This Scepter'd Isle

by Mercedes Lackey

  "How did you lose control of her?" Pasgen was amazed.

  Rhoslyn shrugged. "She was the construction to whom I had given the most free will. She was my personal servant and managed the others."

  "I've told you and told you that giving them free will is dangerous."

  "Yes."

  The single word was flat, but behind it Pasgen sensed a well of loneliness. He almost put out a hand to take his sister's, but he knew that despite their being twins he could not fill her need. Rhoslyn needed other women as friends, as confidants, and had none. The Unseleighe Sidhe could not be trusted. Rhoslyn had found that out the hard way. So she had tried to create a friend as well as a servant, and that had failed.

  "Mother is much better," he said, offering oblique comfort.

  "I'm glad," she replied, "but she's not safe. As soon as he lays hands on her, she tells him everything. She can't help it. Now take these things and go."

  She gestured vaguely in a direction from which Pasgen could feel the power of a Gate. It was not the Gate by which he had entered this Unformed domain, but it was much closer than the one he had used.

  Pasgen opened his mouth and closed it. As far as he knew there was nothing he or Rhoslyn were doing that should be concealed from Vidal Dhu. Their master had demanded that they remove Henry FitzRoy as a threat to Princess Mary's eventual elevation to the throne, and that was precisely what they were doing. But if Rhoslyn was in addition doing something she did not want Llanelli to divulge to Vidal Dhu . . . he didn't want to know about it.

  So he swallowed his questions and doubts, shrugged, and looked hard at the drooling idiot. At his gesture, it rose to its feet, stumbled to the corpse, and lifted it. Pasgen mounted Torgan. The idiot staggered along in the not-horse's wake. Fortunately the Gate was not far. Pasgen drew the shambling thing beside him so he could touch it and bring it through the Gate with him.

  They came out in Gateways!

  Pasgen drove his wavering charge off to the left to leave the Gate clear, and sat for a moment looking around. He had been here before, but never on purpose, and it shocked him that Rhoslyn would direct him here. He felt a chill that had nothing to do with the strangeness and danger of the place. If Rhoslyn was using Gateways to reach the area in which she was creating, she was desperate to hide her trail. But why?

  Pasgen heard a thud and turned quickly to find the cause, his sword half drawn. Very few, if any, lived in Gateways for the place was strange and beyond Sidhe magic. Gateways was awash with enormous but resistant power, true wild magic. Spells cast here or built here had far greater power than spells worked anywhere else, but all too often, in fact most of the time, the outcome of the spell had nothing to do with what the mage had intended.

  Nor could the power of the domain be used in any ordinary way. Many mages had tried to mold and hold the place, but anything formed in Gateways, no matter how careful or how powerful the original working, slowly transformed . . . and no one could predict into what. Sometimes a palace would slide into formlessness and disappear; doorways and windows could come alive and snap open or shut, trapping, maiming, or killing anyone unwise enough to enter a building formed in Gateways. Plants could become mobile, animals root to the ground, and the nature of each and of any being who remained was as unpredictable as its form.

  Despite the dangers some, stubborn and foolishly unwilling to give up trying to control so much power, had remained too long. Often what Gateways had made of them was inimical. However the sound that had startled Pasgen was only caused by the idiot, who had dropped his burden and tumbled down atop the corpse when Pasgen's absorption in his thoughts had relaxed his will.

  Now Pasgen uttered a small sigh of relief. He had suddenly perceived a more logical reason for Rhoslyn to send him to Gateways than a need to conceal her location. She had thought, he supposed, that he could leave what was left of the mortals here. Pasgen considered the idea briefly. It was not such a foolish idea, because it would rid him of the mortals without leaving any trace. It was unlikely that they would be able to pass through any of the many, many Gates and they would soon either die or be altered beyond recognition.

  Perhaps he should leave them here. It would be much simpler than the notion that had come to him when Rhoslyn said to get rid of them. He could just turn Torgan around and go back through the gate. Not that there was any danger of being trapped in Gatways for a Sidhe or any other creature able to pass through a Gate. The domain had been given its name because for eons nearly all those who came hoping somehow to force the domain into submission had built a Gate to get there. And the Gates had remained . . . in a way. Each Gate was there and rooted firmly, immovably, in Gateways. The destination they sent one to was another matter entirely.

  One time a Gate might take you out into your chosen destination, another time it might drop you into Wormegay Hold, or Elfhame Avalon—right in the midst of King Oberon's elite Magus Major guards—or the Bazaar of the Bizarre . . . or some nameless domain that seemed unconnected to any other place Underhill. The power tones of the Gates, so many, were a cacophony in his head.

  Having sat for a little while staring at the inert forms of the mortals, Pasgen shrugged. Leaving them seemed like the waste of a fine opportunity. He still wanted to drop what remained of the guardsmen on Martin Perez's doorstep. He doubted that he would need to expend another spell to make the man obedient after that.

  By the time Pasgen had accomplished that purpose, he had regretted his decision many times. If the first part had not been so easy, he would have reconsidered and left them in some Unformed domain. But—ah hubris!—it was easy. He had roused the mortal reduced to idiocy and forced him to carry his dead companion to the closest Gate. Since there was no way to tell where any Gate would deliver one, the closest was as good as any other. In the Gate Pasgen fixed his mind on the London exit—and to his intense surprise that was where he arrived in the late afternoon.

  Both mortals dropped to the ground again as the force of Pasgen's will was diminished by the weakness of the power in the mortal world. Torgan squealed in dismay as its strength also ebbed. The sound was horrible, more like the death cry of an enormous rat than any sound a horse could make. Pasgen silenced the creature, dismounted, and led it just past the Gate, which was concealed in a seeming tangle of brush in a wooded area north of Westminster Abbey. He then rolled the human bodies into the brush too.

  Not far from the Gate was an overgrown lane and Pasgen walked down that to Tothill Road where there was a livery stable. While he walked he changed his clothing to decent but ordinary merchant's garb, complete with hat and belt and purse with silver and gold coins. He had to lean on a tree to rest when he was done because of the drain on his strength, and he ground his teeth with rage until he feared he would damage them and consciously relaxed his jaw. He hated the mortal world, purely hated it.

  He had recovered most of his physical strength by the time he reached the livery stable, but he hoped most sincerely that he would not need to do any more magic. Like getting to London, the first step—renting a horse and carriage—was easy; driving the carriage up the miserable lane was not, and binding the will of the stupid horse to do it drained him again, but not so severely.

  When he felt able, he carried the two bodies—one was still breathing, but barely—to the carriage. Turning the thing was a trial and a torture, but it was done at last. Driving down the lane was easier, and then he was out on the road. From there he had no trouble until he came to the lane on which Perez's house stood. There to his horror he found that the large manor on the corner was all lit up and the lane was clotted with carriages.

  In time he was able to make his way past the arrivals at some celebration, time not completely wasted because he came to realize that he could not simply roll the bodies out of the carriage and leave them. People were getting out of their carriages well within sight of the front door of the modest brick house, and even if the high-born guests did not bother to look at Perez's house, the eye of any coac
hman who was idly sitting and holding his horses steady might well be caught by what he was doing. Even if no one marked him moving the bodies, which was unlikely, leaving them lying across the front door could not escape notice for long as the coachmen drove down the street to find a place to turn and then lined up along it to wait for their masters.

  Pasgen sought desperately through the ambience of the mortal world for power that he could tap. Nothing! Well, not totally nothing. He could feel a kind of thin soup eddying about that would take more time and effort to gather than it would lend strength in use. Denied a more elaborate and elegant solution, Pasgen then did the simplest thing he could; he spread the illusion of large sacks over the two bodies.

  When he had recovered from that drain he carried both men to Perez's doorstep and left them there. The illusion would last for some hours, but by dawn it would be gone. Then it would be a matter of luck whether Perez's servant opened the door and found the bodies or whether the Watch or anyone else that passed saw them and enquired why two dead men were lying on the magician's doorstep.

  It was Pasgen's misfortune that the latter was the case, and long before dawn. The Watch had been more assiduous in its attention to the lane in which Perez's house was because of the gathering of nobles at the Spanish embassy. They had swept through several times, driving away any who were not servants of those who attended the affair so that the high-born guests would not be troubled by beggars or, far worse, assaulted by thieves or cut-purses.

  Not long after midnight, when the hardest drinking guests—thus those most prone to attack—were still staggering out of the building and waiting for their carriages, one of the watchmen saw two men in dark garb seeming to crouch in Perez's doorway. He called to the fellows in his troop to assist him in the apprehension of those he assumed to be planning evil—or why would they be hiding in an adjoining doorway?—and ran forward holding up his torch and brandishing his cudgel.

  He was followed immediately—not, as he expected, by his fellow Watchmen but by several giggling and inebriated young men, who had been guests at the grand affair in the Embassy. The Watchman had reached his prey before he realized it was not his fellow Watchmen who were on his heels, and he turned and cried out, "Lud ha' mercy. They're dead!" before he realized to whom he was speaking.

  "And they're wearing m'lord the ambassador's livery!" the foremost young man said, steadying himself on his companion's shoulder. He giggled and shook his head. "Delivered to the wrong place. They belong next door."

  "They're not both dead," the other man said. "See, George, one's wriggling."

  "George, Francis, come away," urged a very tall, very blond gentleman, who had followed the others more slowly and seemed more sober than his companions. "We don't want to make more trouble for the Watch than they already have."

  "No, look Denno," George Boleyn said, somewhat sobered by shock. "I swear they're embassy guardsmen, and one is dead. What's going on here?"

  Denoriel felt a sudden wash of dread pass over him as he looked over George Boleyn's shoulder and saw faces he knew too well despite features relaxed in death and idiocy.

  "Those are the men I fought in Windsor's garden two days ago," he breathed.

  "Fought? Didn't know you'd been dueling, Denno," said Francis Bryan, who had keener ears than Denoriel expected. "How come you didn't ask me to second you?"

  There was a touch of reproval in his voice. Francis Bryan fancied himself an expert swordsman and a master of all the proper forms in dueling. In the interests of being accepted by the group, Denoriel had not disabused him of the notion about his swordsmanship.

  "Dueling? Can't have been dueling," George Boleyn protested. "One doesn't duel with guardsmen. Denno's a bit ignorant about the proper thing sometimes, but he's got better style than that!"

  "Yes, of course I have," Denoriel said, repressing his panic and gently pushing George and Francis to the side so the rest of the Watchmen could get past them.

  In the light of the Watch's torches, the area was bright as day to Denoriel. He could see there was no new blood or bruise on the dead man, only the wound his sword had made in the hand; the eyes of the other . . . Denoriel swallowed. The thin power of the mortal world also made more conspicuous the residue of the spells that had drained out one man's life and left the other mindless.

  The men he had fought in Windsor garden had died by magic, and it could not be Perez's magic—although Denoriel had discovered that he had provided the sleep-spell amulets—or the bodies would not have been left on his doorstep. That meant the assassins had been dealt with by the Unseleighe Court. And that meant that Vidal Dhu was taking an interest in Harry FitzRoy. But why kill Harry's attackers? Not to punish them. Vidal Dhu had no reason to want to protect FitzRoy, who could be considered a rival to Princess Mary. Why those men? And why had their minds been so ruthlessly, so minutely, torn apart?

  Denoriel knew the only answer to that which made sense. Because both of them had seen Harry and one of them had even touched the boy. Between them they could describe Harry clearly enough for the making of a changeling!

  As the answer came to him, Denoriel's hands closed on George Boleyn's shoulder and Francis Bryan's arm. Both men cried out, and Denoriel released them with an apology. They both stared at him, sobered by the pain and surprise.

  "God's Blood, you're strong," Francis Bryan said, rubbing his arm.

  George Boleyn blinked, looked back over his shoulder at the Watchmen clustered around the dead man and his witless companion, and turned again to stare at Denoriel. "But I did hear you say you'd fought those two," he said. "Did you do that to them?"

  "No!"

  Denoriel's voice was choked and his muscles quivered with the need to grab both men, carry them to Bryan's carriage, and bid the coachman gallop all the way to his house so that he could get back to Windsor through the Gates. Instead, he stood still and made his lips form a slight smile. He could not leave without the pair because he had come in Francis Bryan's carriage. Nor did he think he would be able to reach Miralys, who was Underhill, and would not want to wander amidst so much cold iron in the city, and to set off on foot would take too long. He told himself that whoever was building the simulacrum could not complete it so quickly. But he still burned to get to Windsor to make sure Harry was still there, not some changeling in his place.

  Then he wavered on his feet, clutching at Boleyn and Bryan for support. Oh, Dannae! If Norfolk put that cold iron cross into a hurried and ill-made changeling's hands, it might dissolve into dust and mist.

  Horrible as the thought was, it was also an instant comfort. If Harry had suffered no damage from receiving the cold iron cross—even if the simulacrum was so well made that it would not dissolve, it would be horribly burnt by the iron—Harry was truly the human boy, not a changeling. Any sign of harm to the child would have sent a troop of Norfolk's men after Lord Denno and there had been nothing, not even a message canceling his proposed visit the next day.

  "Hold steady, man," Bryan urged as Denoriel sagged against him.

  "Time to get Denno back to his bed," Boleyn said.

  Mentally Denoriel thanked the goddess for his momentary weakness and gladly allowed his friends to steer him to the front of the Spanish embassy and signal urgently for Bryan's carriage. Bryan hesitated as they were about to climb in to ask if Denoriel was about to be sick, but he assured them he had only been dizzy momentarily. They watched him warily for a few minutes, but by the time they were turned around and on The Strand headed east, they relaxed, no longer fearing they would have to open a door and hold his head outside.

  Convinced that Denoriel was not about to spew, George—his residual drunkenness making him stubborn—reverted to the question of Denno having fought the two victims. It was clear to Denoriel that the pair would never let him out of the carriage at his house by St. Thomas's church if he did not satisfy them. And since the king must already have received Norfolk's report of the attack and so many others knew of it already, he told them t
he whole story about seeing the open postern gate, going in, hearing FitzRoy calling for help, fighting off the two attackers, and their escape.

  There was a long moment of silence, and then Boleyn looked back over his shoulder at where they had come from, although the Spanish embassy was long out of sight. "And now," he said, "one's dead and the other will not be telling any tales. And left on Perez's doorstep. Probably that means he didn't kill or maim them, but I suspect he had something to do with the attack on FitzRoy . . . I mean, Richmond. And leaving his tools at his house dead and mindless was a warning to him." Boleyn looked sick, and yet avid at the same time. "Torture, maybe. I've heard it said that the Inquisitors know tortures that will wring a man's soul from his body, but leave no mark. Mayhap the magician failed—and his masters have left him a warning."

  Bryan burst out. "God's Death! Why should anyone want to hurt Richmond? He's no more than five years old—"

  "Six," Boleyn said, "and a very nice, clever child."

  "So?" Bryan persisted.

  "So, m'father says—and you know he's in the king's confidence—that Henry's feeling out the nobles and trying to nerve himself to name the boy his heir." Boleyn shrugged. "There's reason enough for you."

  Bryan shook his head. "Oh, I know that. Everyone knows that. But what if Henry does name Richmond heir? There's years and years for the king to change his mind."

  "Not if he marries Mary to a French prince."

  Francis Bryan let out a long, low whistle. "Damn Wolsey, that must be his idea. He's the one who wants to cozy up to the French. I didn't think about that. And he's had the French ambassador here looking the princess over, listening to her play her music. You're right, George. If Wolsey gets Mary married to a French prince, Henry will move heaven and earth not to have her come to the throne. The thought of a Frenchman ruling England would make him turn over in his grave."