by Dale Lucas
“But you said she’s the ethnarch,” Rem interjected. “So that means she wields some sort of authority?”
Torval nodded. “Aye. When some fauney of her pointy-eared persuasion runs afoul of the law—and while it’s a rare occurrence, it’s not unheard-of—we’re obligated, by ancient treaty, to deliver the perpetrator to the Lady Ynevena and her personal tribunal and guard. Between them, said elven perp is then judged and convicted, and shipped out on the next caravel to Aadendrath, or perhaps by supply wagon to one of the larger sylvan enclaves to the north or east.”
“So, those elves that break Yenaran law never face Yenaran justice?” Rem asked.
Torval shrugged. “As I said—the treaties are ancient. Such is the way of things.”
“Will she even treat with us?”
Torval made a sudden left, marching down a narrow alley between two high stucco walls covered in bright-purple bougainvillaea and white roses. Rem nearly kept on up the canted street they climbed, but he caught Torval’s change of direction out of the corner of his eye and turned to follow.
Torval didn’t turn and respond to his question until he had come to the very end of the narrow alley, to a stout, well-seasoned door set into the wall covered in bougainvillaea, a strange brass facing bearing a door-knocker upon it, in the semblance of some long-forgotten, half-beastly elven wood deity.
“She may or may not treat with us,” Torval said. “But leave no stone unturned, yes?”
Rem shrugged. “Fair enough.”
Torval indicated the great brass knocker. Rem grabbed it and gave it three hard thumps. They seemed to resound on the other side of the wall, inside the compound, like wallops on a drum. After a long, patient silence, they heard faint footsteps approaching from the other side of the stout door. A small wicket opened before them and a smooth, well-chiseled face gazed out at them from beyond. The eyes in that face were languid, all curiosity dulled.
“Your business?” the smooth-faced porter demanded, voice a dull whisper.
Torval brandished both their signets. “Watchwardens, come for the Lady Ynevena on business from the Fifth Ward.” Now he lifted the sealed letters of introduction that Ondego had given them. “We have warrants for the Lady’s review, if it pleases her.”
The porter studied them through the wicket—a long, bored consideration that struck Rem as either the product of hard narcotics or a thoroughly bored and jaded intellect. Finally, the porter stepped back and closed the wicket. They heard bolts thrown, hinges gave the faintest, well-oiled squeal, and the door was opened for them.
The porter was an elf, as Rem had suspected. He had the smooth, lovely face of a youth and the bored, ancient gaze of a man nearing the end of many scores of years. He wore no top—which struck Rem as rather strange on a morning with such a pronounced chill upon it—but only a long, flowing silk sarong of sorts, and sandals with silken cords and soles of the softest kid leather. For a moment, the indifferent elven porter studied them—a nobleman, studying something that he found amusingly common and prosaic—before finally closing the garden gate behind them. He set off on a slow walk up a path of spaced flagstones that wound deeper in beneath the foliage.
“This way,” he said. Rem barely heard him. He threw a puzzled glance at Torval.
Torval only raised one bushy brow, as if to say, yes, that’s right—that’s how they comport themselves—then the two of them followed their lackadaisical greeter.
The elven porter led them on a meandering path through a dense, mist-shrouded little jungle of well-manicured shrubs, flower beds, and stunted trees, never saying a word, never looking back to check on their progress. There were thickets of whispering pines and weeping willows, giant beds of ferns and cycads lording over plots of poppies, winter roses, and blazing-purple rhododendrons.
As brilliant as the hue and blush of the flora were the smells. They teased and tortured Rem’s olfactory senses like dancing wenches in a tavern, alive and frolicking feverishly in his nostrils. He detected lilacs and jasmine, roses and scarlet sage, mint and apple blossoms, even currants and apricots. It was heady, intoxicating, and it seized him with the strangest of sensations.
There, walking along the path with Torval at his side and that glum elven porter leading the way, Rem suddenly realized that he wanted to crawl in among the brush—yes, to just step off the path, and lie down on a bed of white jasmine, strip off his boots and tunic, and sleep. And what dreams might find him here, in the shadows of this very special garden, an island of peace and rest and reverie in the heart of a teeming, unwashed, indifferent city? Just crawl in beneath the welcoming canopy of a willow and—
Torval suddenly stood at his side, shaking him. Rem blinked. He hadn’t been walking at all. He was standing stock-still at the edge of a colony of winter roses. In the misty morning light, their thorns gleamed hungrily under their soft white petals.
“Torval, I—”
“Shhh,” the dwarf hissed. “Just step back onto the path and keep moving.”
Up ahead, nearly lost around a gentle curve, the elven porter stopped.
“Is there a problem?” he purred.
“None whatsoever,” Torval said, then jerked his head sideward again. Rem obeyed and stepped back onto the path. They fell in step once more behind their host.
“What happened?” Rem whispered.
Torval sighed. “Not sure. I turned to ask you a question and you were gone. I found you back there, drifting into the flower beds, staring like a loon.”
Rem shook his head, rubbed his temples. “Gods, what a strange feeling.”
“Magic, boy,” Torval grumbled. “It’s rife here, and hungry. Try to keep your wits about you. If you feel yourself drifting, just put your eyes and ears back on something more prosaic”—he gestured toward his own face—“like this ugly mug, if you must.”
Torval punctuated his jest with a sour little smile. Rem, thankful for his partner’s vigilance and concern, patted his shoulder in agreement.
As they walked on, Rem grew ill at ease. The garden was lovely, aye—no doubt about that. It was a place to get lost, a place lovely enough to lie down and die in. But it was also haunted. His little fugue state and the strange, insistent murmuring of a breeze that wasn’t there in the dense, deep foliage assured him of that. Clearly, people came to the Lady Ynevena’s private pleasure garden to lose themselves, or submit themselves to some sylvan, floral power older and more preeminent than their own mortal wills. Gods, what a sublime and dangerous place. Rem had never seen a grotto more welcoming or, concurrently, predatory. Truth be told, it frightened him.
At last, they emerged from the greenscape into a bounded yard with a manicured lawn, a rock-bordered pond full of fish and turtles, and a number of stone seats and benches strewn about in a haphazard pattern. Just across this yard was a broad, paved terrace and upon that terrace, half reclining on a lovely old imperial divan, was a woman of such delicate mold and exquisite beauty that the very sight of her made something deep within Rem ache and coil. Her hair was a bewildering tangle of scarlet, copper, and gold curls, framing a face so perfectly proportioned and molded as to be the work of an artist, for life, chance, circumstance alone could never fashion such a stunning work of art. Only the mind of a single visionary, fever-racked painter or sculptor could imagine such perfect, ageless, unrivaled beauty. Her body, to Rem’s great chagrin, was no less impressive, the smooth, lithe shape of it readily apparent under the sheer, loose gown that she wore, a garment that almost wasn’t, beautified and embellished with pearls set in crimson-gold inlays or finely wrought brocades of silver and opalescent thread. Far from being thin and willowy, as Rem might have expected of an elven matron, the Lady Ynevena’s body was a pale temple displaying perfect, sensuous curves beside taut, translucent stretches of smooth white flesh. Rem thought he saw a pearl stud winking beneath the sheer transparency of the lady’s gown, embedded in her stout pink nipple—but he couldn’t be sure. The moment he thought he saw that pearl flashing ab
ove her erect areola, he forced his eyes away from her.
A man bearing a cup and a polished silver pitcher stood just behind the Lady Ynevena’s divan—tall, human, olive-skinned, and raven-haired. He was darkly handsome, exceptionally muscled, and wore only two items of clothing: a colorful silk sarong, wrapped about his middle, and a small, almost dainty leather collar round his throat. A leash of black silk cord was attached to the collar. Its opposite end was gripped lightly in the pale hand perched on the Lady Ynevena’s curving hip. Rem noted that the man’s eyes never left his beautiful mistress. He simply stood, staring down at her, expectant and impossibly patient, as if the only thing in the world that would give him pleasure was to pour her a fresh cup of wine and offer it.
Rem realized then that if he wasn’t careful, he would end up drifting right into the arms of the Lady Ynevena just as he had almost drifted into that thorny rose bed. And who knew what sort of thorns this elven maid concealed beneath her soft white petals?
The porter approached his mistress, bowed, and whispered into her perfect pointed ears. How Rem wanted to nibble on one of the soft, pale lobes at the base of those perfect, tapering ears …
Stop that! Get hold of yourself, you fool!
Rem coughed, cleared his throat, and shifted on his feet. He looked to Torval. Torval’s glare suggested that, telepathic or not, the dwarf could clearly read his thoughts—and he wasn’t pleased by them.
The Lady Ynevena nodded to her porter. Without raising her eyes, she reached out to the table before her, took up a plump, candied apricot between two lithe, delicate fingers, and bit from it. Rem felt a shudder move through him.
She turned her gaze upon them. Under that gaze—those almond-shaped honey-colored eyes, ageless, penetrating—Rem suddenly felt naked and ashamed. She could see right into him—right through him—and she knew exactly what sort of lascivious thoughts her beauty and complete lack of embarrassment awakened in him. Moreover, he thought he saw a slight smile at the corner of her lips—silent acknowledgment that she knew what he wanted, and that perhaps—just perhaps—the right words, the right entreaties, might grant him the keys to the proverbial kingdom.
“Good watchwardens, I bid you welcome,” she said. Her voice was music. Rem sighed, growling a little in disgust with himself. “What business can I aid you with on this fine, lovely morning?”
Torval looked to Rem. Would you like to speak to her? he seemed to ask. Rem, completely uninterested in speaking to the Lady lest he make an utter fool of himself, deferred with a nod to Torval. The dwarf stepped forward and presented the letters from Ondego.
“Introductions and entreaties for aid, milady,” the gruff little dwarf said. “We’ve come to an impasse in an investigation, and the aid of someone of your—one who is, that is—”
“Elven?” the Lady Ynevena offered.
“Just so,” Torval conceded.
“Call me elven, then, Watchwarden,” the Lady said with a smile. “That’s what I am, and I am not ashamed to be so.”
“As you say, milady,” Torval answered.
The Lady took the offered letters but immediately set them aside without reading them or breaking their seals. She sat up on her sofa now, and Rem lowered his eyes. Gods help him, she really was naked beneath that sheer gown. Now that she was upright, he could see everything.
Torval, the little monk, didn’t seem to note this or to be troubled by it at all.
“We’ve come into possession of a pendant,” Torval began, “found among the effects of a murdered watchwarden—”
“Someone close to you,” the Lady Ynevena said.
Her sensitivity gave Torval pause. Rem wagered the dwarf should have been ready for that—everyone knew that elves could read thoughts and feelings, after all. “Just so,” the dwarf said, his voice ever-so-strangled, then coughed to clear his throat. But before he could carry on, the Lady Ynevena spoke for him.
“Show me the bauble and I shall identify the rune upon it if I can.”
Torval searched his pockets—then realized that it was Rem who had the pendant. The dwarf turned to him, and Rem suddenly felt like a little boy forced to recite the holy psalms before the local Priests of Aemon—scatterbrained, nervous, completely unprepared. But nonetheless, he forced himself to step forward, rooting in his pocket for the pendant on its chain. He handed it to the Lady Ynevena, and forced himself to look into her eyes as he did so.
There was a smile in them now—knowing and warm, the smile of a holy sister trying to show peaceful acceptance and a complete lack of judgment at a child’s confession, or an experienced whore amused by a virgin’s clumsy reticence. Either way, the elf maiden’s knowing gaze did nothing for Rem’s composure or confidence.
The Lady Ynevena took the pendant on its chain with her free hand, then gave her manservant’s leash a gentle tug. Eagerly, her muscled cupbearer poured fresh wine into her goblet and handed it over. The Lady Ynevena sipped and let the pendant swing before her eyes, studying it in the gradually brightening morning light.
“It’s of cheap make. Workmanlike, as one might find in a market for travelers and green folk. The material is probably nickel, alloyed with tin and a little real silver for a nice shine in direct sunlight.”
“And the inscription?” Torval pressed.
The Lady Ynevena studied it quietly. Despite her clear disregard for its origins and craftwork, she seemed fascinated, even amused by the little charm on its cheap chain. Her stare, beyond that mild amusement, was otherwise unreadable. Her gaze remained fixed on the pendant for a long time, and brought with it a long, uncomfortable silence.
Finally, she raised her eyes. She looked first to Rem, then to Torval, then handed her cup back to her leashed companion. “The rune is yethred, the ninth letter of our alphabet, intertwined with another letter, qhwur. The flourishes on the design suggest some sort of family crest, but I could recite for you the names of five thousand separate elven families living now in various corners of the continent, or west, upon Aadendrath, and I can assure you that none of them ever employed this particular runic combination in their family sigils.”
“What could it be, then?” Rem managed to ask.
The Lady raised her mesmerizing eyes to him. He felt something stroke the center of his consciousness—a strange, entirely inward sensation, like one’s fingers idly sliding along the furry spine of a meandering cat. Rem’s breath caught and he had to remind himself to inhale again.
“Perhaps,” the Lady suggested, “it’s the sigil of a bloodline that no longer exists? Many have been lost to war, disease, and slavery in the last thousand years. Even if that’s the case, there are no guarantees that this sigil’s presence on a hotly contested piece of evidence suggests any elven involvement in your present investigation. As you both well know, humans are fond of adopting the detritus of elven culture at whim for purely decorative purposes, devoid of all understanding of the stolen marker’s true meaning.”
Rem nodded, as did Torval. Yes, they both knew that. Ondego had said as much earlier. Torval wanted more, though.
“Do you have any inkling of what this could be used for, milady? Any at all?”
The Lady Ynevena studied the pendant once more. “No pointed observations, certainly.”
She offered the pendant to Rem. He took it, catching a glimpse of the gorgeous swell of her white bosom beneath her sheer morning gown as he stared down at her. This time, he made no attempt to hide his object, or his lust. The Lady Ynevena offered him another of those knowing half smiles. Her eyes never left his.
Torval cleared his throat. Enough of that, lad. Time to go. Rem tore his eyes away, drew a deep, centering breath, and forced himself to look once more upon the Lady Ynevena’s man-toy. He was staring at his mistress again, eager, expectant.
Please, that look said, please, ask me for just one more cup of wine.
Rem shuddered and moved away from the Lady, drifting back toward the edge of the terrace.
“I’m sure I need not re
mind the two of you,” the Lady began, “that if, in point of fact, one of my kind is somehow involved in this nefarious little plot you’re trying to uncover, said criminal should be delivered to me, unharmed, for the swift expedition of justice.”
“Per the treaties,” Torval assured her.
Rem threw a glance back over his shoulder. The Lady was leaning forward now, addressing Torval directly. She was wearing the same knowing half smile and had leveled her unnervingly direct gaze upon the dwarf, but Torval’s stance suggested that he wasn’t subject to her enchantments as Rem had been. She knew this, Rem thought, but she sought to unbalance him by being brazen anyway.
“I find that outcome most unlikely, in any case,” the Lady said, tilting her head slightly. “I would imagine you watchwardens only rarely encounter criminal enterprise undertaken by my people. We are poets and artists, after all, not malefactors.”
“As you say, milady,” Torval replied. “But there are wormy apples on every tree in the orchard, aren’t there?”