The Seventh Sentinel

by Mary Kirchoff

  Before Rusinias could utter another word, Lyim thrust his fork into the creamy pastry atop Aniirin’s plate. As he did so, more of the finely powdered poison scattered down from his sleeve onto the remaining pastries. Tearing off a portion of the confection, Lyim raised the fork to his lips. In this supreme moment, his will was everything. He had studied these men since arriving in Qindaras and knew how they would react under strain. He was stronger than all of them. Glaring wildly at Rusinias, Lyim tipped the fork toward his open mouth.

  “Enough!” cried Aniirin. Lyim turned to face the ruler of Qindaras. “Amir Lyim, you will give your fork to Amir Rusinias. He will taste my food first.” All eyes followed Lyim as he strode obediently across the room to stand before Rusinias.

  Rusinias winced and cupped his jaw with his left hand. But he rose and took the fork from Lyim. “I will taste it. I am not afraid.” His eyes burned directly into Lyim’s as he raised the fork to his lips.

  No sound disturbed the harsh contest of nerve that raged between the two men. Lyim could see himself as a pillar of heated iron, wilting the fleshy thing before him. The morsel was nearly on Rusinias’s tongue when Lyim saw the flash of understanding in the cornered man’s eyes.

  Rusinias hesitated. His face whitened, and a slight tremble in his hand betrayed his fear.

  In that moment Aniirin was on his feet. A wave of his arm sent two guards scurrying to flank the elder amir. “You will eat it, Rusinias,” cried the potentate, “by your own hand or be fed by a guard.”

  Rusinias, drained of color, stood frozen. “Yes, Sire.” When a guard reached for the fork, Rusinias closed his eyes and thrust the pastry into his mouth. He inhaled sharply from the ache of his tooth, then chewed. After swallowing, he stood, swaying slightly, eyes still tightly closed.

  The silence in the room was finally broken by the silver fork clattering to the floor as Rusinias doubled over, clutching his stomach. Then he collapsed. He lay kicking on the wood floor, unintelligible sounds gurgling up through his constricted throat.

  “Get him out!” bellowed Aniirin. He scowled down at the man who had been the unstated heir to his throne. The guards grabbed Rusinias, still convulsing and moaning horribly, and dragged him roughly from the chamber.

  Lyim hung back while the other amirs bustled out of the room in Rusinias’s wake. Mavrus ordered the disposal of the taster’s body and the sweets, much to Aniirin’s dismay. Crestfallen, the potentate trailed behind the departing carts, whimpering about the spoiled soiree and untasted crullers.

  Mavrus paused in the curtained archway and regarded Lyim with an appraising, slightly disapproving glance. “Aniirin is bereft now, but rest assured the proper punishment and credit will be doled out for this unfortunate episode.” The manservant departed before Lyim could respond with the proper amount of humility.

  Left alone in the frilly chamber, Lyim smiled.

  The soul of simplicity.

  “I feel like a racehorse,” Guerrand gasped, “and I’m beginning to sweat like one, too. Do you think we might slow down just a bit, Bram? I agreed to accompany you to Weador’s court for moral support, but I don’t recall agreeing to run a marathon.”

  Guerrand still held the elaborate faerie coin in his palm, all sweaty and warm. He and his nephew had been traveling at what he would call a run ever since they’d entered the realm of the tuatha dundarael.

  Bram stumbled to a stop on the roughly paved road. “I’m sorry, Rand. I’m so preoccupied, I didn’t notice how much I was pressing us.” He glanced up at the odd trees above them. “I guess I’m not anxious to be on this faerie road any longer than necessary. It’s not as benign as it might seem.”

  Nothing involving the tuatha dundarael was, including the system King Weador had established for contact between the mortal realm and his own. Bram had resisted the urge to call on the tuatha directly, for fear of drawing attention to their presence in Thonvil. If locals noticed a preponderance of lights in the night sky, they usually attributed them to fireflies. But Bram and Guerrand knew the truth; the lights were really fast-moving faeries at work.

  Recalling King Weador’s directions for seeking an audience, Bram and Guerrand had watched the gardens and fields around Thonvil for an excess of twinkling lights. When the two found a well-protected garden with the greatest amount of lights, they set out a plate of cookies, irresistible to most tuatha. To it they attached a note from Bram, addressed to King Weador and translated into the script of magic by Guerrand, in case some villager stumbled upon it.

  The next morning, Bram awoke to find Thistledown, the first tuatha he’d met years ago on Stonecliff, sitting at the foot of his bed. Thistledown’s bright blue eyes twinkled from beneath his bright blue cap. The tuatha handed Bram a small pouch containing two faerie coins and told him to speak aloud the destination he desired. The faerie road would then open for him. After reminding Bram of the dangers of leaving the path or relinquishing his coin, Thistledown informed him that they would be guided to Weador’s court by the first centaur they met.

  Two days later, after completing preparations to be gone from Castle DiThon for an indefinite period, Bram and Guerrand uttered the words “King Weador’s Court” and entered the faerie realm.

  Guerrand had seen many wondrous sights in his thirty-odd years, from foggy mirror worlds to the golden gates of the diamond-spired Lost Citadel. Yet he still had the capacity to marvel. A whole magical faerie kingdom, with all the detail of his own world, existed alongside the mortal realm, but invisible to it.

  The road beneath their feet was crafted of interlocking blocks of worn stone. Above the road the green canopy was thick and close, making the path resemble a dark tunnel. The trees were most unusual, smooth-skinned as an elf’s cheek, with broad, flat leaves variegated with whorls of white or entirely black-green. The underbrush was thick with thorny bushes and weeds. Slivers of bright blue limned the uppermost leaves, suggesting that somewhere above stretched a sky.

  Strangely, it was a cheerful place for all its shadows. It seemed neither magical nor foreboding, just oddly silent. Guerrand could hear his heartbeat banging in his ears even after they had stopped walking. There was neither birdsong nor the sound of creatures shaking the underbrush as in most dense forests.

  Guerrand watched the trees constantly. “I never presume that anything magical is benign,” he said. “But I suspect we’ll come to no harm if we abide by the rules and never step from the path or turn over our coin to anyone but Weador.

  “I don’t think our surroundings are what’s bothering you, Bram,” the mage continued. “You’ve been preoccupied and edgy since you decided to ask Weador about your heritage.”

  Bram snorted. “Wouldn’t you be? To be honest, I’ve scarcely slept or thought of much else since the morning of the ceremony.”

  Guerrand eyed his nephew with concern. “I thought as much. A bad week in which to organize the smooth running of the estate in your absence.”

  “It wasn’t that difficult,” said Bram. “Kirah has managed the accounts for nearly two years. Rillard knows more about farming than anyone in the county, and Toal is the ablest lieutenant anyone could have. And even if I didn’t trust them completely, Maladorigar is capable of helping however Kirah needs him to.”

  “As long as the gnome remembers to take the herbs to slow his speech so no one wants to throttle him,” chuckled Guerrand.

  “In an odd way,” mused Bram, “now that Thonvil has been restored, I function as something of a figurehead anyway.”

  “That’s just your dark mood speaking,” Guerrand said, “and another indication that you should have had more rest before embarking on this trip. You’ll need all your wits about you when you meet with Weador—”

  “I’ll be fine,” Bram said more harshly than he had intended. “Besides, Weador is going to tell me Rejik and Zena were mistaken. I’ll learn that I’m no tuatha, and we’ll be back at Castle DiThon before midday meal.”

  “Is that what you want?”

&nbs
p; “Wouldn’t you, if you were me?”

  Rand paused only briefly before answering. “In the short term, yes,” he agreed. “It’s the safe, fast answer that allows your life to remain unchanged. But if there’s truth in what Wilor told me, your life has a whole new set of possibilities.”

  Bram shook his head vigorously. “I can’t think that far ahead yet. I’ll deal with it when—if—it comes. Until then, I need to cling to what I know.”

  Guerrand nodded in sympathy. “I’ve had years to consider something that affects your life much more profoundly than it does mine.”

  They walked in silence for a time, each lost in his thoughts. The wizard peered down the road. “How far did you say you traveled before you encountered the centaur last time you were here?”

  Bram frowned, looking both ahead and behind them. “It’s hard to say. Time is so distorted here, and we’ve not seen any of the creatures I met before.” He scratched at his chin thoughtfully. “I don’t even know if it will be the same centaur. I hope not, though. He was the most contrary cuss I’ve ever encountered, and not the brightest either.”

  The road cut through a copse of draping, willowlike trees. Though there was no breeze, the leaves shifted and wavered above them. Hearing a strange sound in the previously quiet woods, Guerrand stopped to listen. Whispering … He could swear someone was whispering. “Who’s here?” Guerrand spun around, but there was no one else in sight.

  “Can’t you hear that?” he asked Bram.

  Bram held a finger to his lips and pointed toward the copse of odd trees. The leaves were long, pink-tinged, and slightly humped in the middle. Though they vaguely resembled willow leaves, they were much more similar to delicate pairs of lips.

  “Leave the path,” whispered the lips in an eerily apt pun. Guerrand could feel the message working at his mind; he shook his head, banishing the urge.

  “The whispering threw me, too, when I first came through.”

  Guerrand shivered. “Let’s get out of here.” The two hastened down the road, and the whispering gradually receded.

  “Unless I miss my guess,” muttered Bram, “the birds are next.”

  “Birds?” repeated Rand, but the word was hardly out of his mouth when both men spotted a flock of flamingo-sized birds perched on a single, severely bowed branch to the right of the path. With bodies of pink feathers and heads of orange fur, they watched, five sets of yellow eyes glowing, as Bram and Guerrand passed.

  They had walked only a short distance farther, to a fork in the road, when they heard a nasal voice above them: “Just where do you think you’re going?”

  Both men looked up. Reclining on a ledge cut into a towering boulder was the long-awaited centaur. His human face was propped up with a human-looking hand. His four legs were tucked under his body like those of a slumbering horse.

  “I was beginning to think you’d been eaten by something,” said the centaur churlishly. “You must either be very slow or very lazy to have taken so long getting here.” He stood and stretched his limbs. “Weador must be loosening his standards, if he’s giving coins to such riffraff as you.”

  Bram closed his eyes and muttered under his breath to Guerrand, “It is the same centaur.”

  With the aid of an elaborate staff, the sleek horseman slowly picked his way down the boulder. “I don’t think I feel like guiding such stupid humans anywhere today,” he announced. His hooves clattered like a mountain goat’s against the stone. A shiny sword caught the light; he had it strapped between his shoulder blades.

  “So don’t,” suggested Bram. “Just point us in the right direction. I’m sure we can find our way to Weador’s court.”

  The centaur made it to the ground. “I doubt it.” With a slow, evaluating gaze, he eyeballed Bram from the human’s feet to his dark head. “Don’t I know you?”

  Bram bit his lip. “We might have met once before, yes.”

  The centaur looked smug. “You remember me, do you? Well, now that I’ve had a closer look, I realize I don’t recall you at all. In fact, I’ve seen flies crawling on my flanks that have been more memorable.”

  “Yes, I suppose you have,” said Bram. “Now, if you’ll just tell us what you’ve been instructed to, we’ll be on our way. Then you needn’t give us another thought.”

  “Don’t worry, I shan’t,” sniffed the centaur. “Very well. To reach King Weador’s court, you must take the fork to the right.”

  Guerrand started to move in that direction, but the centaur’s arm shot out and held him back. “Not so fast. You can’t go that way.”

  “You just said that’s the way to King Weador’s court,” Guerrand protested.

  “Nevertheless, you may only go left,” the centaur said.

  Guerrand’s eyes narrowed. “I thought that centaurs were polite.”

  “That’s what you get for thinking.”

  “Yes, well, thank you very much for the directions,” Bram called to the centaur in an overly friendly voice. “We’ll be on our way now.”

  Bram leaned into his uncle. “Just do what I do,” he suggested quietly. “It worked the last time.”

  He quickly led them several steps down the fork to their left, paused, turned around, and walked back to the intersection. Straight ahead was the path they had already traveled. To their left lay the path to King Weador’s court. Rand was clearly puzzled by such machinations, but Bram physically pulled his uncle around the cantankerous centaur and down the road that led to King Weador’s court.

  “Hold, foolish humans!” Both men froze. The call was followed by the familiar clatter of hooves on the path behind them.

  “Thistledown gave no warning about using magic here, did he?” Guerrand whispered, instinctively preparing a spell to hold the centaur back.

  “No,” Bram said, “but wait a moment.”

  The young lord turned and gave a wide-eyed smile to the approaching centaur. “Yes? Did we forget something?”

  “Yes,” snapped the centaur. “Me. You’ll get lost without me, so I’ve decided to lead you to the court.”

  “That’s really not necessary,” protested Guerrand.

  “No need to thank me.” The centaur scowled. “You may still get eaten before we get there.”

  “Shouldn’t you be guarding the fork?” suggested Bram.

  “I am,” said the centaur simply. He trotted around Guerrand to lead them forward.

  Behind the centaur’s back, Guerrand raised his brows in question. Bram considered whether they should risk a spell on the creature. Deciding it was unwise, he shook his head and followed the cantankerous centaur.

  The landscape changed dramatically not far from the fork. The flat, meandering trail that had been surrounded closely by trees began to wind through the most beautiful and diverse scenery either man could imagine. To either side rose twin, towering waterfalls. Just past the falls, the path was suspended on a great cliff above a vast blue sea. The road hooked away from the cliff and cleaved a path through more woodland, which in turn gave way to great dunes of sand, then a steep river banked by towering, pungent pines.

  “Is the road to the court always the same?” Bram asked the centaur.

  “It always leads you to the same place—how much more the same could it be?”

  With a flourish, the centaur stepped aside and swept his arms forward. Only then did Bram notice that they stood before a leafy arch formed by two tremendous oak trees. Between the oaks, the graceful leaves of a willow closed off the arch like a curtain.

  Bram and his uncle parted the willow leaves and stepped through. Bram’s breath caught in his throat at the sight beyond the arch. At least several hundred tuatha of all ages stood in the area, wearing a colorful assortment of jaunty wool caps and matching tunics. The nearest tuatha regarded the two humans curiously through brilliant blue eyes. But the faerie folk weren’t alarmed, as if human visitors were nothing unusual.

  Even though the tuatha lived outside, Bram found himself thinking of his surroundings as
a chamber, so perfect was the natural architecture. Beneath his feet the stony road had turned to a lush carpet of moss and soft grasses. Overhead, the canopy of leaves formed a vibrant, glowing vault that reminded Bram of a green and living stained glass window. Its aspect changed constantly like a kaleidoscope when a gentle breeze stirred the leaves. Rich sunlight filtered down through the leaves in thousands of tiny shafts. The bower was bright with multicolored flowers and full of life.

  The faeries weren’t the only creatures living in the chamber. Myriad forest animals mingled with the tuatha like pets: squirrels, chipmunks, rabbits, and hedgehogs hopped and ambled and climbed on or among them. Birds of every variety flapped through the air or alighted on the faeries’ caps and shoulders. Bram marveled at a group of tuatha children playing tag on a reclining bear. Occasionally the animal would swat playfully at them or roll over and tumble them all to the ground in a laughing sprawl.

  Bram’s ear was drawn to the sound of piping. Turning his head to follow the music, he spotted a swarthy, dark-haired man leaning against a tree and playing a set of flutelike pipes. The melody was quick, yet somehow sad and beguiling. The musician was not a man at all, but another faerie creature. Tiny horns poked through his black hair. From the waist down, he had the hindquarters of a goat.

  Bram suddenly noticed a young woman standing near the piper. He was surprised, in fact, that he hadn’t noticed her before. She was without a doubt the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. Her features were so perfect as to be indescribable. She was neither human nor tuatha, nor did she look entirely elvish.

  Bram stood entranced, staring at her flowing blond hair and her flawless figure, hardly concealed beneath the thinnest of gossamer veils. When she glanced up at the young lord, he thought his heart would burst.

  Guerrand’s hand squeezed his shoulder in a warning. Suddenly Bram felt acutely embarrassed to be caught gaping at this nearly naked woman. He had to struggle to pull his eyes away from her smile. When he did, he felt as if an enormous weight had been removed from his chest. Bram inhaled deeply several times, just to clear his head.