The horses’ hooves might have flailed air, for all the sound they made, and Kit thought they ran through walls and buildings as easily as if they coursed along roads. The whole world went to shadows, rosy with the dawn and gray with winter, and all around was the silent rhythm of horses running like ghosts, their breaths and those of their riders trailing back in plumes of white, the pulse of air through their lungs, the creak of leather, the bell of hounds the only sound. Ben’s big bay surged along on Kit’s left; on his right side the Mebd’s leggy black outran the rest. Beyond her Kit glimpsed Cairbre’s mount steady at her flank, nose even with the post of her sidesaddle, and when he ducked his head to glance under his arm, he saw Puck’s strange little pony striving gamely in their wake, almost lost amidst the Mebd’s flock of courtiers.
Kit pulled his eyes away, rocking with the motion of the horse, wincing when his weight hit his injured foot in the stirrup and fresh blood oiled the inside of the dead man’s boot, wetness soap‑slick on the glassy surface of sweat‑cured leather.
The hounds ran on, and the horses ran behind them, and the sun rose from behind the ghosts of houses and trees. Glimmerings moved among the city’s landmarks: Gin ran through the shadow of a girl who stood one moment golden‑haired and garbed in blue, laughing – and the next sodden and dark, clad for mourning. It was a dream of London, Mehiel told Kit. A dream of England: not quite Faerie, but a place that was neither quite Faerie nor real. So this is how Baines hides himself so well.Except… how did he come here? How did he know of this place? What is it, a shadow world, world of the half‑told stories?Kit glanced sideways to catch Ben’s face over the lofting mane of his bay, saw the wonder and the bitten lip and the big hands steady in concentration on the reins.
Five hounds now, not four, Kit saw, and the fifth one white as starlight on snowdrifts, running strongly alongside the others, close as if teamed. The fifth dog was larger and more beautiful than the others, like an idealized alabaster statue rather than any real hound, even a transformed one, Kit felt Mehiel’s wings flutter, cup air almost strongly enough to tear him from the saddle, more real here in this place of half dreams than elsewhere. A caution, my friend.
Kit’s scars flared with pain, subsided. «He hunts with us,» Mehiel said, wondering. «Can the Devil serve two masters?»
And Kit blinked, and raised his head to look at the red dawn spilling over the shifting landscape they ran through, sure‑footed fey horses clearing withy hurdles that were jumbled stone‑crowded stream courses when they landed beyond, charging up hills that turned into houses, and he understood. Of course.
«Kit, I do not understand.»
Mehiel would not. For Mehiel was a creature of service, a creature under will, made to obey: a moral imperative made flesh. He could have no doubt, no hesitation, no regret, no hope. Except. Except he had stayed his hand when he could have struck Lucifer down. When Lucifer, mocking, had spread his arms wide and offered himself like a sacrifice. Like Kit. When Lucifer had come at the summons of those who had held Kit, who had treated them as a lord with servants, had sworn–
Had promised them everything they had asked him for.
And then … led Kit’s rescuers among his own servants, interrupted the ritual that would remake God in the image they desired? It made no sense, and Kit worried at it, shredding it like a falcon shreds a rabbit haunch. Because, because, because.
Because Lucifer was a legend too. A legend like any other, a construct, a fable, a myth.
And Morgan had had hair as golden as straw once, and she had been a goddess then.
«A11 stories are true,» Mehiel said, comprehending. «He can be both things at once.»
Not if Lucifer can help it,Kit answered, and crouched back in the saddle as Gin collected himself to scramble down a slope that was gravel, was slick mud, was traprock, and scree. The five hounds ran before them; the fey steeds strove beneath. The light shifted gold for crimson as the sun broke free of the horizon, and Kit leaned closer to Gin’s neck and held on for dear life. Mehiel, my brother, I dare say the one thou lovest doth care for thee, as well.
Act V, scene xxi
Be thy mouth or black or white,
Tooth that poisons if it bite;
Mastiff, grayhound, mongrel grim,
Hound or spaniel, brach or lym;
Or bobtail tike or trundle‑tail;
Tom will make them weep and waiclass="underline"
For, with throwing thus my head,
Dogs leap the hatch, and all are fled.
–William Shakespeare, King Lear,Act III, scene iv
The scent is hot wine, acidic and intense. Spicy, irresistible. His legs move tirelessly, tremors stilled by the willow‑being’s magic, only a slight limp affecting his stride. The quarry lies ahead, the pack lies behind; the grass and gravel and tramped earth lie steady under his feet.
He follows that scent–that hated, enticing, bittersweet scent–to its inevitable conclusion. A man, a man who does not serve. A man who threatens something the hound holds dear. A man who will not be permitted to continue.
Close. So close. Running feet, the jostling shoulders of brothers and a sister beside him. Sweet motion, hot scent, follow it down – fox to his lair, wolf to his den, badger to his burrow. The scent hot, metallic as blood, bitter as the sap of monkshood dabbed against the tongue. The red bitch whines low in her throat, levels her strong, slender body. On his other side, a smoke‑and‑gold brindled dog bends low to the ground, hard into an angle, and runs.
Over hedgerow and ditch, down bank and through privet–it is not his concern how the horses will stay with them. That’s a worry for the horses and their masters. His concern is to hunt, and to run.
The scent’s hotter now, fresher. Borne on the wind as well as the earth. It’s not a scent, precisely, more a contagion, a trace of the passage of the one they hunt. The one they hunt. And the ones they hunt forride behind–
There!he shouts joyously. There! There! There! There!The quarry turns, a broad figure on a dark‑colored horse, floppy brim of a thing on his head, gray cloak wrapped tight. A rogue wind swirls it about his shoulders, about his thighs.
The gray hound collects himself for the leap. His brothers, his sister, they gather themselves. The white hound who runs before them is gone, vanished, tattered and blown apart by the freshening breeze as if he had no more substance than a twist of smoke. The gray dog can already feel the panicked horse shying from his scrabbling nails, the way they’ll furrow saddle leather and flesh, taste the man’s blood hot over his tongue, muscle stretching and tearing between ripping teeth –
“Hold!”
Somehow he stops the killing leap, braces front feet hard enough to furrow turf, trips on the black‑brindle dog who likewise struggles to a stop before him, and they go down yelping, tumbling one over the other, coming to their feet again almost under the horse’s belly. It shies and dances a step, and the rider gentles it; deftly, not harshly, but the motion unseats his hat, and pale hair glitters in the strange sunlight.
The gray dog whines and crouches low, his limbs tingling uncomfortably, baring his teeth in a silent, warning snarl. Behind him, a woman’s voice rises, fluid and mellifluous on words he does not understand, until Will pushed himself upright with both hands flat on the dew‑wet grass and got his feet under him in a crouch. Around him, Morgan and Murchaud and Tom all stood as well, Murchaud rubbing a wrist that Will thought he might have rolled over when they tripped into each other.