The King's Challenge

by Cerise Palmer

Copyright (c)1990

Sorrille trudged slowly through the gauntlet of curious townsfolk, silently cursing the guard who had bound his hands so exceptionally snugly behind his back. What keen satisfaction it would give him to smite these shabby oafs, with their bulging eyes riveted to his progress and their dirt-smudged faces predictable masks of cruel delight or stupid pity.

Sorrille, it must be conceded, was a bit of an arrogant bastard.

The townsfolk watched him dumbly at first, too conscious of his former power to risk their scrawny necks taunting him. But as he neared the city gates it began to dawn on them that he would like as not never return to repay their rude treatment of him, and they rose to the occasion accordingly. Women lifted their aprons to their mouths and tittered as their young brats hurled scraps of rotten food and clods of dung at his head. A toothless old man hopped up and down on one leg in a fit of ecstatic mirth, then swung his balancing stick roundly at Sorrille's shin. One of the guards flanking Sorrille gave the old gargoyle a friendly shove that toppled him into a mud puddle.

``Now, now, venerable grandpap, this here's a royal subject and his escort. Mind yer manners,'' the guard guffawed, giving Sorrille an insultingly familiar slap on the back. Sorrille curled his lip savagely, unable to decide who he would thrash to a pulp first---guard or gaffer---were he suddenly given the opportunity to do so.

``Say there, lordling, send us yer bones from the Charred Lands so's we'll know yer made yer trip safely,'' called a paunchy shopkeeper, grinning obscenely as he clapped his hands to his jouncing belly.

``Oi don't know,'' countered a stableboy, clutching at Sorrille's cloak, ``but what he'd do more kerreck to berkweeth us his foinery now. The Children of the Charred Lands ain't pertickelar on how their victims is dressed.''

Sorrille pulled himself free of the creature's stinking grip and struggled briefly but earnestly with the rope pretzeled about his wrists. ``Don't tempt your fate, dropping. I'll see to it that your coffin is fit for Onri himself.''

The stableboy laughed shrilly. ``Oh, en ain't he a foine one fer threats. Where he's going there won't even be none to tuck him underground. May the jeckels foind yer corpse most deloightfully tasty, good me lord.'' His pseudo-court bow, complete with manual flourishes, sent the guard at Sorrille's left elbow into convulsions of nasal glee.

``See how respectful we all are,'' he said, between snorts, ``even to one''---here he preceded his words with the appropriate action---``who's about to be booted from the city.''

Sorrille rolled up from the ground as the stone gate whined plaintively to a close behind him. The peepdoor opened just long enough for the guard behind it to drop a tiny bone dagger and a handkerchief-full of biscuits at Sorrille's feet. ``Protection and wayfarin' provisions,'' chuckled the guard, before slamming the door briskly in Sorrille's face.

Muttering under his breath, Sorrille spent the next several minutes applying the minuscule blade of the dagger to his bonds, which frayed sufficiently at last for him to work his hands free. He slipped the dagger into his tunic belt without any real faith in its future utility, then turned to gather the meager contents of the handkerchief, which had spilled loose on contact with the ground. ``Sons of dogs,'' he hissed, scraping the dust from what might well be the last meal he would ever eat.

For the next several hours, as he plodded across the ugly stretch of bare plain surrounding Renith, Sorrille did little but reflect bitterly on the many advantages of the royal table. For one thing, one always left it with one's stomach satiated. For another, its multitudinous delicacies were invariably accompanied by an endless flow of mildly intoxicating---and thirst-quenching ---potations. Then, last but not least, one was invited to attend it no less than four times daily, and while a score of musicians and dancers might very well appear out of nowhere to entertain one, it was inconceivable that either fanged rodents or fist-sized flies would ever be allowed to join the festivities.

Flailing his arms furiously at an especially noisy and persistent specimen of the second category, Sorrille began to regret having exhausted his supply of biscuits so rapidly. True, he had not eaten for two days prior to being paraded through and then expelled from the city; the king's henchmen had tactfully ignored his existence from the moment they thrust him into the palace dungeons to the moment they returned to execute His Most August and Senile Majesty Onri's sentence upon poor hotheaded ex-Duke Sorrille. Unfortunately, though, Sorrille was now entirely without any likely prospects of obtaining life-sustaining nourishment, and thirsty as a bloodsucker to boot. Sometime tomorrow, if he kept up a rigorous pace, he might reach the Ashen Forest's cornucopia of snowberries, bone fruit, and mirkwater. But to partake of aught of the Forest's tempting bounty would quickly ensure that Sorrille became not one of the Shadowchildren's victims but rather one of their numbers.

Sorrille toyed sardonically with the notion that were he in fact metamorphosed into a deathless and lifeless ghoul, he could probably catch up with Onri on the next extra-urban hunting expedition and hasten the old boor's end with an exquisitely nightmarish haunting. Of course, his own existence thenceforward would hardly be an enviable one. No, he reasoned, with a forbearance uncharacteristic of him, that manner of revenge would clearly cost him far too much. Better to meet Onri's insane challenge---to return to Renith with a tame, captive Shadowchild---and behold the king dumbstruck with apoplexy when he learned that his challenge had been met. The doddering bastard's crown would be brusquely removed from his head and set gently on Sorrille's own, Onri's radiant young Belisa would joyously accept his marriage proposal, and every courtier who had ever done him an ill turn would be summarily drawn-and-quartered, or, better yet, driven screaming off a cliff by his pet Shadowchild. It was no doubt a plan of action with much to recommend it, provided Sorrille discovered, within the next day, how to avert certain death and then coax a supernatural nemesis to behave itself.

For the time being, however, he would have to concentrate on such minor though pressing matters as how to avert pangs of hunger and where to spend the night. In solution to the first problem, Sorrille seized a handful of scrubby plains clover and began to chew it greedily; the shepherds and cartdrivers of Lower Renith did swear by it, after all, as a `rousin' stimulant,'' and while the stuff surely wouldn't fill his stomach, it might at least hoodwink it into quiescence. The second problem was considerably larger, as the plains wind was a wild and ravenous beast by night. Unless Sorrille could find or devise some sort of shelter by sunset, he was likely to spend the next moonspan being knocked down and tumbled about till his clothes were tattered and his limbs bruised and bloody. After surveying the discouragingly level landscape before him for several minutes, Sorrille concluded that there was nary a tree nor shrub to hide behind or cling to. Then, with a burst of what felt like forced and desperate optimism, he spotted a greyish blotch not too far in the distance which might conceivably be a rock outcrop of some sort. Resigning himself to the possibility that he was travelling all-too-eagerly toward a nonexistent haven he reminded himself repeatedly that it was just as good a destination as any other.

As luck would have it, the blotch was much further off than Sorrille had guessed. The disc of the sun had turned from hot gold to warm peach to an ominously cool carmine and begun to slip below the horizon before he felt even vaguely like he had gotten anywhere. Determined nonetheless to reach his goal, he quickened his already lively pace in a last-ditch attempt to outrace the twilight. He was dourly preparing to entertain notions of defeat when a luminous whorl of milky air came spinning up to greet him.

``Curse the plains and the dog-gods who made them!'' Sorrille bellowed, by way of greeting, then broke into a thoroughly antisocial run. It wasn't until the glistening funnel-cloud had enveloped him without so much as flaring his cloak hem that he realized that being battered by the plains wind was the least of his current worries. For, standing in a triumphant circle around him, their diaphanous wings folded, their black nostrils and lips twitching, were four Shadowchildren. Time froze then, for an unspeakably long moment in which countless worlds came into and passed out of existence, and Sorrille watched with helpless fascination as the silver branches of the creatures' hair crackled and hissed like snow-crusted kindling on a winter fire. A pair of shimmering claws began to caress his face with an eerie, hypnotic tenderness, and he found himself sinking pleasantly and endlessly into a deep cavern pool whose dark waters streamed with phosphorescent tendrils. Lulled nearly to insensibility, he recollected somehow that he must surface for air. Proud that his instinct for survival could withstand even the delicious pull of enchanted slumber, he willed himself alert, blinking hard to bring the blurry twin red orbs before him into focus. Finally, his vision cleared, and he met the Shadowchild's blind steady gaze directly. Gods be damned! He had withstood nothing; while he had been doing the backfloat in his imaginary watering-hole, the Children had been collectively sucking at his thoughts like a gang of slithering lampreys. Growing faint with the effort, Sorrille managed to wrench his head sideways and down until the only thing he saw was an elongated, insubstantial foot. The Children convulsed with disappointment, and the one who had been peeping uninvited into the windows of his soul caressed his face once again, with the insistent frenzy of a newly cast-off lover.

``Do not deny us, Sorrille,'' it coaxed. Its voice was soundless yet reverberant, rather like wind scraping the barrel of a tongueless bell.

``You meant to seek us,'' another intoned. ``Do not despair if we have found you first.''

``Are we not wondrous to behold?'' inquired a third. ``As lovely as Belisa?'' For a fraction of a second, the Child's voice took on Belisa's very air of well-practiced coquetry, and Sorrille could picture the creature raising a claw artfully to its scintillant coiffure. He shuddered to realize how deep a draught of his mind the four had drunk in. He fought not to look up and meet the Childrens' eyes again, meanwhile wondering whether the fact of their obvious blindness could not somehow be used to his advantage.

``What is it you want?'' he demanded, as if he were addressing a peasant rabble and standing in a perfectly upright and authoritative position.

``What is it we want?'' came the mocking reply.

``What is it we want?''

``We want to sup on your heart.'' The caressing claws found their way to Sorrille's chest. ``Is it a kind heart?''

``Is it a bold heart? or a bitter heart?''

``Or perhaps it is a broken heart. How we savor a broken heart.''

``What is it we want?''

``Only to sup on your mind. Is it a keen mind, or a weak one?'' The claws brushed Sorrille's temples.

``Perhaps it is a broken mind.''

``How we savor a broken mind.'' The claws tangled longingly in his hair.

``What is it we want?''

``We want to see your eyes, pretty lordling.'' Again the voice was Belisa's. ``Will you not show us your eyes, pretty, pretty lordling?''

Sorrille rolled over, growling at the overly soft royal bed, then grunted with satisfaction at the taste of sweet ale on Belisa's lips. He was about to scold her playfully for cuckolding the king with such wanton frequency when the unnaturally dark lustre of her mouth roused in him the first full-fledged panic of his adult life. He began to thrash about wildly, expecting to feel not one but four pairs of claws groping for his vital organs. Instead, he discovered himself hurling through the amorous Shadowchild's form as if it were no more than a pillar of smoke.

He ran without seeing, his arms raised protectively around his head, his feet pounding the plains with such force that it seemed the whole world was a vibrating drumskin. Ground and sky alternately flew apart and then collided, and between them was Sorrille, just barely managing to keep his balance. Fear roiled in his skull like breakers slamming against a cliff, then spilled over and over again into the forgotten lagoon beyond it. He gasped for breath as if he were drowning, or as if there were too little air in the sky. Like the plains-wind itself, he unsettled feeding vultures, alarmed a pair of rutting dogs. And all the while, the Shadowchildren kept pace with him effortlessly, their ghostly feet skimming the ground, their voiced entangling him in a perpetual litany of taunts and threats which tickled the inside of his ears like the echo of his own crazed thoughts.

Finally, he could endure no more. He turned to face them with the wrath-contorted countenance of a hero scourging the infernal regions, raised his arms prophetically, and cried ``Begone!'' in a tone that fell somewhere between breathlessness and hysteria. As if to humor, one last time, his ill-conceived attempt to elude them, the Shadowchildren shrank back a few yards in mock terror then burst into discordant hilaria and began to approach him once again. Sorrille backed away from them involuntarily, in the measured, almost ritual dance of quarry that knows itself doomed. And then he was falling. And then slipping, with sublime gratitude, into the deepest midnight of unconsciousness.

Some landscapes are deceptively monochromatic; the eye, drowning in a wash of the one color that begins to seem like no-color, searches frantically for a blazing streak of difference, for some brilliant rebel hue. Instead, it discovers the myriad nuances that reside in even the most economical of palettes. And so a dismally grey landscape, for example, becomes first a welter of possibilities and then an intricate tapestry of shadings and modulations. Steel-grey yields dove's-breast grey and birch grey and the grey of mute dawn and fog-misted lakes. Then synaesthesia sets in, and grey becomes the odor of wood-smoke, the chime of plashing water, a morning wind beaded with dew. The senses unveil themselves to a symphony of grey chords, textures, glimmering motes, and sometimes the Grey Lady who orchestrates it makes her feathery descent and presses a goblet of silver-grey wine to one's lips...

Coughing violently as the bitter cold stuff made its way down his throat, Sorrille hoisted himself into a sitting position on the thatch-bed of dried balsam beneath him. He studied his surroundings long enough to conclude that he was in some sort of mountain aerie, disconcertingly higher than he had ever been before. After reeling with vertigo for a few moments, he turned his attention to the strange-looking being that had apparently appointed herself his nursemaid. Draped loosely in some iridescent cloth the indefinite color of a cloud, she was tall and supple as a young tree, with an oxymoronic combination of smooth, glowing skin and bone-white hair that made her age impossible to determine. Her onyx-black eyes were so widely spaced that it was difficult to look into both of them simultaneously, and her nose was aquiline in a cruelly graceful way. Altogether, her aspect was unsettlingly predatory.

Sorrille assembled his facial features into an expression of rapt attentiveness tinged with urbane wit. ``Would you find me presumptuous were I to ask you where I am?''

``Your manners are those of the court,'' she replied, scrutinizing him as if he were a puzzle to be solved. ``This is my dwelling-site. Did you wish to find yourself elsewhere?''

``On the contrary. I am delighted to find myself here, for I had not expected to survive the night.'' He paused while she tended the small fire near his bed. ``I was fleeing the bane of the Charred Lands---the Shadowchildren. Four of them.''

Her face registered neither surprise nor fear. ``So I suspected. Only a fool or a hunted man would fail to avoid my wolf-trap. The Children must have lost your scent once you fell. Be glad that they are blind.''

``Indeed, I am overjoyed. Unfortunately, I lost consciousness while falling into your trap, and am consequently ignorant of what has transpired since that event. Would you be so kind as to share with me any information you may have gleaned on the subject?''

``A great many circumlocutions,'' she observed, with a trace of what seemed like amusement. Then, as if it were unnecessary to respond to him, she removed some strips of cooking meat from the fire and brought them to him. ``You are no doubt very hungry,'' she said, seeing the flicker of avid interest on his face. ``Then it is wisest not to eat too quickly.''

Finally, while Sorrille fought to obey her advice, she returned arbitrarily to his unanswered question. ``Some things I will tell you. Others I will not.'' She smiled at him vaguely. ``The more you tell me of yourself, the more I may tell you of myself. But still I will not tell you all.''

Bristling with irritation at her monosyllabic riddling, Sorrille confined himself to inviting her discretion in such matters. She smiled again, a bit less vaguely.

``I am Naraya. I found you in my wolf-trap last night, cold but safe in the absence of lupine companions. The Children had already scattered, as they would have, in any event, upon my arrival. They do not relish my presence.'' In response to Sorrille's wary, questioning look, she added, ``Calm yourself. If I am not quite the same as you, neither am I unnatural or dangerous.'' She smiled yet again, this time with the obvious intention of reassuring her guest. ``I brought you here,'' she concluded, ``and now I am eager to hear the tale of your adventures. Few men venture this far from Renith city, and you seem poorly equipped for a journey.''

``I am not travelling of my own accord.'' As the indignity of his situation struck him anew, he clenched a fist till the knuckles whitened, then glanced up with a vehement sullenness to meet Naraya's amused and knowing look. ``But of course you had already guessed as much.''

She nodded her assent. ``But what I have guessed or failed to guess is unimportant. Please honor me with the telling of your tale.''

He rose from the thatch-bed, paced himself into a more courteous mood, and returned to his place by the fire. ``Very well, lady. I shall disclose all to you, as you have been a most gracious and generous hostess.'' He bowed with curt but sincere gratitude, then sat.

``I am Sorrille, Duke of Renith, only son of the first of the nine landed families. I was banished yesterday morning at the order of Onri himself. It was an astonishingly merciful punishment for the crime of treason, which the king was most fully aware I had not committed. Were I in fact a traitor to Renith, my head would be gracing a pike at the city gate this very moment. Instead, I have been magnanimously sent off to wander about the wastelands, and hopefully perish in them, while Onri enjoys the talk currently circulating about his wise, just, and seemingly perpetual reign. My real crime, incidentally, was dallying with the queen.''

Surprise flickered in Naraya's depthless eyes. ``You risked the king's wrath for a few hours' pleasure? Was this royal matron so terribly alluring? Or perhaps she had ensorcelled you?''

``Belisa is young and fair, and we had been lovers for many months. We were caught when a valet jealous of Belisa's favor spied on us and then brought the king to keep him company at the keyhole. Had things been otherwise, I might be in the lady's arms this very moment, bathed in the gilt sunlight of her person. She is truly glorious.''

``So I would imagine. How came she to be the wife of an aging monarch? Even I know that Onri has ruled in Renith for many decades.''

``She was one of the many spoils he returned with from a recent campaign in the Quartz Mountains. She was a princess there; Onri captured her brother along with her. The poor fellow died in the royal dungeons last year, while Belisa lingers on as a pampered prisoner of the palace.''

``Apparently she has managed to enjoy a few small liberties.'' Naraya curled her pale lips mischievously, then caught Sorrille's slightly annoyed look. ``But forgive me, I have interrupted again. Please continue.''

``To make a long story short, Belisa loathes Onri, and Onri would fain have his kingdom believe otherwise. He is fond of boasting that he is 'more a man than any young pup in the city,' as evidenced by his youthful queen's passionate devotion to him. At nearly every banquet in the palace, he pretends to grow extravagantly drunk as soon as Belisa retires, then dares any man at the table to try and divert her favor from him. He laughs uproariously and says he'll forfeit his crown to the first who succeeds in doing so. It's not quite senile swaggering, though---more a senile stratagem for luring any potential cuckolders into making less-than-careful moves. Onri wants to know who his rivals in love are before they so much as cast a longing look in Belisa's direction. In my case he found out after the fact, and had me arrested on grounds of treason rather than let anyone discover I'd added a pair of horns to the ornamentation on his crown.''

Naraya clicked her tongue and chuckled. ``You were fortunate to escape with your life, it seems. What possessed the king to be so lenient?''

``Belisa's pleading, no doubt. His compromise was to have me die out of sight instead of in a public execution. And his last perverse joke was inviting me to return with a Shadowchild and claim the throne I had 'tried to gain through most depraved and foul subterfuge.' That was the statement he made before his court in the most smug and self-righteous tone he could muster; only I heard the tremor of insane fury in his voice.''

``And what will you do now? Lay siege to Renith, demanding your lady-love?'' Naraya's voice was gently mocking.

``Actually, I'm planning to take Onri up on his challenge. He did present it before a score of witnesses, so he can't possibly refuse to honor it. I think Belisa would enjoy being queen of Renith were there a gout-free and virile king at her side. And I'm increasingly taken with the prospect of trying on Onri's crown for size.'' Sorrille grinned as if he were plotting a schoolboy prank.

``And all you need do is return to Renith with a Shadowchild in tow?'' asked Naraya, pretending amazement.

``That's correct.''

``Simply capture a Child and take it along home with you?''

``Exactly.''

She burst into peals of laughter so infectious that before long Sorrille was doubled over, and the echoes of their combined amusement were rippling the chill mountain air.

Sorrille spent the better part of the afternoon exploring Naraya's aerie like a shepherd on some long-awaited holiday. Shortly after feeding him, Naraya had taken Sorrille on a brief tour of its points of interest: a purple-hued hot spring, a rock ledge curtained by the pristine cascade of a waterfall, several giant birches with foliage so dense they obscured the sun wholly. Then she had excused herself to rest and left him to his own devices. After luxuriating in the hot spring, until his body remembered nothing of the last night's bruising fall, he lay naked on the ledge, sunning in the warm bright mist the waterfall so obligingly exuded. Feeling his strength return at last, he shook the dust from his clothes and donned them with arrogant grace. True enough, his dragon's hide boots were quite scuffed, and a few rubies were loose in the hem of his cloak. Still, considering the events of the previous three days, he had done a remarkable job of avoiding dishevelment. Even the puny bone dagger had finally proved of worth; its blade turned out to be ideally suited for scraping the stubble off one's cheek.

Sorrille's feeling of self-satisfaction was somewhat undercut by the fact that he had no idea whatsoever where he was. When he had asked Naraya, over breakfast, to give him a geographical update, she had calmly reiterated that ``there were some things she chose not to tell him,'' and then, as if to reduce his exasperation, added that her aerie ``was where it was.'' So now, having roamed about the place idly for long enough, Sorrille began to inspect it diligently for some clue to his whereabouts.

The first conclusion he arrived at, after treading every inch of the aerie twice, was that it was completely devoid of any visible access. Nearly an acre broad, it was bordered on three sides by perilously steep slopes and on the fourth by the mountain's utmost peak. ``How on earth did she bring me here?'' he muttered repeatedly, more out of dumb wonder than out of any real hope that his strange hostess would enlighten him upon her return. Next he devoted himself to identifying whatever he could in the distance, a task rendered nearly impossible by the mountain's obstructive tiara of clouds. Finally, he made out the palace spires of Renith in the south, the foothills of the Quartz Mountains to the west, and the snarled black treetops of the Ashen Forest appallingly near, in the east. His educated hunch was that in the north, behind the towering peak of Naraya's mountain, the Forest proliferated in yet more wild and unsightly abandon; it did, after all, extend out of sight in that general direction.

With the directness of a homing pigeon, Sorrille's mind returned over and over again to the problem of how the willowy, less-than-massive Naraya had transported him to her aerie. He weighed more than she did, certainly, especially when unconscious, and there were no trails up the mountainside along which she could have dragged him in a litter or led him on horseback. Not that he'd even seen any horses grazing, or any empty litters lying about. He shook his head in bewilderment, staring absently at Renith all the while, as if it were the source of his confusion. And then it struck him: Renith looked mournfully remote not so much because of the shroud of mountain- mist he was forced to view it through, as because of the fact that it was a good deal further than a day's walk in the distance. Naraya's steel-grey peak was none other than the rock outcrop he had tried so desperately to reach last sunset, transformed from mountain to molehill by some weird trick of the waning light.

``Who is she, and how did she bring me here?'' he muttered once more, setting off to find the lady and demand that she satisfy his more than idle curiosity. No longer solicitous of her need for rest, he searched the aerie with noisy, impatient movements. He was red-faced and panting by the time he was willing to concede that her present whereabouts were a complete mystery to him. He sighed the terse sigh of a courtier resummoning his dignity, and wondered whether he were any less a captive in this uncharted Shangri-la than he had been in Onri's dungeons.

He had consumed a hearty portion of roasted meat strips and was irritably poking the fire into a more respectable form of defense against the chilly starlight when Naraya emerged noiselessly from behind a curtain of night-heavy foliage. The leaves began to rustle in the wake of her silver-clad form like children whispering in stealthy fits and starts; no doubt if she turned to face them, they would lapse again into frozen silence. As she approached Sorrille, the fire blazed in miniature duplicate in the glossy black disks of her eyes; he shuddered, disturbed anew by his inability to encompass her widely-spaced gaze in his own. Smiling, she placed her hands on either side of his face and bent down to kiss him, rousing in him a dizzying mixture of primal terror and unmistakable desire. He felt weightless yet lethargic, too sleepy to resist her will as it enveloped him like the burning glow of a naked sun. He was perfectly aware he was being enchanted, as he had not been when the Shadowchild laid similarly caressing hands on him not so long ago. And yet, beneath his indignance at Naraya's audacity lay a strangely calm acceptance of it and even amused curiosity about what she would do next.

``I have not had so pleasing a guest as you in some time,'' she said, stepping back a few paces to study him. Vines of honey-red firelight crept through her white hair again and again, till it seemed she was wearing one of the golden hairnets currently fashionable among the ladies of Renith court.

``And is witchery a customary feature of your hospitality?'' inquired Sorrille with a laugh, as he blinked himself alert.

``I was not aware that it was. Do I seem to require such stratagems?'' She regarded him with an injured expression and stiffened slightly.

``I meant no offense, lady, but your kiss tasted so unlike any I have known before that I could only explain it in terms of magic.''

``Kisses are among those things that be which require no explanation.'' Apparently Sorrille had soothed her ruffled feathers somewhat; she had resumed her proud, willowy stance, and a look faintly recognizable as coyness flickered across her unsettling features. ``Do I seem to require stratagems?'' she repeated, with eerie self-assurance, and began to unlace the bodice of her pearlescent gown. Topaz points of firelight glinted in the fabric as it slid back from her shoulders slowly, slowly, and then dropped into a silver pool at her ankles, revealing the most spendid female form Sorrille had ever been privileged to behold. A sculptor, Sorrille thought in amazement, would kill for the opportunity to immortalize it in marble or alabaster, and Naraya's flesh, with its unearthly pallor and flawless luster, did resemble the rarest and most costly specimen of either stone. Moreover, her ample but firmly-molded curves were nothing if not statuesque, though her long limbs and the rhythmic sweep to her walk suggested a sensuality not much inclined toward standing still. Accustomed to the initial modesty and restraint of Renith's noble women, Sorrille could not repress the chord of awe-tinged uneasiness her aura of untrammeled wildness struck deep within him.

``I take it you plan to seduce me,'' he said, in an effort to stall her, to reverse the weights between them so that he had the advantage. But she did not answer, did not even smile at him in the pertly roguish manner Belisa tended to employ when she knew she was doing something shockingly out of character. Before he had the chance to contemplate fully the striking contrasts between the two women, deft strong fingers were whispering over his chest, unclasping his cloak, his belt, unlacing his tunic, coaxing his blood to roar in his temples. For a moment, he thought he heard Naraya's voice in his ear, soothing and insistent, telling him to ``forget Belisa'' with each husky exhaled breath. The next he knew, her lips were on his and, wrapped in naught but the cool night air and her limbs, he was spinning endlessly through a skyful of bizarre and vivid dreams. The first involved being dragged aloft to go crashing through a smothering run of treetops with the headlong momentum of a plains-wind. Then a net of gilded foliage was whirling into a blurry cyclone, bursting apart, hurling Naraya and him at the stars, where they swooped in soaring arcs from constellation to constellation. The spheres embroidered music about them, dazzling improvisations woven of twanging crystalline threads and liquid silver notes. He tried to see Naraya's face but couldn't; they were tumbling too rapidly from the precipice they had been poised upon the instant before. They swung into an upward curve, cast their shadows on the moon, plummeted down and down and down until they were skimming the pewter-and-black silk surface of a lake. Then they were rising in whimsical curlicues, like a tongue of breeze lapping up air, when a low-hanging cloud suddenly wrapped them in its gauzy cloak of ether, its plumes of sleep-inducing smoke...

Then it was pearl-pink early dawn and Naraya was gently prodding him awake...

Sorrille made a drowsy mental note of the fact that he was sprawled naked on some sort of crop-furred hide blanket, and that Naraya, who was fully attired and groomed, looked a great deal more dignified than he. He was fumbling on his clothing with as much haste as he could muster, planning to ask, when he was properly dressed, about her curious predilection for being up and about in the wee hours of the morning. He was about to address her with an expression of wry amusement when she focused her anything-but-crossed eyes on him and smiled in a disconcertingly self-assured, even patronizing way.

``I am more than a little interested,'' she announced, ``in enjoying nights such as the last again.''

``Indeed,'' he replied, feeling oddly piqued, ``you seem pleased with what transpired. By the way, what did transpire? Did you, perhaps, strew some vision-provoking powder on the fire while my attention was fixed elsewhere? You could not have tampered with my food or drink, since I had prepared it myself and finished it before you appeared.''

She tossed back her granite-colored mane and laughed with abandon for several moments. Then she fell abruptly silent and regarded Sorrille with a sober look that revealed nothing of what she was thinking or feeling. ``Some things I will tell you. Others I will not.'' She briefly tended the fire she had started while he was sleeping, then picked up where she had left off when he so cavalierly interrupted her. Even the patronizing smile was back in place. ``I enjoyed last night and am quite anxious for you to prolong your stay with me. But no doubt you will require more of an incentive to remain than a simpler reminder of my charms can provide. After all, your memories of this queen Belisa''---she mispronounced the name in what seemed a calculated fashion---``are bound to distract you sooner or later, and I will have none but an attentive lover.''

Sorrille snorted haughtily at her boldness. ``I pay attention only to that which I find myself interested in.''

``I am sure of it. That is why I have conceived of a proposition I think you will find most fascinating.''

``Indeed? Do then, by all means, propose it.''

``Agree to be my guest for six more nights, and at the end of that time I will assist you in snaring a Shadowchild. Then I will see to it that you are properly provisioned for a triumphant return to Renith.''

Sorrille remained silent for several minutes, torn between the desire to laugh aloud and the sinking feeling that Naraya was perfectly in earnest, no matter how mad her proposal sounded. Then he remembered what she had said about the Children fleeing her approach, like timid birds or squirrels, and decided he would encourage her to elaborate on her invitation. After all, he had nothing to lose, and she might unwittingly reveal useful information to him. Furthermore, he hadn't really resolved the problem of where he would go next, and even were he to descend safely the near-perpendicular slopes of Naraya's mountain, he would find himself in constant mortal peril on the ground below. Accepting the assistance of an expert regional guide was clearly the wisest thing he could do, even if that guide had both albino tresses and lusty designs on his person.

``I'd be delighted to extend my visit here. But perhaps, before I change my travel plans, you ought to tell me more about the rewards that my staying on would assure me of. I do not like to enter contractual arrangements half-informed, and what you are proposing is akin to such an arrangement, is it not?''

``Indeed. I remark upon your judiciousness.'' She smiled drily as he nodded his acknowledgment of the compliment. ``If you will continue to be my guest, for the number of nights I have already specified, I will procure for you a substance which renders the Shadowchildren docile. Then I will help you to administer this substance, and, finally, you will be free to return to Renith and unseat its monarch and your rival in love.''

``Most intriguing. And just how is it that this substance affects the Children as you say it does?''

``The Children are ghouls at present, indeed. But once they were human. This substance, the exract of a plant named mnisse, wakes a Child's memory of the human state. In its grip, Children pass quickly through self-horror to a boundless gratitude towards that saviour who has raised them from evil. Like once-wild dogs, they lick joyously the hand which breaks their will.''

``This mnisse sounds formidable. Why haven't you simply used it to encourage the Children to relocate---in Renith, say?''

``The effect of the mnisse is but temporary.''

``Ah.'' Sorrille shuddered to think what might befall him should the stuff prove more temporary than anticipated.

``And I am quite happy with the Charred Lands as they are. The Shadowchildren have kept my mountain free of intruders, though I doubt it would give them pleasure to know they had been of service to me. It is well for me that I alone know where to find the mnisse.''

``And also that the Children know you have the means to control them. That's why they run when they see you coming.''

``You are correct. With the help of the mnisse, I brought unpleasant fates to a score of them, in order to warn their fellows against disturbing me. It was a successful ploy.''

Much to his own surprise, Sorrille found himself believing her, even subtly inclining toward enthusiasm for the project she had outlined. ``I don't suppose,'' he said at last, ``that the length of my stay here is negotiable?''

Naraya laughed at him. ``Such impatience in a would-be monarch. Onri has devoted a lifetime to Renith's glory, while you, my comely upstart, begrudge it a mere handful of nights.''

More than a handful, thought Sorrille.

The following six days were uneventful in the usual sense of that word; Sorrille came before long to anticipate Naraya's comings and goings, and even to enjoy without undue mistrust her disorienting midnight visits. For not only did he survive each rendezvous intact, but he also began to develop a taste for what he consistently perceived as airborne sexual acrobatics. He was faintly disturbed by the fact that Naraya was so mysteriously nocturnal a creature; she seemed continually to vanish while he slept and then again for the bulk of the daylight hours. He spent those hours in solitary idling, alternately wondering where it was she went and how it was she got there, and imagining what it would be like to be Renith's king and Belisa's rightful lover. Even while he soared from pinnacle to pinnacle of ecstasy with Naraya, he remained residually conscious that his passion for Belisa had in no measure abated. And, strangely enough, he had the impression that Naraya was perfectly aware of his feelings and yet completely unperturbed by them. She was a fascinating being, but somehow a faintly revolting one as well. He looked forward with no little eagerness to the end of his sojourn with her.

She approached him on the sixth evening not with glittering magic and seduction in her eyes, but with a vial of crimson liquid. Sorrille, completing his day's-end repast by the fire, sprung to his feet so hastily that his wine goblet was upended.

``Yes,'' she said, anticipating his query, ``this is the mnisse. Have done with your meal and we will pay a call to the Ashen Forest.''

``Never mind the meal. Why keep the Children waiting?'' He dabbed the corners of his mouth with a deplorably grease-stained silken handkerchief, then crumpled it into a ball and tossed it in the fire. ``Is anything but that vial necessary? Weapons? A torch? And just how will we be travelling?''

``The vial is all we require. Weapons are useless against the Children, and I have excellent night vision.'' It was just as well that she left his last question unanswered, for what he witnessed next stunned him so utterly he ceased listening for a reply.

To begin with, Naraya appeared to be encased in some kind of transparent cloud, more palpable than visible, which distorted her features without obscuring them, like some clear, vibrant haze of summer heat. And so, although he could see what was happening to her, moment by moment, he could never be quite sure he was perceiving it correctly. First her hair began to change subtly, from a tousled mane of gauzy filaments to something reminiscent of frozen fountain spray, and then like a wiry, fanned branch of the fabled white palm. As it slowly compressed itself into a crest-like formation neatly dividing one half of her skull from the other, her arms began to gravitate downward in their sockets until they were two stiff, prong-ended affairs protruding from the middle of her chest, which was no longer a voluptuous, sheer fabric-sheathed marvel, but a single smooth arc of snow-silver breast feathers. Next, the train of her gown lengthened into a glorious fan of tail-plumage, spangled not with sequins but with white-on-ebony markings. And as her whole body began to tilt forward, balancing on its new center, Sorrille realized with a start that, with a few seemingly minor exceptions, her face was clearly recognizable as the one he had been regarding just moments earlier. He thought dazedly to himself that, if she was rather peculiar-looking as a woman, she was incomparable as a bird.

``Well? Shall we be on our way?'' Her voice, with its typically mocking quality, was relatively unchanged, though it was disconcertingly difficult to locate its present source. Her mica-black beak, opened slightly but immobile, offered no clue as it refracted the pallid moonlight.

Sorrille nodded, still inarticulate, and she hoisted herself aloft with a trio of wing-flaps so powerful he had to struggle to remain on his feet. When she sunk her claws into his cloak-collar, it was all he could do to keep from screaming like a madman.

``Sleep,'' she told him, ``for the altitude may cause you some discomfort, and you must be in sound condition when we descend.'' But he had lapsed already into the utter oblivion of the terrified, and was floating there impervious both to her magic and to her everlastingly mocking smile.

Sorrille had long been immersed in a most bizarre dream about a series of well-choreographed swordfights with the wind, in which clusters of stars assembled themselves into shields now and again, when Naraya, in her human form, woke and then helped him to his feet. She was wearing the cloud-colored gown once again, and her hair was in the impressively snarled state Sorrille had grown used to in the past week.

Awake now, the memory of her metamorphosis staggered him anew, like some phantom foe come to resume the battle after granting him his paltry respite. ``Who and what are you, Lady?''

``Is it not all but obvious that I am bird as well as woman? And we have not come to discuss the essence of my nature, but to conduct our business with the shadow ghouls of Ashen Forest.''

``Very well. Lead the way. And by the way, I'm almost glad you nearly turned me into a gibbering fool back there---having done my overreacting for the evening, I find the prospect of confronting Shadowchildren to be positively exhilarating.''

Naraya smiled briefly, then led him a few yards towards a brook of jet-black water which glittered dully in the moonlight. She gave him a cautionary look. ``Mirkwater,'' she said, confirming his suspicions, ``poisonous as well as fatal to the touch. Keep a safe distance from it, though we will be following the banks of this brook.'' Sorrille cocked an eyebrow in reply, then hastened into step behind the swift if stealthy Naraya.

The Ashen Forest was every bit as unsettling as he had imagined it would be. Only along the brook did the foliage thin enough to reveal even a tattered black ribbon of sky, and the air, already oppressively thick with darkness, was suffused here and there with a clammy noxious mist. The muddy brook-banks oozed mist as well, though not enough to obscure wholly the occasional snake-tangle disengaging itself for a swim in the unreflecting water. And yet, notwithstanding, there was a strange beauty to the place as well. The ivory bulbs he knew to be bone-fruit hung in phosphorescent clusters above him, their symmetry and pallor like that of priceless sculpture. Snowberries glittered in the crevices between rocks like fistfuls of mercury droplets, and the tree-trunks, which burgeoned above into medusan gnarls of ebony branches and black-crystal top-leaves, were iced below with a kind of silver glaze. The thought crossed his mind that perhaps the bosom of the Forest yielded beings such as Naraya in addition to its loathsome Children.

Naraya signalled for him to stop behind her, finally, at a particularly sinuous curve in the brook. She pointed to the gutted corpses of some dozen Forest animals and informed Sorrille that there were Shadowchildren near.

``I'm afraid I fail to see the connection.''

``Unlike other scavengers, the Children hoard dead flesh until there is an abundance of it to dine upon. With all of eternity stretched before them, there is no reason to devour meager sustenance in a haphazard way. What you see here are the remains of a recent feast.''

``The Children are scavengers?'' asked Sorrille, the hair rising along his neck.

The look in Naraya's eyes told him that she was laughing uproariously in silence. ``You did not know? Yes, the Children are an especially nasty kind of vulture; they delight in creating carrion as much as they do in eating it.''

``Thank the gods for your wolf trap. And for your succour, lady.''

``Ah, yes, gratitude. But we have other business to concern us now.'' She extracted the vial of mnisse from a fold in her gown; its vivid ruby hue disturbed the darkness like a tiny but brilliant lantern. ``You must bend over the mirkwater as if you were going to drink; the simple probability that death is imminent will lure our friends closer. Then you must cry out in mimicry of a death throe. As you fall, unstopper the vial and splatter yourself with its contents; the Children will arrive in moments to lap them up greedily. I will be watching from the shadows beyond the curve in the brook, and shall join you at the appropriate moment.''

``How thoughtful of nature to make mnisse the color of blood,'' quipped Sorrille.

``The mnisse is not red; the blood I stirred it into, however, is.'' Naraya's eyes glinted with lavish amusement at Sorrille's ignorance. ``Enough talk. Here is the vial. Do not spill it needlessly; I travelled quite far to harvest its crucial ingredient.'' And with this final jibe she moved into the shadows ahead, obscuring herself so well that Sorrille soon had no idea where she was.

Sorrille began to perform the charade with a feeling of witty self-satisfaction he would never have expected to experience in such circumstances. As he knelt by the brook, its aura of evil intensified perceptibly, and he wondered what kind of dolt would insist on drinking water that as much as declared itself poisonous. But he forced himself to bring his face to within inches of the sluggish surface, even panting a little for the sake of verisimilitude. Then he fell back on one hand and issued a lengthy croak of pseudo-agony. Unable to restrain a grimace while dousing throat and chest with the mnisse-laced blood, he was careful to conceal the vial before he sank and stiffened in a rendition of rigor mortis so subtle he was proud of it. It wasn't until he heard the Children's gossamer wings rustling behind him that he felt unmanageable trepidation and even prayed to the gods that the lady wasn't playing him for a fool.

``Dessert,'' said one, in an utterly timbreless voice which managed to convey somehow the creature's unsavory sense of humor. It ran its dessicate trio of fingers along Sorrille's form in a way that made him want to scream for Naraya.

``And what a very large dessert,'' rejoined a second, contributing its manual appendages to the less-than-soothing massage effort. Sorrille squeezed his eyes shut involuntarily. When the third pair of claws began to stroke him, he fantasized, briefly and horribly, that he was buried underground and the roots of plants were groping their way past him.

Then, at last, after Sorrille found his capacity for shallow breathing diminishing with alarming speed, the three Children began to sniff and nibble tentatively at his bloodsoaked tunic. Hissing with dismay when they discovered it was not flesh they were tasting, they hastened to rend the fabric and expose the real delicacy beneath. Sorrille had all but given himself up for lost when, in a abrupt and unified motion, they recoiled from their ``dessert'' with a chorus of despairing little shrieks.

Still half-dazed, Sorrille rose to his feet just in time to behold what was without contest the most hideous sight of his life. The Shadowchildren, wailing in concert like three of the four winds, were thrashing about violently, slamming their wings into boulders and clawing at their branch-like tresses in what was apparently the ghoulish equivalent of tearing out one's hair Though he was beginning to grow concerned by Naraya's failure to appear, he was relieved, at least, to learn that the mnisse lived up to her description of it. He had started to move cautiously in the direction of her purported hiding-place when he found himself besieged by three unspeakably contrite monsters. One hung timidly on his sleeve, a second patted his chest ingratiatingly, and the third rolled eyes as mournful as a hounddog's at him. He had the distinct impression they were preparing to address him with some sort of abject plea on their part for mercy and loving kindness on his.

``No,'' he mumbled, ``this is more than I can endure.'' He allowed himself one convulsive shudder, then, with the wrath- contorted countenance of a hero scourging the infernal regions, he raised his arms prophetically and roared ``Begone!'' And, for the first time in Renithian history, Shadowchildren scattered in terror at the sound of a human voice.

``Wait!'' he added hoarsely, appalled at his own stupidity. The slowest of the three paused in the shadow it was in the midst of vanishing into, one of its badly dented wings twitching uncertainly in the murky light. ``I have need of you,'' he continued, controlling the hysteria in his voice. The Child advanced as if afraid he would change his mind, then halted a few feet before him and hovered on ghostly feet.

``I see the two of you are fast becoming friends,'' said Naraya, after executing yet another of her out-of-thin air grand entrances.

Sorrille turned on her. ``Where in the name of the bird-gods have you been?''

``Did I not make clear that I would return at the appropriate moment? It seems as though all has proceeded according to plan.''

``A matter of perspective, I suppose. What on earth is that?'' He pointed to the strange-looking beast she had tethered to her wrist.

``This,'' she replied, moving it closer for him to inspect, ``is how you will be journeying home. I cannot transport you and the Child together.'' The Child whimpered at the mention of its name, while Sorrille whistled at what he saw. Smaller than a steed but larger than a donkey, its head and legs were covered with greyish-white fur, while its internal organs were plainly visible through the transparent hide of its midsection. Naraya had caparisoned it with tasselled reins and a makeshift blanket and saddlebag.

``What is it known as?''

``It is a Forest deer, unprepossessing in appearance but gentle of temperament and swift for its size---it will easily keep pace with the Shadowchild's flight, especially in light of the battered state of these wings.'' She clucked her tongue at the object of her criticism, who drooped its head in response, in a horrible travesty of shamefacedness.

``I should create quite a sensation in Renith, considering the company I'll be arriving in. What a shame I'll be doing so in such bedraggled attire.'' He looked regretfully at the blood- stained rents in his clothing.

``You won't be,'' Naraya informed him, extracting from the saddlebag a tunic and cloak of the same chameleonic silver fabric as her gown. She handed them to him. ``Did I not say that you would be properly provisioned? There are winesacks and food in the bag as well, and here, finally, is a supply of mnisse more than adequate to your purposes.''

He took the pouch she held outstretched. ``Unmixed with blood this time, I see.''

``The Child will accept additional doses of mnisse quite eagerly in its present state. But you must be sure to feed it those doses nightly, and expel it from your city well before your supply runs out.''

``Fear not. I'll send it on its way the first chance I get.''

``And now that you are in hands capable as my own,'' she concluded with a smile, ``I will bid you adieu.'' And with a ritual flourish, she began to transform herself once again into a creature of the sky.

``My thanks, lady.'' Sorrille could feel his words unravelling, letter by letter, inside the cocoon of luminous air she had wrapped herself within. He swung onto the back of his galloping anatomy lesson and instructed the Child to lead him to a southbound route out of the Forest as quickly as it damn well could.

The return trip to Renith, which took nearly three days, was rendered exceptionally crisis-free by Naraya's abundant forethought. The deer she had rounded up was a quick and sturdy little mount, and the store of food and wine she had stashed in its saddlebag seemed virtually inexhaustible. Most importantly, the nightly pinch of mnisse she had recommended Sorrille give the Shadowchild made it a surprisingly indispensable travelling companion, possessed of a flawless sense of direction and protective instincts that would put a mother slinkah to shame. While they were still in the Forest, it regularly shooed snarling skeleton-wolves and overly-inquisitive snake-tangles, and even, on one occasion, discouraged a roving band of its own species from approaching. Then, on the plains, it circled down from its aerial guidepost whenever a cloud of the bulbous flies that had annoyed Sorrille so on his outbound journey required dispersing, and arranged its wings, by night, in an effective shelter from the wind. Sorrille never quite got over his distaste for physical proximity to the Child, and he certainly never adjusted to the way it telepathically second-guessed him. But he was relieved to find that the mnisse had apparently ruined his macabre squire's appetite for flesh, cooked or otherwise; through the whole of their trek, he never witnessed the Child consume anything but the plains-clover he himself had found so thoroughly unsatisfactory as a means of sustenance.

When the city gates came into view just after sunset on the third day, he donned the cloak and tunic Naraya had given him and soon discovered with pleasure that he could feel as well as see the intricate lightplay in its fabric, rippling over his torso like a mosaic of liquid silver. Assuming a pose of elegant hauteur, he mentally commanded the Shadowchild to walk slightly behind him on his left---the traditional position of voluntary deference---and exultantly advanced until he was standing opposite the peepdoor. He pummelled it with the tiny but solid hilt of his dagger and waited for the startled response from within; Renithian sheep and cowherds were superstitiously careful about requesting readmittance to the city well before the sun began even to hang low in the sky. Surely enough, the gateguard flung the peepdoor open and peered through cautiously, his view limited, fortunately, to Sorrille's face, which, unfortunately, was suspiciously cleanshaven.

``Yer mightly dapper-lookin' for a herdsman,'' the guard said slowly, studying Sorrille's eyes for evidence of intent to, perhaps, perpetrate espionage or commit an assassination. Sorrille quickly scanned his aural memories for a lower class voice he could do a passable imitation of, and fixed upon that of the stableboy who had taunted him the day of his banishment.

``Juice because oi takes some proide in me looks is no reason to keeps me and the anymals out 'ere in mortal dainger. Ain't it bad enough that oim late from chasin' a contrary-loike sheep what run away hairs ago?''

Luckily the ruse worked before the guard asked Sorrille to stand back for a full-length inspection, or before he wondered why the returning shepherd's ``anymals'' were so uniformly silent. Sorrille heaved a sigh of relief and straightened proudly as the guard shut the peepdoor and began to drag the huge half-gate groaningly open. When at last he emerged from behind it, wheezing and panting, Sorrille hesitated just long enough for shock to register on the man's face before nudging the Forest deer into a dainty canter onto Renithian soil. Soon a handful of guards, with equally shocked expressions, stood aghast and silent in a circle around him, clutching their spears, maces, and unsheathed swords like so many dismayed infants grasping rattles.

``Gentlemen, gentlemen,'' said Sorrille, ``it's most kind of you to all want to escort me into Onri's presence. However, a two-guard retinue is really quite sufficient.''

``It's Lord Sorrille, ain't it?'' stammered the nasal-voiced guard who had found the circumstances of Sorrille's banishment so entertaining. He scratched under his helmet meditatively. ``By gawm, milord. Are ye returned from the dead?''

``No, my old friend. Merely back to claim myself a crown. And that is something, I think, that I would fain have you behold. Come, now, mind my left flank, as you did once before. And you,'' he commanded a mere boy of a guard, ``mind my right.''

Despite the fact that a lord sent off to certain death rarely came home astride a see-through quadruped, attended by two trembling king's-guards and a bonafide Shadowchild, Sorrille's triumphant procession toward the palace was a curiously lonesome affair. True, the shopkeepers and laborers typically withdrew for their dinners this time of day, and it was too early for the bawds and roistabouts to have begun prowling the streets. But it was odd not to see a single peddler, or street urchin, or stout huswife pursuing her fugitive chickens. Even the few milling figures Sorrille had noticed upon his entry were nowhere to be seen, and the curtains of nearly every window were tightly drawn, though there was still precious daylight to be had. Plus the streets were preternaturally quiet---no wafts of quarrels or laughter, nothing save the occasional whimper of a dog presumably being forced to hold its tongue. Sorrille had the distinct impression that Lower Renith was collectively holding its breath, and that the residents of every household were taking turns peeping out at him once his back was safely to them.

Enraged, finally, by the cowardice of those who had, less than two weeks earlier, found brazen insults so very easy to hurl about, he reined the deer to a halt and addressed his invisible audience. ``Mark my features well, good city-folk, so that you will recognize me when Renith's crown sits atop my head!'' He paused just long enough for the echo of his words to subside, then coaxed his mount to resume its forward motion.

``Onri is king! Onri is king!'' a feeble, indignant voice sputtered from behind him. He turned to see the decrepit fool who had used his shin for a cricket ball, wielding a walking-stick angrily in the air and preparing to foray off the doorstep to harass Sorrille yet again. Sorrille silently instructed the Shadowchild to cast a brief look in the daft old goat's direction, which had the desired effect of sending him scampering indoors for cover. Sorrille threw back his head and laughed, and the procession continued to the nearby sound of several audibly suppressed gasps.

When the carnelian walls and golden spires of Renith Palace rose before him at last, Sorrille dismounted and handed his tiny steed's reins to a stunned-looking guard who had just risen unsteadily to his feet. The guard's drinking-and-dicing companions remained seated, openmouthed and seemingly paralyzed, on the steps to the palace's huge crystal-and-filigree door.

``It's bad enough your disportment adds a rather unaesthestic aspect to the palace facade.'' Sorrille's tone of voice struck a duke-like balance between lighthearted mockery and the implicit threat of violence. ``Don't compound the problem by forcing me to climb over you.''

They scrambled off the steps like petitioners who have misguidedly approached the king in one of his fouler moods. Sorrille caught one by the elbow and inquired as to Onri's whereabouts. The guard, despite his valiant effort not to stare with obvious horror at the Shadowchild, seemed to address his very reply to it.

``His Majesty dines at this hour, milord.''

``But of course he does, and I'm tactlessly late for the feast. Do lead the way to the banquet-hall, if you would, and announce that Duke Sorrille is come to table.''

Too flustered to say more, the fellow pulled the palace door ajar and proceeded to carry out Sorrille's instructions. As they marched through the tangle of narrow, poorly-lit corridors, Sorrille was amused to see the palace servants scattering before him as timidly as the city-folk had. Even the guards posted at every fourth turning seemed to be resisting the impulse to turn tail and run. So on and on they went, on their unobstructed way, filling the quasi-evacuated labyrinth with the percussive echos of four pairs of booted feet, the gentle whooshing sounds of a pair of large, semi-contracted wings, and an almost audibly intense sequence of regicidal fantasies.

Sorrille let the palace guard precede him into the banquet- hall and nervously inform the general public there that he had arrived, along with what appeared to be a Shadowchild. Then he had the two gate guards go in and situate themselves on either side of the door, at which point he and his eyebrow-raising sidekick were ready to make their grand entrance. He observed with pique that virtually none of the customs of the dinner table had changed, despite the conspicuous emptiness of his place at it: A dazzling profusion of colorful platters spread the length of the table; jewelled goblets overflowed with wine; servingmen wound their way in and out between the exquisitely costumed dancers; the air, scented with sandalwood, was vibrant with the intermingled sounds of witty repartee and ribald minstrelsy; and Onri's guests were uniformly oblivious to the world outside the banquet-hall. Indeed, they paid scarcely any attention to the palace guard's introduction---after all, what was one person more or less at table?

Only Onri seemed to have gathered that there was something noteworthy at the door, and was about to take a good look at it when his queen, attended by no less than six ladies, emerged from a side door to claim her seat beside him. For the next several moments, both Sorrille and Onri stood motionless as men for whom time has stopped, wholly ignoring the gustatory feast upon the table as they gorged themselves visually on that of Belisa's beauty. The gold-embroidered chiffon of Belisa's sleeve caught the light like a butterfly's wing and then spilt down her upraised arm in fold after liquid fold as she pressed self-conscious fingers to her lacquered red tresses, wondering why she had the sense that she was being stared at even more insatiably than usual. As she inclined her chiselled profile in Sorrille's direction, sensing that the especially passionate eyebeams were emanating from thence, she issued a trio of musical little gasps---one of surprised pleasure at Sorrille's appearance, one of ladylike revulsion at the Shadowchild's grotesque visage, and one of utter terror as Onri noticed Sorrille and began to rise from his chair with an ominous lack of haste.

The banquet-hall fell completely silent for the first time in decades as the nobles of Renith looked up to see their monarch on the brink of a wholly unpredictable confrontation. Sorrille, who everyone knew had died an unspeakably horrid death, had somehow come back with not only his notoriously short temper but also with an unspeakably horrid monster for backup. His agespotted face white with anger, Onri straightened his fur-trimmed robe on still-powerful shoulders and placed his massive gold crown on his wisp-haired head (he disliked wearing it while he ate since it tended to make his bald spot worse).

``Why have you returned, you treasonous cur... you base scoundrel... you verminous--?''

``Allow me to interrupt and you shall have your answer, old man.'' Belisa took this opening exchange of pleasantries as a cue to make herself as invisible as possible. She sat huddled in her chair, head tilted forward so that quantities of hair obscured her face on either side.

``You dare address me without an honorific, you pompous dandy... you ill-mannered whippersnapper... you foul-mouthed--?''

``Enough! An impotent old fool who cannot secure the love of his bride and who sends those who are capable of doing so into the wilds to die is in no way deserving of honorifics! But lo! I am not dead, and having survived what I have survived, I no longer find myself cowed in any way by a senile foot-stamping monarch.''

``He has spoken treason! Seize the traitor!'' Onri's face was purple now, and his agitated gesturings had all but knocked his crown from his head. His uncontrolled rage was so novel a spectacle that dinner guests, servants, and guards alike were watching him as raptly as they might the lead actor in a scandalous play. ``I have commanded you! Seize him!''

``Silence, Onri! I have not returned to listen to your ranting drool, but to claim the throne and the queen that are rightfully mine. I have met your challenge, and you have no choice but to forfeit both to me!''

``Challenge? What challenge might that be?'' inquired Onri with a dangerously innocent tone, daring those at the table to supply a single pertinent detail.

``The challenge, Sire!'' interjected Tirem, the rosy-faced juniormost member of the court. ``Surely you remember---you had your scribe set it down on vellum, just a little under two weeks ago. Then your herald read it aloud the morning Sorrille there was banished, remember? To the crowd that had gathered in front of the palace.'' Tirem babbled on blithely, so glad to be of some use that he failed to interpret correctly Onri's ferociously indrawn breath. ``You know, Sire, the challenge about how anyone who managed to get hold of a Shadowchild like the one Sorrille there's got was entitled---''

``--to Renith's twin glories---its mighty throne and its jewel-lovely queen. Thank you, Tirem, I couldn't have refreshed His Highness' memory better myself.'' Sorrille strode impatiently toward Onri, who had fallen back into his chair, sputtering soundlessly, his face contorting with hatred as he regarded Sorrille. ``Will you honor your promise, Onri?'' He hovered over the seated king like the most determined of inquisitioners, willing to wait till eternity for the appropriate reply.

``But of course I will,'' began Onri calmly, with rekindled deviousness, ``the instant you return here with a true denizen of the Ashen Forest, not some inept sorcerer's slapdash concoction! And until you do, I will regard you as a traitor!'' Onri sprung to his feet, more or less, his fury having reached a fresh peak of intolerability.

Sorrille pointed to the Shadowchild, who stood near the doorway twitching its wings as if insulted that its credibility had been called into question. ``Do any of you at this table harbor any doubts as to the creature's identity?''

``Don't know its name or anything, but it looks like a Child to me!'' ventured Tirem.

``Of course it is a Shadowchild,'' said bewigged Lord Gauntti, clearing his throat after this pronouncement.

Stout, jovial Roddain moved cautiously toward the door for a closer look. ``Ah'd agree with the both of ye. Now it's true Ah've never been to the thing's stompin' grounds, and so--''

``There is no way you can possibly verify Sorrille's claim regarding it!'' burst in a triumphant Onri, leaving Roddain puzzling over whether that were what he'd meant to say. ``None of us knows with any certainty what a Shadowchild looks like because any man that has encountered one hasn't lived to tell the tale! All we know about the creature is hearsay and rumor, and a common thread to every bit of Child-lore is that they are impossible to escape, much less to overcome or tame! Obviously, then, what we have here is some manner of impostor---some barbarian Sorrille has induced to stand before us in his ritual dress, complete with a headdress of branches and black face-paint---''

``Sorry to disappoint you, Onri.'' Sorrille nodded to the Shadowchild, telepathically requesting it to demonstrate its clearly supernatural ability to fly. It had risen but a few inches in the air when Onri backed away from the table, suddenly unsheathing and then brandishing his sword like a wild man.

``Then it is indeed the forbidden work of some accursed sorcerer! It is fiendish magic and I will not suffer its presence in my palace!''

Before Sorrille could warn him otherwise, Onri had lurched forward to attack the Child. Sorrille tried to command it to do nothing but evade Onri's swordthrusts, but apparently its protective instincts were self-inclusive. It curled back its black satin lips, baring the elongated teeth within, and, angrily beating the air with its wings, struck Onri's sword from his hands with a swiftly downhooking claw. As Onri inspected with speechless horror the bloody furrows which now ran the length of his forearm, the Child gave vent to a gale-force battle cry and swung the blackened bronze of its claw again, this time at Onri's head. Onri staggered sideways as if drunken, clutching a hand to his face and bellowing in pain. When he removed the hand and held its crimson palm before him blindly, it became clear that one of his eyes had been maimed. Belisa, with an unladylike squawk, made her presence felt once more and, the minstrels and dancers having wisely scattered already, the dinner guests to either side of her began to stir uneasily, as if preparing to escape themselves.

Sorrille groaned. Much as he despised Onri, becoming an accomplice to regicide at this moment would certainly not help legitimize his claim to the throne. Somehow, he had to restrain the Shadowchild's undeniably murderous behavior, and then go and comfort his lovely distraught Belisa. As he moved toward the wrangling pair, he extracted his mnisse pouch and wondered whether he could distract the Child long enough to administer the stuff. He dangled the pouch before him hopefully, inwardly suspecting it was hopeless. Then, before he could properly register what was taking plce, the Child, its hair a lurid snarl of snaky lightning, was ascending toward the lofty ceiling vaults like someone's nightmare vision of a bird of prey, with an alternately raving and whimpering Onri hooked securely in its talons.

``Stop!'' cried Sorrille. ``Stop, I command you!'' But the Child was looping and circling in the dark central dome with the impossible agility of a bat, whooping and cawing in harsh depthless tones that were natural neither to human beings nor to creatures of the air. Finally, with a last hissing cry, it flung Onri to his death below and continued its airborne figure-eights with increasingly frenzied speed, in an ecstasy of bloodlust.

``By the gods,'' Sorrille despaired with silent ferocity, ``that thing is completely out of control! How am I to feed it its last doses of mnisse, or persuade it to fly away home like a good ghoul, for that matter? And it's no doubt just a matter of time before it decides it's days overdue for its carcass imperiale a la Renith!'' For the king of Renith lay, crownless and mangled, lengthwise on the dinner table in the midst of some half-dozen platters of sweetbreads and candied meat, surrounded by his former subjects, all of whom had risen in his presence but none of whom seemed able to remove themselves from it. Someone was missing from the table, though---Sorrille tried to rack his addled brain for who it was when he noticed Belisa, pale and unconscious, gracefully draped on the floor alongside the table. He bolted toward her, temporarily forgetting every other alarming circumstance confronting him, and after a fervent series of ministrations, he managed to rouse her, weak and smiling, to her feet.

``That was silly of me, Sori, I know. But you returning unharmed, and that thing up there, and Onri all blood-covered--''

``Hardly standard dinner entertainment. Fret not, even I reeled a bit on my feet, Belisa. Here, sit down.'' He helped her into a chair as far as possible from her dead husband, stroked her sunset-red hair, and turned his attention once more to the problem of the Forest-spawn flapping about and setting all the chandeliers atremble.

``I don't think that's the worst of our troubles, Sorrille,'' young Tirem suggested politely.

``What's that? What do you--'' Sorrille almost choked on his tongue as he turned to see Naraya drift into the room with a tidy double-columned arrangement of mnisse-sedated Shadowchildren to her rear. A general murmur of distress ran through the room, and any of the servants who had outlasted the previous episode---either because of their unimpeachable dutifulness or because it was the best show they'd had in ages---began to inch their way toward the kitchen exit now.

``And what a lucky usurper am I,'' thought Sorrille to himself. ``Not one but seven Shadowchildren to contend with as future subjects.''

``Ah,'' said Naraya, halting her troops directly in front of the spot where Onri lay in state, ``I see you don't require my assistance, Sorrille, in meting justice to the despot after all.''

``What's all this bother during dinner, anyway?'' demanded irritable old Baron Merrand. ``Is Sorrille king now or ain't he, and when is he going to do something about restoring the peace in here?''

``He's right, y'know,'' counselled Roddain, managing a kindly smile. ``This all seems, indirectly or otherwise, to have some connection t'you, m'boy, and so everyone's 'specting you to make some sense of it. Ah'd hop to, was Ah you, 'specially if ye want the respect of the court in future.''

Sorrille's blood raced when he realized that his claim to the throne might well go uncontested henceforward, then again when he realized that a crisis of some moment was taking place.

``Who's that woman, Sori? Do you know her?'' asked Belisa, catching him by the elbow. He held up a hand to indicate that she must lend him her forbearance, and approached Naraya and her retinue.

``Milady Naraya,'' began, bowing, ``though your presence here is most unexpected, nonetheless is it quite welcome.'' He found regal circumlocution so much to his taste that he decided to experiment with a royal pronoun or two. ``But we cannot look kindly on the retainers you have brought with you. In short, we must ask you to see to it that they vacate the city immediately, whereupon we would be most pleased to give you a private audience and hear the purpose of your visit.''

``Though I am ignorant in the ways of great cities, I believe a coronation is the method by which kings are given their office. Is that not correct?''

``It is,'' conceded Sorrille cautiously, troubled by her amused expression as well as by her failure to respond directly to him.

``And has there been a coronation here recently?''

``Not for decades,'' put in the ever-helpful Tirem.

``And I have also thought long that a king's public edict is the most binding of documents. Is that not correct as well?''

``Why, yes, gal,'' said Roddain. ``That's the very line of reasonin' Sorrille here was tryin' to use on Onri. The stubborn ole fool wouldn't listen, and lookit the sorry state he's in now.''

``Are you saying that, ipso facto, Sorrille's accession to the throne is a given thing?'' drawled Gauntti, regarding Roddain over his monocle rim.

``Ipso fact, ergo sum, and all that. Ah can't see whah not. We all know that edict inside out, what with Onri talkin' 'bout it all through dinner the day that herald read it to the popylace.''

``In that case,'' resumed Naraya, apparently well-pleased by the content of this interchange, ``I have come to claim my half of the throne. It was I who enabled your Sorrille to return with the requisite Shadowchild, whose acquaintance, I see, you have already made.'' She glanced at Sorrille's Child, currently cowering in a corner in an effort to hide from her.

``Who _is_, she, Sori?'' asked Belisa plaintively, as if resigned to the fact that Sori would ignore her question and that the answer would prove unpleasant anyway.

``Come hither, Child of the Shadows of Ashen Forest. Eat of the nectar I have brought you.'' Naraya outstretched her hand, with its generous pinch of mnisse in the palm, to Sorrille's half-reverted Child. The Child approached her furtively, with a contrite expression, lipped the mnisse from her hand like some timid hulk of a horse, and then quietly retreated.

Naraya scanned her audience slowly before beginning, failing only to meet Sorrille's eyes and lingering inexplicably on Belisa's. ``As you can see, I hold sway over the Forest's Children. Should you choose not to honor the binding document I have mentioned, these seven will help me to assert my claim to the throne. Duke Sorrille, I know,''---here she looked at him significantly---``will support that claim fully.''

Sorrille sought frantically for a resolution to his dilemma. Were he to reject Naraya outright, as was most certainly his wont, the people of Renith would come to despise him for having exposed their city to a veritable plague of demons. No, inciting Naraya to loose seven Children on the city was hardly a viable means of persuading Renith to gladly award him the sovereignty he so desired. He would become, if he even survived the fiasco, a hated scapegoat, and he and Belisa would live under the constant threat of assassination.

On the other hand, if he pretended nonchalance in the face of Naraya's request---delight would definitely be stretching it---the populace might come to believe that he, as well as Naraya, held sway over the supernatural. That would mean a strengthened position on the throne, which was nothing to sneeze at. Even more importantly, if Naraya felt that he'd been cooperative, she might decide against feeding him to the Shadowchildren the first opportunity she got. Of course, cooperating with Naraya pretty effectively displaced Belisa from the picture. Ah, well, sacrifice _was_ the quintessence of noble and effective leadership.

``Rest assured that I am your advocate,'' said Sorrille, with a bow.

Naraya nodded and smiled. ``I am glad to hear it spoken, though our nights together had already helped me to take the true measure of your character.''

``Who _is_ she, Sori?'' repeated Belisa.

Cerise Palmer is currently at work on the first book of a fantasy trilogy. She keeps in good creative shape by telling ``scary stories,'' nonstop, to her 3-year-old daughter. Electronic correspondence may be sent c/o jake@cis.ohio-state.edu