War in Hagwood Page 15

  “The lordling will need a new nursemaid,” the High Lady said malevolently.

  “What will you do to her?” the owl hooted with vicious enthusiasm. He had never held any regard for the nursemaid. She was far too vulgar and overly familiar toward his mistress.

  “Something new must be devised for Gabbity,” Rhiannon said. “I will attend to that personally. The torturers will be too busy with the others—I do not wish to overwork them. Theirs is a careful, precise, and considered art. Yet what did the crone think she was doing? What use could she be in any plot against me?”

  “Her head is addled by years of cradle coddling and knitting,” the owl muttered with disdain. “She is lack witted, that much hath always been plain.”

  “And yet Briffold Fanderyn is nobody’s fool,” the High Lady stated. “He must have seen some merit in her presence. He has never courted her lowborn company before. Why now?”

  Her eyes gleamed suddenly. “The barn bogle!” she declared. “Gabbity learned something from the beast when it awoke and went scuttling straight to Fanderyn. Oh how his lordship must have relished that.”

  “May his death be a prolonged symphony of agonies,” the owl cried, scandalized. “With every fresh instrument playing a new chord of pain.”

  “It will,” she promised.

  Waggarinzil made a strange wheezing noise, which he hastily tried to cover up with a cough.

  Rhiannon turned her eyes upon him once more.

  “I fear,” he began in a flustered, mumbling voice. “I fear there won’t be no dungeons for Lord Fanderyn.”

  The High Lady’s eyes burned with her imperishable anger once more. She took a predatory step closer to him.

  “And why not?” she hissed.

  Waggarinzil was shaking. “Be-because,” he stammered with gulping breaths. “Because … I run him through with my sword.”

  There was a heavy silence, which not even the owl dared break. The immeasurably dark centers of Rhiannon’s eyes grew larger than ever and the goblin felt as though they were devouring him.

  “You ran him through?” her voiced stabbed. “You, a base door guard, presumed to murder one of the highest ranking nobles of my court? It is not for you to decree such a death.”

  “I-It was the only way!” he cried. “The only way to save you from his plot.”

  “What have you omitted?” she commanded. “Do not think you can conceal any intelligence from your Queen.”

  The goblin fell against the wall and held up his gauntleted hands. “Spare me!” he wailed, trying to ward off that unbearable stare. “I was not trying to hide it from you, Majesty, by my miserable bones, I was not! I was merely saving the best till the end. To show how loyal I am, to prove my worth to you and praise your glory.”

  “Show me?” she asked. “Show me how?”

  Breathing hard, Waggarinzil tore off his right gauntlet and shook it over his bare palm. For an instant something bright glittered on it. Then he plucked it up and held it out to her.

  For the first time in many hundreds of years, Rhiannon Rigantona’s frozen composure was completely overthrown. A gasping cry left her lips and the tiny enchanted key reflected its golden, dancing light in her midnight eyes.

  “My Lady!” the owl exclaimed in wonder.

  With a tremulous hand, she took the key from the goblin’s grasp, then clenched it fiercely to her empty breast.

  “After so many years!” she breathed through her teeth. “So many uncertain years. Now this returns to me.”

  If she had been capable of any tender emotion, her eyes would have bled with tears—but all she felt was colossal relief and the aching sweetness of victory. Finally, beyond her wildest and most impossible hope, her only fear was over.

  Opening her slender hand, she looked again at the small, intricately worked key, inset with the ruby that so resembled a prick of blood.

  “It is mine,” she whispered to herself. “I, Morthanna, have won—at last.”

  The owl blinked its tawny eyes and felt an exultant tremor travel through its mistress’s elegant frame.

  “Thy glory and success were never in doubt, Majesty,” it truckled to her. “Now let thine enemies tremble and know the full measure of thy vengeance.”

  Waggarinzil watched in fearful silence.

  Lady Rhiannon clasped both hands together, with the key sandwiched between them as if she feared it would fly up like a moth and escape her again.

  “My enemies must wait,” she announced. “There is something of higher import to attend to—come!”

  With her hands knotted before her, she set off, almost at a run, down the hallway. Waggarinzil was not sure whether that last command was intended for him or the owl, but he followed her anyway.

  Through the Hollow Hill Rhiannon hastened: past carved entrances to the mansions of the highest nobles and across the mosaic floors of the courtyards. Dusk was approaching, and her subjects were already stirring from their halls. Bogle pages were running errands. The lesser folk of spindle limbs and ashen faces, covered with pale gray veils, were drifting through the galleries, singing their haunting songs to welcome the new nightfall. Dumpy goblin maidservants were filling silver pails at the fountains and taking them to the great houses where their masters were rising and their mistresses were taking up colored threads to busy themselves in weaving and setting expert needles to tapestries. The eerie world of the Unseelie Court was shaking the drowse of the day from itself once more.

  Shy, crawling creatures slid from ancient holes and scuttled up the walls to graze on the moss that grew around the silver lamps, only to flee from sight as Rhiannon stormed by. A group of oakmen, a race who had dwindled and declined in stature over the many years till they resembled bundles of autumn leaves when crouching, scampered out of her way, and their panicking flight looked as if a sudden gale had torn across a forest floor. The mournful shadow widows—gaunt, spectral figures, their sunken cheeks forever flowing with tears, their skeletal frames wrapped in cheerless dun raiment—bowed their heads even lower as Rhiannon passed and wailed more wretchedly than ever when she had gone.

  The High Lady swept through her domain like a tempest, hurrying along the passageways and up the winding stairs. Toiling along behind, Waggarinzil’s ungainly bulk somehow managed to keep up with her. His face dripped with perspiration and his bowed legs were aching. He had no idea where she was headed. They were now close to the old Pucca lodge, empty since the Redcaps had slaughtered them for crafting the crystal-handled dagger that had murdered King Ragallach.

  The lamps were dim in this region of the Hollow Hill and huge shadows swept over the walls like vast midnight wings as Rhiannon pressed on. When the forlorn, blank windows of the Pucca dwellings were behind them, finally, Rhiannon halted.

  They had arrived at the forge where the Puccas had once crafted beautiful metal objects. In their strong hands and by their unmatched skill, metal was more malleable than clay and took any form they wished. They could spread it across an anvil like butter and twist it and curl it and stretch it and temper it and mutter spells of burnished permanence over it.

  The Puccas had broiled tirelessly before the coals of their forge, wearing their long leather aprons, with their sleeves rolled high and their beards smoking in the furnace heats. In the glorious reign of the late King, a constant thread of black smoke had climbed from the Hollow Hill—such was their unflagging industry.

  Breathing hard, Waggarinzil caught up with the High Lady and looked around him.

  The smithy was now a sad, neglected place. Nothing here had been touched since the Pucca killings so long ago. No one ever came here; it was another forbidden place in Rhiannon’s realm. Dusty webs smothered the overturned benches, and the tools still lay scattered over the floor where they had fallen during the Redcaps’ frenzied attack. Unfinished armor and half-completed instruments hung from the beams under t
he arched ceiling. In the corner, dominating that desolate gloom, was the forge.

  The coals were cold and the great bellows woven about with webs. All metalwork was now the province of the kluries in their modest smithy near the stables, where they also shod the faerie horses.

  Rhiannon took up a lump of coal and crushed it in her fist. Turning to Waggarinzil, she said, “Awake the fire; make this forge scorch and bake once more.”

  Astonished and slightly flustered, the commander of the door guards searched for his tinderbox, then smashed up a stool for kindling.

  The owl on the High Lady’s shoulder paid close attention to Waggarinzil as he nurtured a spark into a flame and set it among the splinters. The fire was soon leaping high and the coals began to glow a dark red, like a heap of smoldering plums.

  Rhiannon, however, was not watching. Her mind had slipped back to that delicious day when Gofannon the Pucca had proudly presented her with the golden casket —the pinnacle of his life’s work. If he had but known the true purpose for which it was intended, he would have sooner cut off his own hands at the wrists.

  “By the sun’s stove!” Waggarinzil panted, sweltering in the shimmering heats as the coals blazed more fiercely. “I’ve never been so poached in all my life. What a blistering day this has turned out to be.”

  His gruff voice recalled the High Lady to the present. She stepped across the dusty floor to stand at the goblin’s side and gazed into the blazing center of the forge. Unable to tolerate being so close to such an inferno, the owl left her shoulder and roosted upon a beam as far away as possible. Fluffing out its slightly singed feathers, it preened itself and waited.

  Rhiannon was twirling the tiny golden key in her fingers. The entire smithy was jumping with orange and cherry light, which sparked and flared over the yellow metal and caused the tiny ruby to burn like a bloody star.

  The enduring spells that the Puccas had bound about the key could only be undone here. The High Lady knew that well and so, with a contemptuous snarl, she threw the glittering thing into the forge’s scorching heart. Bathed in that infernal glare, she held her breath.

  A spout of emerald fire flew up, spitting with sapphire sparkles.

  Working the bellows, Waggarinzil felt faint. He did not understand what the High Lady was doing, but he wished she would hurry up so he could leave this stifling place. The sweat was running down his ears in steaming, salty streams that dried up before they could drip from the ends. He was sure the top of his head was melting under the mail coif. His eyes were stinging and he could almost feel them shriveling in their sockets. He longed to find a chill damp shadow to rest in and thought yearningly of the cold sepulchre where he had killed Lord Fanderyn.

  “Time enough,” Rhiannon said suddenly and, to the goblin’s wonderment and fear, she thrust her naked hand deep into the searing coals.

  “Majesty!” he yelled. “The fires!”

  She did not hear him. Her fingers searched in the intense heats and at once a flame leaped along her bare arm and wrapped around her head and shoulders.

  Waggarinzil shrieked and leaped up. Was she so completely mad? He gasped and hesitated, not knowing what to do, for a figure wreathed in fire now stood before him. He could do nothing to save her.

  And yet, as his green eyes bulged and gaped, he realized that she was unharmed—the fire was not burning her. The greedy tongues licked up through her hair but those raven tresses remained unwithered and her skin did not blacken or char.

  She became a pillar of flame: an immortal statue, wound about with streaks of crackling light, wearing a crown of fire. It was a horrendous vision and the goblin drove his knuckles into his eyes to blot it out. Then he fell to his knees and worshipped her.

  He had never guessed the full extent of her power. Rhiannon Rigantona was greater than his goblin mind had ever dared to imagine.

  Rhiannon had forgotten he was even there. She had taken a small, glimmering shape from the forge and was staring down at the key that now shone with a light all its own. It was so hot that it bubbled the skin of her palm but the blistering wounds healed even as they were made.

  Quickly, she strode to the anvil, took up a mighty hammer and dealt blow after blow upon the soft gold morsel. Under the relentless violence of her hate, the key flattened and the ruby cracked.

  The smithy trembled and the beams shook. The owl struggled to retain its balance as thick dust spilled down. Throughout the Hollow Hill, the key’s destruction caused a quaking disturbance. Lords and ladies rose in fear while goblins gripped their swords and kluries muttered in dismal whispers. Out across the land, the echoing blows went ringing. The trees of Hagwood shook and a rumble of thunder growled through the darkening sky. At the edge of the forest, the Redcaps surrounding the broken watchtower gibbered and covered their ears.

  Within those circling walls, Tollychook and Liffidia drew close to one another while Fly whined. Standing upon the battlements, his hair streaming in the sudden cold breeze, Finnen Lufkin stared across the forest roof, flinching with every thunderous crash. Behind him, the sluglungs quivered and pressed close together, their gelatinous flesh oozing into one another for comfort.

  Down in the infirmary, the injured birds hid their faces beneath their wings and Peg-tooth Meg lifted her gaze from the face of her dead lover.

  The sound was like the tolling of a great bell—and somewhere close by, there came an answering chime.

  Meg took out the golden casket and held it up. A piercing, vibrating note was singing out from it, so shrill and high that the surrounding stones began to resonate and crack.

  The casket in her hand shivered. “Our hopes are ended!” she cried. “The key has been discovered. Naught can threaten my sister now—she is invincible.”

  Even in the caves beneath the Cold Hills of the north, the demise of the key could be felt and, in those remote shadows, croaking voices began to mutter.

  And then it was over. In the smithy, there was only a thin, shapeless wafer of yellow metal upon the anvil.

  The High Lady lowered the hammer and a terrible laugh left her lips, a laugh that seemed to roll through the heavens. Now there was nothing for her to fear. No power could ever harm her. The casket that contained her beating heart would be sealed forever. Only that tiny key could have opened it.

  “I am free!” she cried. “The chains of dread and fear are finally unlocked. My true reign can begin!”

  Waggarinzil dared to look up from the floor where he was groveling. He could not comprehend what he had just witnessed or what had happened but he could already feel the unparalleled strength that flowed from the High Lady. He was in the presence of a goddess and the realization terrified and awed him. A new order was dawning.

  “May I be the first to revere you!” he declared, scuffing around on his knees to kiss the hem of her mantle. “I must worship my mighty Queen, Most Divine Goddess of the Night.”

  Rhiannon Rigantona lowered her lovely face to look on him and a cruel smile lifted the corner of her mouth.

  “Most blessed are you,” she said. “To have been here at the moment of my ascendance. You shall be the first of my subjects to venerate me.”

  “By my worthless scaly skin, I am most privileged, dearest High Queen of Heaven and Earth. Let me sacrifice a beast to you—or perhaps make an offering of one of my fellow guards. I could go fetch one and spill his undeserving giblets at your feet. Let this humble place be sacred unto your undying name, it shall be your first temple and I … I, Waggarinzil, could I … ? I mean … I could, I could be your high priest.”

  The High Lady regarded him coldly then stared into the distance, looking beyond the smithy’s confining walls. “There will be many temples,” she agreed. “Across the land and over the seas and the tributes paid unto me shall be of the richest. Yes, there will be sacrifices, many sacrifices, but I do not think a common door warden is fit to be a high prie
st.”

  Waggarinzil caught his breath. He had overreached himself and tried to catch too grand a position.

  “Forgive me, Your Holy Goddesship!” he implored. “It is enough to be here at the beginning of your new reign. And, if your lowly servant here played some small—nay, no greater than a gnat’s nudging—part in your ascendance then that is reward enough for him.”

  “You?” she asked.

  “The key, Your Most Hallowed Celestialness—’twas me what rescued it from Fanderyn for you, remember?”

  Rhiannon’s eyes glittered. “Of course,” she declared. “The nobles and their squalid meeting, where only you were loyal to your Queen. Uncover your head, most faithful of subjects.”

  The goblin obeyed at once, dragging the mail coif from his brutish, perspiring head, breathlessly anticipating the honor she was about to confer on him.

  “I am grateful to you, beyond the measure of your mind, most trustworthy commander of the door guards,” she purred. “You have given me that which I have craved for so many years, the final piece of the riddle that is Rhiannon. Now, at last, I am fully whole, precisely because I can never ever be ‘whole’ again. It is that special, enchanted emptiness that completes me.”

  Waggarinzil blinked in confusion, unable to comprehend her words. He had no way of knowing she was referring to the empty space in her chest where her heart should have been.

  Perched above, the owl turned its flat face to stare down at them. It recognized the tone in its mistress’s voice and waited expectantly.

  “Henceforth,” the High Lady continued, “you shall be raised to the rank of Knight of the Grand Order of the Hammer, to commemorate this glorious moment when the key was destroyed.”

  “You honor me, Supremeness!” the goblin declared, while wondering what this change in status would mean for him. “I hope you will permit me to assist you in punishing the other conspirators in Lord Fanderyn’s plot.”