“Pity. But that is the way of poetry. Poetic names are not always what you might expect. They are often titles as much as anything. And from the sound of it, this Shadow Hand will, as it says, ‘give his own two hands’ to some Faerie queen and thus acquire his name—”
He broke off suddenly and stood with his mouth open, staring at Foxbrush without seeing him. Then he said, “By my king’s black beard!” and held the scroll up close to his face, murmuring in his silken voice:
“The wolf will howl, the eagle scream.
The wild white lies dead.
Tears of Everblooming stream
As she bows her mourning head.”
The poet’s head came up, and for the first time he fixed Foxbrush with a gaze of real, earnest interest. “This has come about,” he said. “I saw these events. I saw the wild white killed and the tears of the Everblooming.”
Foxbrush felt his heart shiver. “It’s . . . it’s all coming true, then.”
An eager light sprang to Eanrin’s eye. “My dear fellow, you have brought us a foretelling of the future! Written in Imraldera’s own hand! She must have known you would see me, and she sent this back to me. I wonder why she . . . but no. It doesn’t bear considering.” He let the scroll roll up with a snap and squeezed it in his fist. “She—or I—or someone, anyway, has sent us a foretelling. Tell me, if you are from the future, do you know how this will play out? Do you know what this means?”
Foxbrush tried to swallow, but his throat was too dry. “I was hoping you could tell me.”
“Useless mortal,” said the poet, though without malice. “We’ve got to find this King of Here and There, that’s certain. And he, from the look of it, will defeat this Mound and the warriors in some epic and appropriately poetic manner.”
Suddenly the night all around them exploded in a cacophony of voices. Strange, inhuman, cawing, rasping, braying, thumping voices, all speaking the same words in their variety of languages.
“We will help! We will fight! We will drive the Mound away!”
Even Eanrin started at this, and he and Foxbrush both turned in place as the darkness came alive with dozens of shining fey eyes. The Faerie beasts, the surviving totems, drew in upon them in the orchard. They swung in the boughs of trees; they crawled upon their bellies; they flew upon dark breezes; they trod the grass in solemn prance. Animals and yet not animals, with eyes more alive, more alert than any mortal’s could ever be. They drew in and they glowed with their own immortality so that the darkened orchard became nearly as bright as day.
And out from their midst stepped Nidawi in her fiercest aspect, beautiful and vicious with teeth bared.
“Lumé,” muttered Eanrin. “This is highly unexpected.”
“King of Here and There,” said Nidawi, stepping forward and making a reverent sign with her hand before Foxbrush. “I have gathered the totems of this land. They do not wish to perish by the hand of Cren Cru’s warriors. They do not wish to see another kingdom fall to the Parasite. They will help you. Lead them!”
“What? Him?” said Eanrin, turning to Foxbrush, his eyebrows shooting up his forehead in surprise. “This squinty-eyed mortal?” Then he glanced down at the Path beneath Foxbrush’s feet. “Well,” he said, then, “Well, well.”
Foxbrush faced Nidawi and looked upon his future in her eyes. He whispered the words from the poem he had by now committed to memory.
“Bargain now with Faerie queen,
The Everblooming child,
If safe you would your kingdom glean
From out the feral wild.”
He said in a voice that he wished to be strong but which quavered a little despite his best efforts, “Nidawi, I do not know that I can do as you ask. But I will try.”
“If you try, you will do,” said Nidawi. She stood alone even in that crowd, walled in by her ancient sorrow. But deliverance stood before her in the form of this mortal. Had not the time of fulfillment come? Had it not been spoken to her on the shores of the Final Water? “I have been promised.”
She stepped out through the veils of her own small world of grief, and she took Foxbrush’s hands in hers.
“King of Here and There,” she said, “Twelfth Night is upon us. Lead the beasts to Cren Cru’s Mound by the Path I showed you. Kill my enemy as you must.”
Foxbrush had aged since looking upon the Mound, since holding Daylily in his arms. He had aged by many years in one night, and though his face was still young, his eyes were much older. He looked by that light of Faerie eyes very like his uncle Eldest Hawkeye before the dragon poison corroded away his might.
“I will do what I must,” Foxbrush said, and he did not resist when Nidawi, still holding his hands, drew him toward her. But when she leaned in to kiss him, he turned his head to one side and said, “No. Please. I have to ask you—I must bargain with you.”
“Bargain?” said the Everblooming, her lovely head tilted to one side.
He nodded. “What will you do should I succeed? Should I destroy your enemy and put your people to rest once and for all . . . will you do something for me?”
“Of course,” said she. “I will marry you.”