbs with their nine-lobed leaves, and the dark, dark trunk, and cried out in glee, “ ’Tis a black oak, my lord, a black oak! We have come to the black oak at last!”

Weary beyond measure, Borel ran to the dark tree and stopped, and his breath came harsh and heavy. As Flic took to wing with Buzzer following, Borel glanced at the remains of the day, and his heart fell, for there was but a single candlemark left ere the sun would begin to set and the full moon begin to rise.

“Come,” said Borel, straightening up, “let us hurry, for time is-”

“Wait, my lord,” said Flic. “Remember Urd’s warning: “ ‘Seek the black oak sinister

Beside the twilight wall,

Behind it a narrow portal,

Yet beware the fall.’

“That’s what she said. And so, my lord, before you go through, let me first see what lies beyond.”

“Hurry,” said Borel, again glancing at the sun, “we’ve no time to tarry.”

With Buzzer following, Flic turned and darted into the twilight marge.

Long moments passed, and long moments more, and Borel could wait no longer, for the sun itself would not delay, nor would the as-yet-unseen full moon. But just as he started to step within, Flic and Buzzer returned.

“Beware, my lord. Lady Urd was right. Straight through and you’ll plunge to your doom, for when I emerged out the far side, I was in the air above a great drop. To both the left and right there are outjuts along the face of a sheer cliff, with pathways down to the sands below. Yet these are not to be trusted, for when I tried to return by flying across one of those outjuts, Buzzer and I ended above bubbling molten stone within a hollow mountain. We fled back, and I tried the other outjut, with the very same results. And so, Lady Urd was right when she spoke of the black oak: ‘Behind it a narrow portal,’ she said, and narrow it is. This marge is tricky, my lord, a perfect place for Rhensibe to set a trap. I would think that from this side of the bound, should you step left or right of the portal, who knows where you would end? Perhaps above that same pool of molten stone.”

“Nevertheless, I must enter,” said Borel.

“How, my lord? You cannot fly.”

“There must be a way,” said Borel. “I will try to find it.” And without further delay, Borel pulled from his rucksack the rope he had purchased in Riverbend and tied one end to the tree. Paying it out, he stepped into the twilight directly behind the oak.

As Flic and Buzzer flew past, into the dimness Borel went, testing each step before taking it. Darker and darker grew the marge, and in the depths of the blackness, he came to the lip of a sheer precipice.

Down he swung on his rope, and he felt about for handholds, but the surface was smooth with no places to grip, all the way down the extent of his line. Side to side he swung, and yet there was only vertical stone.

Finally he clambered back up to the top. Which way, I wonder, would the witch walk? Ah, yes, I know: sinister, what else?

Hoping he would not need it, Borel left the rope behind as a marker and sidled leftward through utter darkness along the very verge of the precipice. Slowly, ever so slowly, the dimness began to lighten. And then he emerged along the flat top of a stark desert cliff two hundred feet above the Endless Sands.

A pathway led steeply down.

“My lord,” cried Flic joyously, he and Buzzer circling about.

But Borel paid him no heed, for a half a league away lay a lush vale trapped between endless dunes, and in the very center a great green heap mounded up a hundred feet high or more, its length and breadth a furlong or so in each direction.

“What is it, Flic?” asked Borel.

“What is what, my lord?”

“That,” said Borel, pointing.

Flic turned about. “Oh, my, there’s green in the desert. How did it get here?” He turned back to Borel. “I do not know what it is, my prince. I was so concerned about you and the crossing, that I didn’t see it ere now. Ah, me, some scout I make, eh?”

“I pray it be Roulan’s vale carried here by the black wind,” said Borel. “You and Buzzer scout ahead, Flic, while I make my way down. And be certain to look at that mound in the middle; it sits where the manse should be.”

“Oui!” cried the Sprite, and away he flew, Buzzer at his side.

Down the steep path Borel trotted, and when he reached the sands he found the terrain barren and rocky, and off he loped toward the green vale with the great mound in the middle, a mile and a half away.

Before he had covered two furlongs toward the heap, he came unto the sand, and running became difficult in the shifting footing. Yet on he loped, for the sun angled down through the sky, and the moon would soon rise.

He had covered perhaps half the distance when Flic and Buzzer came winging back. “The mound: ’tis vines with thorns: great huge vines with thorns as long as your own forearms, my lord. Yet beware, for unto my Fey vision there is an aura about them, as of magie.”

“Daggers,” said Borel, not pausing in his run. “These must be the daggers of Chelle’s dream. Did not Lady Wyrd say ‘Neither awake nor in a dark dream are perilous blades just as they seem’? And these blades, these daggers, are not as they seemed, for they are instead thorns.”

“We guessed they weren’t really daggers,” said Flic.

“Indeed, we guessed, and now we know,” said Borel. “-Is there a turret within?”

“I could not tell, my lord, for the thorn vines are much too thick. Yet there is a higher place at the center where a turret could be.”

Yet running, Borel said, “Lord Roulan had a turret nigh the center of his manor.”

“Perhaps that is it, then,” said Flic. “But there is something else, my lord: as I flew near, I could hear a squeaking coming from somewhere within… close to the center, I think.”

“A squeaking?”

“Oui, just as you told me was in your dream, as of a wagon wheel long without grease and turning.”

“Never mind, Flic. We will find what it is when we get in,” said Borel.

“Oh, my lord, I think there is no way to penetrate the thorns,” said Flic. “I mean, not even Buzzer could make her way through.”

“There’s got to be a way, else Chelle is fordone.”

“But I flew all ’round,” said Flic, “and I simply don’t see how we can enter.”

“Again I say, there must be a way, Flic, else the Ladies Wyrd and Lot and Doom would not have sent us here.”

“Perhaps they did so to make certain Rhensibe is killed,” said Flic. “I mean, we will avenge Chelle should worse come to worst. Surely Rhensibe will arrive to gloat if that happens.”