Liaze quickly shifted the tethers about so that Pied Agile would take the lead. She lifted Twk and Jester back onto one of the geldings and boosted Gwyd into Nightshade’s saddle, and then mounted Pied Agile and led the train onward at a trot.
Walking, trotting, cantering, galloping, stopping at streams to take water, pausing to feed the horses and Jester grain and to take a meal themselves, onward they fared throughout the remainder of that day, passing through hamlets and across farmland and through forests.
They pressed on well into the evening, using the bright gibbous moon to light the way, ere at last making camp.
The next day, as the sun passed the zenith, they came unto the twilight wall, and Liaze said, “Gwyd, it has taken us one day, from noon to noon, to reach the place it would take you four days in all at a swift pace afoot. Hence, if the remainder of the trip continues in this fashion, what would take you a moon to reach the garden, we should be able to accomplish in a sevenday, but only if the horses hold out. Oh, Gwyd, it is but a desperate hope that we can reach the garden and get an apple and then return and push on to the black mountain ere the coming dark of the moon.”
“Aye,” replied Gwyd, “desperate indeed.”
And on they rode to enter a realm of high moors, and Gwyd had them angle a bit leftward, though they kept riding in the general direction of the sunup bound.
Under Gwyd’s guidance, the following day they crossed the next twilight border to come into rolling prairie. In the distance a great blot of darkness covered the land, and it slowly moved across the hill-sides.
“What might that be, Gwyd?” asked Liaze, shading her eyes and peering intently, puzzlement in her gaze.
“That be a great herd o’ shaggy beasties,” said the Brownie. “There be nae reason to worry, lass, f’r they be gentle, though I dona think we should pass among them, f’r they hae young’ns and might get riled.”
Swinging wide, they passed around the herd whose numbers seemed countless, and on they pressed. Within that day, they came to the following border and entered hill country, where rain swept across the land in blowing sheets. Gwyd and Liaze pulled cloaks tightly ’round and cast their hoods over their heads, and Liaze spread a weatherproof cloth o’er Twk and Jester; in the dimness under, the rooster went to sleep.
That eve they stopped when daylight was gone, for, under the dark overcast, the moon shone not.
Two days later, in unremitting rain, they came unto the third border and crossed over into a mountainous region of high peaks and low valleys.
“Princess,” said Twk, “because of the rain, we’ve lost some time. Can we make it up?”
“Twk, we are among mountains,” said Liaze, “but if the terrain is gentle in the valleys, perhaps we can do so.”
“The terrain nae be gentle,” said Gwyd, “f’r in a day or two we need climb to one o’ the cols above.”
Liaze groaned in despair, but on they pushed.
Another two days passed, and walking the horses to give them relief, they climbed the col and reached a high plateau; and in midafternoon they came to a sheer precipice. Mayhap a thousand feet below, a wide vale stretched out, and a river snaked its way toward a looming wall of twilight in the near distance.
“Beyond that bound lies the garden,” said Gwyd. Then he pointed sinistral. “The way down the face o’ the cliff be yon.”
Leftward they turned to come to the path downward. “Oh, no,” said Liaze, her face falling. “It is too narrow for the horses. Is there no other way?”
Gwyd slapped himself in the forehead. “Och, Princess, it ne’er occurred t’me that the size o’ the beasties would make a difference. I hae always come afoot.”
“How far the garden?” asked Twk. “If it’s close enough, perhaps we can leave the steeds here.”
“Four days f’r me afoot,” said Gwyd. “A day or so ahorse.”
Liaze looked at the three-foot-tall Brownie and the tiny Pixie and his rooster. She shook her head, saying, “Even running, we can’t go afoot, else we’ll not make it to the garden and back in time; we must find another way.”
“I ne’er looked f’r one,” said Gwyd, “but ye be right, lass. Untether me, and I’ll take the dextral.”
“I’ll go sinistral,” said Liaze, dismounting and loosing the lines. “Twk, you and the geldings will come with me.”
As the princess retied the packhorses to the stallion, she said, “Remember, Gwyd, it need be wide enough all the way down for Nightshade.”
“What about the packhorses?” asked Gwyd. “They be wider wi’ their gear.”
“If necessary, we can leave the geldings and goods here,” said Liaze.
“Och, aye,” said Gwyd, and he turned Pied Agile and trotted away along the plateau to the right.
Liaze called out after him, “I’ll sound the horn should I find a way.”
Without turning, Gwyd waved, showing that he had heard her.
Liaze mounted the black, and she and Twk and the geldings went leftward.
Along the precipice they rode, seeking another way to the valley below, and at two places they stopped and looked at promising paths, but one became entirely too narrow within a short span, and the other one did not go all the way down.
The third path seemed wide enough, but it twisted away under an overhang, and Liaze could not see where it went.
“I’ll go,” said Twk, and he leapt into Jester’s saddle and goaded the bird into fluttering to the ground. Down the path the rooster darted and soon the two were out of sight.
Liaze sat upon Nightshade and gazed out across the vista and to the twilight border, so close and yet so far. And as she peered toward the shadowlight, of a sudden she knew the answers to Verdandi’s rede.
33
With her heart racing in excitement, for she had solutions to Verdandi’s rede, Liaze looked back along the precipice for Gwyd. But ere she could spot him, she heard the far-off crowing of a rooster. Frowning, Liaze dismounted, and she stepped to the brim of the cliff and peered downward. Again and again the rooster crowed, and at last the princess spotted a reddish dot in the valley at the foot of the sheer drop. Is that Jester? Surely it must be. If so, then why would-? Ah, Twk must think the path is passable by horse. Liaze turned and lifted the silver clarion and blew a call to Gwyd; it was the Autumnwood signal to return, and though he might not know its precise meaning, still it should bring him to her.
Shortly thereafter, Gwyd came riding Pied Agile up and over a slope on the plateau. Ah, that’s why I didn’t see him.
As the Brownie reached Liaze, he asked, “Ye hae found a way adown?”
“Twk and Jester did,” said Liaze, switching the packhorse tethers to Pied Agile. She took the food sack and one of the water bags from a gelding and lashed them to Nightshade’s saddle, saying, “We’ll need these if the packhorses can’t come down laden.” She mounted and looked at Gwyd. “I’ll ride down first, and if I deem the geldings can get through, I’ll blow three short calls on Luc’s horn, and then you follow. If I blow many long calls, it will mean I think the path too narrow for the horses and their packs; in that case, unlade the geldings-all but the remaining water bags and the crystal decanters and bridge; those we must have.”
“Aye,” said Gwyd. “If need be, I’ll drop the rest o’ the gear here. Now be off wi’ ye, f’r the moon yet be sailin apace through the skies and gettin darker by the day.”
Liaze wheeled the stallion, and down the path she went. Soon she was lost to Gwyd’s sight as she passed under the overhang.
The path broadened, yet to the fore loomed a dark hole in an outjutting projection in the stone flank of the precipice, and into the gape the path plunged. What’s this? A tunnel?