Long moments passed, and then up the hawk flew, something small and brown within its taloned grasp.
“Hmm. .,” said Roel. “We shall have to be careful, love, for I deem that was a marmot it took.” They swung wide of the place where the hawk had made the kill, but even so they came to ground riddled with holes and smelling of a rat warren. Celeste and Roel dismounted, and taking care, they slowly led the horses across the treacherous way, for they would not have one of the steeds step in a hole or break through a tunnel and fracture a leg. . or go lame. Finally, they passed beyond the marmot burrows and once more mounted and rode.
In the noontide they paused by a river flowing down from the mountains arear, and they watered the animals and fed them a ration of grain. For their own meal they took waybread and jerky. As they ate and watched the river flow by, of a sudden Roel stood and shaded his eyes and peered sunwise.
“What is it, love?” asked Celeste.
“I think I see the twilight boundary,” said Roel.
Celeste got to her feet and put a hand to her own brow and looked. In the distance afar, a wall of dimness faded up into the sky. “Oui. It is the shadowlight marge.”
“Bon! I was beginning to think we would never reach it. You are familiar with these dusky walls; how far away is it, do you think?”
Celeste shrugged. “That I cannot say. Mayhap we’ll reach it this eve. Mayhap on the morrow. We need to be closer to judge.”
They forded the river, the water chill, made up of snowmelt as it was, and continued riding half a point sunup of sunwise, for somewhere along that way lay the crossing they sought.
In midafternoon and low on the horizon, they espied a wall of green. “The forest?” asked Roel. “The one the crofter said to avoid?”
“So I deem,” said Celeste.
“But it is so broad,” said Roel, spreading his arms wide as if to encompass the whole of it. “It runs for league upon league. Does the map say where to enter?”
“Non, cheri, it does not. What we are to look for along the shadowlight wall is an arc of oaks curving out from the bound and ’round and then back in, or so the chart says.” Roel sighed and said, “Then the best we can do is continue riding a half point to the sunup of sunwise, and hope we find it quickly.”
They reached the edge of the forest at sunset, and there they made camp, Roel yet wishing he had thought to have brought along a plucky but nervous dog.
That night Roel was awakened by Celeste placing a finger to his lips, and he sat up to see a procession of lights low to the ground and wending among the trees, silver bells atinkle on the air.
“What is it?” he whispered.
“Who is it? is more the question,” murmured Celeste.
“Most likely the wee folk heading for a fairy ring. ’Tis nigh springtime in this realm, and they would dance the chill away and welcome warmth among the trees.”
“But the woods are fully leafed,” said Roel. “Is not springtime already come?”
“ ’Tis Faery, love, where the seasons of the mortal world do not always fully apply. There are realms with green trees and blossoms abloom though winter lies across the land, just as there are domains in winter dress though summertime reigns.”
“Only in Faery,” muttered Roel.
Slowly the march wended onward, and when it could no longer be seen or heard, Roel glanced at the stars above and said, “I ween ’tis mid of night and my watch is upon us. Sleep, Celeste, and I will stand ward.”
“I would rather sit at your side.”
“Non, cherie, as much as I love your companionship, you must rest, for dawn will come soon enough.” And so Celeste lay down and soon fell aslumber. Roel listened to her breath deepen, and then he threw another stick on the low-burning fire. He stepped to the horses, standing adoze, and checked the tethers and the animals. Satisfied, he returned to camp and sat down, his back to a tree, and faced into the forest.
How long he sat thus he did not know, but he suddenly realized something was afoot among the boles directly ahead, for he heard faint turning of ground litter, and something low and dark moved stealthily.
Roel took up his sword and waited.
In the blackness of the forest and nigh to the ground a pair of red eyes glowed, and then another pair shone in the dark, creeping nearer. Roel, his heart hammering, reached across to Celeste and gently put a finger to her lips. Silently she came awake, and by the light of ruddy coals, she looked to Roel. “Shh. .,” he murmured.
“Something this way comes.”
Celeste drew her long-knife, and lay alert, and still the red eyes crept closer, now five pairs altogether.
“Hai!” cried Roel, and leapt to his feet and kicked up the fire.
Startled and shying in the sudden light, a mother fox and her four kits turned tail and fled.
Roel laughed and said, “Ah, me, but the crofter’s words of warning of a terrible forest filled with strange goings-on and mystifications have put me on edge.”
“Foxes,” said Celeste, giggling, her own heart yet arace. “You should have trapped one, love; ’twould make a fine nervous dog.”
“Celeste, there is but one edgy dog here, and it be named Roel.”
Dawn came at last, and Roel awakened Celeste. Neither had slept well, and both were somewhat glum and untalkative as they fed rations of oats to the steeds. But a meal and a hot cup of tea quickly returned them to good spirits, and they laughed at their reaction to the visit of the foxes in the predawn marks.
Shortly they were on their way again, and Roel asked,
“How far to the twilight bound?”
“We should reach it just after the noontide, but then we must find the arc of trees, and I know not how long that will take.”
And so on they pressed into the forest, EF on their chart.
Through long enshadowed galleries they rode, leafy boughs arching overhead, with dapples of sunlight breaking through in stretches, the radiance adance with the shifting of branches in the breeze. And across bright meadows they fared, butterflies scattering away from legs and hooves. Nigh a cascade falling from a high stone bluff they passed, the water thundering into a pool below, and therein swam something they could not quite see, though the size of a woman or man it was. “Mayhap an Undine,” said Celeste, and then went on to explain just what that was.
Roel frowned. “A female water spirit who can earn a soul by marrying a mortal and bearing his child?”
“Oui,” said Celeste. “At least that is the myth. In my opinion, though, ’tis but wishful thinking on the part of hierophants and acolytes who would have mankind be the only beings with souls, hence favored by the gods above all other creatures. Yet I believe souls are a part of all living things.”
“All?”
“Oui. And some nonliving things as well.”
“Such as. .?”
“Mountains, rivers, the ocean.”
“The ocean?”
“Oui. Vast and deep is its soul.”
“Celeste, are you speaking of spirits and not souls?” Celeste frowned. “Is there a difference?”
“Mayhap; mayhap not. Perhaps they are two sides of the same coin.”
“Souls, spirits-whether the same or different, I believe all things possess them.” Roel smiled. “Even Undines?”
“Especially Undines,” said Celeste, grinning, “hence I’ll not have you volunteer to marry one so that she can obtain a soul.”
Roel laughed and then suddenly sobered. “Oh, Celeste, what of those whose shadows have been taken?
What of their souls?”
“My love, I believe your sister yet has a soul, though most of it is separate from her.”
Roel nodded and said, “And for those children born of a person whose shadow has been taken, Sage Geron says they are soulless.”
“Perhaps so; perhaps not. Perhaps each one has a soul that is but a fragment of what it should rightly be. And unless the gods intervene, I know not what can be done for them.”