Dennis McKiernan - Once upon a Spring morn

Roel pondered for long moments and finally said, “I ween you are right, Celeste, for to interpret it as I did at first meant we would have had to slay Florien, for he certainly aided us.”

Celeste sighed and said, “Yet, Roel, we did not ask Florien for directions to the Changeling Lord’s tower, but only to the lord’s domain.”

Roel slammed a fist into a palm. “Ah, Mithras! Why cannot the Fates speak plainly?”

Celeste turned up a hand and grinned. “But then what would be the challenge in that?” Agape, Roel looked at her, and then he broke into laughter, his frustration evaporating. He stepped forward, took her in his embrace, and kissed her forehead-“I love you”-and eyes-“I love you”-

and nose and finally her lips. “Oh, yes, my cherie, I do love you dearly.”

They stood for a time holding one another and savoring the moment, but at last Celeste said, “Come, my handsome, let us find the arc of oaks.” As they mounted up, Roel said, “Mayhap one day I will get to meet one of the Three Sisters, and then I will ask why they do not speak clearly so that there is no question as to just what they mean.” Celeste laughed and said, “I think any answer you get will be a riddle itself.”

Smiling, a half point sunup of sunwise, they rode onward toward the twilight bound.

“Well, here is the marge,” said Roel, “but no arc of oaks.”

Celeste shrugged and said, “We’ve come a long way; hence it is no surprise to me that we might have veered a bit off course. In fact, I would have been shocked had we ridden straightaway to the very point of crossing.” Roel nodded and said, “As would I.”

Celeste raised her trump and said, “I have my horn; you have yours. I’ll ride this way; you that. Three sharp calls upon finding the arc. Oui?”

“Oui,” replied Roel. “Yet should you find foe instead and cannot slip away unseen, then sound repeated calls as you flee.”

“Ah, oui,” said Celeste, stringing her bow and nocking an arrow. “I assume you will do the same should you meet foe instead of charging in. Remember, cheri, I am rather good with this thing.”

Roel laughed and cocked his crossbow and set a quarrel in the groove, and then he turned his horse rightward and rode away along the twilight wall.

Turning to the left, Celeste rode sunupward, her tethered pack animal following.

She wended among trees of oak and evergreen, of maple and elm, and of other varieties, and the fragrance of cedar and yew and pine wafted on the breeze. She splashed across streams flowing into the twilight, and as usual she wondered where they went when they crossed the border, for it seemed they never continued past the bound, or if they did, it was at some other bound they emerged. It was as if Faery was once a whole world, with no twilight boundaries at all, and streams and oceans and lands were the same as in the mortal realm. But then the gods interfered and placed the shadowlight walls where they would, and when folk stepped across, they did not go unto the very next place, but were whisked somewhere else altogether, or so Celeste and her brothers and sister had always speculated. Borel as a child had once suggested that they put red dye in a stream flowing into a bound and see where it came out, but that would call for knowing where the stream would emerge, and if they knew that, then the mystery would have already been resolved. So, the question remained: without being aware of it, did one get instantly borne to another place when crossing a marge, or instead was there a wholly different realm lying directly beyond?

Celeste did not know. Ah, me, but these twilight bounds are truly Faery struck.

She was musing thus when from a distance there came three sharp clarion calls. Ah, my handsome knight has found the arc.

Celeste turned her steed about, the packhorse following, and sundownward she rode. A league or so in this direction she found Roel waiting within an arc of oak trees, and she wondered if the circle completed itself in some distant domain.

As Celeste rode to his side, “Should we tie a rope to me and let me cross over and see if the way is safe?” asked Roel.

“ ’Twould be best if I went,” said Celeste, “for I am lighter and you are stronger. Even so, I think the map would not show this as a crossing if it were unsafe.”

“Nevertheless. .?” said Roel.

In moments they had a line cinched about Celeste’s waist, a good length in Roel’s hand. Celeste then kissed Roel and said, “Let us give it a try,” and into the twilight they strode, Celeste with her bow strung, an arrow nocked, and a quiver at her hip.

Dimmer it got the farther they went until finally they could see nought, so utter was the dark. Celeste paused and said, “Wait here and pay out the line.” Roel found her face in the blackness and kissed her again, and then he stepped back and arranged the line and finally said, “Ready?”

“Ready,” she replied.

“Then go, cherie, but be careful.”

Now Celeste stepped cautiously forward, and Roel, from the coil lying on the ground behind and with the rope over one shoulder and ’round the opposite leg as if he were rappelling, slipped the line and gave her slack and then added slack as she moved away. More he fed and more, as into the ebon wall she stepped. And of a sudden, the rope jerked taut, yanking Roel from his feet and dragging him after.

Memorial

Benumbed with grief, Borel and Michelle, Alain and Camille, Liaze and Luc, and King Valeray and Queen Saissa all sat in a drawing room in Springwood Manor, waiting for the mark when the service would begin.

Hierophant Georges would preside, a tall and somber man. But for the nonce they sat alone, shielded from the sorrow of all others who had come-the retinues of the Winterwood, Autumnwood, and Summerwood, and that of the king-as well as from the heartache of the Springwood staff.

They sat for long moments without speaking, each wrapped in thoughts unshared.

Finally Camille said, “Alain and I think I might be with child.”

Even this news brought nought more than a slight glimmer of gladness to the gathering.

“When will you know?” asked the queen.

“By the next full moon, I should think,” replied Camille.

But then silence fell and the glumness had returned.

The king sat with his foot propped up and in a tight wrap from toes to knee. “Damned horse,” he said, peering at it.

“How?” asked Liaze.

“Eh?”

“How did you hurt your ankle?”

“He broke it, dear,” said Saissa.

“Not I,” said Valeray. “ ’Twas the horse that fell on me, not I on him.”

“Still, how?” asked Liaze, seeking anything to take her mind from the matter at hand.

“He was trying to jump a rock wall,” said Saissa.

“Well, that’s where the stag went,” said Valeray, huffing.

“Ah,” said Liaze.

There came a light tap on the door, and tall, spare, silver-haired Vidal stepped in. “They are ready,” he said quietly.

Alain sighed and stood, offering an arm to Camille.

And so they all stood, Valeray using crutches to aid him along the way.

Out to the lawn they went, out to an arbor. And gathered in the garden before the vine-laden latticework were all retinues and staff.

When the kindred were seated, and after a short opening prayer to Mithras by Hierophant Georges, Prince Borel, eldest of the siblings, took stance behind a small lectern. And even before he began to speak, a soft weeping filled the air.

Tears ran down Borel’s face, and nearby his Wolves whined in uncertainty; they cast about, seeking the cause of the woe besetting their master but finding none.

“Friends, family, loved ones,” began Borel, “even though she was the youngest of us, my sister Celeste was the most headstrong. Always did she seek a challenge, and for that we loved her. Perhaps it was to show us that she could hold her own against Alain and Liaze and me, and hold her own she did, yet I think it was in her nature to-” A distant horn cry interrupted Borel’s words.