For the moment, at least, this comment could make no headway in Lionheart’s rattled mind. He lay as though paralyzed, unspeaking. The sylph put out a hand and gently played with his hair. “My kindred think too much of mortality and the strange ways of your kind,” it said. “The Lumil Eliasul favors you so, you and your dirt-bound bodies. They envy you! I once envied you too. And I suffered for my envy when Death-in-Life bound me with iron chains and gave me to the duke.”
A shudder like the sadness of a desolate summer breeze glancing across a dry field passed through the sylph. But its hands continued to gently caress Lionheart’s face. “But you!” it said. “You were sent by the Lumil Eliasul himself. You were sent to rescue me!”
Vague memories moved like shadows across Lionheart’s stunned consciousness. He saw once more an albino jester, a creature never meant to be trapped in mortal form, unhealthy, unhappy, almost unreal, performing for the amusement of a tyrant. He remembered himself stepping forward and loosing an iron ring from the creature’s neck. The burst of wind and roaring had been almost too violent to bear! But the sylph had been freed to its true form.
And it had told Lionheart then, “I will grant you a wish if I may.”
Now it said, its face ever shifting but filled with smiles, “I have saved you, my savior! Aad-o Ilmun! How glad I am to have been the instrument of the Song Giver!”
“I . . . I remember you.” Lionheart blinked vigorously, as though to drive the apparition away. “I remember you. And the docks of Capaneus City.”
“Yes, the docks,” said the sylph, its voice full of joy. Then the joy vanished, replaced with a solemn moan, like the creak of a moored ship on a still night. “There I told you where to learn the secret to the Dragon’s final end. A dreadful purpose.” Another instant and the shudder had passed. Once more the sylph smiled. “But I never granted you a wish! May I do so now to repay in full the debt I owe?”
Lionheart shook his head, then wished he hadn’t, for his ears still throbbed with the painful noise of the sylphs in throng. “I . . . I think you have repaid me,” he managed.
“No!” cried the sylph. “For you liberated me from slavery, while I merely pulled you from the dance of my kindred. It is not enough, and I do not wish to live in your debt forever. Have you no task for me now?”
“Foxbrush.” Lionheart’s eyes flew suddenly wide, and he rose swiftly, swayed, and propped himself against a silver-branch tree. The Wood surrounding him was full of silent but no-less potent mockery. “Foxbrush,” Lionheart said and gnashed his teeth. “He’s in there. Somewhere.”
“The other mortal dancing?” inquired the sylph, whirling about like an eager puppy. “He is with my kindred still. And he will die.” Its voice was uncaring but not cruel. It brushed Lionheart’s face with its long fingertips again. “Your kind cannot dance so long as mine.”
“I must save him!” Lionheart cried. “Can you lead me to him?”
“I can,” said the sylph. “But I won’t.”
“What? Why not?”
The airy being made no reply, but it pointed. Lionheart looked where it indicated, down at his own feet.
And there Lionheart saw the Path for which he had searched. The Path of Farthestshore leading, not back into the Wood the way he had come, but into the grove of silver-branch trees, their branches twining delicately together in what might almost have been an accidental arch.
Lionheart, stepping as gingerly as a cat over a puddle, approached the two trees, following the Path. He stood between their trunks and looked out. He saw the gorge. The rock cliff face, and the trail leading up to the tableland above.
The Near World waited; Southlands waited.
He stepped back quickly. Once more, the Wood closed in on all sides, extending forever. Here in the Between there was no gorge, only darkness and forest and those who dwelled therein. Here in the Between, where Foxbrush and Daylily now wandered, lost as children.
“I can’t go back,” Lionheart said, muttering the words angrily. “I can’t leave Daylily and Foxbrush behind! Must I always be the coward and run away?”
He waited, half expecting to hear his Master’s voice and the distant silver song of the Lord Beyond the Final Water. But there was nothing. Nothing but the voice in his memory.
“Walk with me,” the Prince had told him.
And Lionheart had vowed to do so.
“Dragons eat it,” he snarled and pounded the nearest tree trunk. The tree shivered irritably and dropped a twig on his head. Lionheart brushed it aside, casting about as though desperate for someone to whom he might make an argument.
The sylph wafted closer. “Will you go now to the Near World, savior?” it asked. “The Song Giver is leading you that way. Will you follow him to mortal lands?”
“I—” Once more Lionheart cursed. Then he breathed a heavy sigh. “I must. I’ve doubted and fought and forged my own way too many times.” But he hesitated even so, sensing something more he must do, though he couldn’t guess what. “Are you coming with me?” he asked the sylph.
“No, no,” it replied. “I cannot pass through that gate. The locks prevent the Faerie folk from entering your country.”
“What locks?”
“The locks of Nidawi’s people.”