“But not entered,” said Eanrin quickly, as though to assure himself. “No one can enter Rudiobus uninvited. Not even Death or his minions.”
órfhlaith stamped a hoof, splattering Eanrin’s shoes with silver droplets. “You’re right, king’s poet,” she said. “Quickly, on my back!”
“Why?”
“The Black Dogs are terrible. They always run down their quarry in the end. But they may not enter Rudiobus, and perhaps we can offer their luckless victim shelter.”
“It’s not our business!” Eanrin protested.
“No,” agreed órfhlaith. “But we can make it so. On my back, at once.”
Eanrin nearly argued. But his eyes lit suddenly with an insatiable curiosity. Who might the Black Dogs pursue that would think to turn to Rudiobus and the Merry Folk for aid? The poet licked his lips. He had never glimpsed the Black Dogs. Word of them had first come to Rudiobus in the last century, and he thought them a dreadful tale, but one he was unlikely to encounter. According to rumor, they chased only those upon whom they were set, pursing their quarry without flagging until they ran it down. But no one would set the Black Dogs upon Iubdan’s Chief Poet. It would be a safe enough venture to take a peek beyond Rudiobus.
“I suppose I should investigate anyway,” he said. “My duty to the king and such.”
With that, he scrambled up on the golden mare’s back and held on to her mane as she leapt out onto the warm waters of Gorm-Uisce. She did not swim, for she was herself so light, so airy, that she could not sink. Her hooves left spreading ripples where they glanced on the water’s surface. The water was dark without the moon to shine upon it, and darker still the nearer they came to the far shore, where the trees swallowed all light.
The forest beyond the lake marked the edge of Rudiobus. Although many boasted of it, few of the Merry People actually walked the shadows of the forest beyond the lake. To pass amid those trees was to pass into the Between, the thin realm of existence that separated immortal Faerie from the mortal world. The undying folk of Iubdan Tynan avoid proximity with mortality. But Eanrin was more daring than most of his kin. Always eager for some inspiration for new songs with which to delight his king and queen, he had explored deeply into the treacherous Wood. He had learned which Paths he might safely follow, and which he would do well to avoid.
So it was with little care or concern that, when órfhlaith drew close to the far shore, Eanrin leapt from her back to dry land, avoiding wetting his feet as much as possible. A strange thing happened the moment he stood upon that shore. While neither he grew nor the mare shrank, suddenly he towered above her, and she was so small that she might have fit into his hand. For he no longer stood in Rudiobus, and height and girth could keep no rigid hold on him. But these alterations on the fabric of reality were as commonplace as breathing to Iubdan’s bard, and he took no notice.
“I’ll just have a look,” he told the mare. He took two strides into the shadows of the Wood and left behind the realm of his birth.
The trees themselves did not change in the Between. The lake had vanished; Eanrin could no longer smell it behind him, nor the scents he always associated with Rudiobus—pine sap and rock and the heady scent of laughter, which only a nose as keen as his might discern. Stepping from the darkness of night into the gloom of tree-shadowed midday gave the poet momentary pause.
The Wood was lit in half-light. Perhaps above the woven branches a sun shone brightly. No one could say for certain. Eanrin took a deep breath, glad to be once more in the Between and the thrill of danger it offered. Fire lit his spirit, and he took three steps.
Then he drew up short as a foul stench assaulted his nostrils.
It was a wonder he had not noticed it the moment he stepped from Rudiobus. It was the smell of a dying body. It was the smell of mortality.
The poet made a face, his lips drawn back from his teeth. The Black Dogs must have been set on the trail of some poor mortal who had wandered foolishly from the Near World into the Wood. He cast about for the source.
She lay fainted beneath an old caorann tree. Did she know how close she had come to Rudiobus? But of course not, how could she, ignorant, dying beast that she was? Her hair covered her face in a tangled snarl, and some of the caorann berries had fallen in it, like drops of red blood.
From where he stood, Eanrin could not tell if she breathed.
The poet stood a while regarding her, struggling to keep from gagging. If there was one thing he hated, it was obligation. He knew, now that he had seen this creature lying in such a helpless state, he should feel obliged to help her. The Black Dogs could not be far off. If they came upon the mortal lying thus, they would rend her to pieces and carry her spirit down into the Netherworld.