“You need no enlightenment! You’ll wait until the opportune moment, I have no doubt.” The captain’s lips pulled back so tightly from his teeth that they cracked. He licked them angrily. “You’re wanting to prove your mettle to the queen’s cousin, and you’ll do everything you can to make me look the fool.”
“Is that what you fear? That in this venture of rescuing my lady, you might come out the shabbier of the two of us?” Here the poet laughed outright, tossing back his head so that his cap fell off and he was obliged to catch it. But he went on laughing, and Glomar’s face went red as a beet.
“Do you deny it?” the captain demanded.
“Certainly not,” replied Eanrin. “I have every intention of demonstrating to my lady—”
“She ain’t your lady!”
“—my superiority in every respect. If you insist upon aiding me, who am I to stop you? Contrast often makes a jewel shine all the brighter. Our little sojourn in Etalpalli, should we survive it, will be the stage upon which I perform my true devotion to the goddess of my heart. And with you as my supporting cast, how can my performance help but shine?”
The guard lunged, but Eanrin expected this and danced out of his reach. “My good Glomar!” he cried, scampering behind a twisted elm tree, keeping the trunk between himself and Glomar’s hatchet. “In all seriousness, you haven’t a hope of success without me. Did I not just watch you plunge into the Wood without a thought?”
“I’m following the trail of the Black Dogs, which is clear enough.”
“A trail and a Path are two different things!” The poet jerked his hand off a branch just in time to keep from losing a finger to the guard’s swinging weapon. “It is dangerous to walk the Wood without a Path, as you should know by now. The Wood will twist you up and drag you places you never expected. And Etalpalli is no easy realm to find.”
“What makes you think I don’t know the way?”
“Do you?”
Here Glomar paused in his assault and gave Eanrin a sly smile. “You don’t remember.”
For the space of a heartbeat, Eanrin could not breathe. Then he said brightly, “It would seem that I don’t. Tell me, what is it I’m not remembering?”
“I’ve been to Etalpalli.” Triumph, albeit premature, flooded the captain’s face. “I’ve been there myself, passed through the Cozamaloti Gate. When Iubdan traveled there for the last queen’s coronation, I went with him as his guard. And where were you, poet? Gallivanting off in the Wood somewhere and unable to join your king’s entourage?”
Eanrin shrugged. “It matters not. I know where Etalpalli lies. Better than you, it would seem, what with your rushing off on the Black Dogs’ trail! There are sure Paths and there are foolish Paths, and to pursue the Black Dogs is invariably foolish. But everyone knows that to find Etalpalli, one has only to follow the River.”
“True,” said Glomar. “Follow the River, why don’t you, Eanrin. But it is I, not you, who knows the key to Cozamaloti’s unlocking.”
“Oh, is that so?” Eanrin continued grinning, but he had not, in fact, considered this point. He had assumed that the gate’s locks were broken when the city itself was burned. He wasn’t going to let that on to Glomar, however. “How nice for you!”
“Aye. Nice for me, indeed,” Glomar said, playing with his hatchet’s balance. “For I know you’ll never unlock it! Cozamaloti can only be opened if you enter for the sake of another. If you try to open it for selfish reasons, the gate remains locked. And you, my friend, will die.” The guard licked his lips, his eyes for a moment cruel. “A great, watery death.”
Eanrin blinked. He turned this information about to observe it from a few angles. “But of course,” he said at last, still smiling, still pretending he had the advantage. After all, advantage lay in the perception of power, not the fact. “I shall pass through Cozamaloti for the sake of my beloved.”
Glomar growled, but it was more of a laugh than a threat. “You never loved anyone but yourself, cat.”
“What good is there in protesting?” Eanrin’s voice became silky. “Can one expect a dirt-bound lug-about to understand the higher, more tender feelings of the soul? No indeed, dear captain, with your earthy snuffling about in fair Gleamdren’s shadow. I am certain you believe your feelings true and noble, but in reality—”
The captain roared at this and took hold of his hatchet in both fists. “Do you think me a fool?” he bellowed.
“In point of fact, yes.”
The captain swung, missing the poet’s head by inches. “I’ll hew you limb from limb. Honor be dashed!”
The poet eluded the blow on feet as light as thistledown. He’d incensed his rival, and the advantage was his once more. “My dear, blustery captain, you must learn to bear with my upstaging you, or you’ll never see my lady—”
“She ain’t your lady!”