A male blackbird started a hopeful warble from a tree nearby, but there were no human noises. The ancient wood was as it had been for centuries, unspoiled by people, those who had lined the natural spring with stones long since vanished, and the way to it forgotten by all but the creatures of the Old World. There were people living within three miles of the wood, but no footpath or trail came near the dell, and even those who had walked in the forest all their lives would be astounded to hear of the existence of the well in the dell.
Susan was trying to ease her left hand up and out of the binding cord when the waters of the well began to froth and bubble. She heard it first, and had to roll on her side to see what was happening.
The waters of the spring were flowing over the rocks that lined the edges, and the surface was beaten to a froth, as if a fierce wind were blowing across the well. But there was no wind, the dell was as placid as ever, the surrounding trees quiet, leaves undisturbed. Sunshine was creeping in from the rising sun, banishing shadow. It looked like it was going to be a beautiful day, at least as far as the weather was concerned.
A hand of transparent, swirling water reached out from the well and gripped a stone, narrow fingers flexing, long nails of white froth digging deep. This was followed by another hand, there was a moment of scrabbling for a grip, and a woman of water emerged to stand at the edge of the well. She was near transparent, clear water swirling and eddying from toes to head. But her eyes were black and rusty like the spots on a brown trout, her mouth was two lines of green pondweed, and her hair looked like a wig, a mass of blue-green rushes that sat unsteadily atop all the swirling water.
Susan lay quiet, and looked from the water woman to the wolf. The latter whined pleadingly and lowered its head in submission.
“What brings the Fenris of Onundar Myrr to my well, with so strange a burden?” asked the woman, glancing at Susan. Her voice was ageless, soft and liquid, but somehow distant, as if it came from all around, not from her pondweed lips, which hardly moved at all. A minnow slid from her mouth as she spoke. She caught it on her palm, the fish splashing into her hand to swim away up the inside of her arm.
The wolf whined again.
The water woman left the well and traipsed across the turf, leaving not so much muddy footprints as a muddy swath behind her. She walked the length of the wolf, who lay with its snout down in abject misery, and ran one watery hand through the fur along its flank. She came to where the sword projected above the crusted trail of blood, and stopped.
“Sa! Sa! This is star-iron and not to be touched by such as you or I, Fenris. The sword must be withdrawn . . . yet I cannot do it.”
The water woman looked back at Susan as she spoke. Though her face was transparent liquid, and only her eyes and lips had color, Susan thought she saw an expression there. A hint of a lifted eyebrow, though the woman had no eyebrows.
“I’ll take it out,” said Susan. “If you free me.”
The wolf growled, but subsided as the woman touched one watery finger to its enormous snout.
“The Fenris will want to take you up again,” warned the woman.
“I will have the sword, then,” said Susan, though privately she thought this wouldn’t count for much against a monster who must weigh twenty tons. “And it is wounded and weak.”
The wolf growled again, and showed its teeth.
“She,” corrected the woman. “This Fenris is a she-wolf. If the sword is left in the wound, she will . . . in your terms . . . die.”
“I said I’ll take it out. If you untie me.”
“For a mortal you are remarkably unperturbed by my presence,” said the woman. “Or that of the Fenris. Most mortals I have met are greatly frightened, and run screaming, or collapse and gibber.”
“I’m . . . I’m only half mortal,” said Susan. It felt very strange to say that, but she instinctively felt she should not show weakness. A slight tinge of memory made her add, “Besides, I’ve met someone like you before, I think. From the brook at home . . . funny, I always forget, and then I remember, and then I think it was a dream. . . .”
“Half mortal?” asked the woman. “You appear entirely mortal to me. . . .”
She drifted closer, never moving in a straight line, and knelt by Susan’s side. Reaching out with one careful fingertip, she touched Susan’s forehead, leaving a faint wet patch on her skin. “Ah. Some little magic of your own, over animals and suchlike. But the promise of far more to come, perhaps, from your mighty father. But not yet, not yet, Susan.”
“You know my name! And my father? Who is he?”
“A being older and far greater than I,” said the woman, not answering Susan’s question. She looked back at the Fenris. “I know your name as I know the names of all living things about my well. Come, the she-wolf is aware I must offer aid to those who seek it at my spring, and you have the means to help me give it.”
She leaned down again, and Susan shrieked as an eel suddenly erupted out of the woman’s hand, its sharp teeth flashing as it bit through the cord around Susan’s wrists and then her ankles, before twisting back inside the woman again, to vanish into the apparently empty crystal waters of her body.
“Ugh,” said Susan, with a shudder. She tried to get up, but her legs were cramped and so stiff she had to crouch on all fours, sobbing with the pain.
The woman reached for her again, and Susan flinched. But no eels emerged from her hands, which she ran lightly over Susan, not quite touching. A faint mist fell from her fingers to speckle on boiler suit and skin. With the mist, Susan felt a cool touch, not cold like ice, more like a mother’s hand on a fevered brow. Her legs unknotted, her back stopped aching, her hands moved without pain.
Susan stood up, and instinctively bowed.
“Thank you, um,” she said. “What . . . who . . . what should I call you?”
“Long ago mortals called my waters Morcenna’s Well,” said the woman, bowing back. “Morcenna is as good a name as any. Will you remove the sword now? The star-iron is in the she-wolf’s blood; every passing moment poisons her more.”
“Yes,” said Susan. She walked to stand in front of the wolf, quailing inside at the immensity of the monster, and particularly those jaws, those teeth. She hadn’t seen the she-wolf clearly before, in the dark of the Milner Square back garden.
She addressed the wolf directly, speaking loud and clear.
“If I take out the sword, will you let me be?”
The wolf slowly shook her head. Her eyes were growing dull, and there was a yellow cast about her gums, and froth upon her tongue.
“She must obey the one who bound her to their will,” said Morcenna behind her. “Will you take the sword or not?”
Susan nodded, not trusting herself to speak. She swallowed, and walked along the side of the wolf, trying to think. The sword was deeply embedded. It would be hard to pull out. But if she immediately ran for the tree line . . . she looked over at the thickest area, where the oaks gathered close. If she could get in there, the wolf might find it hard to winkle her out, she could hack at its nose . . . though it seemed to have no problem passing through dense woodland—
“Every moment the sword poisons her,” said Morcenna.
Susan took a deep breath, grabbed the sword with both hands, and pulled as hard as she could. But there was no resistance at all; the sword came out as if it had been in a well-oiled scabbard. Susan careered backwards, tripped over one of the encircling stones, dropped the sword, and fell into the well, plunging completely underwater before her panicked strokes brought her back up again.