The Black Raven - Katharine Kerr [61]
“The Unseelie Host, it is!” Evandar said. “Shaetano’s pack!”
“No, my lord,” Menw said. “They’re your vassals now.”
“Just so. I’d forgotten.”
The riders were both male and female, dressed in black armour made of enamelled copper. Long ago Shaetano had made them clumsy bodies, a mix of beast and human, some furred and snouted like Westlands bears, others sporting glittering little eyes and warty flesh like a Bardek crocodile. A few of the riders seemed almost human until they raised a paw, not a hand, in salute; others were like great wolves, running behind the horses. A fair number seemed stitched together from three or four creatures—the head of a boar with human hands and a dog’s tail, perhaps, or dwarven torsos on animal legs, human heads, cat heads, dog faces, braided manes like the Horsekin, dwarven hands, elven hands, ears like mules’, hair striped like tigers’ or stippled like leopards’.
At their head, carrying a herald’s staff wound round with ribands, rode an old man, a hunchback, his face all swollen and pouched, his skin hanging in great folds of warty flesh round his neck.
“My lord Evandar!” the herald cried out. “We’ve come to beg your aid! Our Lands are cold, and we hunger as well. Please, take us in to your feast!”
“Come and be welcome,” Evandar said. “Dismount, all of you, and we’ll go to the pavilion.”
His people screamed and swore; they drew back, they wrapped their cloaks tight around them as they shrank away from the pack. They all began to shout insults, most of which amounted to “they’re too ugly, don’t let them near us!” The old herald and all his followers began to weep in a cacophony of moans and wails. At that moment Evandar saw what he must do, the only thing he could do, truly.
“Peace!” Evandar raised both hands. “Hear me out!”
Slowly both Hosts fell silent.
“A long while ago,” Evandar said, “I promised you and yours a reward, good herald. New bodies, bodies fair and true—do you remember?”
“We do, my lord,” the herald said. “And we long for them.”
“Very well, but there’s only one way that I can do what I promised, and only one place I can do it in.” He turned to the Seelie Host. “If we go there, you’ll be free of this sorcerous winter. Will you all follow me?”
Unseelie and Seelie Host both joined together in a wordless shout of joy. Evandar spread his hands and looked at them—it seemed to him that his fingers should wear gloves of ice, he felt so cold in his heart. The Hosts fell silent and waited, watching him.
“It’s time for you all to follow Elessario,” Evandar called out. “Time to be born in the world of Time.”
They shouted again, but this time he heard fear sing amidst the rejoicing.
“And what of you, my lord?” Menw said.
“I shall stay here and make you a safe place in that world.”
“And then will you follow?”
“Of course.” The lie came easily. “Once everything is ready, I’ll follow.”
The two Hosts cheered him for a third time.
On his golden stallion Evandar led his people in one last circuit of the Lands, the long green meadows, the twisted ancient forest, the ruins of palaces, the dead cities of forgotten kings. As they rode their circle it seemed that the Lands changed under them and above them. The sky turned silver with mist; then the mist turned to a sullen purple, streaked here and there with violet light. The trees and the ice disappeared, and they rode through fields of purple flowers. When they returned to where the river should have been, it had disappeared. Evandar called for the halt and the dismount. As soon as they stood upon ground, their horses vanished.
“Follow me!” Evandar called out. “It’s not far.”
Evandar led them through a field of white flowers, nodding in a light the color of silver but tinged with violet. On the far side of the flower meadow lay a river of shifting mists, not quite water, not quite air. Overhead a huge violet moon hung in an indigo sky, but no stars shone. Behind him the chattering hosts fell silent. When he glanced