It was a good two days’ journey to the marches of the Yth, and the countryside grew ever wilder and more desolate on the way. They made camp early on the second night, at the edge of the wood, refusing to enter the Yth at nightfall.
Everyone in the party felt oppressed and uneasy except Nyctasia, who was afire with anticipation. She argued that they would be no safer by day, since the Yth was known to harbor an unvarying twilight at all hours, but the others chose to wait for dawn, nevertheless.
Disappointed and restless, Nyctasia wandered around the camp, listening for sounds from the forest. Finally she came and sat by Corson, who was keeping watch by the campfire.
“Stop prowling about,” Corson ordered. “Stay where I can see you.”
“Look at this.” Nyctasia unclenched her fist, and a small flame appeared, dancing above her open hand as if an invisible wick grew from her palm.
Corson frowned at it. “Magicians!” she said, and spat.
“Must you do that?”
Corson pointed to the eerie flame over Nyctasia’s hand. “Must you do that?”
“I never could do it before. It’s the Influence of the Yth-so close, I’ve only to reach out for it!” She spoke as if to herself, and Corson looked off into the shadowy forest, ill at ease. Nyctasia had begun to seem a stranger to her.
“You’ve been different ever since we got near this cursed forest. You act like you’re listening to something no one else can hear. I don’t like it.”
“I do.” Nyctasia closed her hand over the flame and it vanished. “You could still turn back. There’s no need for you to make this journey.”
“I’m being paid handsomely for it-I’ll go back to Steifann’s with a fortune. I’m not afraid of spirits.”
“That’s what worries me.”
“Your watch is up, Corson.” Another guard had arrived to relieve her. “Have you seen anything strange?”
“Just her,” said Corson, jerking her thumb at Nyctasia. They went off together, still arguing.
“Well, if everything’s so simple for you here, why don’t you do that mirror spell for me? The one I tried to do on the Windhover.”
“Oh, very well,” said Nyctasia, “but I’ll wager you’ll be disappointed. Fetch your mirror and meet me over there.” She pointed to a nearby stand of trees.
Corson had never expected her to agree, and now that Nyctasia was willing, she had her own misgivings. When she went for the mirror she remembered what had befallen those who’d used the spell unwisely, and her apprehensions began to get the better of her.
“Nyc… are you sure it’s safe to do this? It won’t show me something monstrous, will it?”
“I’m glad you take your lessons so much to heart, Corson-you do me credit. No, there’s nothing to fear now. The power of this place is free to those within its bounds, if they’ve the knowledge to wield it. That’s what draws magicians here-”
“Like crows to carrion,” Corson suggested, “All right, I remember about that.
Just get on with it, can’t you?”
Nyctasia shook her head indulgently and picked up the mirror, turning it towards Corson.
“Should I close my eyes?” Corson asked anxiously.
“You won’t see much if you do. Just think of what you want to see. Leave the rest to me.” She calmly recited the spell of Reflection, holding the mirror steadily before Corson’s fascinated gaze. The words sounded different from the way Corson remembered them.
At first the mirror showed Corson nothing at all, not even her own features. It was like staring through a window at a colorless winter sky. She tried to think only of Steifann. What would he be doing now? Sleeping, most likely, at this hour-he was always up before daybreak to go to market. But would anyone be sharing his bed?
Suddenly Corson gasped and leaned closer, straining to make out the distant shape barely visible in the glass. In her excitement, she forgot the mirror and her own surroundings. She could not have said whether the hazy images were drawing closer to her, or she to them.
“Ohh,” Corson whispered, transfixed.
Steifann was not asleep. He sat at the table in his room with his account books spread before him, carefully sliding the stones back and forth along the wires of a small counting-frame. He was hunched over his work, leaning on one elbow, his hair falling into his eyes. Every so often he glanced longingly at the bed.
The candles had burned low. Yawning, he picked up a quill and began to enter figures in the ledger, but then the nib splayed out and left a blot of ink on the page. Steifann threw down the pen in disgust and got to his feet, stretching wearily. He went to the washstand and bent over the basin to splash water in his face, then shook his head briskly. Wiping his face on his sleeve, he returned to his stool and resignedly scraped away at the inkstain with a sharp knife.
Steifann prided himself on keeping neat records.
Corson hated to see him so tired. “Steifann, get to bed, leave that for tomorrow. I can go to market with Annin in the morning.” Reaching out to touch his shoulder, she struck her hand against the silver mirror, and it was Nyctasia who answered her.
“Come to your senses, Corson, he can’t hear you.” She laid the mirror face down on the ground.
“Where…” cried Corson, looking around in dismay. She snatched at the mirror but it showed her only her own baffled face. “But I… he…”
“I know,” Nyctasia said gently.
“It’s-it’s a cheat!”
“Yes, in a way. It’s a corrupt spell, turned to self-serving ends. It rarely gives what it promises.”
Corson was both angry and ashamed-she felt guilty not only for spying on Steifann, but for taking more from him than she ever gave in return. If she were there now, Steifann wouldn’t have to work all day and half the night, too.
The wretched mirror spell had revealed her reflection after all, and Corson wasn’t pleased with what she saw. “Does magic always make folk feel worse than they did before?” she demanded.
“Usually,” said Nyctasia.
The perpetual twilight of the forest made it impossible to tell day from night, and the travelers soon lost all track of time. Even when the sky was visible through the densely laced treetops, it showed a monotonous grey cast that might have been seen at any hour.
There were no definite landmarks, and they seemed always to be riding through the same stretch of wilderness again and again. When they halted to rest, the light from their cooking fire made the surrounding gloom seem even deeper and more forbidding. They spoke in whispers, while the sounds of the forest, usually distant and elusive, drew all too near.
“That’s only wolves, that howling,” said one of the merchants. “They won’t come close to a fire.”
“Werewolves, most likely. We should make torches.”
“Werewolves don’t fear fire,” Nyctasia said. “They make fires themselves. In fact, the sort of werewolves that inhabit the Yth only assume human form in order to make fires, or tend wounds-tasks that require hands, you see.” She warmed to her subject. “It’s also said they prefer to mate that way, though I don’t claim to know how that particular information was obtained. For most things they consider the human form inferior to the lupine.”
“Then how can you kill them?” someone interrupted.
“Why, just as you’d kill any animal. But they hunt in packs like other wolves.
Of course…”
Corson nudged her, and she looked up to meet hostile stares on all sides. Those who had been worried that a werewolf might spring into their midst were not heartened at the prospect of being attacked by an entire pack. Nyctasia smiled disarmingly, “But of course there’s no danger if we stay on the road-nothing in the forest will set foot on it. Just don’t let anything tempt you from the road!”
“No fear of that. Nothing could get me into that cursed forest!”
Everyone in the party agreed, but when they next woke, the guard who had last been on watch was not to be found.
They broke camp hurriedly. “There’s no use in our waiting. He won’t come back.”
“No one ever does.”
“That’s not so!” said Nyctasia sharply. “Some come back. If you see him by the side of the road, don’t listen to him, don’t look at him! And for vahn’s sake, stay out of his reach.”
“But how could we be sure?” asked another of the guards, unhappily. “He’s my friend.”
“If he comes onto the road he’s your friend. But don’t try to help him. If you were his friend you’re in more danger than the rest of us.”
“That’s true,” someone agreed. “You know the song about the enchanted groom.”
People nodded. ‘The Marriage of Makine.’
Nyctasia rode up beside the grieving woman. “Do you know the song?”
“No, lady.”
“Perhaps you should. It’s a pretty song, though a sad one.” Her clear voice pierced the eerie silence.
“There was dancing by the river
On the eve of the marriage-tide,
Till a calling from the forest
Drew the bridegroom from the bride.
He left his friends, he left the feast,
And the dancing in the meadow.
He left the one he loved the best
To follow a shining shadow.
She waited all night in the field alone,
All night she called his name
To guide him back from the forest black,
And with the dawn he came.
She ran and took him in her arms
She kissed his eyes that were so wild.
‘Oh look at me, my love,’ said she,
And he looked on her and smiled.
‘Oh speak to me, my love,’ she said,
‘This very morn shall we be wed.’
She kissed his lips that were so cold-
‘I heard you call,’ was all he said.
She led him from the wood away,
Across the field to the river’s edge,
But he would not ford the rushing stream
Nor set his foot upon the bridge.
And then she knew what thing it was
That came to take her lover’s place.
She saw its image mirrored clear
Upon the water’s face.
Swiftly o’er the bridge she fled,
Nor stayed for him that sought her,
For only those of the living dead
Will not cross living water.
It was the calling from the forest
Drew the bridegroom from the bride.
And there was never a wedding-fest
Again at the riverside.”
“Bad luck to sing that here, maybe,” someone said, after a while.
They rode on in the timeless twilight.
From then on, Nyctasia insisted on staying with Corson whenever she was on guard duty. Corson was secretly glad of the company, but she indignantly denied that she needed Nyctasia’s protection.
“Nothing in that forest could be more of a nuisance than you are,” Corson took up a stick and raked a potato from under the ashes. She bit off half and wiped her mouth on her sleeve.
“Corson, you have the manners of an ox.”
“Mulghfth?” said Corson. She swallowed, and offered the half-eaten potato to Nyctasia. “Did you want some?”
Nyctasia hid her face in her hands and groaned. “You must be joking.”
But there was no answer, and she looked up to see Corson staring past her, open-mouthed. Nyctasia turned, and a sickening fear rose within her.
It was just as perilously beautiful as she’d heard. It held out its arms and laughed, and its laughter was sweet, melodic, entrancing. Burning with a sinister splendor, the Yth-Elf leaned toward them, and its body was a ripple of flame and shadow in the half-light of the forest.
Corson rose to her feet slowly, and the movement roused Nyctasia from her dazed contemplation of the radiant, sensual figure. “Corson!” she cried. “Don’t look!
Wait!” She tried to pull Corson back, but Corson only thrust her roughly aside and started to move toward the Elf.
Nyctasia seized Corson’s pack and hastily spilled out the contents. She found the silver mirror and ran to hold it up before Corson’s eyes, frantically chanting a spell:
“Behold in this enchanted mirror
Images reversed, but clearer.
Herein all things reveal themselves.
Behold the passion of the Elves!”
Corson backed away, but she could not take her eyes from the glass.
Horrorstricken, she dashed the mirror from Nyctasia’s hand and fell to her knees, sobbing and retching.
Nyctasia stood over her protectively and dared to look back once at the Elf. It glared at her now, its exquisite features contorted with fury. For a moment she met the creature’s challenging gaze before it retreated among the trees. She heard it laugh again-not with seductive sweetness, but in a shrill, mindless titter that seemed to mock her.
“So that’s the game, is it?” Nyctasia thought, with a certain satisfaction. So be it. She would not be taken unawares.
Corson looked dubiously at the cup of thick, greenish liquid Nyctasia had given her. “It smells disgusting.”
“I’m afraid it probably tastes disgusting, too,” Nyctasia said apologetically.
“Dried herbs wouldn’t be as bitter, but there’s no apothecary’s shop to hand, so fresh ones will have to do. It will give you a dreamless sleep, I promise you.”
Corson had not had an easy night’s rest since she’d seen the Elf. She lay awake for hours, and when at last she fell asleep she was plagued by terrifying nightmares that left her wakeful again. With a grimace, she shut her eyes and drank down the potion in two gulps. “Hlann’s blood, that’s foul!”
“I had nothing to sweeten it with. You’ll soon sleep, all the same.” Nyctasia spread a blanket on the floor of the tent. “Come lie down.”
Corson swallowed some water to wash away the taste of the sleeping draught, then threw herself down beside Nyctasia. “I don’t feel any sleepier than I did,” she complained. “That slime of yours probably won’t help at all.”
“It will help, if you let it,” Nyctasia said patiently. “Just lie quiet. If I had my harp I’d sing you a lullaby.”
“You ought to read to me from one of those books of yours. They’re dull enough to make anyone sleep.”
Nyctasia laughed. “Goodnight, Corson.”
“Night!” Corson mumbled. “Who knows whether it’s night or day in this Hlann-forsaken forest…” She yawned.
Nyctasia watched her for a time. “Corson-”
“Hmm?”
“May I borrow your dagger and leave you mine in its place? I’ll bring yours back to you-I swear it on my honor as a Vahnite.”
“If you like,” said Corson drowsily. It seemed an odd request. Bring it back from where? And there was something else she should ask Nyctasia, but she was so sleepy… For a moment it came to her and she roused herself just long enough to say, “Nyc, where did you find those herbs?”
Nyctasia leaned over her, gently stroking her hair. “Hush, Corson, sleep now.
Don’t worry.”