Camille sat silent for a moment, then she fished in her rucksack. “I must signal Rondalo that all is yet well.”
She unscrewed the brass sealing cap from the wick and lit the small brass and glass lantern; then she paced out to the rim of the ledge and stood awhile, slowly swinging the light back and forth. Finally, she stepped back to Raseri’s side and blew out the lantern and capped the wick once more. As she set the lamp aside to cool ere returning it to her rucksack she said, “Though it would seem quite perilous for Fey to go nigh, the River of Time will not affect me more than it ordinarily would, for I am mortal already. Even so, you say those who might aid can thereat be found?”
“Aye. ’Tis rumored that three sisters live along its banks and, if true, they are the eldest of the eld. Too, it is also said that all things are revealed in due time, and mayhap along the banks of Time’s River you will discover just where lies a place east of the sun and west of the moon.”
Camille glanced at her stave and said, “Raseri, I would go.”
“Then, lady, because of all you have said, I will take you to the place whence the river springs, and mayhap you’ll find that which you seek. Yet beware, for, if all things are revealed in due measure, what you may discover woven in the tapestry of time could in the end be salvation or doom for you or your Alain or both. His fate as well as yours may already be sealed.”
“What you say might be true,” replied Camille, “nevertheless, I would go.”
“So be it then,” said Raseri. “Take rest now, and we shall take flight at first light.”
“Take flight?”
“Aye. You did not expect to walk, did you? Nay, I shall bear you thither, you and your wee sparrow.”
“But I-”
“But me no buts, my lady, for it is a long way, and you have not the time.”
At the dawning, even though Scruff complained that he was hungry, as she had done every day, Camille treated the sparrow’s wing with a tiny dab of salve. She looked up to see Raseri watching. “He was wounded by a thorn and cannot fly,” said Camille, by way of explanation.
“Mayhap where we are bound,” rumbled Raseri, “your tiny bird will improve, for ’tis said time heals all wounds.”
“Oh, do you think? I do so hope, for I would see him take to wing.”
As Camille fetched some millet seed for Scruff and sprinkled it on the stone, Raseri turned his head and flicked out his forked tongue, tasting the frigid morning air. And he said, “Rondalo yet waits afar.”
Camille glanced down the vale, yet it was too dark for her to make out aught. She drew out a biscuit from her rucksack and took a bite, and in a moment said, “Tell me, Raseri, how came you to do battle with Rondalo’s pere Audane?”
Even though he was a Dragon, Raseri managed a shrug. “All I know is that on Audane’s wedding night, he and I fought fiercely. As to why, I cannot say. Whether or no he wounded me, that, too, is not in my ken, and how I finally slew him, I know not. Only that I did. My first true memory is of being here in this fastness. I was alone in Faery for some while, but then, nine or ten moons later, I was aware that Chemine had come to Faery bearing Audane’s sword and giving birth to Rondalo. Beyond that, I know little.”
Camille shook her head in puzzlement. “Tell me then, are all Firsts as are you: knowing nought of what went before you each came unto Faery?”
“So it seems,” said Raseri, peering toward the oncoming light.
Camille fell silent and took another bite. Around the mouthful, she said, “Have you heard of the Keltoi?”
“Indeed. Most in Faery know of the legend. Wandering bards all; those whose tales caught the ear of the gods, and they in turn made Faery manifest.”
Camille swallowed and took a drink of water. “Well then, Raseri, answer me this:
“What if it is true that, as they wandered across the face of the world, the Keltoi did tell their tales, and the gods did listen, and they so enjoyed what they heard they made Faery manifest so that they could be entertained by the stories that followed? Mayhap long past, ’round a campfire a gifted Keltoi began a tale, the first one the gods listened to, and it went something like this:
“Once upon a time there was a terrible Drake named Raseri, a Drake who breathed flame. And in a hard-fought duel with an Elf named Audane, Raseri slew the Elf. Yet it was Audane’s wedding night, and he had lain with his bride ere the battle, and some ten moons after the terrible death, Audane’s grieving widow, a Water Fairy named Chemine, birthed a son. And Chemine gave over unto the wee lad Audane’s silvery sword, the one with the arcane runes hammered down the length of its blade, and she said, ‘One day, my Rondalo, you will battle with vile Raseri, foul murderer of your sire.’ ”
Camille fell silent, and Raseri cocked his head and said, “Mayhap ’tis true that such did happen. Even so, where does that lead?”
“Oh, don’t you see, Raseri, ere that tale mayhap there was no before, no existence whatsoever for Faery, no existence even for you. Mayhap that’s when Faery began. Mayhap that’s when you were born full-grown. Mayhap there was no Audane, yet even if there was, if the legend of the Keltoi and the gods is true, then it is no fault of yours he was slain. Instead ’tis completely the fault of the Keltoi who told that story, the first the gods had heard, and this blood vengeance, this sword-oath Rondalo swore, should instead have been sworn ’gainst the tale teller, or the gods who made it true, for in truth they are the ones in combination who did murder Audane.”
Raseri grunted, but otherwise did not reply, and Camille ate the remainder of her biscuit in silence, her thoughts tumbling one o’er the other.
Finally Raseri said, “If you have the truth of it, Camille, then much needs setting aright.”
“Wh-what?” said Camille, shaken from her musings.
“I said, have you the truth of it, much needs setting aright. Even so, there is this to consider: although the Keltoi, or gods, or in combination, are responsible for much grief and rage, they gave me, they gave all of us, life as well. Without them we would not be. Hence, if the legend is true, we owe them our very existence. Those tales, though fraught with peril and desperation and fury and sorrow such as they are, without them we would not be.”
Camille nodded, somewhat abstractedly, and Raseri tilted his head to one side and said, “You seem preoccupied, Camille. What were your thoughts that I so interrupted?”
Camille glanced at Scruff and then at the Drake, then out to where Rondalo might be, and she shrugged and said, “I was just wondering whose silver tongue or golden pen is telling the tale we find ourselves in.”
Raseri’s booming laughter echoed among the peaks, but when he looked down at Camille, she wasn’t laughing at all.
“The sun rises, Camille,” said the Drake.
Camille looked to see that the sun was just then edging up through a col between peaks. Camille stood and stepped to the lip of the precipice and once again whirled her cloak ’round and ’round above her head. Then she donned it and took up her bedroll and waterskin and rucksack and slung them onto her shoulder, and as she started to slip the stave into the rucksack loops What’s this?
A hairline crack ran a small way from the bottom of the staff upward toward the withered lower end of the carved stem of the garland.
Did I somehow do this?