Shadow Hand (Tales of Goldstone Wood Book #6)(103)

Here Nidawi stopped and wrapped her arms about herself, unable to continue for a long while. Her teeth tore at her lips as she struggled to get the words out. Then she said:

“A home.”

Foxbrush tried once more to look at the Mound. But he could not bear it and hid his face in his hands.

“It took bodies,” Nidawi said. “Lost folk wandering the Between, immortals and mortals. It found them and it took them, and so it became aware of being, of life, of the need to belong. Twelve in all it took, and it melted down Meadhbh’s twelve-pronged crown to give each of them a piece, a binding. Twelve made one by the strength that was Cren Cru. Then it set about to lay claim to a world.”

Her voice became a whispering shudder, little more than a breath. “Many worlds it took. Each time, it latched hold and the Mound appeared out of nowhere. And the twelve warriors moved at the will of Cren Cru, believing still that they were their own. Every time it took hold, the warriors passed through the land demanding the firstborn children. They formed blood debts and demanded tithes, and if any refused to give of their firstborn, the warriors took what they wanted by force. Twelve days and twelve nights they would gather the tribute and pay it, driving the children, one by one, into the door of the Mound.”

Nidawi looked up at Foxbrush, and though he still hid his face, he could feel her gaze.

“The blood of the firstborn was not enough. So the remaining warriors would go out again. They would make more of their kind, and spread through the land, taking the second born, and after that, the third. And eventually, whole worlds were eaten up. Mighty kings and queens fell as the Parasite drank up their lives, ate up their people! And when it was through, and even the warriors themselves had killed one another, spilling their own blood in tribute, there would be nothing left. And Cren Cru would wander on. And he would gather new warriors and start all over.

“He cannot learn! He has no mind! He has no real being save that which he steals! So every time he destroys a world and still can make no place for himself, he moves on, and he does it again. And again. And again and again! And the spilled blood never brings new life, and the decimated lands never revive under him: He can only destroy, never create; even as Meadhbh only killed herself and never brought forth life.”

She stopped speaking. Foxbrush began to believe she was through. But at last she said, “I never thought to see him in Tadew. Then one morning, I woke. And there he was. And the Twelve moved through my kingdom, and they demanded tithe. I resisted and expected to die even as all the other Faerie kings and queens who resisted the Mound did die!”

Here she sighed, such a sad, such a lonely sigh that Foxbrush lowered his hands and gazed upon her with great compassion, wishing he had the strength to ease her sorrow.

“I am Nidawi the Everblooming,” she said. “Though he sucked out my strength, it only bloomed again, always new. Always bright. He could not kill me.” She bowed her head, a wrinkled, haggard shell of a woman. “So he took all my people, and he left me alone. Without a demesne. As homeless, as empty, as lost as he. I had only Lioness . . . and now, he has taken even her from me.”

“What,” Foxbrush whispered, “can be done? Can anything be done?”


“So I asked,” said she. “So I demanded! I journeyed far, I journeyed wide, I journeyed deep and deeper still. I passed through the Netherworld itself, across the Dark Water and on to the Realm Unseen where the Final Water flows into the Vast. I stood upon that shore, and I shouted beyond the Highlands, demanding justice! And if justice could not be had, then mercy, mercy, mercy.” Her hands clenched at the memory, as though even now she made her plea.

“The Lumil Eliasul came. The Prince of the Farthest Shore beyond the Final Water. He came to me and held me there, beside that darkened flow. And he told me of mercy, and he told me of justice. And he told me of the King of Here and There.”

“The what?” said Foxbrush. “You mean . . . you mean Shadow Hand of Here and There?”

She gave him a puzzled look then. “I don’t know this Shadow Hand,” she said. “I know only of the King of Here and There. And it is he, the Lumil Eliasul told me, who will enter the Mound and see my people put at last to rest.”

With this, she took Foxbrush’s hand and turned him away from the clutching Mound of Cren Cru. It had no eyes and it had no life, and yet Foxbrush could not escape the feeling that it watched them as they took a Faerie Path and returned the way they had come. Even when at last they stepped into the familiar orchard and he smelled the ripeness of figs around him, Foxbrush could not shake the feeling that Cren Cru watched and Cren Cru waited.

Lioness’s body lay where they had left it. Nidawi, seeing it, began to weep once more. She let go of Foxbrush’s hand and gathered up her dead friend, holding her tight. Then she turned and looked at Foxbrush over the white fur, her face framed by death and sorrow.

“I’ve killed my share of his warriors. As many of them as I could find. But he takes more. You cannot kill his warriors and hope to kill him too. You must enter the Mound itself.”

“What?” said Foxbrush, sudden realization hitting him like a club. “You mean . . . you mean me? Personally?”

“Yes,” said she. “I vowed that I should wed the King of Here and There for the service he would render me. And you are he, for you are king of this land where Cren Cru has once more latched hold.”