The eagle screamed, loud, shrill, and piercing. There was an answering scream from far away. I am not an expert on bird screams, but I am pretty sure that second scream was one I had heard earlier today.
The eagle flapped to the ground and began poking at his newly rewounded wing.
Corus looked down, frowning. Then he put his foot to the bowstaff, bent, and unstrung his bow. "I release you," he said.
"What?" Had I heard that right?
Coras spoke quietly, his eyes downcast, "Little softhearted girl with the powers of a monster, who steps in front of our cattle, the frail and foolish mortal men, go and be free. On one condition, I release you."
"What's the condition?"
"That you tell no one of my dereliction."
"I want to be able to tell my friends."
"Only on their oath likewise, not to reveal this act."
"Won't Boggin just hear what you are saying now? He can hear the wind."
"I am the wind."
"I will agree… But! But I have one condition…"
That made him smile. He put his hands atop the bow-staff and leaned on it. "You are just as bold as brass, aren't you, little foe of all creation?"
"You have to tell me why. Why you are doing it?"
Coras frowned again.
Sam pointed upward with his fork, and said to me, "Yew know him, do yew?"
Coras glowered at Sam and waved his hand. "I make it fated that you will sleep before I speak this word."
Sam sat down on the cobblestones, blinked, slumped slowly over, snoring. His fork clattered to the pavement with a tiny tinkle.
"You didn't hurt him, did you? Is he going to be all right?"
The eagle twisted around his head and squawked at me angrily. Well, maybe the bird had a point. He had been hit with an arrow, and I was fretting over a sleeping guy. I picked up the bird and brought out another handkerchief to wrap around him.
There was another small tinkling noise when I did that, and something bright lay on the pavement. I put one slippered foot casually atop it.
Coras said, "I do not prey on the cattle of Mulciber. This world is his. I make it fated that this man shall be found by kind strangers, who will see to his care. I accept your final condition, O monster who pities even such low creatures as this man. Here is my reason: Thelxiepia begged me, that if by chance I were the first one to find you, that I be slow to carry out my duties. She is the finest, most beautiful, and most ill-used of women. I wanted to use the bounty Boreas placed on your head to buy her freedom, and I did not hear her plea, although my heart was torn. She said you would not destroy the world, and I did not believe she knew whereof she spoke. Now I know that she is also wise, and kind, and good…"
I said, "Oh my gosh! You are the one! At the party! You and Miss Daw. The Lady said someone was going to fall in love at that party! True love! She said it would be true love."
His grin was like the summer sun breaking through clouds, and his face lit up with happiness and embarrassment. He turned his head away, and put his hand on his mouth to still his involuntary smile.
Corus spoke again without turning his head. "I have fulfilled my condition, and now I lay my fate upon you: should my brother or any who might tell him of my treason to him, learn of it from you, your suffering and pain will be greater than mine, and last nine times the span of time."
He turned his back to me and spread his wings. "Your companions, who also seek you, await you in the harbor. Warn them that each time Nausicaa calls her silvery ship, or bids it sail, Mestor's lodestone is drawn.
"Do not mistake this act of mine for kindness. You and your kin I hold in hatred and contempt, for your life is the death of the earth and sky; and you wounded my great brother Boreas, who now lies in his sickbed, caught in dreams with no waking, for he is under attack by Morpheus the Lord of Night."
I said softly, "I am sorry for that. I like Boreas, even though he was so mean to me."
He did not turn his head, but he snorted. Perhaps he was amused at the idea of the softhearted monster, as he called me. He said in a gentler tone: "And do not envy me my true love. The Lady Cyprian did not warn me how it would stain my honor, sever my kinship, and make all my roads as hard as iron swords to cross. Yet I regret nothing."
And he stepped from the pillar and rose into the sky.
When he was gone, I moved my slipper and looked down.
The ring of Gyges lay under my toe.
1.
The church bells rang again, and down the street, the tall doors opened. A little crowd began to form on the stairs of the church, little figures in the distance in their best formal clothes.
I misted the "fate" Corus had put upon Sam, that someone would find and help him. I would have called out, but I feared they would call the police on me.
Bird in hand, I walked quickly down Main Street. No one was following. When the slope cut off the view of the church behind me, I ran.
I had the ring in my fist as I ran, but I was too wary of the unknown to put it on my finger.
How had it come to be in my pocket? At a guess, when Grendel came out of the Kissing Well with me freezing to death in his arms, he stepped over to his little buried shed, saw it was too small to get me inside, but grabbed up his cloak and fire-making tools. And took the time to take off the ring, wrap it in a hankie, and put it in his trunk? Maybe. He had that trunk open because he was getting a gag out for yours truly; he was terrified that I would make a noise and call down the vengeance of Boreas on his head.
But the fact that I had it seemed like a coincidence.
From Corns, it was clear that arranging coincidences was the especial province of the Olympians. But why? Maybe it had a tracking device in it, or the magical equivalent to one. Even so, several clues implied the Olympian power could only work on someone who broke a law, went back on a promise, or was indebted. I had not stolen this ring. Did that make it safe to use?
I came out onto Waterside Street.
I heard Vanity's voice before I saw them, a cheery voice ringing with relief and joy: "Oh! Look! It worked! There she is!"
I turned my head, and there they were. Quentin had his huge black cape on over his school uniform, a staff of white wood in his hand; Victor was wearing a brand-new buff-colored jacket that fell to his knees, with a chain-mail jerkin dangling and clinking underneath; Vanity was dressed in a plush red winter coat with white mink fur trim about the hood and wrists, with matching gloves, with little black booties below. It was an outfit I had never seen before. She looked like a glamour model doing a "Santa's little elf" theme.
I ran up and threw my arms—one arm, anyway— around the smiling Vanity and gave her the biggest hug circumstances allowed. She flinched and giggled when the huge bird of prey fluttered his wings across her head.
We were standing, of all places, right in front of Jerry's Fine Cafe. Victor had his back to me and was helping a police constable sit down on the bench that was there. A second police constable was already seated, slumped over the bench arm, ear on his shoulder, eyes closed and mouth open. There was a teardrop of drool dangling from his lip. I would have thought he was dead, but dead men don't snore so loudly.
Quentin's eyes were also closed. He had his left hand held out at shoulder level, with rosary beads twined through his fingers. A cross was hanging from it, like the bob of a pendulum. The pendulum was not swinging. The rosary was motionless, suspended at the apex of its arc or swing, and the cross was pointed at me.
Quentin relaxed and muttered, " Ave et vale. Abi!" Whereupon, the rosary in his hand also relaxed. He opened his eyes, casually looping the rosary around his hand to tuck it into an inner pocket, and he said,