Songs from the Seashell by Elizabeth Ann Scarborough

Author:Elizabeth Ann Scarborough
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Fantasy - General, Fantasy, Fantastic fiction, Fiction, Science Fiction, Fiction - Fantasy, General, Non-Classifiable
ISBN: 9780553270099
Publisher: Spectra
Published: 1988-02-01T05:00:00+00:00

had been cheerfully sprinkled with dogwood and saxifrage near the wizard's castle, began more and more to sprout mugwort, Jousewort, fly-specked orchia, skunk cabbage, wax flowers and the deceptively demure pink bell-like blossoms of poisonous bog

: rosemary.

But what made them the most uneasy was the abrupt change in

',the character of the streams and rivers. Unlike the crystalline waters of the North, these flowed sluggish, clouded and murky.

Moonshine was appalled. "How long can it have been since a unicorn has serviced this area?" he asked Lyrrill.

" The lynx waved her paw unconcernedly. "This is not the plight of which the strange wolf spoke, O Singlehorn," she told *im. "The water has always been thus, for it is the tears which

wash the face of the great frozen giant who weeps among yonder mountains."

"She means the glaciers." Colin explained when Moonshine questioned the information. "Apparently the lynx only knows the old legend about them. As we now know in this enlightened age, the glaciers aren't really suicidal frost giants at all. The best scholars agree that the real frost giants simply shrank in might and stature like the rest of our ancestors. Now the only remnants of them are more or less man-sized, like the King. What the glaciers are, actually, are the shields left behind by the frost giants. As the sun melts the ice on their surfaces, they shift positions and gouge great chunks out of the earth beneath them. I suppose that's what really makes the water dirty."

"Heartened as I am to hear a reasonable explanation," Moonshine said, "I must purify this water at once, or it will spoil my maiden's tea. Excuse me." With that he dipped his hom, sending ripples of clarity across the murk.

No simple natural or legendary phenomena could explain the stench pervading the forest by the end of the fifth day, however. All that afternoon they found dead animals; a bear carcass first, then hares, squirrels, foxes. All had lolling tongues, and lips rolled back over their teeth, paws outstretched and stiff and fur damp from the steady drizzle. Some were bloated already but none were even partially eaten. Those who hadn't had the strength to drag themselves away from their own excrement lay in it.

Lyrrill returned from her patrol. She seemed to droop from the tufts of her ears to the black tip of her bobbed tail. "Death everywhere," she reported to Moonshine, her voice audible to Maggie's and Colin's ears as a low, eerie moan. "I found one like myself, but not mine. She is ceased."

"Did you see no living thing?" Maggie asked, looking up from the tea she was boiling in a new-formed earthen kettle over her magic fire.

"None," the lynx replied.

Colin regarded the tea-kettle dubiously. "I hate to drink that stuff, even after Moonshine has magicked it."

"You do me a disservice, minstrel," Moonshine replied huffily. "How can you doubt me when my powers alone have preserved our company from the fate of these other creatures?" But the unicorn broke off soon, unable to concentrate even on defending his besmirched honor.

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