As the boy sat, watching, he thought about how it was strange to see Caewen like this. She was so full of will and force, now reduced down to this a shadow of herself. He even noticed small unheroic details that he had not seen before, which somehow made her seem all the more heroic. The hem of her woollen jerkin had moth-holes in it. There was a freckle on her cheek that looked out of place. That sort of thing.
When the dawn light rose it was gradual and faint, like a slow bleaching of the eastern sky.
As the light grew, it was the boy who first noticed the patch of darkness in the tree branches above. He kept looking up, curious about the sounds he thought he had heard in the nighttime. At first he thought it was just a trick of the morning light, playing among the interweave of branches, and so he ignored it while he prepared the breakfast.
Not long after rising, Fleat was prodding the leaves he’d soaked overnight. “They haven’t got to a good green colour?”
“No,” said the boy. “How long does it take?”
Sctaching his head of unruly hair, Fleat shrugged. “Usually an hour or two? I must have done something wrong, or picked the wrong herbs. It’s more of an off greenish-grey?”
The boy came over and looked. “That’s what I’d say, yes.”
“Well. What-to-do? What-to-do?”
He seemed to decide against giving the broth to Caewen, and went off to forage more sprigs of greenery instead. He remained relentless in his efforts: even if the first herbal had not quite worked. Soon he was back at the little camp, quietly but purposely cutting, crushing, chopping various bits of leaves, sprigs and shoots. Most of these cuttings went into a pot on the morning’s fire–all of it simmering and simmering–until he had a thick paste. This, he seemed to think was successful, and he spread the mixture on Caewen’s forehead. “This is simpler to make,” he said. “Not as effective at breaking fevers, as me other broth, but it can do the trick.” Finally, there was also a brownish liquor in the pot that he skimmed off the top of the boiled salve. This went into a mug. They then did their best to wake Caewen and force her to drink. She did rouse, if feebly, and winced and sputtered as the liquid was put to her lips. After a gulp she said, “No more,” and waved them away with a hand.
If Fleat’s healing arts did any good at all, then Caewen would surely have been dead without them. Even with his broth and salve, she was clearly lingering on the last step of death’s threshold. Her eyes were growing paler when they did flutter open–which was only very occasionally. Now and then, she spoke: but it was not reassuring, what she said. She would rouse suddenly, brightly, and speak as if she were seeing things that not the boy, nor anyone else could see. Spirits and dead things. Ghaists and the otherworldly visions of the near dead. She would then collapse back into unconsciousness. They say that the dying stand for a while in both worlds, the living and the dead. In Wurmgloath, there was a saying that it was unwise to ask too many questions of a dying man or woman. They might give truthful answers that they ought not give–secrets not meant for the living–for sometimes truth can be as troubling as lies. The boy was careful to keep any question he put to Caewen as a short, matter of fact statement, always to the point. “How are you feeling?”–“Do you need more sleep?”–“Aren’t you hungry now?” She would murmur restlessly, or wave him away with a weak hand.
Through all of this, Dapplegrim sat, staring and thinking his own enclosed thoughts.
As the morning passed, the boy did start to glance up into the branches, more and more often, increasingly curious. He was certain now: there was something there, sitting in the leafy shadows above them. By about midmorning, he was ready to raise it quietly with Dapplegrim. But the big horse looked so thoughtful and anguished, he could not bear to disturb the creature’s thoughts.
As the sun rose fuller in the sky. Great gold and gauzy spears of light lanced the air, bold through the leaves. It was harder to pretend that there was not something very odd indeed about the patch of darkness that refused to go away when all the other darknesses and night-glooms and puddles of shadow were long departed.
Finally, he moved nearer the horse-creature and spoke. “Dapplegrim…” said the boy, hesitant, quietly. He was watching the shadow now, and he could have sworn he saw it move more than once. Then, watching it, he saw a tail whisk and flick. He stood up. “Dapplegrim…!”
“What?” He was angry. “What, child?”
“There’s something in the tree.” He pointed. As he did, it seemed that the shadow decided that if it had been seen, then any game it was playing was done: and it might was well make a show of itself now. It uncurled so that it turned into something that looked like a cat uncurling from rest. The boy gave out a small sound of surprise. The thing crept outwards, onto a branch, but always keeping out of direct sunlight. It looked down on them, and blinked its midnight eyes. It was indeed something like a cat in shape, but it was also something like an otter too, and maybe it had a bit of mink or polecat in it. It was sinuous, slinking, and it looked as if it had been made entirely out of a big heap of shadow. It’s face and fur–if it could be said to have either–were featureless, just darkness on darkness. The only part of the thing that had any difference of colour at all were the eyes, and they were only barely discernible. Those eyes were shadows just like the rest of the creature, but they were a darker, glossier pinpricks of shadow within a shadow face.
The darkness-thing made a sound, “Tssch,” and it curled about the branch as fluid as any otter. It then climbed down the trunk until it came to one of the lower branches–though still carefully out of reach from below–and it said, “Well now, well, tssssch. Well and well. You’ve seen me at last and I’ve found you at last, at last, I have. I had to creep through the heads of a hundred dreamers to bring myself so far, from there-to-here, so quickly, but yes. Tssssch. I have found you. At last.” He looked at Fleat purposefully. “You won’t remember, but I bridged myself through your head last night. Strange dreams, you have, boy-owl. Tsssssch.” He looked at the boy. “But you. You do remember, don’t you? I didn’t expect it of some mere and mortal child, but you remember me from your dreams. You remember the Prince of Ghosts too, and his pale ladies-in-waiting too, I wager? And you saw me in the tree, lurking. There’s more to you than meets the whisker.” A broad, cunning smile.
Dapplegrim snorted and stepped towards the place where the shadow rested itself. His voice was low and dark and full of warning: “And you will keep well clear of us a little longer if you want to keep whatever it is that you use for a skin, little shadow-thing. I know you. I’ll not let Mannagarm’s nasty little pet work its master’s revenge.”
“Nasty?” it whispered. “Pet?” it whispered. “No, no, no, no. You mistake me, lord demon-horse, tsch… thing. Let me say, as one thing to another thing. You mistake me. Your lady bested Mannagarm. He is gone from this world in all ways that matter. His reins and tethers upon me are cut and severed, and by all the laws of wizardry, by the oldest of rights and agreements my services now belong to her. She bested my old master in fair battle and she won me and my service as a part of his otherworldly estate. Though, tssssch, I confess there is not much else to inherit. Mannagarm was not much of a magician, all told.” It shrugged. “I have been following you ever since. Waiting. Watching. Looking and looking. And now I have decided the time is ripe for young Caewen’s, um, inheritance. How joyful I am. Tssssch.”
“Is that so? It took you a long time to decide to present yourself. Mannagarm was ended some time ago.”
“Can you blame me if I only scurry and do not fly? Can you blame me, if I am hesitant to offer my services when the Lady Caewen already has such a fine and protective, tsssch, servant, such as yourself? It is the form and nature given to me, to be cautious. And worse, worse, tasssh, I scurry only in the night, and in the shadows, and in the dreams of dreamers. I’ve had to ask so many strangers: have you seen Caewen? I was always losing track of you.” The creature shrugged. “I would say, she travels with a big ugly horse. Finally, I found the right dreamer to question, and now I am here, quick-as-quick. I could not have been faster, tssssch. The daylight is painful to me, lord demon-horse thing. Have some semblance of pity for me, tssssch. Yes. Tssh.”
“Nothing you say has a ring of truth to it. ” Dapplegrim growled at the shadow-thing. “Do not come near her.”
It only purred and turned a strange circle where it was on the branch. “You would let her die then? Foolish. Fool. Fool.”
“And what you would offer her is not life. You would take too much of her.”
“Unfair! Not true! Tsssss. I would take only what is mine to take by the ancient compacts that bind me. Fool. Even if she does not slip into the deathly vale today, she will soon. Tomorrow? The day after? Soon. Tssch. No one of mortal flesh can work magic alone, without deadening their own inner blood and marrow. A little piece of themselves will be eaten away, a little bit at a time, like water lapping at a crumbly riverbank.”
Dapplegrim was unimpressed. “I know, I know: and you need mortal flesh and living blood to hook your claws into. To keep you safe from other, bigger, nastier shadows that might decide you are a tasty snack.”
“Put crudely, but yes, tasssch. I cannot remain safely in the world of light and warmth without a living vessel, not for very long anyway. Eventually some other spirit or demon of the night would discover me, and as you say: snack. But, I say again: Caewen cannot survive working magics and spells without something to draw upon. Tsssch. Now, do you have a roasted heart of a dragon? Or the blood of an ancient sorcerer boiled into a potion? Do you have one of the Eyes of the Shadowlands? Do you plan to slit throats and fuel magic with necromancy? Or use sex-magic or birth-magic? Do you have a glass spell of the wild mountains where they worship fire? A great rune of elder power? One of the Old Great Spells, that made the world? Do you have a place or residence of old power to draw from? A charmed glade? A secret cave rich with spirits and illusion and magic?”
“You know we do not.”
“Ah,” but the shadow-thing purred. “But you do have… a little shadow-thing.” It grinned.