Celeste retrieved the silver needle and golden tweezers, and then she and Roel gave over their leathers and undergarments to the mayor’s staff to be cleaned. And the princess and her knight luxuriated in hot baths, and drank fine wine, and stuffed themselves with hot beef and steaming goose and savory gravy and onions and bread and artichokes and mushrooms and other such delicacies.
That evening, crowds gathered before the mayor’s residence, and they called for Celeste and Roel to make speeches, and to repeat the story of the slaying of Lokar.
Long into the night did the revels last. As for the two heroes, they climbed into a soft bed, and the moment their heads touched the pillows, they fell into deep sleep, though the next morn they made sweet love in the onset of dawn.
It was not until the noontide that Monsieur Galdon returned with the twenty blunt, bronze-tipped arrows. “I made a special mold,” he said of the teardropped points, their rounded ends forward. “I do not know what good these will serve, but here they are. ’Tis the best I can do given your strange request.”
Celeste thanked him, and within a candlemark, she and Roel rode out through the gate to the cheers of the citizenry.
A league or so later, Celeste snapped her fingers and said, “Ah, me, but we should have gotten a dog.”
“I asked, cherie,” said Roel, “but none would part with any, for all said it is certain death to go into the realm of the Changelings, and the townsfolk do not want a vile shapeshifter to come back disguised as one of their dogs.”
Celeste sighed and shook her head, and down the road they fared, and there were but ten days and a nighttide left ere the fall of the dark of the moon.
27
Span
Celeste unfolded the map and, after some study, said,
“It seems as soon as we cross the next twilight bound, we need bear due sunwise.” She passed the vellum to Roel.
After he looked at it for a moment, he pointed to a symbol. “What think you this marking means?” Celeste swallowed the bite of bread and leaned over to look. “Hmm. . WdBr. I have no idea, my love.”
“Think you it represents another one of the tests of which Lady Lot spoke?”
“Perhaps,” said Celeste, “for the first test-defeating Lokar-came right after we met her, and that was at the twilight bound.”
Roel frowned. “I think that was not the first test. For when I met you, it was brigands we fought. Then there was the poison of the blade. Then the attack by the Goblins, Bogles, and Trolls fell next. After that there were the corsairs. -Oh, and the Sirenes. Then came the giant Ogre. So, mayhap he was-what? — the sixth test?” Celeste nodded and took a bite of well-cooked beef; it and the bread and other foodstuffs as well as grain for the steeds had been provided by the grateful citizenry of Le Bastion.
Roel sipped a bit of red wine. “Tell me, cherie, are the Fates the ones causing these tests?” Celeste shook her head and swallowed. “Non, Roel.
The Fates merely see what lies before us. It is rare that they actually interfere with the course of men or with that of any given individual. -Oh, when someone breaks a solemn oath or even a serious wager, well, then, I hear that one or the other of the Sisters steps in to take a hand. -Pity the one who has transgressed, for soon or late, he will pay, and dearly.”
“If their interference is so rare, then why do they seem to plague you and your kith?”
Celeste shook her head in rue and peered into her own cup of wine. “My love, I do not know. Camille, Alain’s wife, thinks it has something to do with Wizard Orbane, though she knows not what that might be, for, in addition to the Fates, it seems we are also plagued by Orbane’s acolytes: Hradian, Rhensibe, Iniqui, and Nefasi.”
“Did you not say the witch Rhensibe is dead? Slain by Borel?”
Celeste nodded. “Not directly, but by his Wolves instead. . and Iniqui was slain by Liaze.”
“And this Orbane. .?”
“Ah, him. One or the other of the Fates-perhaps all three-told Camille that he would pollute the River of Time itself, if he ever got free.”
“And this pollution would. .?”
“I know not the effect, yet if the Fates think it dreadful, then I cannot but believe it would be terrible indeed.” Roel frowned. “Why do not the acolytes simply set him free? I mean, you have told me he is imprisoned in a castle beyond the Wall of the World. Why not simply storm the gates and free the wizard? During the war, my comrades and I assailed many a fortress-castles, palaces, bastions-and with our siege engines we were quite successful. So, why not simply attack with the proper forces and equipment and set Orbane loose from his shackles?”
Celeste shrugged. “I think the Castle of Shadows isn’t like an ordinary palace or fortress. And as to the Wall of the World itself, perhaps it cannot be breached. Besides, what the castle actually is, I do not know. Mayhap it is simply lost beyond the Black Wall of the World, and not easily found. Perhaps it is a moving castle, and when approached it simply vanishes. . goes elsewhere. When we have freed your sister and found your brothers, we will ask my sire these questions. Perhaps he has some answers.”
Roel smiled. “Moving castle, eh? That would make it difficult.”
Celeste laughed. “ ’Tis Faery, love.” On they rode, and the way became hilly, then rocky, and in the distance ahead they could see the twilight boundary rearing up into the sky. They came into a land of cliffs and massifs and deep gorges. And that eve they spent on the left bank of a swift-running deep river, with high stone walls rearing up o’erhead.
Swirling mist cloaked the next dawn as Celeste and Roel got under way. And still the passage was rugged.
The gorge they followed was narrow, and became even more strait. And the river roared, the sound trapped as it was between opposing sheer stone walls. And the horses became somewhat skittish, especially the mares, and only by patting the animals on the necks and speaking to them soothingly did Celeste and Roel move forward. Finally, just ahead the river filled the entire width, and on the left wall and barely seen through the hanging vapor a wide ledge rose up out from the water, and at its far end a narrow path led up and along the face of the stone bluff.
“ ’Tis good we are on this side of the flow,” said Celeste, “for I think we must follow that upward way.
Even so, we need turn or cross over somewhere; else we will stray too far from our course.”
“If we are to climb that path, we must reach it first, and here the river is narrow, the water likely deep,” said Roel. “Yet given the curve of the gorge, mayhap along the left wall it will be shallow enough to reach the trail upward. Let me go first.”
Roel tried to urge his mount forward, but the mare snorted and balked and laid back her ears and refused to enter the water, refused to go any farther into the roaring gap.
Roel ground his teeth and said, “Ah, me, would that I had my stallion. A splendid horse, he would brave anything.” Roel dismounted and tried to lead the mare into the flow, but with white, rolling eyes, the horse jerked back.
Now Celeste rode forward, her mare likewise balking at the thundering run, though it seemed a bit less skittish than Roel’s horse.
But Celeste leaned forward and laid a soothing hand alongside the neck of her mount and called out calming words. And hesitantly, and with the whites of her eyes showing, and snorting in dread, still the mare entered the rush, and Celeste’s placid gelding packhorse, though nervous, followed.
Roel’s mare stomped and whinnied and belled, calling out to the other mare, as if to tell her to come to her senses and return to the safety of this side. But Celeste urged her horse forward, and clinging to the wall, ahead they went, and the water roared and clutched at the animals’ legs, rising over hoof and fetlock, pastern and hock, and unto their very bellies.