“There’s no one here,” said Flic, his hand moving to the hilt of his epee. “Perhaps this is just a trick.”
“No,” said the Pooka. “Did I not swear on Lady Skuld?”
“Well, there’s that,” said Flic.
“Pooka,” said Borel, “a vow taken in the name of Skuld is one not to be broken.”
“Indeed, my lord,” said the Pooka, his voice yet laced with pain.
“Then, ere I loose you,” said Borel, “there is a pledge I would have you make, a vow-”
“Oh, my lord, loose me now,” said the Pooka, “loose me now. I will swear the vow when I am free of this agony.”
“No, no!” cried Flic.
Borel said, “I know, my friend: he is a cunning and wicked and most deadly steed.”
The Pooka sighed. “What is this vow, my lord?”
“Ere I tell you the vow,” said Borel, “three men died because of your rampages, Pooka. I ask you, what would be a fitting punishment?”
“None, my lord,” replied the Pooka. “They did not give me my due, and I justly destroyed their fences and gave some of them a ride. They themselves are responsible for their own deaths, for they chased me into the rapids, trying to kill me, but instead got caught in the flow and drowned of their own accord. Hence, no punishment is warranted.”
“Hmm…” mused Borel. “Your rampage against them is still not defensible. Even so, they tried to murder you.”
“Yes, yes, murder me,” said the Pooka. “That’s absolutely correct. That’s why no punishment or vow is due.”
“Not so,” said Borel. “Here is what I would have you swear on the names of Skuld, Verdandi, and Urd-”
“All three Fates, my lord?”
“Yes, Pooka, all three. A more binding oath I cannot imagine.”
The Pooka sighed and said, “Yes, my lord.”
“Here it is then,” said Boreclass="underline" “You must altogether leave the realm of the White Rapids and never rampage on men again-”
“Not rampage? But they did not give me my due.”
“Pooka!” snapped Borel. “What you name as getting ‘your due’ is nought but obtaining by threat that which you desire. It was not yours to begin with, and you did nought to earn it-no labor nor services rendered. And so would I have you swear.”
“My lord,” said the Pooka, “if I cannot rampage against men, then what, pray tell, will you allow?”
Borel sighed. “I would have you act as your more gentle Pooka brethren: you, like they, can take men for wild rides and dump them in muddy ditches and quag holes, just as long as they will not die or sustain any but superficial injury.”
“My lord, I cannot merely-”
Borel gave a yank on the jaw rope.
The Pooka moaned and said, “Though you yourself are obtaining by force and threat that which you desire-an offense you accuse me of-I will take your oath.”
“Have him also swear to leave us unharmed,” said Flic. “You, the bee, and me, my lord, for I do not trust him.”
Borel nodded. “You will swear by the Ladies Skuld, Verdandi, and Urd all of these things I-we-demand.”
The Pooka sighed and spoke the oath, as elaborated upon and administered by Borel.
At last Borel dismounted. And he loosened the lower-jaw rope and set the Pooka free. With a sigh of relief the Pooka worked his jaw and lips, feeling of them for residual hurt. But with the three Pooka hairs now out of his mouth, miraculously it seemed there was none. And the Pooka said, “My lord, you fooled me by playing the dolt even better than any third son could, and I applaud you for it. You were too clever for me by far. Yet heed: never again will I be duped by such a trick or even one closely linked.”
Borel smiled and said, “All I ask of you is to keep your oath, Dark Fey.”
“Oh, that I will do, else who knows what the Fates would have in store for me?” The Pooka shuddered and added, “Perhaps they would assail me with even more of your kind.”
With that the Pooka transformed into a great bird and flew away in the starry moonlit night.
32
After settling Buzzer on a selected leaf, Flic turned to Borel and said, “What now, my lord?”
Borel hobbled about, laying a fire, for he was sorely battered from his wild ride. “Now, Flic, we wait,” he replied.
“For the Riders Who Cannot Dismount, eh?”
“Yes, though why they cannot is a puzzle, except the Pooka said they were cursed by the King Under the Hill. And speaking of the king, what is it about him that makes him even more dangerous than that Dark Fey?”
“Because, among other things, he can lay curses,” said Flic. “Too, it is said that on a whim he keeps people prisoners for thousands of summers merely to dine with him. It seems time runs at a different pace within his hold.”
“Ah, well,” said the prince, “I’ll try to avoid each of those things.”
“Well, if he gives you any trouble, you might-My lord, your long-knife: it’s gone!”
“Tumbled away in the night, Flic,” said Borel, “when the Pooka was the vulture and rolling over and over. I could not spare a hand to try to catch it, hanging on as I was. Yet even had I tried, I think I would have only cut myself.”
“You needed a keeper for your blade,” said Flic, “like my Argent has.”
“The sheath has a keeper, Flic, but when the Pooka ran through thickets and smashed against trees and such, it must have come loose. Regardless, it lies somewhere lost. Perhaps one day someone needing a weapon will come across it.”
“Perhaps,” said Flic, stretching and yawning and settling down beside Buzzer. “Besides, I was going to say you could use your long-knife should the King Under the Hill give you trouble, but I think with his power to curse someone, it’s better that you don’t.” Again Flic yawned.
Borel lit the campfire and, groaning a bit, settled down to a meal of jerky and hardtack, after which he stepped to the mere and took a deep drink and replenished the waterskin he had purchased in Riverbend. Then he cast another branch upon the fire and turned to bid Flic good night, but the Sprite was sound asleep.
“Good evening, ma cherie,” said Borel, determined this time to control his heart, with its lusty urges. He was back in the turret surrounded by floating daggers.
“My Borel,” she replied, smiling and curtseying. “Where are we off to tonight?”
Borel frowned in thought and then smiled and said, “I think to a place that once held peril, but now does not.”
“Ah, a mystery, I see,” said Chelle. “Lead on, my lord.”
Borel offered Chelle his arm, and together they stepped into the shadows and through the hidden door to emerge on the stone bank of the White Rapids. And the air thundered with the roar of water hurling furiously down the long slope of the run.
“Oh, my, what a beautiful fury,” said Chelle, raising her voice to be heard above the churn. “And you say peril was here?”
“Oui, and recently at that.”
“What kind of peril?”
“A Pooka. Have you ever heard of such?”
“Oh, yes,” said Chelle. “My pere often told me of the king of the Keltoi and his wild ride.”
“What?” said Borel, and he shook his head. “I should have asked you of the legend.”
“The legend of the king and the Pooka?”
“Oui,” said Borel. “I heard of it from a Sprite, but he did not know how the king prevailed.”
“Would you like to know? It will cost you a fee.”
“A fee?”
“A kiss,” said Chelle.
“Gladly,” said Borel, and he took her in his arms and they kissed long and lingeringly. Finally he backed away and said, “A splendid fee, my lady, joyously paid, but now I would have that tale. Yet let us find a place a bit quieter.”
Upstream they strolled, until the rumble of the rapids faded and the wide Meander slowly slid past. They came to a mossy bank, where they settled down to talk.
“Now about this Keltoi legend…” said Borel.
“Pookas,” said Chelle. “They are rather dreadful night creatures, though in the legend there seems to be only one instead of the many my father believes are in Faery. What do you know of them?”