Blackbringer

“Faerie,” hissed the Magruwen’s voice. “Who are you?”

“Magpie Windwitch, Lord,” she said in a wisp of a voice. She began to see shapes in the whiteness.

“Windwitch? Elemental?”

“I am granddaughter of the West Wind.”

To himself the Magruwen muttered, “That explains nothing.”

“Lord Magruwen,” Magpie said, “I’m sorry I offended you. And I’m sorry faeries have forsaken you. But I beg you, don’t forsake us back. Give us a chance to deserve the world, to become what we can still become.”

“This is not an age of becoming,” he told her. “It is the age of unweaving.”

“Unweaving again! What does it mean?”

“It means the darkness will rush in like a tide and sweep everything back into the endless ocean.”

“But sure we can stop it! With your help.” Her vision was returning and she squinted to look at him.

“It is already too late,” said the Djinn.

Magpie clenched her fists in frustration. “Neh!” she said forcefully, getting to her feet and leaning heavily on Calypso.

As she did so, a gleam caught the Magruwen’s gaze and drew it to her knife hilt. He hissed, “Skuldraig . . .”

“What?” Magpie asked with a sharp intake of breath. She remembered the name. The old faerie who had guarded the Vritra had said it. Skuldraig had killed all those faeries. “Who’s Skuldraig?” she asked.

“Let me see that dagger.”

Puzzled, Magpie unsheathed it and held it out, remembering now the runes she’d noticed on its blade while holding it to the falcon’s—the lad’s—throat. She hadn’t had a moment to look more closely at them since.

The Magruwen studied the knife for a long moment before saying, “This blade was lost, and well lost. Where did you find it?”

“In the Vritra’s dreaming place,” she said. “It was planted in a skeleton’s—”

“Spine,” he finished for her.

“Aye. How did you know?”

“Skuldraig means ‘backbiter.’ That is its way.”

“But who is he?” Magpie asked. “Sure it can’t be the devil—those skeletons were long dead, and besides, this devil, he leaves nothing behind!”

“Devil? Foolish faerie, Skuldraig is the blade itself! It is cursed to slay any who wield it but the one for whom it was forged.”

“B-but . . . ,” Magpie stammered, “I have wielded it!”

The Djinn’s flame eyelids drew together in a vertical blink. “Have you indeed?” he breathed. Magpie nodded. He asked, “And pray, what happened when you did?”

“It . . . it sang.”

The Magruwen guttered like a wind-licked candle. “It sang for you?” Again he demanded, “Who are you, faerie?”

“Magpie Wind—”

“Nay, but who are you? Who made you?”

“What do you mean, Lord?” Magpie asked, pushing away from him on her wings as he flared bright and hot once more.

“You weave the Tapestry, and you wield the champion’s blade and it sings for you when it should slay you? Faerie, you too should be a skeleton with a knife in its back. Why do you live?”

Magpie heard all he said, Tapestry and skeleton and all, but one word caused her to gasp. “Champion?”

“I forged this blade for Bellatrix and no other!” His voice seethed and gusts of heat crackled around him.

Awestruck and shaking, Magpie carefully set the blade on the cavern floor and backed away, Calypso at her side. “I’m sorry, Lord Magruwen,” she said. “I should never have taken it—”

“You mistake me, little bird,” he said. “Pick it up. Skuldraig has suffered you to live. It’s yours, should you risk the use of it again. Many devils has it subdued in its day.”

Magpie picked the knife back up and looked at it, in awe of it and afraid. Bellatrix had held it, aye, but how many spines had known it since? She slid it warily into its sheath. “Lord Magruwen,” she said. “Will it subdue this devil?”

“I told you. He is beyond you!”

“The trees are calling him the Blackbringer—”

“Blackbringer! Call him what you choose, he will devour you just the same. Go now, faerie.”

Magpie hung her head unhappily. She wanted to ask him more questions but he was withdrawing deeper into his cave and she sensed she was dismissed. “Thank you, Lord,” she said, bowing deeply before turning to Calypso to go.

She had reached the door when the Djinn said, “Wait.”

Magpie turned back, hopeful.

“You may choose a treasure,” he said.

“Oh.” She couldn’t hide her disappointment. She looked at the glittering trove scattered across the cavern floor. Maybe there was some magical thing among the jewels that could help her, but if she had days she wouldn’t know how to choose! “Thank you, Lord,” she said, taking a halting step toward the treasure. A spiral of light caught her eye then, and as she turned, it seemed to sink and disappear into the sparkling piles. Magpie felt the air pulse and urge her forward. She went where it took her and knelt over a spilled coffer of gold pieces. She dredged through them and came up with a familiar thing grasped in her hands.

She smiled, well pleased. “My Lord?” she asked, holding it up for his approval. It was the acorn he had spit from the cake. “You said there was no thousand years in this nut. There surely won’t be unless I get it in some good ground.”

Those vertical eyes drew together like a serpent’s as the Magruwen blinked. He nodded.

Magpie and Calypso backed out the door and bowed again, calling, “Thank you!” as they left.

Long did the Magruwen stare after her, watching with his inner eyes as radiant traceries unfurled in her wake, rampant as vines. The treasure had been a final test. It had always been a test, even in the long-gone days of visitors. Those through whom the Tapestry sang true chose well, much as long ago the healer Grayling had chosen her knitting needles from among the gems and flashier things. Those corrupt of spirit called down false notes from the Tapestry, and they chose ill. The sword Duplicity, for instance, doubled everything it cut, even enemies, so that where one devil stood, once slashed with Duplicity, there stood two. And sorrow to the swords-man who multiplied his foes even as he smote them!

The lass, Magpie, had chosen true. He hadn’t doubted she would. But he hadn’t guessed . . . She had made his test look like a sprout’s game! What she had shown him, drawing that common acorn out of a spill of gold, would vibrate through the Tapestry for ages to come—if the Tapestry survived that long. Even as he watched, her traceries wove and pleached their way through the ancient threads like something living, sending out many roots, curving and coiling inextricably through the warp and weft.