This Scepter'd Isle

by Mercedes Lackey

  Miralys leapt forward. Two strides put the elvensteed between Harry and the demented Sidhe. Denoriel's sword made a downward stroke with the full strength of his terror and his rage behind it. The Sidhe screamed. Arm and crook flew to one side as Miralys hit the foundering horse with his shoulder and threw the dying creature aside.

  An impossible twist, another leap, and Miralys was beside Harry's horse. Somehow since the first warning from the air spirit, Miralys had undone the spell that held his head furniture together and rid himself of it and the reins. Denoriel had both hands free; he held his bloody sword in one hand and with the other tore off his heavy double-lined silk cloak and twisted it around his arm.

  Braced for pain, as Miralys slowed to match pace with Harry's tired horse, Denoriel reached over and yanked the boy from his horse onto Miralys. Then the elvensteed seemed to fly across the clearing.

  Behind him Denoriel heard Rhoslyn scream with fury. In the same instant, he felt the flickering pain of a near miss with elfshot.

  "Hold tight, Harry," Denoriel bellowed, and then lower but still clearly. "My horse's name is Miralys."

  With those words, the boy, who had been struggling, threw his arms around Denoriel's neck. The Sidhe gasped with pain, but there was enough clothing between him and the iron so that he was not totally incapacitated. He managed to lift and turn Harry so the boy's back was to him. Harry swung his leg over Miralys and Denoriel drew a sharp breath of relief. The arm with which he clutched the boy—right across the chest where the cross lay—was shielded with layers of insulating silk; Harry's body was between him and the iron cross. For now, but not for long, Denoriel could bear it.

  The not-horses had been behind the bespelled mount of the mad Sidhe and had been driven sideways when the poor creature fell and began to convulse in dying or Denoriel would have been overtaken when Miralys slowed to pick up Harry. Now the elvensteed really stretched, but the need to dodge trees and leap brambles prevented Miralys from using his full speed. The not-horses were also fast and powerful. They were virtually on Miralys's heels when the elvensteed found the grove and charged into Denoriel's Gate.

  When Miralys and his burden disappeared, Rhoslyn shrieked with rage and despair. She drove Talog forward at the Gate, hoping to enter so close on their heels that she would arrive at their destination with them.

  Pasgen shouted a warning and almost simultaneously, because it was clear she would not listen, uncoiled a long black whip. He had brought it to drive FitzRoy's horse if necessary—or to drive FitzRoy himself—through his Gate, but he used it now to snake forward and coil around Rhoslyn's waist.

  He almost pulled her from Talog's saddle, and she was so beyond herself that she turned, screaming, hand raised to fling a levin bolt at her brother. But before she could act, the whole grove lit with a terrifying burst of light and energy.

  Talog and Torgan were thrown backward and nearly flung to the ground. Their clawed feet won them a purchase no horse could have maintained and they remained erect. Rhoslyn and Pasgen, armored by the nasty tricks Vidal Dhu too often played on his followers in the Hunt, stayed in their saddles.

  For a moment they sat in stunned silence, staring at the blackened and flattened brush where the Gate had been. In the distance they could hear the rest of their party following, but only the not-horses could approximate the speed and agility of the elvensteed. The others would be a little while reaching them.

  "You killed him!" Rhoslyn spat. "You murdered my boy! I will—"

  "No!" Pasgen protested. "The collapse of the Gate was none of my doing. I did meddle with it, but only to wipe out its old terminus at Logres and—"

  "You told me you couldn't touch Denoriel's Gate in London!"

  "This was different. That London Gate was made for Denoriel, fitted to him. Close as we are in essence, brothers, that Gate knew I was not Denoriel. This one and the one at Pontefract are different. They are good Gates, but designed for general use. It was easy to repattern them. I swear I did the Gates no harm."

  "Liar!" Rhoslyn sobbed. "You didn't want me to have the child. How often did you tell me not to scry to watch him. If you didn't prime that Gate for destruction, why did you hold me back from entering?"

  Pasgen grimaced. "Because there would hardly have been room for you and Talog as well as Denoriel and Miralys and the boy where I had the Gate set to go. You would have opened my trap because my domain is keyed to you."

  "Your domain?" she breathed, and then, breathlessly, "There was a little time. Do you think they could have got through before . . ."

  "I don't know," Pasgen said, taking a deep breath. "Let's get back to my Gate and find out. No, we can't. We have to disperse those accursed monsters of yours."

  "No need. As soon as they are killed, they will begin to dissolve. There will be nothing to carry back to Sheriff Hutton or to bring others to see. And I doubt if anyone was even hurt. Even if they don't die in the fighting, they will fall apart as they wander in the woods."

  "Very clever," Pasgen said.

  Rhoslyn shrugged. "Cleverness had nothing to do with it. I wanted to use the least power and expend the least effort. But what are we going to do with the Hunt you brought?"

  "I have a leash on them. The Gate will draw them to it and close when the last goes through."

  But they did not find Denoriel in the trap Pasgen had set. Both stood staring at the chamber, mockingly set out as a welcoming guest room. There was a handsome sideboard, fitted out with plates and cups. On it stood several covered dishes and three pitchers, holding ale, wine, and milk—all untouched. On the opposite wall was a comfortable settle and two chairs. A beautiful Turkey carpet covered the floor. All that was missing were windows and doors.

  There was no smallest sign of disturbance . . . not that Pasgen had expected Denoriel to touch the refreshments provided or to permit the boy to sample them. More telling was the absence of any smell or feel of magic, and if Denoriel had spelled his way out of the trap, he would have had to use powerful magic.

  "Then they are dead," Rhoslyn whispered.

  "I don't know." Pasgen shook his head. "I have never heard of a Gate collapsing on anyone. It seems to me that anyone within would be thrust out. Of course they might have been killed by that blast of power . . ."

  "Would it happen on both sides of the Gate?"

  "I don't know," Pasgen repeated. "I will send out some finders, but I have no idea where to tell them to seek, except Logres—and my creatures cannot go there."

  Rhoslyn was not to be denied. "You can send an air spirit to Logres. They will not examine any air spirit."

  Pasgen hesitated, then shook his head again. "No air spirit will work with me or for me. I had to go through one of their domains, and they would follow me and play about me no matter what I said. I . . . I killed one and injured others."

  "Air spirits?" Rhoslyn's tone was neutral, but inwardly Pasgen winced. After an almost imperceptible pause she went on, "Very well. I will try to set the air spirits to look in Logres and Avalon, but you will have to give me a binding spell to hold them to the task."

  "You had better do the spell yourself," he said glumly. "They might well sense me in it and flee you. I will tell you what to do. Come down to my workroom."

  She followed him through the indoor Gate that brought him to his workroom—one of them anyway; Rhoslyn suspected that there were others that were not open to her. While he was assembling the materials for a spell that could be impressed upon an amulet of some kind, Rhoslyn asked what they were going to tell Vidal Dhu.

  "He isn't going to be pleased," she said, sighing. "He had some choice remarks about our inability to snatch FitzRoy when he first demanded that the child be brought to him."

  "But all he made were remarks. I don't think he is much interested in FitzRoy any more, even though he insisted that we abduct him. We have Aurilia nic Morrigan to thank for that." Pasgen raised one eyebrow significantly.

  "Aurilia nic Morrigan," Rhoslyn said thoughtfully. "She is ce
rtainly the most beautiful Sidhe I have ever seen. Did you ever discover where she came from? You know, I've been avoiding the court. I felt that the less Vidal saw of me the less he would be reminded of FitzRoy, but I had to come to the summoning for pledging. That was the first time I saw her."

  "I don't know where she came from. One day she was just—there, looking like the perfect embodiment of all that is the Sidhe." His eyes softened just a trifle, and he began to wax poetic. "Her hair was that pale golden blond like the earliest sunshine at sunrise. Her eyes were truly emerald green with such perfectly oval pupils . . . nose, mouth, skin, everything perfect. I started to feel for the spell. I couldn't believe anyone could really look like that. And she just let me look and smiled at me."

  "I'll bet she did," Rhoslyn said with a snicker. "Eat you whole, that one would."

  He sighed. "Maybe. She looked so cool, so clean. Most of the she-Sidhe here . . . I nearly . . . but Vidal came over and just stood with his hand on her arm. I'll fight him some day, but not over a female." He shook himself briefly, and lost that vague dreaminess. "And not over one with what I saw in her eyes when I looked again."

  Rhoslyn grinned. "So she's going to eat Vidal. Good. But I had no idea that she was interested in anything beyond her face and body, more jewels and more servants."

  "Oh no. Don't ever underestimate her." He nodded when she pursed her lips in speculation. "Vidal's the better magician and she knows it and won't challenge him—she'll use him instead—but she's the brains. The whole domain has run smoother since she came. Of course, it's bad for anyone who has taken her spite, but there's less chaos."

  Rhoslyn tilted her head slightly to one side. "I wondered how she had kept Vidal so interested."

  "Oh, he's strayed a couple of times, but he still hops when she says 'frog.' Even more interesting is that he doesn't seem to know it." He chuckled. "She keeps up the pretense of being totally dominated by him, not empty-headed, but passive. As if all the ideas are his."

  "If she can do that, she's very dangerous." Rhoslyn wasn't half as amused at the situation as he was.

  Pasgen nodded. "Oh, yes. I still try to look as if only my fear of Vidal is holding me back from trying for her; the best way to stay on her good side is to let her think I'm besotted. I hope she hasn't seen through it. But right now she is very useful in keeping Vidal so preoccupied that we are one of the least of his concerns. She is certain that Anne Boleyn is the key to the red-haired child, and she wants the child to be born. She believes Anne can be perverted and disgraced, the child disinherited; then, when it is no longer carefully guarded, it can be abducted and brought here."

  "No longer carefully guarded?" Rhoslyn echoed. "What does Aurilia think the Seleighe Court will be doing? That accursed half-brother of ours has successfully thwarted every move we have made to snatch FitzRoy. Do you think he will be less alert for the red-haired babe?"

  His eyes glinted with thoughts she could not read. "Right now I am quite content for Aurilia to dream her dreams. She would not thank me, or you, for trying to open her eyes. When she is certain of something, she is very certain—it is a weakness we need to remember—and I would rather Vidal concentrated on something other than FitzRoy."

  Rhoslyn sighed. "You're right about that. So what do we tell him?"

  "We will tell him the exact truth," he replied firmly. "The Sidhe we brought will stand witness that we killed the air spirit, but not quickly enough. That Denoriel appeared, took the boy through a Gate, and that the Gate collapsed. Let Vidal think FitzRoy is dead. In a few weeks, mortal time, I believe the matter of the divorce will begin moving again. With Aurilia urging Vidal to let Anne marry the king, he will lose interest in FitzRoy again."

  Rhoslyn sighed. In her heart there still lived an image of a six-year-old child with wide, trusting eyes and chubby little arms outstretched to her. She would have given everything she owned to have him in her arms.

  But the boy clinging with such determination to his bolting horse, his jaw set and thrust forward, fear in his eyes but also rage and hate . . . She was not so certain she wanted that boy.

  CHAPTER 18

  It was fortunate that Denoriel was carrying his naked sword in his hand when they were thrown out of the Gate with force enough to stagger Miralys. Something with bat wings and a great many teeth leapt at them. It was so vicious and stupid, that it impaled itself. Sick with pain from the iron cross and a much worse disorientation from traveling by Gate than had ever struck him before, Denoriel was in no condition to fight.

  The violent failure of the Gate had another advantage. Miralys's stagger brought the elvensteed's adamantine silver hooves down with some force on something like a short, fat, slimy snake, also with a great many teeth, every one of them dripping with venom. The feel of the creature beneath his hooves made Miralys leap sideways off the Gate platform. And now it was FitzRoy's deathgrip on the pommel and the elvensteed's mane that kept Denoriel in the saddle.

  A short dash away from the Gate to the far side of what might have once been meant as a park around a fountain drastically reduced the number of attackers. Miralys needed only once to kick out hard backward—none of them ever knew what his hooves connected with because it crawled away cursing and whimpering—to ensure them of some needed quiet and privacy.

  After some little period, FitzRoy's hands began to relax their hold on mane and pommel, enough at least so he could turn his head. "Are you all right, Lord Denno?" he asked.

  His voice, a little thin, a little tremulous seemed to recall Denoriel from his daze. With an expression of disgust he shook the dead bat-winged thing off his sword and looked at the blackish stain on the blade. Then his left arm made an abortive movement as if to reach for something, but it was still tight around FitzRoy.

  "The cross," he muttered. "The iron cross must have collapsed the Gate." For a moment his grip on the boy tightened even further, so that FitzRoy grunted in pain. "God's Blood, my stupidity could have killed you."

  "Should I put the cross away, Lord Denno?" FitzRoy asked.

  "I . . . I don't know," Denoriel admitted, wiping the blade off on the skirt of his doublet. "It's a protection to you in one way and, well, the failure of the Gate shows that in other ways it's a danger. Sorry, Harry, my head's full of uncombed wool. I'm not thinking very clearly."

  The boy had been looking around while they spoke and his nose wrinkled with distaste. "I don't think we should be here, Lord Denno. I've never been, but I've heard Reeve and Ladbroke talk. This looks like the worst slum in London." He hesitated and then added, "Except I don't think there's anything like that—" he gestured toward the corpse Denoriel had shaken off his sword "—even in the worst slum in London."

  "No, we're not in London," Denoriel said, sick and dizzy and hurting, wondering how much he dared tell the boy.

  He knew Harry loved him dearly and he guessed that Harry knew there was something a bit uncanny about his Lord Denno. However, well on the way to eleven years of age, the boy no longer had the easy belief in fairy knights that he had had at six. He was well educated, and a great deal of that education was aimed at ridding him of childish fancies.

  Still, Harry had not been totally overset by plunging into a small grove in the woods around Sheriff Hutton, feeling as if he were being turned inside out, and emerging in what was obviously a badly decaying city. Nor had he screamed or struggled when one monster attacked them from above and another from below. Moreover, there was now a glint in his eyes that made Denoriel want to smile.

  Fairy knights might be for babies, but Harry wanted to believe in magic. He would tell the boy the truth, he decided. Well, actually, he didn't have much choice since he couldn't think of any lie that Harry would believe. And the child was remarkably trustworthy. In the more than four years since he had first been exposed as not an ordinary human, Harry had never once slipped by accident or shown any desire to boast of an uncanny friend. In fact, whenever anything Denoriel did was noted or remarked upon, Harry would shrug and say, "F
oreign. He's Hungarian. They're strange."

  The most urgent thing was for the boy to be prepared for anything so that he would not freeze in terror or become hysterical—not that his behavior so far indicated he would. However, he would be best prepared by being told the truth.

  Meanwhile the hopeful glint in Harry's eyes was replaced by concern. "Lord Denno, I think we better get off Miralys and give him a chance to rest. He's shaking."

  Denoriel started. The child was right. The elvensteed was shuddering. Denoriel looked around but saw no sign of danger; he let Harry down from the saddle, following immediately. When nothing struck, he sheathed his sword.

  "Turn your back to me, Harry," he said through gritted teeth, hoping to minimize the growing aching and weakness the iron cross was causing.

  His next action was to reach for the girth of the mortal-world saddle. They would not need it here; once recovered, Miralys could provide a far more comfortable saddle from his own substance. A buckle caught on the heavy double-lined silk cloak Denoriel had wrapped around his arm to protect it from the cold iron. He had been wearing a cloak because the weather Overhill was turning cold and raw in November. He didn't need the cloak, but he always wore what was common among his friends to fit in.

  Recalling that silk helped reduce the effect of cold iron, he turned and flung the cloak over Harry's shoulders, crossing it in front. The child looked surprised.

  "I'm not cold, Lord Denno. If you are, you can have the cloak."

  "It's never cold Underhill," Denoriel said, "nor too hot either. The silk shields me from your cross. Keep the cloak closed, Harry, and keep a watch out for me. If you see anything, anything at all, tell me. I'm going to try to find out what hurt Miralys."

  Now Denoriel removed the saddle and set it on the ground, then examined Miralys to make sure he was not cut or bitten anywhere. There was no sign of any injury, but when the elvensteed rested its head on his shoulder he had an immediate impression of heat and light billowing, almost engulfing them, held off by some force emanating from the elvensteed.