Dennis McKiernan: Once Upon an Autumn Eve

Down spiraled the witch on her besom, rage consuming her features. “Fool, you fool!” she shrieked, her fury directed at Liaze. “You have ruined everything! Now I will have to start over.”

Liaze could not move, but for her eyes, nor could she speak.

Alighting upon the glassy flat, the witch stalked toward Liaze, the fury replaced with cold rage. Stopping before the princess, the witch glanced at Luc, the knight’s shallow breath wafting white in the icy air. Once again the features of the witch twisted in rage, and she turned to Liaze and raised a black-nailed hand as if to strike. But then a look of recognition replaced the one of fury, and she laughed in triumph.

“You are Liaze, one of Foul Valeray’s get, daughter of he who is most responsible for imprisoning my master.” Again the witch laughed. “Oh, my, but this is too sweet, and almost makes up for setting back my plans by two more darks of the moon.”

She strutted before Liaze, the hem of her longsleeved black dress flowing behind. She was tall and imperious, and her black hair matched her eyes, and then she turned to Liaze and said, “You don’t know me, do you.” It was not a question.

“I am Iniqui, sister of Hradian and Nefasi, and of Rhensibe, whom your vile brother slew. Oh, this revenge will be most enjoyable well beyond your death, for Foul Valeray and his whore Saissa and their get will grieve long when word comes that the elder daughter has been slain by my hand. Oh, yes, sweet revenge.

“Ha! They say that revenge is a dish best served cold, and here we are on an icy mountain… cold indeed, how fitting.”

Iniqui put a hand behind one ear in a pretense of listening. “What’s that you ask? Why did I steal your lover and put him here to die? Ha! Little did I know it would come to this.

“Hear me: Vicomte Guillaume, he who would be a full comte, asked me to find the rightful heir-Luc his name-and slay him and recover the trinket about his neck. Yet when I saw Luc in my black mirror and realized what this so-called trinket was, I knew that fool of a vicomte had no idea of its true worth nor what it was for. What’s that you ask? What is the trinket? Fool, it is a key forged in the hidden fires of this very spellcast mountain, a key struck by the enemies of my master to open one of their other creations-the Castle of Shadows beyond the Black Wall of the World.”

Iniqui laughed and said, “Ah, by the look of horror in your eyes, I see now you understand, for with that key I will free my master.”

The name Orbane hissed through Liaze’s thoughts, and she would have groaned had she the power to speak. Yet she did not.

“Oh, now your gaze turns desperate,” said Iniqui, gloating. “You would slay me if you could, but you cannot, for I am a sorceress dire. And, oui, it is Orbane whom I will free.”

Iniqui glanced at Luc, his faint breath puffing white in the frigid air. Then she turned to Liaze and snarled, “But you, you fool, you have set me back, and I will have to start all over, for the stone cannot be taken by force; it either must be freely given or released by the natural death of the wearer”-Iniqui laughed-“and what better way to die a natural death than by very slow exposure, and what better place than this?”

Iniqui gestured about. “Indeed, this is the only place where he must die, here on this mountain, else the amulet will not be empowered for one who is not a natural heir or one to whom the amulet is freely given, for, as I said, here it was forged in the hidden fires.”

There came to Liaze’s ears a barely audible clicking and a fluttering of air. Yet Iniqui did not seem to notice, wrapped up as she was in her triumphant monologue.

“But you, Princess, I can slay out of hand, for you and your family have been thorns in the sides of my master and my sisters and me; and your brother killed my sweet Rhensibe, and so it is only fitting that I, Iniqui, return the favor.”

The witch stepped back, and she began chanting, the words arcane and somehow causing the very air to tingle. Yet, underneath the intonations, Liaze could still hear a faint clicking and fluttering.

Of a sudden a great crevasse split open in the mountain between the sorceress and the princess, and fire roared up from the depths below, lighting the ebon sky above a deep crimson, as of a spill of old blood. On the far side of the split, Nightshade snorted and backed away.

Across the crevasse from Liaze, Iniqui laughed, and over the roar she gleefully said, “Incredible, isn’t it, that a mountain can be so cold, and yet have unquenchable fires raging within, eh?”

Iniqui reached a clawed hand out toward Liaze and sneered, “I will beckon you into the fire, sister of my sister’s killer, and there is nought you can do to stop me.”

She made a single gesture…

… and Liaze jerked a single step forward.

Iniqui laughed in scorn and made another gesture…

… and Liaze wrenched forward another step.

Iniqui made a third gesture…

… and Liaze jerked ahead again…

… and now she stood poised on the very brink of the crevasse, and, as if sensing a victim, searing fires roared up from the depths.

And, as Iniqui flexed her black-nailed fingers for the final beckoning — Twk on Jester, the bird madly flapping, leapt up the final few feet of the slope and onto the flat. And at a single word from the Pixie, the rooster crowed.

Even as Iniqui hissed in surprise and twisted a gesture toward the Pixie and the bird, the enthrallment upon Liaze lessened, and a moan escaped her lips, and she realized that she could speak. It was then that the words of Lady Doom echoed in her mind:

Remember war; loose the cry,

So ye and y’r love will not die.

And suddenly the meaning came clear, and though she could not move, still she could shout a command, and she cried out, “Night, attaques!”

Iniqui glanced at Luc yet lying unconscious upon the black slab, and she laughed and said, “Fool, your knight is entirely too weak to-”

— in that moment, a golden-shod forehoof of Deadly Nightshade crashed into the back of Iniqui’s skull-the stallion rearing and lashing out upon Liaze’s command-and, shrieking, Iniqui pitched forward into the raging crevasse. Yet she somehow managed to catch hold of a ledge, but from below the roaring blaze engulfed her, and she screamed and screamed as her dress and hair caught fire. Terror filled her gaze, and she shrilled in agony, and then her body itself burst into flames, and the flesh of her fingers charred and sloughed away. She could no longer hold on, and, howling in dread, into the fiery depths she plunged.

The fires died down, and with a jolt the crevasse slammed shut, Liaze falling backwards upon the cold glass surface. But Iniqui’s spell had died with her death, and the princess’s enthrallment vanished.

“I didn’t know whether it would work, Princess,” cried Twk. “I didn’t know whether it would work,” the Pixie both weeping and laughing at one and the same time.

Liaze scrambled to her knees and looked at Twk. “Oh, Twk, you and Jester saved us, for I could not speak until the rooster crowed.”

And then Liaze’s eyes widened, for gold coins had been tied to each of the chicken’s clawed toes.

Liaze began laughing wildly even as tears ran down her face.

Twk joined her, the Pixie also weeping in joy and relief.

Jester ruffled his feathers and crowed once again.

To one side Luc groaned. Liaze, suddenly sober, spun ’round and scrambled to Luc’s side. His eyes fluttered and Liaze grasped his hand. “Oh, my love, waken. Please waken.”

Luc mumbled something in his semiconscious state.

Liaze said to Twk, “He is so cold, so very cold; we’ve got to get him down from this mountain. A fire, we’ll need a fire.”