Shouts came from behind, quickly followed by a wit's sending-invisible, airborne flexing, shuddering forth then back.

Rossamund ducked as if avoiding a strike and changed direction sharply, off the wan hint of the path and into the pitch murk of the trees, hoping to foil the wit's preternatural senses. Sure enough, the frission came, yet though it drove the young factotum to his knees, skidding in the dew-damp clover, it was vague, unfocused.

Slithering on muddied hands and boot-toes, he got back to his feet, glancing at where he had come. He could just make out the distinctive figure of the wit and three rougher men standing in the dim lamplight on the opposite side of the gate, apparently thwarted and staring in through its bars. It seemed to Rossamund that despite the impenetrable dark the richly dressed fellow was peering straight at him. With a sault of fright in his gizzards, Rossamund sped among the trees on a wild zig-then-zagging course, blundering over roots and rocks, seeking to put as much reach between his pursuers and himself as he could.

A piercing, iron ringing told him that the gate had in some way been forced, that the dandidawdling wit was through, and free to hunt him down. A powerful sending washed through the woodland park-detection and attack as one, its febrile fringe arresting Rossamund enough to trip him again and send him flailing face-first into the fresh wet turf in a spray of chance-won coins. The wit must have possessed perverse determination to be employing his antics with such frequent potency.

What can I do against such a foe?

A little blur above him and Rossamund caught the soft cheep! of Darter Brown alighting momentarily on a low perch in the dark. He could barely make out the little fellow eyeing him, turning its head to then fro. A tight thrum of wings and the sparrow was gone. After a moment a determined piping echoed out of the dark only a short span ahead. Rossamund sprinted to the noise and Darter Brown dashed on yet farther to tweet again from the night. They kept at this until Rossamund's breath began to rasp in his windpipes and he longed to drop and vomit. He slowed to a hurried, hip-arching walk, realizing that it had been some little time since he had felt the wit's frission.

He became still-just for a breath-to listen.

No footfall sounded in the soft sprays of clover and soursobs, just the creak of gentle shifting in the trees, of branches softly clacking against one another up in the dark, squeaking at their knotty joints. With it hummed the drone of the city in its small-hour motions, already so m.u.f.fled from within the park that it seemed far off, and not just a bend in the path away. In the ringing quiet, he became aware of threwdishness about him, a quiet yet intent wakefulness. I'm in the Moldwood, he realized with a start.

There comes a point in concealing darkness that, even when one is desperate not to be seen, the need to see is far greater, and so possessed, Rossamund hurriedly dug Mister Numps' limulight from the pocket of his frock coat and slid back the lid. Its gentle, blanched-blue effulgence picked out trunks and leaves and round-fronded gra.s.s. It took but a moment to get sight of a clear path, and, snapping the lid closed, the young factotum ran again, hampered by the increasingly uneven ground. In the meager light reflected off low clouds he could just make out a ma.s.s before him and felt the earth tilt and rise up the flank of a small hill.

Pulling on roots and weeds, even thick nettles-whatever he might to help his climb-he scaled the modest mound and upon achieving its summit was struck with the most profoundly piercing scathing he had yet felt. So strong was this witting attack that lights burst in his vision, joined by an inner blaze of woe and torment. The world truly did tilt now; Rossamund toppled down the lee side of the hillock, only vaguely aware of the heavy fall as he came to a jarring stop at what he could only presume was the bottom. He lay, senses tumbling, vision popping with disorienting flickers, and felt a gentler sending from the wit. The previous had been pure violence, but now, supine and struggling, he was being pointedly sought. With a savage growl he forced clarity into his head, got to his knees and, leaning on a sapling, stood.

A clear footfall.

His innards froze. Breath held in dread, his ears keened with a pulsating, shimmering whine.

Coney in their covets, Bunnies in their holes, But who shall ferret my meal?

... came a doggerel song, a tuneful taunt from the shadows above.The dandidawdling wit appeared at the crown of the hillock, his skin soft-lit by luminous fungi sprouting in nook and bole, a revealing pallor in the bosky black. He slid down the bank with easy grace; with such power the pernicious servant of the rousing-pit had nothing to fear-he was the supreme monster here.

Rossamund quickly pressed out a caste from his digital and flung it, the blue fire of loomblaze flaring as it ruptured against the pastel trunk of a sycamore where, but a blink before, the wit had been.

"O-ho, little rabbit, with your ledgermain tricks!" came a voice in the flickering dark. His relentless attacker seized Rossamund in another unseen inward grip. "I do not know what pox-riddled alehouse you thought you had found tonight, little rabbit, but ours is not a place to fling stinks. Nor are we so easily swindled by a fast pair of legs.There shall be no getting away as easy as you please; my masters will have your soft coney flesh . . ."

The young factotum fell again, retching into the dripping gra.s.s and faintly luminescent toadstools, heartily exasperated with so much groveling. Cringing and trapped on his wet mud-mucked knees, he suddenly felt a great threwd approaching, pressing through the frission. It brought with it a glimpse of clarity, and Rossamund was master of himself enough to look up. Something was coming from deeper in the park, something ineffably old and potent stepping from the darkling trees.

Surely just a desperate phantom . . .

Yet the dandily dressed wit must have seen this tall and horned beast too, for he touched hand to temple and reached a hand toward it as it loomed on the other side of the dell.

Even where he knelt crumpled, Rossamund caught the nauseating peripheries of strong, focused witting. Expecting the great b.e.s.t.i.a.l thing to stumble and fall, he croaked in awe as it simply came on, bounding on all fours right over him.

The wit scathed again-a careless demonstration of puissance that caught Rossamund too-but in a half-dozen awkwardly loping steps the horned thing was upon him. The witting reached its excruciating climax and the nicker-far taller than any man-reared, seizing the wit by his face and lifting him high. Before the fellow could do anything to extricate himself, he was shaken brutally like nothing more than a doll throttled by a tantrumming child.The wit's limbs flailed as he was swung violently back and forth by his neck. Loud meaty cracking broke the strange, shocked silence, a dreadfully flat sound among the bending trees. The wit's voluminous neckerchief unraveled and slipped to the mold, and the spangled silver wig fell from the telltale calvous head. With one last, ruinous snap! the monster flung the utterly broken wit aside, the body crashing lifelessly into a low olive bush.

There came a peculiar clicking noise from the horned thing's mouth. "Souls should choose better than to sing of ferreting conies and bunnies in my wood," it declared extravagantly with rasping yet resonant voice.

In the weak blue fungal glow Rossamund could see it turn, head lowered, back arched, glaring directly at him through its steeply arching brows. Brain-bruised and sorely used, the young factotum scooted backward on his rapidly saturating end, boot-heels slipping unhelpfully on slick lawn. With a mere handful of wide-stepping strides the creature sprang toward him, halting abruptly to bend and peer right into the young factotum's eyes.

"Why have you disturbed me, manikin?" it demanded, its blunt mouth terrible with curved, overlong rabbitlike incisors. Threwd seeped from every follicle, every fiber, a mighty and terrible threwd that was masterfully and powerfully restrained. The air became heavy with a sickly sweet fragrance, a merging of animal-stink and spring-blossom perfume. "Why have you brought our foes to my serene courts and made my night so busy?"

"I-I," Rossamund tried, astonished by the creature now clear before him. What he thought were horns were in fact ears-elongated rabbitlike ears; its blunt b.e.s.t.i.a.l snout ended in a soft, twitching rabbit's nose. "You-you are a rabbit . . . !" the young factotum breathed reflexively.

The rabbit-beast stood back and straightened, looming high over him. "That I am, ouranin." It drew close again. "Haraman, the wild Piltmen called me; out in the parishes where I seldom visit any more I am Rabbit o'Blighty; in the east they speak of me in dread as the Kaminchin; and in writings of the quidnuncs I am regularly named Cun.o.billin, or at times the Great Lagornis. Many more names everymen have given me through history, but in these current times I am the Lapinduce-the Duke of Rabbits, true master of this festering city!"

Rossamund was struck mum.

Here, regally upright before him, was an urchin, a monster-lord, an ancient ruler of the nickers and bogles.

Before Rossamund could say or think or do any more, the Lapinduce reached down and gripped the young factotum by the back of his collars, hoisting him from the soggy ground.The front of his weskit, frock coat, solitaire and undershirt all rucked to cut into his gourmand's cork. Kicking and twisting in the irresistible grip of this lord of monsters, Rossamund clutched his strangling collars away from his windpipe, yet his own well of strength did not avail him.

The Lapinduce, Duke of Rabbits, held him fast.

Giddiness surged through his intellectuals, the inner wounds of the dead wit's onslaught setting his eyes aching. The young factotum ceased his flailing and swung in dizzy dismay, each rocking stride of this mighty urchin carrying him farther into haunted sanctums of the threwdish park.

"Now for dreams," the Lapinduce proclaimed softly.

Bundling Rossamund under arm like some package of new-fullered clothes, it stooped to pluck something from the ground-a small fungus weakly glowing yellow green. It held this before the young factotum's face and crushed it. With an unexpected pop! a cloying gust of pollen and damp filled the young factotum's nostrils and coated his mouth.

He gagged and spat and writhed again in the prison of the monster's grip as he fought to clear his senses.

Stay awake! a sensible inward cry demanded. At the very depths of himself he wanted to stay, to obey; yet at the top of himself, in his head, in his throat, he was succ.u.mbing, and there was nothing he could do to stop it. His eyes drooped heavy; he lost the idea of his legs, then his arms, even his trunk, until only the tiny impotent spin of his determination remained.

Then nothing.

9.

THE COURTS OF THE RABBIT.

petchinin(s) monster-lords most concerned in their own immediate needs and their own schemes, neither attacking nor defending everymen except as circ.u.mstances might dictate or if said everymen are encroaching upon a petchinin's patch or plans. As such they are scorned-or at the very least, mistrusted-by both urchins and wretchins.

ROSSAMuND roused ears-first to the sound of wild spinet music resonating as if down a tunnel, the notes clear-almost close-astringent at one turn, melancholy the next. It was a version of the melody he was sure he had encountered before but could not summon where . . . Huh, he said to himself with sluggish complaisance, wrapped in a cozying peace, I did not know Miss Europe played the spinet . . . He sighed sleepily. Rouse out, sleepyhead, time to make treacle.

Creeping eyes open against the drowsy crust congealed in their corners, Rossamund was puzzled to find the ceiling a spotted roof of roots and compacted brown earth. In the soft light of glowing slimes and many thin, sunny beams of morning emitted through ingenious gaps in wood and soil, Rossamund could see that some openings were windowed with alabaster marble so fine as to be translucent, the delicate effulgence carved into figures of hopping, dancing hares.

This was not Cloche Arde at all!

Recollection crashed like the dropping of a full-laden barrel. He had been taken by the Lapinduce and kept the night on a downy bed of moss in the den of that murderous monster-lord, trapped alone with no notion of any path or method of escape in some sunken warren. For a breath, terrible stories of weak souls carried away to a nicker's den to be feasted on slowly came unhelpfully to mind.Yet wherever here was, in the threwd that waxed and waned with the pulse of the music, there was no threat, no lurking promise of violence. All Rossamund could collect was calm and self-sufficiency and the merest notion of more subdued affections.

He sat up, clouting his head upon the curve of the earthen wall into which his mossy cot was cut. A pile of what he first disgustedly thought was forest sweepings fell off him. He quickly realized it was a jumble of leaves in autumn shades, still supple, cunningly woven together to make a remarkably soft coverlet.

Curling fingers, flexing toes, Rossamund felt no pains but the fresh b.u.mp upon his head. By all evidence the Lapinduce had not harmed him. Quite the contrary; even the dandi-dressed wit's dastardly work seemed cured. Rossamund felt as hale and clear-headed as he ever had.

He looked about, blinking. At his left an entrance gaped in the white-daubed wall, a tall misshapen oval opening through roots. He sat listening; no movement beyond the opening, just the spinet-song and beneath it the strangely compressed quiet of the underground . . . and tingling, self-possessed threwd.

Untwisting himself from the rucked constriction of his sleep-knotted frock coat, the young factotum stood slowly to discover that his feet were bootless and-after a needless pat on his crown-that his head was hatless.

He rolled his eyes and cast about for these items. A lingering, subterranean mist hung thinly mere inches above the smooth cold ground-tiled in a fine mosaic fashioned in the image of frolicking rabbits in fields of lush gra.s.ses and bending trees-but no boots and no thrice-high.

Even through his harness he could feel a gnawing cold, a marrow chill of buried places. Wrapping the leafy blanket about him, he stepped gingerly from the cell to find a high arching tunnel heeling away on either hand. Lit by effulgent fungus, its walls were densely entwined with every girth of root, permitting no sight of the dirt behind. Little drifts of blossom and old leaves gathered in nooks between burrow wall and tessellated floor.

A glissando of sharp spinet notes rang down the pa.s.sage from the lighter end. Creeping toward the melody, Rossamund recognized it as a close variation on that which he had heard only three days before, driving past the Moldwood with Mister Carp on the way to the knavery. As he stole forward, small skitterings whispered from the twilight behind. He became utterly still, but the florid playing only waxed louder, drowning any creeping noises. Rossamund hurried from the dark and about a curve spied a line of three hand-carved archways a dozen yards ahead. Feet clad in soft trews, the young factotum noiselessly approached the first arch and squeezed a peek past its inward pilaster.

Beyond he found the deep cleared cellar of a completely floorless high-house, a square sh.e.l.l of a tower open to the heavens, lighter bands of brickwork among the gray stone and thin, many-mullioned windows evidence of missing stories. Rossamund squinted up into the roofless height dappled with layered leaves and pastel morning sky. A venerable walnut tree grew bent and broad in its midst, much of its trunk and lower branches wound with creeping glory vine. There was no rubble or ruin about it; rather it grew from a paved square of black-and-white marble laid around the walnut's wide-spreading roots. And here, under its shade, sat the Lapinduce astride a stool fashioned of branches writhen together, playing at a spinet of l.u.s.trous caffene-colored wood. Clothed now in a heavy high-collared frock coat of shimmering midnight purple st.i.tched with playful rabbits, the mighty beast's back was turned to Rossamund as it hammered away in impa.s.sioned throes. Shuddering under this artful a.s.sault, the spinet glistened in the variegated light, every panel and plane of the instrument inlaid with traceries of ivory and gold.

The metallic fugue unraveled to a pounding, beautiful acme when, one note short of the final satisfaction, the Lapinduce hesitated, blunt-clawed hands hovering taut with potential by its great rabbit ears. Thus the monster-lord remained, motionless, head turned. Rossamund stared in dread wonderment at the trace of its severe sky-gray eye, heedless of him, of the elderly tree, of the gutted sh.e.l.l of its musical well, of its playing. The young factotum could see subtle movements in the creature's mouth, a voiceless monologue as it stared into the air, into the fathomless sinks of history and memory beyond human record.

All sensible people held that such a creature was an impossibility, a dreadful rumor, a beautiful fiction.Yet here the impossible dwelt, in the very heart of a powerful city filled to its outer curtains with vigilantly invidical folk.

Without the music a great threwdish hush dwelt here; not even the baritone grumble of Brandentown's daily routine carried on the woody, bug-buzzing breath of the day's start. Kindly breezes whispered in the green above, branches barely squeaking as a gentle rain of blossoms and seedling puffs settled like clumsy snow. High to his left, water was dribbling from a circular grate a few feet up the sunken wall, its bubbling caught in a mossy runnel muttering down a marble drain by the arches where Rossamund hid. A puff of forenoon breeze dropped from the cerulean gap above, bringing on its breath the smell of the great creature-an oily, spicy, b.e.s.t.i.a.l stink touched with rich spring blossom. Something wheedling within this scent worked to put the young factotum at ease.

In a tiny looping dash, Darter Brown flew down the chute of the gutted building to alight on a walnut branch reaching toward Rossamund over the runnel.

Crouching, the young factotum smiled up furtively at his sparrow friend.

The bird, swallowing some twitching bug it had caught on the wing, twisted his pet.i.te black-hooded head to one side and then the other and voiced a brief twitter of greeting.

"So, rossamunderling," the Lapinduce declared suddenly into the hush, its back still turned, "you wish still to be an everyman?"

Nearly toppling back, Rossamund grabbed at the frame of the arch, righting himself. Feeling suddenly nude among the shadows he cast about wildly, looking to flee-but to where?

"Come out from the shadows, little ouranin," the urchin-lord persisted, relaxing his dramatic pose, "and let me greet you a'right."

Reluctantly Rossamund stepped into the mottled light of the open arch, halting cautiously on the bank of the runnel. "Uh-h . . . h.e.l.lo, sir . . . ," he stammered. "H-how . . ."

The mighty urchin pivoted upon its stool, arching about to fix him directly. Black fur bristling, head hunched low between tall collars, its great ears laid flat behind its head and out along its back, the Lapinduce barked, "How? How do I know? Know that you are there or know that you are a rossamunderling? An ouranin? A manikin? A hinderling? A pink-lips? A fake-foe?"

"Uh . . . b-both, sir," the young factotum squeaked.

In the elucidating light of day the creature's visage was clear: a dark, triangular face covered in a l.u.s.trous pelt like rich black velvet, with pale fur ringed about equally pallid eyes; shadowy stripes ran from beneath each lower lid, down and across each high cheek.

Its gaze narrowed.

Alarmed as he was, Rossamund was awed by something eccentrically and inexpressibly handsome in this imposing monster-lord, its face appearing less like a rabbit to him now, more like that of some hunting cat such as he had read about in the scant count of natural philosophy books at Madam Opera's.

The damp black rabbit's nose-oddly endearing and b.e.s.t.i.a.l beneath such a humanly astute and judicious regard-twitched, testing the air. "I know because I was there, little ouranin," the urchin murmured, voice still carrying. "I was there when the fresh land sang with threwd so sweet and new as to reach an accord with the pure ringing of the very stars themselves."

A frown darkened its brow.

"I was there when the alosudne, perfidious and haughty-those whom men now call the false-G.o.ds-rose up from the waters in their conceit to drive the gentle naeroe away as they sought to seize all three of the middling grounds as their own. I was there when my landling frair and I joined to beat the false-hearted alosudne back to the utter deeps to slumber uselessly evermore."

The Lapinduce became quieter now, speaking rapidly in its pa.s.sion. "I was there to watch men arrive-born of mud as we-to flourish and, finally, full of the pride of life, set to building tiny empires of their own, whelming and shackling each other, s.n.a.t.c.hing at things once freely given as if they were their own. I was there when they sought to wrest the living sod from us and slew their first urchin by deeds of great and corporate treachery."

Sitting tall and manlike, the beast paused, smoothed its coat hems and continued in a more even tone. "I was there when one whole third of the theriphim declared their hatred of men and compacted to ever thwart them." It stood, reaching thick-sleeved arms out and up, pressing its overlong hands against a heavy walnut bough. At the crown of its swarthy head it would have exceeded eight feet; with its ears it gained another yard of height.Yet, in the lucidity of day's glow it did not appear quite as ma.s.sive, and its coat lent the monster-lord a regal, almost human, aspect. "Long years have I ruled here till every particle about me has become my own, yet never once have I been greatly troubled by the too-brief souls about me." It took a breath. "All of this, little rossamunderling, is how I know."

Rossamund waited, and though bursting with a swarm of questions provoked by this riddling sermon, he did not speak.

The pause stretched into a weighty silence.

Rossamund blinked.

"Will you give me answer, ouranin?" insisted the monster-lord, breaking the stifling hush. It stepped toward him, a jaunting tip-of-toe stride, its legs elongated like a rabbit's. Unlike the close-cut claws of its hands, the claws on its large coney feet, clicking on the paving, were wicked long and wicked sharp.

Stoutly Rossamund opened his mouth once, twice, but even on the third no more than an astounded gurgle came out of him.

Chirruping urgently, Darter Brown danced winging loops about the Duke of Rabbits' ears.

THE LAPINDUCE.

Ears drooping slightly, the Lapinduce shot a strangely chastened look to the agitated sparrow. "Be not afraid, little wing-ed merrythought," it murmured, addressing the bird directly. "I am no cacophrin nor simple sunderhallow to set on your friend and eat him!You may tell Lord Strouthion-my word to his ear-that though I might decline to bind myself to seek everymen's welfare, yet I am not so lost that I would devour our own." Ears once more erect, the Lapinduce stared down upon Rossamund with its large limpid eyes, elbow in hand, stroking its hairy chin beneath enormous, protruding teeth in a very human manner. It gazed at him so searchingly the young factotum began to itch. "You are alive, now speak . . . What do they call you by?"

Rossamund fumbled, not knowing how to address this primeval creature. "My . . . my name is Rossamund Bookchild." He went to doff his hat diffidently and was reminded by empty, questing grasp that it was missing.

The monster-lord laughed, a coughing, oddly person-ish noise. "Of course it is! Who was it, to bestow you such an uninspired nomination?"

"I-uh-I suppose it was Madam Opera . . . ," the young factotum answered a little tightly, "though I reckon it was Cinnamon who gave it to me first."

"Cinnamon, you say?" The Lapinduce twitched its nose and flicked its ears. "Surely modest Cannelle would not be so dim?"

"Cannelle, sir?"

The creature looked at him as if he were simple. "Cannelle is the one you name as Cinnamon. He has always been curious beyond his place, wandering far and farther through the eons, outside his rightful range . . . though I reckoned him sharper-soiled than to give an ouranin such a simple name-"

Tweet! went Darter Brown touchily.

"I think it was more a label . . . ," Rossamund elaborated.

The Lapinduce cast a shrewd look at both boy and bird. "He sought perhaps to play a tease upon the everymen?"

"Play a tease?"

"Most certainly-jest with them! Put a theriphim so thoroughly disguised among them and fool them all, yet leave the morsel of a hint to unravel the ruse and reveal the jest." Another coughing laugh.

Standing still on the opposite bank of the runnel, the young factotum could not help his frown. If his arrival on the foundlingery steps was a jest, it was a very poor one.

"Will you tell me, puzzled ouranin," the Lapinduce crooned, "why you remain in their realms? Why have you not joined us and kept yourself away from needless troubles?"

"I-I have not known of what I am supposed to be until only a fortnight gone. My master got a mark of my blood upon his arm to prove it, but it is yet to show."

"Oh, now." The urchin-lord's alien eyes went a little round. "Here you need no such gruesome proofs-I have told it is so; all doubts are ended."

His soul set so fixedly on the confirmation of Fransitart's cruorpunxis, Rossamund did not know what to do with so blunt a revelation. "But can I truly have come from the mud? Am I really the remaking of some lost everyman fallen dead in the wilds?"

The Lapinduce regarded him with glittering eyes.

"Whoever told you so told it true," it said simply.