The Autumn Castle (16 page)

Eisengrimm!” Christine stood at the gate to the castle wall, which spanned away gleaming in the golden light. She couldn’t
imagine that Eisengrimm would be able to hear her through all the stone and at such a distance, so she stretched herself out
on the ground and enjoyed the liberation of her back.

“Ahh,” she sighed, releasing a deep breath. She checked her watch. The hands hadn’t moved. She closed her eyes, felt a leaf
skitter over her legs. A soft breeze blew, and in the distance were the faint, earthy smells of harvest. This was bliss; this
was paradise.

A flapping of wings. She looked up. A crow perched on top of the gate.

“Eisengrimm?”

He fluttered to the ground and, as his feet touched the grass, transformed to Wolf. “Christine?”

She stood, reveling in the freedom. “Hello. Mayfridh gave me this.” Her native words were echoed in the strange Old German
of the castle. She held out the ball of twine for his inspection.

“Ah, enchanted twine. You wish to visit us regularly then?”

“Yes, I like it here.”

“And is my queen in good health?” No expression marked his face, but from his voice she could tell he had concerns.

“Yeah, in good health, in good company, and in great clothes. She said you would . . . you know . . . show me around.”

“Certainly. Follow me.” He led her through the gate and around the side of the castle. The sunlight was dappled here, and
the stone was covered in lichen and moss. Ahead, they reached the grassy edge of a precipice. Christine hung back, but Eisengrimm
walked all the way to the edge and lifted his snout to the breeze.

“Come closer,” he said, “it’s quite safe.”

Christine moved forward, testing the ground in front of her with her toes. A deep, rocky slope fell away beneath them.

Eisengrimm tilted his ears. “Behold,” he said, “this is Ewigkreis.”

A rural village spread out far below them. Two wide dirt roads converged on a large stone well, other narrow streets sprouting
left and right and tapering off into forests and farms. The streets were lined with half-timbered buildings and stone cottages
with flowering window boxes. Around the well was a bustling marketplace with stalls, vendors pushing carts, and villagers
dressed in colorful clothes. Others worked in broad, flat fields, their movements seeming exaggerated and slow at this distance.
Puffs of smoke from chimneys drifted lazy and gilded in the late sunshine.

“How many people live here?”

“Three hundred in the village, eleven in the castle with Mayfridh.”

That explained the emptied, hollow feeling of the castle. “Ewigkreis is small,” she said.

“All the faeries in what you would call Germany live here. We are one of the smallest races of faeries.”

Christine cast her eyes into the far distance peering into the afternoon haze to see past the forests, and the river that
ran lazy and glittering off to the east. The cliffs, water, and trees dissolved into the misty golden horizon. “What’s beyond
it?”

“We know not.”

Christine was surprised by this answer. “Has no one tried to travel into those forests?”

“Yes. I have traveled in the Eternal Woods myself. For many days I moved forward, through dark woods with no clear paths.
Then the woods began to thin, a road spread out in front of me. I thought I was approaching a new village, but I wasn’t. I
was back in the same forest you first found.”

“It goes around in a circle?”

“I cannot answer that, for I do not know. It is one of the mysteries of our world, and of every other faery world. No map
can describe them. It is a Real World phenomenon to understand land in terms of definitive space.”

Christine tried to comprehend this, couldn’t, gave up. “And Mayfridh is the queen of the whole land?”

“Yes.”

“Unelected, right? It’s like a monarchy.”

“That’s right.”

“The villagers don’t mind?”

“They are not humans. They are faeries, and care about more important things than politics and titles. They care about the
harvest, the swing of seasons, the magical essence of the air.” Eisengrimm turned and began to walk away from the precipice.
“Come,” he said, “I will show you the castle.”

Christine once again glanced at her watch. Although it felt as though twenty minutes had passed, the hands had moved only
one minute. She calculated, figured three minutes must pass for every hour, and decided she had plenty of time. Relax, enjoy.

Eisengrimm led her through the back gate and the wild garden, then into the cavernous stone room where she had first met Mayfridh.

“This is our great hall. There is Mayfridh’s throne.”

“Who are the eleven people living in the castle?” Christine asked, looking around at the tapestries and brass decorations.

“Cooks, servants, and me.”

“No guards? Soldiers?”

“We have no real need for them. There is a royal guard, but its role is official rather than martial.”

“And you’re Mayfridh’s only adviser?”

Eisengrimm sat on his hind legs and tipped his head back to look up. Christine followed his gaze up past the long tapestries
to the tiny windows at the top of the room. On pedestals carved into the dark stone sat three crooked gargoyles, their mouths
stretched open, their snouts crinkled into sneers, their eyes hideous spheres on stalks.

“Mayfridh was only nine when she took the throne. Wolfram, Reinmar, and Sivridh were the counselors appointed to her. I blush
for the partiality she showed me, simply because I could turn into a fox and be toted around under her arm. They were good
counselors at first, sound politicians. But when she was fifteen—”

“That’s them?” Christine asked, astonished.

“They disagreed with her over something petty. They forced their will on her, greedy now of the power, and told her she was
just a stupid child. But she wasn’t a child anymore.

“It happened that a visitor from the icy north lands was staying in the castle at the time. He was the court magician in his
own realm, and a very powerful sorcerer. Sorcery is unknown in Ewigkreis; we use magic for peaceful purposes. In secret, Mayfridh
offered him all of Liesebet’s jewelry in exchange for a spell of sorcery. Then, in the heat of an argument, she turned the
spell on Wolfram, Reinmar, and Sivridh.”

“She turned them into gargoyles?”

“Yes. So now they watch the affairs of Ewigkreis from a different vantage point.”

“Can they ever . . . I mean . . . are they stuck like that forever?”

“She tries from time to time to turn the spell back, but she did it in such a fit of anger—the anger of a fifteen-year-old
girl—that the wrath became part of the spell. She cannot find an equivalent amount of forgiveness for a reversal spell, especially
as, I suspect, she is still angry with them for calling her a stupid child.”

“Will they die?”

“Who knows? Perhaps.”

She was surprised by the lightness of his tone. “Is life very cruel here?”

“We are mostly peaceful folk. No one need fear cruelty if they work for the smooth turning of the seasons and pay their dues
to Mayfridh.”

“Are the villagers loyal to her?”

“Oh yes, because all faery magic is royal magic. It descends only from the queen.” He nudged her hand. “Come, Christine, I
will show you the rest of the Autumn Castle.”

He tried to lead her downstairs to a windowless area of chambers and dungeons, but she refused, so instead he led her up the
long narrow corridor, showing her each room in turn—a bewildering array of dusty libraries, empty drawing rooms, cramped state
rooms, and a dark kitchen. Then they ascended the north turret—crooked and narrow—to the royal chambers. Eisengrimm led her
to Mayfridh’s bedchamber, which was decorated in filmy white curtains and layers of white cloth.

“You may lie down if you are tired,” Eisengrimm said, jumping onto the bed and making himself comfortable.

Christine lay down, sinking into the deep covers with a warm weariness stretching through her bones. She considered the ceiling
in the half-light for a while, trying to process all she had seen and heard. Did it really matter if it was all too ridiculous
ever to be uttered to another human being? Here she felt no pain; here she was the Christine she might have been were it not
for the accident. She found the castle’s emptiness and gloominess soothing, addictive.

She turned on her side to watch Eisengrimm. His head rested on his paws and his yellow eyes gazed at her serenely. Christine
felt an unusual sense of peace around him, despite his size and his strong jaws. His warm voice was friendly and his manner
was patient, and he possessed a magical tranquillity she had never sensed in anyone else. “Eisengrimm, can I ask you something?”

“Please do. I’ll try to answer all your questions.”

“Can Mayfridh cast a love spell?”

“A love spell?”

“You know, to make somebody fall in love with her?” She hated the quiver of her voice, but the question had to be asked.

To her relief, Eisengrimm did not probe further, nor did he jump to defend his queen of any veiled accusations. “No, Christine,
she cannot. The hearts of men are not to be bound by the desires of others. It was ever so, it will ever be.”

“That’s comforting.” She smiled, then ventured, “Why do I feel so peaceful around you? Is that magic?”

“I’m flattered. It’s not magic.”

“Are there many shape-shifters like you in Ewigkreis?”

“No, I am the only one.”

“Can you be anything else but a wolf, a fox, and a crow?”

“I can be a bear. But I rarely take on that form. It causes great stress to my joints and organs.”

“Can you be a man?”

His voice was suddenly charged with emotion. “I am not a . . .” he started.

A long silence beat out, and Christine rose up on her elbows. “I’m sorry, did I say something wrong?”

“No, no. It is complicated.” He pulled himself up and then paused on the end of the bed, as though he were deciding whether
to leave, his gray shoulders hunched against the burden of the decision.

Christine was curious now. “Were you once a man? Is that why you’re upset?”

He slumped forward. “Now you have asked, so I must answer you.”

“You don’t have to. I don’t mean to be nosy or anything.”

“I do have to. It’s a burden on my heart that I have yet to express.” He turned and sagged down on the bed next to her again.
“You are the only person, in over seventy years, who has asked me if I were once a man.”

“Really?”

“Shape-shifters exist in faerylands. There is no reason for anyone to suspect I am anything more. Just as you would never
ask a bird if she were once a fish, so nobody here has ever asked if I am anything other than I appear. But you, you are from
Over There.” He muttered, almost to himself, “You have different questions.”

“Tell me, then. You were once a man?”

“Yes. A faery man, not a human man. My name was not Eisengrimm. I was being groomed to be one of Queen Liesebet’s counselors,
but I was young and I longed to travel. I had a yearning spirit. I burned and bubbled with imaginings of places and adventures,
and the exotic unknown-ness of other folk. I ran away from the royal court, leaving it all behind me, but intending to return
one day in the far time. Just as we can make passage between our world and the Real World, we can also make passage between
this world and other worlds of faery. I traveled many places. None of them satisfied my desire because, I have since learned,
desire does not exist to be satisfied, only to move men. I moved, I kept moving, and it was in the Slavic faerylands that
I met Zosia.”

Shadows deepened in the room and dust motes hung in the air. Christine felt herself grow very still as Eisengrimm spoke.

“She was a faery witch; not a hideous hag like Hexebart, but a fair-skinned, silken-haired beauty. I was walking through a
tall-treed forest near the faery village. She was gathering herbs for a spell, the sunlight shone on her hair, and I was entranced.
When she asked me my name, I told her. Something a traveler should never do.

“We became lovers. I stayed with her for many weeks in her warm stone cottage near the river. Every morning we would wake
to the bright sunshine in the window, then she would spend her day in making her spells and potions. I would spend mine admiring
her and dreaming about forever with her. And when night fell there were warm fires and spiced wines and tender kisses enough
to keep me from noticing what I should have noticed. All was not well with Zosia.

“Slowly, it became clear that Zosia’s great beauty in appearance was not matched by a great beauty of spirit. She thought
nothing of torturing woodland creatures to steal their essence for spells, and her magic was always directed at acquiring
new treasures and supplementing her beauty. The first time I pointed out to her that I despised to hear a linnet screaming
as she pulled it to pieces, she laughed at me.

“‘You are too fragile,’ she said. ‘Where is your bravery and strength when such a small creature can soften your man’s heart?’
From then on, she reveled in taunting me about my delicate manner. I tried to take the mockery in good heart, I loved her
still. But the brutality and the vanity did not abate, and I braced myself every morning for her next act of selfish cruelty.

“The very worst came soon after. You see, from time to time, bewildered humans from the Real World wander into faerylands
by accident. So it was that a Real World traveler crossed into Zosia’s woods. While I was not home—I had gone to the village
to collect milk and flour—he stopped at her house to ask for help. Poor fool. Zosia was no doubt delighted to see him. My
heart trembles to think of his last moments. By the time I returned, she had chopped him into pieces.

“When I saw the blood upon the hearth, I felt a terrible sickening hatred growing inside me. ‘What have you done, Zosia? Have
you sunk to murder?’

“‘He was just a human, no worse nor better than the squirrels and foxes who have given up their essence for my magic.’

“I found myself backing away from her instinctively, my hand reaching for the door behind me.