“She told me that I must go alone,” said Camille. “That unlooked-for help would come along the way.”
“Were those her exact words?”
Camille’s brow furrowed. “Her exact words were, ‘East of the sun and west of the moon is where your prince does lie. And this I will tell you for nought: a year and a day and a whole moon more from the time you betrayed him is all you have to seek him out, and you have already wasted seven days. Take my two gifts and go, and go alone, but for one of my gifts. Unlooked-for aid will come along the way.’ ” Camille’s eyes widened in remembrance. “Oh, two gifts. But where-?”
Camille looked about the glade, seeing nought but things natural to the Summerwood: the sward, the water of the mere, the cluster of reeds within, a small patch of briars nearby, a silent bird in among the thorns, and the trees ’round the marge of the mead. Then she looked in the hollow of the oak. Nothing therein but the strange burl and the gnarled sti- Wait! Camille reached in and took up the stick. It was a walking staff, and it had a carved festoon of flowers winding ’round the shaft and up to a dark disk just below the grip at the top.
“This is surely one of the gifts,” said Camille, showing the ornate find to Kelmot.
“No doubt,” agreed the Lynx Rider. “But she said there were two.”
A flurry sounded nearby, and the bird in the thorns-a sparrow-chattered frantically, alarmed by Kelmot’s lynx, the cat, belly low, now creeping through the grass toward the briars. Yet the bird did not fly.
Suddenly Camille gasped. “Lord Kelmot, call off your lynx!”
Kelmot frowned, but spat a hissing word, and the lynx flattened in the grass, but did not take its eyes from its would-be prey.
Camille strode to the briar patch, Kelmot following, and all the while the bird chattered. “ ’Tis a wee, black-throated house sparrow and trapped,” said Camille as she worked her way inward. “Oh, my, but he is injured, his wing caught on a thorn. Mithras, it has stabbed right through a wing joint.”
Kelmot stood outside the briars. “What has the bird to do with aught?”
As Camille carefully eased the bird’s wing from the thorn, she said, “Remember the words of the seer, Lord Kelmot: ‘Take my two gifts and go, and go alone, but for one of my gifts.’ From her words I deem one of her gifts is a companion.”
“Ah, I see,” said Kelmot, nodding in agreement. “Alone, but for one of her gifts. Yet, Camille, what makes you think this bird is that gift?”
“Well, there is this: I heard not the sparrow until after the Lady of the Mere was gone. Ere, then, I deem he was absent.” The sparrow now in hand, Camille worked her way out from among the briars. As she stepped forth, she glanced at the lynx, and then frowned at Kelmot. “Will you, can you, keep your cat away from the bird while I tend to him?”
A look of indignation crossed Kelmot’s tiny face, yet he said, “Most certainly, Lady Camille.” He turned to the lynx and spat-hissed a word or two.
Now it was the cat who looked offended, and it turned its back to them alclass="underline" Camille, Kelmot, and the sparrow.
Kneeling at her rucksack, Camille took a small jar from within, and, making soothing sounds, she applied a daub of salve to the injury. “I think he may never fly again,” she said, sadness tingeing her words as she carefully folded the wing shut.
Kelmot frowned and asked, “Think you this sparrow will be a willing companion?”
“Let us see,” replied Camille, setting the sparrow on her shoulder.
Now free from Camille’s gentle grip, “ Chpp! ” chirped the bird in alarm, and it tugged on one of Camille’s golden tresses, and, pulling, it leapt down into a high vest pocket, tugging the end of the lock in after. Then it peeked back out over the verge at the disgruntled lynx.
Camille smiled and whispered, “Tiny brown sparrow, sitting in a tree, scruffy little soul, just like me, would you be an eagle, would you be a hawk-”
“My lady,” said Lord Kelmot, “mayhap you are correct in that this is the second gift, but I would have us search more, for in events dire enough for the Lady of the Mere to speak, one cannot be too cautious.”
Camille sighed, but nodded, and back to the oak they went.
Long did they look-in the hollow and about the base of the oak and in the limbs above, Kelmot and the lynx climbing to do so, ’round the mere and in among the cluster of reeds, and across the sward-yet they found nothing else that seemed to apply to the words spoken by the seer, and all the while the sparrow rode in Camille’s vest pocket, occasionally chirping quietly, its gaze, whenever possible, on the cat. Finally, Camille said, “Lord Kelmot, the staff and the sparrow: I deem they are the gifts, for there is nought else here.”
Kelmot sighed, but nodded in agreement. “Even so, though I know not where is a place east of the sun and west of the moon, I would go with you, but for the words of the Lady of the Mere.”
Camille sighed. “I was going to ask Borel and Celeste and Liaze to accompany me, and when you came to my aid, I would have asked you as well, Lord Kelmot. Yet, ‘Go alone,’ she said, ‘but for one of my gifts.’ ” Camille smiled down at the sparrow. Its tiny brown eyes peered into her eyes of blue. “ Chpp! ”
“Scruffy little soul, will you go with me?”
“ Chpp! ”
She laughed and turned to Kelmot.
“It appears I have a companion, though I know not where to go.” Camille frowned and then said, “Tell me, Lord Kelmot: would anyone in the Forests of the Seasons know where this place east of the sun and west of the moon might be?”
Kelmot shrugged. “Mayhap, yet I know not who.”
“What of Witch Hradian or Wizard Caldor or Seer Malgen? Would they not know?”
“Oh, Lady Camille, there is that about each of them I do not trust, and I would not like to place the fate of Prince Alain into the hands of any one of the three, for they might lead you astray.”
“Why so?”
“Hradian strikes me as false in some manner, my lady, she with her sly eyes. Malgen seems quite unsound. And Caldor is a pretentious ass, perhaps a mountebank. In fact all three could be such. If so, any or all would send you astray, and a year and a day and a whole moon beyond would find you at no good end.”
Camille nodded, for Kelmot’s opinions as to the nature of these three magi echoed her own. “Tell me, my lord, which way lies Autumnwood?”
“Yon,” replied the Lynx Rider, pointing. “But I thought you were not now going to ask Prince Alain’s kith for-”
“I’m not,” said Camille. “If none of the siblings are to accompany me, then that means I should not go into the Autumnwood, Winterwood, or Springwood, for surely Alain and Lanval and Blanche and the remainder of the staff would not have vanished into any of those three demesnes, for if they had, then Borel or Celeste or Liaze would make certain that all could return to the Summerwood. Hence, I shall go the opposite way, for surely a place east of the sun and west of the moon must lie elsewhere. Besides, if I went therein, Liaze and Celeste and Borel would insist on coming with me, and as you know-”
“-You must go alone,” said Kelmot. “Even so, by the same reasoning, Lady Camille, I can lead you to the far marge of the Summerwood and by the swiftest ways, for surely Prince Alain and his staff are not within these bounds either, but somewhere deeper in Faery beyond.”
“In Faery?”
Kelmot nodded. “Indeed, for I ween that nowhere in the mortal world could there be a place lying east of the sun and west of the moon.”
A faint smile crossed Camille’s face. “Only in Faery, indeed.” Camille took up her kit and the staff. “Let us be gone, then.”
And together they went, the Lynx Rider on his cat, Camille striding at his side, with a sparrow in her upper vest pocket.
A day and a half later-“Shall we press on, Scruff?”
“ Chpp. ”
“Au revoir, Lord Kelmot,” said Camille.