An Excess Of Enchantments by Craig Shaw Gardner

Author:Craig Shaw Gardner [Gardner, Craig Shaw]
Format: epub
Published: 2010-05-01T18:33:35+00:00

ELEVEN

S is for the sole that goes on forward,

H is for the heel that rearwards be,

O is for the oxen-leather stitching,

E is for the eyelets, don’t you see?

Put them all together, they spell SHOE-oo,

And that means an awful lot to me!

The Brownie Creed, Stanza 603

I knew I was in trouble the moment I opened my eyes. Without thinking, I had wished myself away from all the others, and apparently, completely out of Mother Duck’s control. But where had I wished myself to?

I still was in a forest, perhaps in another part of the Eastern Woods. But it was different here, far darker than the clearing where we had met the giant. The trees were much taller and broader, towering far overhead, their great shadows keeping the sunlight from the forest floor. Their bark was dark gray as well, almost the gray of the shadows, and for a moment I imagined I had wished myself to a place that held no color, but only shades of shadow.

I tilted my head back as far as I could, trying to see the tops of those monstrous trees. There, high overhead, I could see some small patches of blue. But the color gave me no comfort because of what else I saw above me.

Here it was, the end of summer, and none of the trees had leaves. Their branches were barren, shaking in the wind high overhead, rattling against one another like skeleton bones. All the trees were dead.

That same breeze whipped against me with an unexpected suddenness, blowing Alea’s borrowed blond hair from my head. I let it go. The giant had seen through my disguise in an instant. I pulled the sackcloth skirt up about my shoulders, hoping the extra fabric would provide me with some protection against the sudden chill.

I did not like this; it was all too familiar. I had been in a forest like this before.

I thought I heard a dry chuckle carried by the wind.

I turned and saw a robed figure regarding me from between the trees. Even before I could see his face through the shadows, I knew what to expect; the darkened sockets, the skull-like grin, the hands that looked like whitened bones.

“Greetings,” the sepulchral voice of Death announced as the spectre approached. “It has been quite some time, Eternal Apprentice, since we have had a chance to speak alone.”

I stood my ground as Death drew nearer, floating toward me as if he was carried forward by the howling wind rather than anything as simply mortal as legs and feet. Death seemed to think there was something special about me. That was why he called me the “Eternal Apprentice,” a soul that managed to elude Death’s grasp by constantly being reborn in new forms, a soul destined to always aid, however clumsily, true heroes, with the assistance of multiple companions.

I had no idea if there was any truth in Death’s claim. But it didn’t seem to matter what I thought about it. Death had decided that

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