“Yes,” said Jasine. “I called the others, and we watched, fearing that he was a hunter, too. But he merely made camp, and then, in the evening, he dove into our pool, and, of course, we went to meet him. When he discovered we were swimming with him, he cried out that he was sans vetements. ”
“As if that mattered,” said one of the Nixies yet in the water.
“It was one of the things that attracted us to him,” said another. “-Being without clothes, I mean.”
“That among other attributes,” said a third, giggling.
“Yes,” said Eausine, sighing in remembrance, “other attributes. But it was as I said: we wanted to mate with him-every one of us-but he was too shy. Not only that, but he said something about waiting-oh, now I remember-waiting for true love. I knew I had heard that somewhere before. I didn’t understand it then either.”
“We even sang to him,” said one of the part-fish demoiselles, her dorsal fin now folded down against her spine, “but he resisted our songs.”
Liaze momentarily glowed with satisfaction, for she had been his first love, his one and only, yet, even as it came on, the warm feeling was quenched under a pang of guilt, for, unlike Luc, she had not waited for true love. Liaze sighed. Still, there is some consolation: because one of us had some experience, we avoided all of that awkward fumbling. With this minor bit of self-justification, the guilt receded but did not vanish.
“We would have sung to him the next night and perhaps swayed him,” said Eausine, “but that very morn he said adieu and rode on into the woods.”
“Whence came he?” asked Liaze. “-I am following his track opposite the path he rode.”
“But why?” asked Eausine. She pointed into the forest back in the direction of Liaze’s camp. “That’s the way he went.”
“Yes, but you see,” said Liaze, “someone-a witch, I believe-snatched him up and flew off with him. I despaired of ever finding him, but then we discovered the witch had left behind a messenger crow-”
“Ssss…” hissed several of the Nixies. “Crows,” said Eausine, “murderers of stranded minnows and larger fish when we do not get there in time.”
“Have you seen crows flying above?” asked Liaze.
Nixies nodded, and the yellow-haired one pointed upstream. “Over the ford they sail, dipping low to see if any gasping fish has drowned in the sea of air. Pick at their flesh, they do, and then fly on.”
“Ford?”
“Yes, a bit that way,” said Jasine, again pointing upstream. “It’s where Luc crossed just before he made camp here.”
“Then that’s the way I intend to go, for I follow the crows, and if Lady Fortune smiles down on me, I will find Luc at the end of their flight.”
“Oh, but that means you will pass through the Forest of Oaks,” said Eausine.
“Forest of Oaks? You make it sound somewhat dire.”
“It is if the Fauns enspell you.”
“Fauns? But I thought them quite benign.”
“They are, my lady, but their pipes are enchanting, and they might enspell you as they do the Nymphs.”
“Nymphs,” said Liaze. “Still-”
“Oh, it’s not the Nymphs nor the Fauns you need fear, but the Satyrs.”
“Satyrs,” said Liaze.
“The always-rutting Satyrs,” said Jasine. “When they hear the pipes, they come running, just on the chance that Nymphs are enspelled.”
“And…?” said Liaze.
“And,” said Eausine, “should you be entranced and a Satyr capture you, he will keep you for long whiles and pass you about to other Satyrs until all weary of you.”
“Ugh,” said Liaze. “Still, I must follow the line of flight of the crows, else I might never find Luc, certainly not in the time given.”
“Time given?”
“I must find him before the dark of the moon-not the next, but the one after”-Liaze paused and counted on her fingers-“a moon and twenty days from now.” Tears welled in Liaze’s eyes. “If I fail, I believe he will die.”
“Oh, no,” gasped Jasine, her face falling, “not Luc.”
Eausine said, “Then among the Fauns you must pass, but you must ward off the sound of their pipes and completely avoid hearing them. That is their enchantment, and the lure that brings the Satyrs.”
“Yet if Luc rode through,” said Liaze, “he must have heard them.”
“He is male and you are not,” said Jasine, as if that explained all.
“You must not hear their pipes,” stressed Eausine.
Liaze frowned. Then I need go deaf. But how-? Ah yes, there is honey among my goods.
Liaze smiled and said, “Fear not for me, my friends. Yet tell me: where does this Forest of Oaks lie?”
“Beyond our realm,” said Eausine, “past the very next sunwise twilight border.”
Again Liaze smiled and her gaze swept o’er the Nixies all. “Lady Skuld told me I would find help along the way, and-”
The Nixies all drew in sharp breaths, and Jasine said, “Lady Skuld? Oh, my, dire events must be aswim.”
Liaze nodded and said, “Indeed, and so I must not tarry, for the moon itself tarries not.” Liaze stood and looked upstream, but she could not see the ford.
The three Nixies stood ashore as well and stepped back into the water, and Eausine said, “You must be careful, Princess Liaze.”
“That I will be,” replied Liaze. “And thank you for the warning as well as confirming to me that Luc did ride this way, and opposite flew the crows.” She glanced once more upstream, and then with a farewell salute, she spun on her heel and strode into the forest.
A candlemark later, Liaze rode Nightshade across the ford, Pied Agile and the packhorses in tow, and downstream in waist-deep water stood the Nixies, all waving and calling out their Au revoirs! and Bon voyages!
Liaze held a hand, palm out, to them, and rode on across, and when she reached the other side of the wide ford, she turned to look one last time, but the Nixies were gone.
21
Up and out from the ford rode Liaze, Nightshade yet choosing the path. “Well, my good steed, it seems you truly do know the course, for Caillou and the Nixies both confirm Luc went opposite this way. But even more importantly, the crows flew this line bearing their messages to the witch, and so perhaps we can rescue Luc if the witch’s dwelling lies between here and your stall. But if her place lies beyond your own home, then we’ll need to seek more help. Regardless… fare on, black horse, fare on.”
Nightshade made no comment, but continued his pace, the gait a trot for the nonce, the mare and four geldings coming after as the steed followed a trace of a trail among the trees and headed for the sunwise bound.
All day they followed the hint of a path, stopping now and then for the horses to take food or to drink from running streams, or for Liaze to take sustenance or relieve herself. At times the princess heeled Nightshade into a faster gait, or lightly pulled on the reins to change into one slower, Liaze varying the pace to preserve the endurance of the animals; at other times she dismounted and walked the horses and stretched her own legs. But always she let the black choose the way.
In midafternoon the sky overhead began to darken as brooding clouds crept thwartwise o’er the forest. “Well, my lad, it looks as if we’re in for a storm, not now, but ere the night is done. We’ll need to find shelter by the coming of dark.”
Just before dusk drew down, and as the wind kicked up, she rode out from the forest and onto a fall-away slope overlooking a land of low, rolling hills. In the near distance to the fore she saw a farmstead, where a handful of workers in a field hurriedly laded forkfuls of cut hay into an ox-drawn wain. And down that way Nightshade went.
Even as Liaze neared the meadow, a few spatters of rain blew down, and one of the men afoot began driving the oxen toward a near byre, the others running ahead.