Gossamyr

“Yes, and with great savor, I note. The thing is dead as a doornail.” Ulrich strode to the mule and, flipping open a tattered saddlebag, poked about inside. Drawing out a small horn, he uncapped what Gossamyr guessed to be cleaning oil for the weapon.

The fetch fluttered down from the sky. She offered it a smart bow. Danger annihilated. Shinn would be pleased. Circling the beast to take in the carnage, the fetch then alighted into the crystal sky to twinclian in a shimmer of dust.

Unaware of the exchange, Ulrich tucked the oil horn inside the saddlebag and strapped the crossbow across Fancy’s back. So he had assisted. Next time she would not allow him such opportunity.

“I cannot promise to stand idly by should such need again arise.” Ulrich strode by Gossamyr, finger to lips in thought. “It is my manner, fair lady, to help when a damsel requires saving.”

Damsel? Gossamyr slid a look to the left then the right. Where be this damsel? She was the only—Ah. So he thought…?

She spread her shoulders back, lifting her chest. Fisting her fingers before her, she hissed, “Do I look like I need saving?”

Dancing blue eyes took in her obstinate pose in a quick cap-à-pie flight. “Actually…no.”

“Just so. In the future keep your mortal weapons to yourself.”

“Indeed? Mortal weapons. Ahum.” He assumed a haughty pose, thumbs hooked at the waist of his striped hose, one foot stretched forward and his body cocked at an angle. “So says the damsel with the sparkly throat.”

“I—” Gossamyr slapped a palm to her throat.

“I suppose I must thank you,” he added.

“For saving thee?”

He chuckled. “No, for reminding me of which I forget. There is a damsel in need of rescue. And she will not argue my help. I must be off.”

“Saving damsels? What sort of pitiful, unoriginal quest—” She stabbed a proud thumb into her pourpoint. “I’ve a mission to save the—”

“The what?” Mirth tickled Ulrich’s lips into a slippery smile and now his tone danced teasingly. “The world? Is not such a quest reserved for armored knights and champions wearing their lady’s favor on their sleeves?”

“I am not here to save your world. It is my world I…must save.” Bogies and blight! Very sly, Gossamyr. Really blending well. Why did she not simply reveal her fée origins and hold out her wrists for the chains?

“Ah! I see. There is a separation between our worlds. But since you claim not to be a faery, I can only then assume you speak of the minuscule world that populates the inside of your skull.”

Ulrich approached and made show of tilting his head this way and that as he looked into her eyes. A vicious preening. The look was so familiar, like that of a fellow fée who deemed Gossamyr lesser because of her half blood, and yet, the rank of her father elevated her above all. Fluttering beringed fingers near her head, he insulted with silent menace. “My master once treated a victim of psychomachia.”

“Psycho-what?”

“It is one who lives within their own mind. Entire worlds are invented. An extraordinary life is led walking through the imaginary world, while the victim’s very feet tread the earth of reality.”

Gossamyr stepped right up to the man to meet his mocking stare. The embroidered trim of his cape brushed her knees. Must and earth surrounded his air. No longer did anything about him appeal, not even his fine white teeth. “You. Are rude.”

“And you are most snappish. And much too close. Have you no sense of propriety? Back off, warrior woman.”

She hooked her hands at her hips and fixed him with the mongoose eye.

“Not at all the same,” Ulrich muttered as he stepped away and drew a glance down her form. A sorry shake of his head shook his loose curls. “In twenty years women have truly lost all their graces. Pity.”

“What do you mumble about now?”

“Nothing that concerns you, Faery Not.”

That moniker, most cruel, set Gossamyr to a stomp.

“Very well.” Ulrich slapped his arms across his chest and faced her again with that preening expression. “I promise to stand back and allow you all the glory next time we are set upon by supernatural beasties.”

“It was a bogie.”

“If you say so.”

“I do.”

Next time? Hmm…Very possible, considering they walked the edge of the Netherdred, and would soon have to cross through it to reach the mortal city of Paris.

A scan of the horizon sighted a line of lindens and a wispy ghost of smoke, likely a fire roasting a family’s evening meal. The distant yowl from a night creature gave her wonder to the rampant wolves her mother had documented in the bestiary. Not so vicious as a Netherdog, frequently found wandering the sandy borders of the marsh roots, but certainly ferocious. She’d had no time to gather expectations of her journey, but already it proved more perilous than she might have imagined.

Adventure? Yes, please. She could stand down any threat that challenged.

I hope, a small voice deep inside whispered.

“I wonder what it was doing here?” she said with a glance to the block of bogie lying in a growing puddle of brown ooze. “Is it common for bogies to charge from out of nowhere? Such creatures generally keep to cinder caves and the night. For all the rage it possessed, one would think we’d done it a grievance.”

“Do you wish me to answer according to my world?” Ulrich tugged at the saddlebag, secured to Fancy’s flank. “As opposed to your skull world?”

With a glance to the battleground, peppered with brown bogie blood, Ulrich let out a heavy exhalation. He squeezed an eye shut at the blast of setting sun that beamed him in the face. “Never, in my extremely pitiful life, have I seen one of those things. Said life being much too short of late. Or be it too long?” A tilt of his head revealed the modena on his cheek. “But I trust you have encountered such? You knew exactly how to take the thing out.”

“Training.”

“Oh? Did I miss something in my schooling? Attack and conquer abecedarian?”

She delivered him a sneer to match—nay, defy—his mockery. “Just answer me this: are we close to a village? I tire, and have worked up a hunger.”

“One would never guess from the brilliant sparkle you put out.”

His constant reminder she glimmered troubled. A touch to her throat discovered the highest agraffe was open. The carved bone clasp had broken, most likely during the fight.

“A village? Indeed, Aparjon lies just ahead. But tell me, why do you not simply fly there? Ah!” He made show of bending and peering around to study her shoulders. Gossamyr twisted her back away from his view. “No wings!”

“We have already discussed this.”

“Indeed. Not a faery.” Now his jesting tone returned and that brilliant smile flashed like a beam of sunlight. “But plenty faeries do not have wings.”

“How know you such?”

“Every child learns the facts before they are out of infant skirts.” He made a merry skip and danced around Gossamyr. “Faeries come in all manner of shape, size and wing. Some walk amongst the mortals undiscovered, some flitter up to a man’s ear to stand inside it. But one thing they all have in common is a glimmer—” he drew his palm between them in a curtain of fluttering fingers “—that sheen of the unnatural.”

The blazon.

“Though, I must say, you do appear a trifle…faded.”

“What mean you by that?”

Ulrich pointed to the hem of Gossamyr’s pourpoint. “Your clothing. The leaves look as though they are fading. More so than when we first met.”

Gossamyr touched a curve of supple hornbeam at her waist. Indeed, the leaf had lost some of its glossy resilience. The arachnagoss threading was strong, but no more so than the outer layers it stitched together. She smoothed a hand over her braies. They felt secure; amphi-leather was virtually indestructible, even a fire-forged blade must draw a precise line to cut through.

A bend of her arm tugged a crack in the leaves at her shoulder.

“I must make haste,” she said and picked up her pace along the dirt path.

“And so I shall hurry alongside you, Faery Not.”

They walked onward, Ulrich leading Fancy as he ventured first. His strides were light, jumping to kick a stone in the path, as free as the air made Gossamyr feel. When he finally spoke, though, he sounded suspicious. “You are quite skilled in defense and attack.”

She smirked. “And you are adept at getting in the way.”

“Why, thank you, fair lady. It is a skill. Pity ’twas my last quarrel. Though, rest assured, I can hold steel to the enemy should the need arise. That is…if I had steel.” He patted his hips and scanned the ground. “I seem to have misplaced my dagger a few leagues back.”

“Would that be when you won the prize dripping down your forehead?”

“Do you think it will leave a mark?” He touched the wound.

Ever changing, the man’s moods. From suspicion, to anger, to a teasing charm. Despite the danger his learning of her origins could pose, Gossamyr found it difficult to dislike the man. For he tread the earth as if he had wings. To have him accompany her even a short distance could prove a boon. She would study him, prepare for future contact with mortals. They weren’t so different from the fée. Even his deep voice she had grown accustomed to.

“So, Gossamyr who isn’t from Faery, I did notice you were particularly surprised at your success over the beast.”

Gossamyr tripped ahead, enjoying the warm air skim her bared flesh. Right, was the only feeling she could summon. She spun in a dancer’s twirl and rejoined Ulrich’s side. “It is the first time I have engaged in hand-to-hand combat.”

“Ah. Well then, good show, Faery Not.”

“Don’t name me that—achoo!” Halted in her tracks, Gossamyr grasped her head.

“Touché!” Turning to walk backward Ulrich smiled at her. The gap in his teeth distorted his mirth. “So you like to dance?”

Skipping, Gossamyr shrugged and offered an unexpected “I think so!”

“You take marvel at your own wonder.”

“It is just, the air…I feel light.”

“Pray tell what the air is like whence you hail?”

“Not like here,” she called out and jumped to the grass to skip through the cool blades.

Flight had ever alluded her, no matter how often she had attempted it. Which had been often in the rose garden behind the castle buttery. Mince had once witnessed her fruitless attempts and had laughingly joined in. The matron’s small wings, attached to a generously rounded body, had served little more than to lift her shoulders. She could not leave the ground, either. It had bonded them in laughter, and a smirking confession from Gossamyr, which revealed her jealousy of the winged ones.

“You are the daughter of Lord de Wintershinn,” Mince had stated simply. “You needn’t envy; you are envied.”

Mayhap. But Gossamyr had not missed a single averted gaze or cruel stare in her lifetime. Envy hurt. And the only way to overcome was to prove herself. She needn’t the Wintershinn name to stand proud; to defeat the Red Lady would prove her worth and perhaps put to rest the suspicious whispers.

She spun now, and leaped into the path immediately before Ulrich. He had no wings, and yet, he took to the air in his strides. And that made him all the more appealing.

“The dirt from the fight,” Ulrich commented as he angled forward to study her. “It covers your face.”

Gossamyr wiggled her nose. Another sneeze tormented.

“It is bone,” he said of her dirty covering. “It hides your glimmer.”

“Bone?”

“That means good.”

“Then why not say good?”

“For the same reason you say mortal. We have our own slangs, do we not?” A click of his tongue beckoned Fancy onward.

Gossamyr paralleled him but a leap to his left. He suspected; she knew that he did.

“I wager you are safe from wonder so long as you do not favor bathing. Though your clothing—”

“Will be changed anon. I need only locate a seamstress. Mayhap something bright, like yours.” She glanced over Ulrich’s attire. The cloak swung merrily with his strides, intermittently revealing the tight striped hose he wore.

“I’m afraid a change of costume won’t be so easy in Aparjon,” he said. “’Tis a very small village, as most villages are. It is not fortified, which will prove bone. Our entry will not be questioned. If I recall from my travels there is a stable behind the one lone tavern that rents out to riders. Plead to Luck to find a horse for purchase, especially a swift one. As well, it may be difficult to get a room for the night.” He turned and scanned back down the road.

“Dead as a doornail,” Gossamyr reassured. And who decided when a doornail was dead? “What lends you to believe I wish to stay the night in the next village?”

“You said you were tired?”

“Yes, but a rest and some hearty fare will serve. I am off to Paris.”

“Indeed?”

Ulrich handed Gossamyr Fancy’s reins and skipped ahead, turning to walk widdershins in front of her. His cloak billowed as he gestured and filled the air with the rumbling tones Gossamyr found she favored more and more.

“I cannot resist questioning when there is so much of interest about you, fair lady. Whence do you hail? And, skill aside, what finds a lone woman trekking to Paris with so little fear of danger?”

“I am in search of a…woman. She goes by the moniker of the Red Lady.”

She picked up her pace in hopes of the man stumbling, but he tread backward with ease. His arms pumping, his robe splayed open with each stride, to reveal long legs and ankle-high suede boots with pointed toes.

“And where in Paris does she reside?”

“I know naught.”

“Paris is a big city. Mayhap I can help you locate her?”

“How might you discover a woman you’ve never met?”

“I found you.”

“But you weren’t—”

“I’ve a location spell that may be of use.”

A spell? Caution fired. “You said you are not a wizard.”

“That I am not.”

The last thing Gossamyr needed was to align herself with a practicer of magic. She had come to stop the damaging effects done to Enchantment, not contribute.

“But I did pay attention when His Most Magical—er, my former patron—needed to locate a lost dream or dragon.”

“You practice magic?”

“Not enough to make it real.”

But did his attempts tap Enchantment? And with the rift, the damage caused was increased immeasurably. Mayhap choosing to share the road with this man had been a mistake. Where was the fetch? If Ulrich proved a threat, would Shinn intervene?

Quickening her footsteps, she commented, “I fear the woman I seek be more dangerous than a fire-breathing dragon.”

“You say so?”

“I’ve said enough. We must keep to ourselves. We’ve only to accompany one another to the next village.”

“You’re not keen on friendship, eh?”

Gossamyr shrugged. Not with a man who practiced magic.

Mince was the only friend she had ever known. Not even a good friend if one considered Shinn paid her as nursemaid. Gossamyr had been schooled and trained exclusively by her father, and kept from most situations that would see her surrounded by vindictive fée. The few times she went to market or escaped to participate in a tournament were such wonders. There were food stands offering honeyed petals and toadstools carved like miniature castles. Lavender creams and smoky beetles enticed. Children were rare, but few ran about laughing and playing challenging games. Women dressed gaily and men ogled them with soused grins. Brownies socialized with hobs and the curiously tall dryad would draw a lingering stare. Who could be bothered to look for a friend?

Besides, Gossamyr was ever studied from afar—like a curious bug—but rarely approached with a smile.

You are half-blooded, and that is fine. You are the daughter of Lord de Wintershinn. They know you will ascend to the throne one day, and they respect you, for you are of Shinn’s bloodline. Still, the fée will never completely accept you. It is best you avoid the central markets in Glamoursiège. Half bloods, while rare, are cruelly teased.

Unless a fée was attracted to her because of her mixed blood.

You are exotic, Gossamyr.

He is a Rougethorn. They dabble in magic….

“I say—” Ulrich turned and rejoined her at her side “—that a man can never have too many friends.”

“I am not a man.”

“You fight like one.”

“Bespell your tongue to silence,” she hissed and then under her breath murmured, “Or I shall do it for you.”

“I’ve rudimentary knowledge of magic. Would that I could bespell myself!” he called out grandly. “’Twould be akin to smiling myself into a swoon!”

But Gossamyr wasn’t listening. Evening traced the atmosphere with an orange line on the horizon. Surrounding gray illumination loomed. An eyelash moon slit the sky. Soon the countryside would be black. A unique experience, for the light bugs that populated the Spiral forest produced such illumination Gossamyr had never found herself to fright because of darkness. She sensed mortals viewed the world in a darker shade. Were there light bugs in this realm? The compulsion to cling to this final moment of sparse light, to see all—and remember—overwhelmed. For soon she would see that darker shade, as well.

That is why you must be of haste! No time to rest this night. Leave the mortal to his foul magic and be off.

A line of fire-ravaged treetops frosted the western horizon with a macabre lace. To the right, a creaking windmill chomped on the silence, wood bearing against wood, commanded by the wind. Crickets chirred and long grasses schussed. Evening sounded much the same, and that was, as Ulrich might say, bone.

“Achoo!”

“Sneeze on Tuesday—”

“clobber a stranger,” Gossamyr finished the childhood rhyme.

“So touchy, my lady. I’d fare to wager we are strangers no longer.”

“What happens when one sneezes on the morrow?”

“Sneeze for a letter. And Thursday sneeze for something better. Mayhap by Thursday you’ll have shed your sparkle?”

“Or even better, I’ll have shed one mule and its jabbering passenger.”

Jabbery? Indeed! Why the nerve of the…the…well, Ulrich wasn’t exactly sure what Gossamyr was.

Feisty, fine and female. Mayhap a faery?

The woman who strode in skipping steps ahead of him by ten paces was like no woman he had ever before known. Or seen. Or dreamed of. Well, mayhap he had dreamed a tempting siren once or twice—hell, dozens of times. But never had she been so skilled in the martial arts. Killing bogies? She had moved without thought, swinging that beautiful carved stick of hers and taking out the bogie with but one stroke. Masterful.

His rusted crossbow had been less than splendid when matched against the woman’s mettle. Made him feel a bit lacking.

On the other hand, with a traveling mate of such skill, he could pay heed to that which required attention. Ulrich patted Fancy’s withers and slid his hand back to smooth over the saddlebag. A certain hum, much like the throat of a purring cat, vibrated against his palm. Safe. But for how long? Would his quest be ended most violently before he had opportunity to save the damsel?

Or was it already too late? So little remained the same. It had all changed. Everything. Twenty years had been stolen!

He should have been there to save her, his sweet Rhiana. Instead, he had been…dancing. That hellacious toadstool ring!

Ah, but he would have Rhiana back. And he would die trying.

But he mustn’t think overmuch of his quest. For one brief thought—just back the road a ways—had called up the bogie. Myriad strange and malevolent evils could sense him, even—he suspected—hear his thoughts.

What should happen if he were to dip into the saddlebag and draw the thing out into view? He’d barely avoided death last eve when the wailing white ladies had followed him through the mist-fogged swamp. Not being corporeal they could not touch him, but such hadn’t prevented them from flinging sticks and stones and the like at him. And finding target with each attack. Recall prickled the hairs all over his body to alert. And the realization this quest was insane.

How to locate what he sought? Was this feeling—a calling that led him toward Paris—sure?

What a task, what a task.

An ally from Faery would make all the difference.

Ulrich eyed the sure, muscular form striding ahead of Fancy. She was as a man in strength and prowess but with the curves and beauty of a siren. Those double plaits of summer-wheat hair tipped in delicate bone clasps beat at her back with each lilting stride. And the clothing! Braies and pourpoint? Leaves? No mortal man or woman could fashion such. And that glimmer, it almost seemed to form a pattern under her jaw and down her neck. Did it spread across her chest?

She was a faery; he sensed it. For he could lately see the damned things. A gift of the dance. How to give it back?

A man should like to have a confident fighter at his side if he had set to an insane quest that would surely bring about many more a challenge.

As well, a faery would attract the one thing he most needed to find.

FIVE

The iridescent fetch was not to be seen against the dull flatness of night. Must have twinclianed to Faery. The quiet warmth of protection Gossamyr felt whenever she sighted the dragon fly tremored for reignition. Sure, she could stand off a bogie, but…

But…she wondered now if Mince was asking for her absence. What must her maid think? Did she fear for Gossamyr, all alone in a strange land? Mayhap Shinn had not mentioned her departure. And if he had, only the facts—details were unnecessary. Surely, Mince worried.

Something so insignificant as a sigh now felt a heavy burden as Gossamyr marched along the rutted path alongside her mortal traveling companion. She kept turning to look back, thinking to spy the marble castle from the corner of her eye. She didn’t like feeling this way. Uncomfortable. At a loss. For all purposes she should charge ahead, thinking only of the task. All of Faery relied upon her defeat of the Red Lady.

“All,” she murmured. “That is…quite many.”

So many, she wondered now if Shinn had made a wise choice.

It was not a choice! You begged.

Yes.

I hope you discover the solace to the ache that has been your nemesis.

He knew. It had been time to set her free. If only to fulfill the personal quest she sought before settling upon the Glamoursiège throne. To experience the Otherside, and to claim victory.

Ahead, torches flickered and wobbled along the path. Night had settled, completely blacking the sky save for spots of starlight.

Gossamyr skipped ahead. About a shout down the road an equipage with two armored destriers in the lead pondered slowly forth. Both carried torches. Following, a carriage and a large covered wagon behind, trailed by yet more mounted riders. Every corner of the carriage was hung with yet another torch.

“What is that?” She turned to Ulrich. “Royalty?”

“Unlikely.” A bounce on his toes scanned the coming caravan. “No banners or coats of arms that I can see. It is likely a traveling merchant who has just passed through Aparjon. We should move from the road.”

Gossamyr stabbed her staff into the red clay. “Why?”

A chuffing breath preceded Ulrich’s sharp retort, “Do you wish to be trampled?”

Gossamyr held her tongue. She held no position here in the Otherside. While normally her equipage would command the road, she was supposed to be lying low. Waylaying suspicion. Besides, a mule and a dancing fool could hardly be considered an equipage. A touch to her neck; she spread her fingers down over her collarbones. Darkness hid her blazon.

Leaping from the path, she landed Fancy’s side and gave the mule’s neck a smooth of her palm. “Will they be dangerous?”

“Not unless provoked.” Ulrich eyed her suspiciously. “You, er…won’t provoke them?”

Did he think her so unhinged? “Not unless they give reason for such.”