“Be safe, my lady,” he replied. “And this I advise: ask the traders, the travellers, the merchants, the mapmakers, and the elders in particular, for they are most likely to know where such a place might be. Go with my benediction: may you find that which you seek.”
Camille nodded, and, gripping the garland-carved stave in hand, she stepped through the wall of twilight and into another realm of Faery beyond.
Dennis L. McKiernan
Once Upon a Winter's Night
19
Grass: hip-deep, thick-stalked, jointed, and green, with nodding heads of seeds. Camille had stepped through the twilight border to come into a vast sea of such, stretching away toward snowcapped mountains in the distance afar. To left and right the verdant plain extended to the horizon and beyond. Far off to the right as well, dark clouds rose into the sky, building in the afternoon warmth.
Now that the lynx was beyond the twilight, flapping and scrambling, one wing held awkwardly, the sparrow managed to clamber out from Camille’s vest pocket and to her shoulder.
Camille glanced at him sidelong. “What do you think, Scruff? Left? Right? Straight?”
“ Chp. ” The sparrow cocked his head and peeked ’round her chin to look into her eye.
Camille grinned. “Ah, but you are no help. For me, I think we’ll go straight ahead, for to the left I see nought but grass forever, and to the right I deem a storm is brewing. Aye, straight ahead we’ll go; perhaps if foothills lie along the mountains, we can climb a tall one and be high enough to see some sort of town or farm or the like, if one is nigh, a place where we can ask directions.”
And so she set out toward the mountains, travelling generally westward, she thought, yet in Faery, in spite of the moon and sun and stars, none could be sure of directions, or so she had been told by her pere, though how he would know, she could not say.
Across the early afternoon she walked, trudging- swish, swash — through the heavy grass, her rucksack and bedroll and waterskin slung, her festooned stave barely aiding. At times she came to hidden swales, dips in the land, and down she would go into the dint, where the plants were taller than she. It was difficult travel, for the grass did sorely impede, dragging against her as it did, slowing her considerably.
Of a sudden in midafternoon, “ Chp! ” chirped the sparrow, and, pulling on a lock of Camille’s hair, down into the high vest pocket he fluttered, where he chattered frantically and tugged on her tress.
“What is it, Scruff? What is the matter?” Camille looked all ’round, yet she saw nought but empty plain. But then a shadow glided across the tall grass, and she glanced up to espy a red-tailed raptor soaring in the sky above, sweeping to and fro in a hunting pattern.
“Ah, I see. First a lynx and now a hawk. Perils dire, eh, Scruff?”
Yet she received no answer from the sparrow, the wee bird silent and hiding in a pocketful of golden hair now that the hunter was near.
“Peril to you, indeed, Scruff, but peril to me?… I think not,” said Camille, smiling, as she strode onward.
Suddenly, the hawk stooped, its wings folded, only the tips guiding, and just ere striking the grass, it flared. Camille continued to watch as she walked onward, and sometime later, up struggled the raptor, and in its talons it bore the remains of an animal-rabbit, marmot, or what, Camille could not say. “Well, Scruff, there is life herein after all-hawks and small game though it be.”
When the raptor could no longer be seen, once again Scruff scrambled to Camille’s shoulder, as across the plain she went.
In the far distance to her right-north, she thought-the dark clouds now towered into the sky, and lightning stroked the ground and flashed from cloud to cloud, at times illuminating the darkness from within. Distant thunder rolled across the grass, a mere grumble from afar. And rain fell down in long grey streaks, like wind-driven brooms sweeping o’er an endless plain.
“Oh, Scruff, let us hope the storm does not come this way to drop its bounty on us, for there is no shelter for as far as the eye can see.”
But Scruff made no comment, and Camille pressed forward, glancing now and again at the remote storm, too far away to be of immediate concern. Too, it seemed to be moving away, or so Camille hoped-northward, she believed.
On she went and on, the mountains seeming no closer, and when the sun stood in late afternoon, regardless of the distant storm, she stopped awhile to rest and to take a meal, stamping down the grass all ’round to make a space to sit. Then she plopped down and set the sparrow to the ground beside her.
“Some nest, eh, Scruff?” she asked, as she rummaged through the rucksack for hardtack and jerky. But the sparrow was busily nipping seeds from the felled grass, and pursuing an insect or two, and he answered not.
As she ate, Camille wondered if only hawks and small game and insects dwelled in this grassland, for she and the sparrow had so far seen nothing otherwise. And there was no smoke on the horizon to indicate a dwelling or community.
Time passed, and Camille fetched a cup from her rucksack and filled it with water. After she had drunk, she again filled the cup, but this time she offered it to Scruff. The sparrow hopped to the rim and dipped in his beak and raised his head to swallow, then did so again and again until his thirst was quenched, then he hopped into the cup itself and fluttered and flounced in the water. Laughing, Camille said, “Oh, Scruff, I suppose I’ll not drink from that vessel again, at least not until it is washed. Yet I know how you feel, my sparrow, for would that I, too, had a bath. But I couldn’t very well bathe in front of Lord Kelmot, now could I? Nor you in front of his lynx. And since you and I have been on our own in this land of grass, we’ve not come across a stream or pool. Mayhap we’ll find one when we reach the foothills, or the mountains beyond.”
The sparrow hopped out from the cup and fluttered and shook, though awkwardly with its injured wing. Camille again applied salve from the jar on the injured joint. “Oh, wee Scruff, but I do hope you’ll be able to fly again someday.”
Finally, she packed all away, and once more they started across the grassy plain, the storm in the north receding.
When darkness fell, Camille made a fireless camp mid the grass, and, in spite of furtive rustlings in the nearby surround, she fell quite soundly asleep.
By midafternoon of the following day, although she had kept up a steady pace, the mountains seemed no closer, and the foothills, if any, were not in sight. And still Camille had seen no significant life, but for the hawk of yester. Oh, not that she had seen no other life whatsoever, for there were insects, aye-beetles and hoppers-and worms and grubs as well, all unearthed by tiny Scruff during their pauses for meals. Yet they had seen no farms, no towns, no habitation of any kind there on the broad, green plain, and yet it seemed that such should be Of a sudden, Scruff chirped and grabbed a tress and dove for the cover of the vest pocket. Camille looked into the sky, yet no hawking bird of any sort did she see. But Scruff repeatedly tugged on her hair and chattered in alarm, and so Camille slowly turned about, her gaze sweeping across the grass, searching There! What is-? Riders! Far off. Coming this way.
And still Scruff twittered madly and tugged on her lock, as if trying to pull her within the vest pocket as well.
Camille frowned and glanced down at the bird then up at the riders again, apprehension now in her gaze. “Very well, Scruff,” she said, and knelt down. “I will wait until I see what they look like, and then decide whether or no I should stand revealed and ask them for direction or aid.”
But Scruff yet chattered and pulled on her tress, and Camille crouched a tiny bit lower.
On came the riders and on, and now she could see “Oh, my, those are not horses.”