#
STRANGE CREATURES LIKE HERSELF

Mistaya continued to climb until the leafless winter trees hid all traces of the highway behind a screen of dark trunks and limbs and a thickening curtain of mist. The little falls had been left behind, and even the trickling sounds of its waters had faded. Ahead, the mist was growing more impenetrable, swirling and twisting like a living thing, climbing into the treetops and filling in the gaps that opened to the sky.

Had she not known what to expect, all this would have frightened her. But she had traveled between worlds before, and so she knew how it worked. The mists marked the entry into Landover, and once she passed through them, she would be on her way home. Others who found their way into these woods and encountered the mists would be turned around without realizing it and sent back the way they had come. Only she would be shown the way through.

Assuming she didn’t get careless and stray from the path, she reminded herself. If she did that, things could get complicated. Even for her.

She pulled the collar of her coat tighter, her breath clouding the air as she trudged ahead, still following the path that had taken her up. When at last the path ended, she kept going anyway, knowing instinctively where to go and how she must travel.

A wall of ancient oak trees rose before her, huge monsters casting dark shadows in the failing light. Mist swirled through them, but at their center they parted to form a tunnel, its black interior running back into the forest until the light gave out. Trailers of mist wove their way through the trunks and branches, sinuous tendrils that moved like huge gray snakes. She moved toward them and entered the tunnel. Ahead, there was only blackness and a screen of mist. She kept walking, but for the first time she felt a ripple of uncertainty. It wasn’t altogether impossible that she could have made a mistake. There wasn’t any real way of knowing.

The consequences of a mistake, however, were enormous. One misstep here, and you were in the land of the fairies.

She pressed on, watching the mist and the darkness recede before her at a pace that matched her own. She hugged herself against the chills that ran up and down her spine. Whispers nudged her from within the trees to either side, the voices of invisible beings. She knew those voices, knew their source and their purpose. Fairies, teasing travelers who passed through their domain. They were insidious, unpredictable creatures, and even she—who was born, in part, of their soil and therefore a part of their world—was not immune to their magic. Partly their child, partly an Earth child, and partly a child of Landover: that was her heritage, and that was what had determined who and what she was.

Her mother, Willow, had kept the secret from her; it was the witch, Nightshade, who had told her the truth. Her mother was a sylph, an elfish creature who transformed periodically into the tree for which she was named to take root and nourish in the earth. She had done so in order to give birth to Mistaya. In preparation, she had collected a mix of soils—from a place in Ben’s world called Greenwich and from the old pines in the lake country and from the fairy mists in her world. But when she had gone into labor unexpectedly, she had been forced to take root in a hurried mix of the soils she carried while she was still down in the dark confines of the Deep Fell, the home of the witch Nightshade. The consequences were unimaginable, and while Mistaya had been born without incident she had also been born the only one of her kind.

You couldn’t be more different than that.

But being different only got you so far. For one thing, you were never exactly like anyone else and so you never completely fit in. It was so here. Being part fairy was not enough to guarantee safe passage. Staying on the path and keeping your head was what would protect you.

So she did as she knew she must, even though the temptation to step away, to follow those intriguing voices, to try to find even one of the speakers, played on her curious mind. She pushed ahead very deliberately, waiting for the dark and the mist to fade, for the trees to open before her, for the passage between worlds to end.

Which, finally, it did.

Quickly, smoothly, without warning of any sort, the trees thinned and the curtains of mist lifted. She walked out of the darkened forest into a bright, sunlit day filled with sweet scents and warm breezes. She paused despite herself, drinking it in, letting it infuse her with good feelings.

Home.

She had entered at the west end of Landover, and the sweep of the valley spread away before her. Close by, just below, lay the broad, open grasslands of the Greensward; south, the lake country that was her mother’s home; north, the Melchor Mountains where the trolls lived; and east, beyond the Greensward, the wastelands and the Fire Springs where Strabo, last of the dragons, made his home. She couldn’t see it all; the distance was too great, and when you reached the ring of mountains that encircled the valley, mist cloaked everything.

As she scanned the familiar countryside, enjoying the good feelings that coming home generated, her eyes passed over and then returned to the dark smudge below the Melchor that marked the Deep Fell. Memories she did not care to relive surfaced anew, and she felt a twinge of regret. The Deep Fell was her real birthplace, dark and terrible, and though she would have wished it otherwise, it was a part of her. Nightshade had told her so. Nightshade, who had wanted her for her own child. For a while, she had wanted that, too. Treachery and deception had marked that period in her life, when she was only ten years old. But that was finished now. Nightshade was gone, and she wouldn’t be coming back.

She shifted her gaze, fixing it instead on the place where she knew Sterling Silver waited, not too far away now, less than a day’s walk if she hurried.

She started ahead at once, moving deliberately down from the foothills into the valley, choosing her path almost without thinking about it. She breathed deeply of the scents of the valley as she descended into it, marking each of them in turn, identifying each one, able to separate them out and match them to their names. She had learned to do that a long time ago while studying under the able tutelage of Questor Thews, the court wizard. Questor, ancient and amusing, held a special place in her heart. It wasn’t just because he was so funny, frequently mixing up his spells and causing all sorts of minor catastrophes. It wasn’t because he had always treated her like an adult and never a child, better attuned to who and what she was than her father. It wasn’t even because he was the dearest friend she had, aside from her parents.

It was because he had saved her life and almost lost his own by doing so. It was because he had done so impetuously and without a thought for the consequences. It was because he had dared to go up against a much stronger sorcerer in Nightshade, the Witch of the Deep Fell.

Mistaya had used her own magic to save him, a combination of newfound talent acquired from studying with the witch and her natural talent. Enraged upon discovering she had been deceived into using both to attack her father, she had lashed out at Nightshade in a red-hot fury. The two had gone toe-to-toe in a battle of sorceries that might have seen both destroyed if not for the timely intervention of Haltwhistle. Her spell turned back upon herself, Nightshade had disappeared in an explosion of green witch fire. Afterward, Mistaya had used her talent and determination to nurse Questor back to health. When he was well again, he had become her teacher and constant companion.

Until her father had sent her away to Carrington where, he insisted, she would learn new and necessary things.

To his credit, Questor hadn’t argued. He had agreed with her father who, after all, was King and had the final word on almost everything. He had told her that her father was right, that she needed to see something of another world, and her father’s world was the obvious choice. He would be waiting when she returned, and they would pick up right where they left off on studying the flora and fauna, the creatures and their habits, of the world that really mattered to her.

Remembering his promise, she was suddenly anxious for that to happen.

Abruptly, a huge black shadow fell across her, a dark stain that spread wide in all directions as something massive and winged swept overhead in soundless flight. She gasped and dropped into a protective crouch, preparing to defend herself. A beating of great, leathery wings churned the sleepy air into a howling wind that threatened to flatten her, and Strabo hove into view. Body extended, the dragon banked into a glide that brought him about and down into a smooth landing directly in front of her.

She straightened tentatively and faced the dragon as he towered over her. “Good day, dragon!” she greeted bravely.

“Good day, Princess,” the dragon replied in a voice that sounded like metal being scraped with a saw’s sharp teeth.

She wasn’t sure where this was going, but decided it was best to find out sooner rather than later. “You seem as if you have a purpose in coming upon me like this. Are you here to welcome me home?”

“Welcome home,” he said.

She waited for more, but the dragon simply sat there, blocking her way. He was a massive beast, his weight something in the area of four or five tons, his body sheathed in leathery skin and armored with bony plating, spine ridged with spikes, triangular head encrusted with horns and legs as big as tree trunks. One yellowish eye fixed on her with determined intent while the other closed with languid disinterest. Neat trick, she thought, and wondered if she could learn how to do it.

“We have a small problem, Princess,” Strabo rumbled after a long few minutes. “You have engaged in forbidden behavior. Are you aware of what that behavior might be?”

“I am not,” she declared, wondering suddenly if it had something to do with Rhonda Masterson.

“You used your magic to create an image of me to frighten someone,” the dragon said, confirming her suspicion. “This is not allowed. This is never allowed. No one is ever, ever, ever allowed to use an image of me, in any form whatsoever, for any purpose whatsoever, without my permission. Perhaps you did not know this?”

She took a deep breath. “I did not. I thought it was a perfectly acceptable usage.”

“Think again. More to the point, don’t do it again. I don’t know what kind of manners they teach you at the castle, or what sort of behavior you have been led to believe is acceptable, but labeling dragons as scary monsters is way out of line. Consider this fair warning. If you ever create an image of me again without my permission, you shall hear from me much more quickly than this, and you will be made to answer for your foolishness. Am I clear?”

She tightened her lower lip to keep it from trembling as the dragon bent over her like a collapsing rock wall and she got a clear whiff of his incredibly rancid breath. “You are very clear,” she managed.

“Good,” he declared. When he straightened, he was as tall as a three-story building, and with his wings spread he was twice as wide. “I shan’t keep you longer. It is good to see you again, and I wish you well. I have always liked and admired you and your mother; your father, of course, is a different story. Please do yourself a favor and don’t take after him. Now farewell. Take care to remember my warning.”

Huge wings flapping with enough force to knock her sprawling, Strabo rose into the sky and soared away, flying east until he was little more than a dwindling black speck against the horizon. Mistaya stared after him, aware of how close she had come to finding out a whole lot more about dragon breath than she cared to.

“Although that was pretty show-offy,” she mumbled as she rose and brushed dirt from her pants.

A sudden movement to one side startled her, and she gave a small cry of delight as a familiar face poked out through a thatch of berry bushes and a pair of soulful eyes gazed up at her. “Haltwhistle!” she cried. “You did come!”

She started to rush over to throw her arms around him in greeting before remembering that you couldn’t touch a mud puppy, and so she settled for dropping down on one knee and blowing him a big kiss.

“I’m so glad to see you!” she said.

The mud puppy gazed back at her with his soulful brown eyes, and his strange lizard tail wagged gently. Mud puppies were among the strangest of all creatures in Landover, and that was saying something. His elongated body, colored with patches of brown hair, sat atop four short legs that ended in splayed, webbed feet. He had a face that was vaguely suggestive of a rodent, long floppy dog’s ears, and that weird reptilian tail. He looked as if he had been put together with spare parts, but he was so ugly he was actually cute. Haltwhistle had been a gift from the Earth Mother, her own mother’s spirit protector and self-appointed guardian, who had anticipated that Mistaya would have need of the magic that a mud puppy possessed.

As it turned out, all of her family and friends had ended up needing the mud puppy to keep them safe.

Haltwhistle sat back on his haunches and regarded her soberly, his tongue licking out briefly in greeting. “I knew you would be here,” she told him, even though she hadn’t really known that at all. “Good old Haltwhistle.”

She patted her thigh to signal for him to follow and set out anew. The appearance of the mud puppy further buoyed her spirits, and she was beginning to feel like everything was going to work out. Her father, while stubborn, was not an unreasonable man. He would listen, weigh, and evaluate arguments carefully. That was what made him such a good King. He didn’t just decide and put an end to discussion. He took his time, and he wasn’t afraid to admit when he was wrong If she argued strongly enough, he would come to see that he was wrong here. He would accept that she belonged in Landover and not in some other world and agree to give up the Carrington experiment as a failed cause.

She marched along briskly, anxious to get back to the castle and begin making her case. Haltwhistle, for all that he looked incapable of moving much faster than a turtle, kept up with no trouble. She loved this little animal, and she determined never to leave him again. She would keep him with her always, close by, her constant companion. All she needed to do was speak his name once each day, even if she couldn’t see him and didn’t know where he was. That was what the Earth Mother had told her when she had given her Haltwhistle, and that was what she knew she must do. She hadn’t needed to do so while she was in her father’s world, but she had done so anyway just because she missed him so much.

She whistled a bit as she walked, a poor effort since she had never learned properly, and after a bit gave it up for singing. One of Landover’s eight moons, the mauve one, hung low in the sky east, pale and ephemeral against the blue, and she sang to it in greeting. The peach moon hadn’t risen yet, but when it did she would sing a song to it, too. Swatches of bright color spread across the valley, fields of grasses and flowers that bloomed in every color of the rainbow. Groves of fruit trees dotted the landscape, their smells carrying on the wind. She breathed them in, and suddenly she was very hungry.

Ahead, just visible now, was Sterling Silver, her ramparts rising in bright reflective shapes from the island on which she sat. She gleamed her greeting, so Mistaya sang a song for her, too.

She broke a branch from one of the Bonnie Blues as she passed by a small grove at the edge of the valley floor, stripped off the leaves, and began to munch on them eagerly. The Blues were the staple of sustenance for Landover’s human occupants. They were trees formed thousands of years ago of fairy magic, their leaves edible, their stalks the source of a liquid that tasted like milk. They grew everywhere and replenished themselves with dependable regularity. Any resident within walking distance was allowed a reasonable culling. Any traveler was welcome to partake.

“Want some, Haltwhistle?” she asked the mud puppy, even though she knew he didn’t. She just wanted him to know she would be willing to share.

She passed on across the grasslands, through a meadow of brilliant firestick, their stalks as red as blood; a field of regal crown, golden flowers on bright green stems; and a long, looping line of pink wisteria that channeled down a border fence for miles. Blue ponds appeared here and there, and silvery streams flowed down out of the higher elevations, a sparkling latticework as they crisscrossed the valley floor. It was all summery and cheerful, a promise of better things.

Though she wished that just once it would snow in Landover. It did snow at the higher elevations, but the snow fell into the fairy mists where it was impossible to get to it. There would be snow aplenty at Carrington once real winter set in. There had been several light snowfalls already.

She brushed the thought from her mind. There was no point in thinking about Carrington. That was over.

She had just reached the small forest that marked the boundaries of the King’s land when Haltwhistle nudged her leg. She moved away, thinking she had strayed into his path, but he nudged her again.

This time she stopped where she was. Apparently it was all right for him to touch her, even though she wasn’t supposed to touch him. She put her hands on her hips and stared at him in surprise, but he was already walking away, moving off to the left toward a huge old Marse Red that dominated the trees around it by sheer size, its branches spreading wide in all directions.

Something was hanging from one of the branches. She walked closer and discovered that it was some sort of creature, all trussed up and suspended by a heavy rope from one of the stouter branches. When she got closer still, she realized, despite all the rope looped about its head and body, that it was a G’home Gnome.

Now, everyone who lived in Landover, whether in the deepest reaches of the lake country or the highest of the Melchor or the most desolate of the wastelands, knew about G’home Gnomes. Mostly, they knew to stay away from them. Their name alone—evolved over time by repeated demands that began or ended with “Go home, Gnome!”—said it all. They were a burrow people with little to offer anyone, scavengers preying on small animals and birds—many of them others’ treasured pets. They enjoyed the reluctant favor of her father for two simple reasons: because they had been the first to swear allegiance to him when he was named King, and because he believed in equal treatment for all his subjects, no matter how low or how despised they might be. Good thing. There was no one lower or more despised than the G’home Gnomes.

Not by her, of course. She rather liked the little creatures. They made her laugh. But then, she hadn’t had a pet eaten by one, either.

She walked up to the bound-and-gagged creature and took a very close look at its muffled face.

“Poggwydd?” she whispered.

She could hardly believe her eyes. It was the G’home Gnome she had stumbled upon when she’d disobeyed Nightshade and gone outside the Deep Fell. She had been tricked into thinking the witch was her friend and was hiding her in the Deep Fell to keep her safe. But eventually, she had given way to an impulse to see something of the world she had left behind. Nightshade had caught them out and tried to kill Poggwydd, but Haltwhistle had intervened and saved him.

All that was some years ago, and she had not seen Poggwydd since.

And now, unexpectedly, here he was.

Quickly she began loosening the little fellow’s bonds, choosing to remove the gag that filled his mouth first, which proved to be a big mistake.

“Careful, you clumsy girl! Are you trying to tear the skin off my face? It isn’t enough that I am humiliated and mistreated by those rat-faced monkeys, but now I have a cruel child to torment me, as well. Stop, stop, don’t yank so hard on those ropes, you’re breaking my wrists! Oh, that I should have come to this!”

She kept working, trying to ignore his complaints, a difficult undertaking by any measure. But the knots in the ropes that held him fast were tight, and it was taking everything she had to loosen them.

“Stop!” he screamed. “Didn’t you hear what I said? You’re breaking my arms! I am in great pain, little girl! Have you no pity for me, trussed and bound as I am? Do I deserve this? Do any G’home Gnomes deserve what happens to them? The world is a cruel place, hard and unforgiving—ouch! And we are its victims every—ouch, I said!—day of our miserable lives! Stop it, stop it!”

She stepped back. “Do you want me to free you or not?”

He stared at her, his lips quivering. “I do. But painlessly, please.”

G’home Gnomes looked a great deal like you might expect, hairy heads with ferret faces mounted on stout bodies. They were small creatures, most not quite four feet tall, and due to the circumstances of their burrow life perpetually dirt-covered and grimy. Poggwydd was no exception.

Enough so, in fact, that she wondered suddenly what had possessed her to attempt to free him by touching his filthy body.

She spoke a few quick words, gestured abruptly, and the bonds that constrained him fell away. As did he, tumbling to the ground in a ragged heap, where he lay gasping for breath.

“Was that really necessary?” he panted, looking up at her. Then abruptly, he paused. “Wait! I know you!”

He looked past her to where Haltwhistle sat looking back, and the light came on in his rheumy eyes. “You’re the little girl from the Deep Fell, the one that the witch had been keeping hidden! You’re the High Lord’s daughter … What’s your name again?”

“Mistaya,” she told him.

“No, that’s not it.” He shook his head and frowned. “It’s Aberillina or Portia or something like that.”

She reached down and pulled him to his feet, where he stood on shaky legs, looking as if he might fall down again. “No, it’s Mistaya,” she assured him. “What happened to you, anyway?”

He took a moment to think about it, working hard at brushing himself off and straightening his ragged clothing. “I was set upon by thieves,” he announced abruptly. “I was traveling to the castle to see you, as a matter of fact. I wanted to be sure you were all right since I hadn’t heard from you in quite some time. Rather poor manners on your part, I might point out, not to keep in touch with your friends. Why, if not for me, you might still be a prisoner of the witch!”

She decided not to correct his warped view of old events or to challenge his obvious lie about thieves. She was enjoying herself far too much to spoil the fun. “So the thieves took you prisoner?” she pressed.

“They did indeed,” Poggwydd continued dramatically, gesturing wildly with his hands. “I fought them off for as long as I could, but there were too many for me. They stole everything I had, trussed me up, and hung me from that tree. Not a care for what might happen to me, left like that; not one glance spared for me as they left.”

“Good thing I came along when I did,” she said.

“Well, you could have come sooner,” he pointed out.

“Are you all right now?”

“I’ve been better, but I think I will be all right after I’ve had something to eat and drink. You haven’t any dried meat in your pockets, do you?”

She shook her head. “Why don’t you come back to the castle with me and get something to eat there. You can be my guest at dinner tonight.”

A look of horror crossed his face, and he shook his head vigorously. “Oh, no, I can’t do that!” He swallowed hard, searching for something more to say. “I would like that, you understand. I would be honored to be your guest. But I have … I have a meeting of the tribal council to attend, and I must get back. Right away. This incident with the thieves has thrown me well off my schedule, which, by the way, is very demanding.”

She nodded. “I suppose so. Well, perhaps another time, then?”

“Yes, another time. That would be wonderful.” He nodded and backed away. “Soon, I promise. It was good seeing you again, Mistrya. Or Ministerya. Good to see that you are doing so well. And your strange little dog, too. Does he still go with you everywhere, or does he sometimes wander? He looks like he needs a lot of fresh air and sunshine, so I hope you let him out now and then. Outside the confines of the castle, I mean.”

She gave him a look, and he smiled with all his teeth showing. “It was just a thought. Well, thank you for cutting me down from that branch, even if you did almost break every bone in my body.” He rubbed himself gingerly to demonstrate the pain he was feeling. “I hope to see you again. I shall, in fact. I have made my home in this part of Landover. A fresh beginning after the encounter with the witch. It took me a long time to get over that, you know. But it was worth it to help you.”

Well, she supposed that he did help her, if only indirectly and inadvertently. By engaging her in conversation, he had kept her out of the Deep Fell long enough for her to learn the truth about what everyone thought had happened to her. He had also provided an object lesson in the temperament and disposition of her would-be teacher and mentor. Witnessing Nightshade’s efforts to destroy him had given her cause to think, for the first time, that she might be making a mistake by staying.

“Good-bye now,” he called over his shoulder to her, moving rapidly away. “Farewell.”

She let him go. There was more to this business of being hung up in the tree than he was telling her, but that was usually the case with G’home Gnomes. She watched him disappear over a rise, and then she turned and started walking again toward the castle with Haltwhistle at her side. Time to be getting on.

She was within hailing distance of the front gates, just across the causeway leading over to the island on which Sterling Silver gleamed in brilliant greeting, when she saw Questor Thews appear on the battlements and wave to her with one stick-thin arm.

She thought the wave looked encouraging.