Ill Met by Moonlight

by Mercedes Lackey

  “You never wanted to be king, Da?” she asked, sounding surprised.

  “No, love.” Harry kissed her again, this time on the forehead. “I would have been a very bad king. I would never have been able to do anything to curb or reprove a friend, and soon, I think, the nobles would have been having their own way of it, quarreling among themselves, tearing England apart, and leaving us open to our enemies. You are different, I think. I believe you would not wish harm to Edward, but there is something in you …” He shook his head. “I think others see it too. I think you would make a good king—yes, I say king, because you have the stomach of a king, and would need no man beside you to rule. Because of that, you must be even more careful than I was. Listen to Denno and Alana.”

  Elizabeth sighed, and a single tear ran down her cheek. “I do. I do. But it isn’t any fun.”

  Elidir and Mechain, who had been watching and listening, now came close. Mechain wiped the tear from Elizabeth’s cheek and Elidir said, “I am sure Denoriel and Harry have given you advice it would be wise to follow in the World Above, but now you are Underhill with us, and there is no reason at all why you should not have all the play and pleasure you want.”

  Elizabeth stared at Elidir for a moment with a look of surprise, but then she smiled and took the hand he held out to her. “That is true!” she exclaimed. “Here in Underhill it does not matter that I am King Henry’s daughter. Here I can just be Elizabeth.”

  Denoriel’s lips parted to warn her that Underhill could be as dangerous to her as the World Above, but she looked so young and full of joy, her mouth soft and smiling instead of drawn into a tense line, her eyes wide with anticipation. He could not spoil the little while she had to be a carefree child. He would be doubly wary, he told himself, as they all left his apartment.

  When they stepped out onto the portico of Llachar Lle, there were four elvensteeds waiting at the foot of the steps. Lady Aeron’s delicate blue and Miralys’s ebon black contrasted with the pale dappled silver and pearly white of the other two steeds. They were as perfect of form as Harry’s and Denoriel’s mounts, but something about them, like the faded eyes of their riders, hinted of long millennia of living.

  Harry took Elizabeth up on Lady Aeron before Denoriel reached them, the elvensteed providing a comfortable pillion before she was even asked.

  “I need to get my gun,” Harry called back.

  So they all rode to Mwynwen’s house. She did not come out to greet them but Harry explained when he emerged, loading several of the flat, top-seated cartridges with iron bolts, that she was gone to help Ceindrych with a difficult patient. Before he mounted, he slid the gun and cartridges into a spelled holder which he fastened to his belt. Once inside, the weapon and its iron bolts caused no discomfort, but the holder would allow Harry to draw the gun and its cartridges at a word.

  Harry offered drink or food, but had no takers. They had all eaten when Elizabeth had broken her fast. So then they were off again, Elidir and Mechain leading this time.

  An old Gate not far from the Healers’ houses took them to a quiet, pleasant hold. The ground was gently rolling, covered with the ubiquitous soft green moss and small white flowers. Graceful trees leaned gently this way and that, some standing alone, some in elegant groups, their trailing leaves rustling gently. A narrow brook followed the gentle valleys; wildflowers grew on the banks. Here and there was a glimpse of a tiled roof, a white wall.

  “Old Elves Hame,” Elidir said with a wry twist of the lips. “Perfect in every way. The ideal place to be bored into Dreaming, but—”

  At which moment a loud explosion rent the air. Everyone jumped. Even the elvensteeds looked startled.

  “Oh, my,” Mechain said. “Sawel must have done something thoroughly unacceptable to the holy water.”

  “Shall I go and see if he’s all right?” Denoriel asked.

  “It can’t hurt him,” Elidir said, “but he might have to rebuild his house.”

  Elizabeth giggled. “It seems lively enough here to me. Can we go see the exploded house?”

  “Better not,” Mechain said. “Sawel will be in a temper. Besides, there really isn’t anything to see. When the spells holding the house together are broken, it just disappears. And the last time, all Sawel’s clothes disappeared too.” She smiled, looking ridiculously youthful despite the faded eyes and thin, mist-white hair. “You’re a little too young for that, sweetling.”

  “And it doesn’t do much good for Sawel’s disposition either,” Elidir remarked. “Doubtless there are going to be a lot of toads and worms around until his curses wear off. We’d better just go on and show Elizabeth how to make something nice out of mist. All ready? I’ll spell us through. The terminus Gate is smaller, but the area around it is safe so anyone can step off.”

  Again there was that brief sensation of falling and utter blackness, but this time Elizabeth was not in the least afraid. She could feel Lady Aeron’s silky side against her ankle where her skirt had hiked up and her arms were firmly around her Da’s waist. And, of course, she had hardly enough time to think of it when they were out into a real pea-soup of a fog. Lady Aeron stepped delicately down from the Gate. Miralys, who had been behind her, stepped down to her right, and Elidir and Mechain on their steeds came down to the left immediately after.

  “So, this, my dear, is an Unformed land. Now we dismount and walk a little way into mist,” Elidir said, suiting his action to his words.

  Harry set Elizabeth on her feet but kept a grip on her hand. “Don’t wander away without holding on to me or to Denno,” he said. “The mist is very thick and can thicken even more. And it makes sound very deceptive, so if you get lost it will take us a long time to find you.”

  “I won’t get lost,” Elizabeth said. “If we do get separated, don’t worry. I’ll just come back to the Gate and wait right here for you.”

  “You won’t be able to see the Gate,” Denoriel warned, coming up from the side. “A few steps away and it will seem to disappear.”

  Elizabeth did not argue, partly because she wasn’t sure how to explain why she was certain she could find the Gate again. Besides, she was very happy holding Harry’s hand and feeling like any little girl with a doting relative. She skipped after Elidir and Mechain, who could just be made out through the swirling mists.

  “Let her come between us,” Mechain said, “so she can see what we do. And you, Harry, just step off to the side where you will have a clear shot at anything coming at us. Denoriel, if you will go to the left and stand ready with your sword, we will be grateful.”

  “I thought you said you had cleaned out the inimical creatures,” Denoriel said, drawing his sword.

  “We are reasonably sure we did, but a really creative mist like this one … I have sometimes felt we took away more than we had designed.”

  “You mean the mist created more by itself?”

  “I don’t know.” Elidir sounded troubled. “Possibly it just echoed what I was doing. Possibly … No.” He shook his head at Denoriel and turned toward Elizabeth. “Now what would you like us to make, love?”

  “A bird,” Elizabeth said promptly.

  Just as promptly the mist roiled differently. A patch just before Elidir pinched off from the main mass and began to curl around and around. Wide-eyed, Elizabeth watched. She could feel a kind of pressure, not unlike the pressure she felt when creating a shield, but yet different.

  There was something behind the pressure, a willing. As soon as she identified what she felt, Elizabeth almost called up her shield. She had felt that willing before, when the bad Sidhe that looked so much like Denoriel had tried to kill her in the garden. But now the willing was not directed at her; it was causing the pinched off bit of mist to grow more solid and, as it solidified, to change.

  Indistinct at first but becoming clearer and more defined, wide wings spread. An indefinite blob soon had huge glowing eyes, a cruel hooked beak. Feathers fluffed, feathered legs under an oval body now showed long, sharp talons that o
pened and closed spasmodically.

  An owl. A very large owl, bigger than any such beast that Elizabeth had ever seen before. She was used to the comical, monkey-faced barn owls that lived in every stable in the country, but this was four, five times the size of one of those. This one had enormous yellow eyes, not dark eyes, and two hornlike tufts of feathers on the top of its head. Elizabeth took an involuntary step backward.

  “Whhooo,” the bird cried.

  The wings flapped, very silently. The bird rose into the air, circled, uttered its questioning cry again, and flew off. Elizabeth watched, lips parted with wonder, eyes wide.

  “Ah!” Elidir shook his head. “I had meant to make a smaller bird, but it has become such a habit to make hunting beasts—”

  “It was beautiful,” Elizabeth breathed, then looked concerned. “But will it find anything to eat here? The place looks so barren.”

  “While it is here, it will not need food,” Mechain said. “It will draw in power and sustenance from the mist.”

  Still Elizabeth frowned. “I know it is said that owls are very wise. Will the poor bird not be bored to death being all alone and having nothing to do?”

  “We will not leave it here long,” Elidir assured her. “We will transport it to a place where it will find enough to hunt. Now, what else would you like to have made?”

  Elizabeth giggled. “A rabbit? I do not think you will be able to make that into anything fierce—but if you can, I would surely like to see a fierce rabbit.”

  There was a stirring in the mist off to the left that went against the general drift and curl. Denoriel lifted his sword and stepped forward toward the denser spot. Elizabeth felt a sharp prod of will, again not directed at her, and the mist flowed smoothly again.

  “I do not think a rabbit would last long in this mist-land,” Mechain said. “Perhaps you would like a bouquet of flowers?”

  “Then I would have to carry them.” Elizabeth giggled again. “How about a little patch of garden, right here where we stand. That would be a great surprise to anyone who came to this Gate.”

  “Hmmm. And a pleasant place for us to sit while we work, but not easy to do. Let me talk to Elidir about this.”

  Elizabeth obligingly moved toward Harry so the two Sidhe could be closer together. He was well off to the side, just visible in the mist. She started to speak to him, but he was watching the mist intently, his gun in his hand. Elizabeth looked out at the mist too. There, not far from her a patch seemed somehow a little separate. She looked at it, imagining upright pointed ears, large bright eyes, a rounded furry body, four legs, a long fluffy tail … and wings.

  She saw an adorable kitten. Elizabeth liked kittens. She wished the kitten was real, wished hard … And there was a flapping noise and a kitten plopped into her arms.

  Simultaneously she heard Elidir and Mechain call her name and the next moment they came running out of the mist with Denoriel on their heels.

  “What happened?” Mechain cried. “We felt the mists wrenched, as if in birthing, but we had willed nothing. Has something threatened you?”

  Elizabeth laughed and held out the kitten. “I think I made this.”

  There was a moment of stunned silence and then Elidir whispered, “You think you created a … a living thing?”

  Bright-eyed and grinning, Elizabeth explained how Harry was too intent on his guard duty to talk to her and how she thought she saw two pointed ears. When she got to the kitten popping into her arms, she shook her head.

  “Poor thing,” she said, “it’s the color of the mist. I never got around to thinking of colors for it.”

  “It doesn’t need color,” Mechain said, tickling the kitten’s head. “That silvery beige is very pretty.”

  Elizabeth had settled the kitten comfortably in the crook of her arm and now looked at Denoriel. “Can I keep it, Denno? Could your servants take care of it, or maybe Lady Alana? I know I can’t take it home, but it wouldn’t be safe to leave it here. The owl would get it, or one of the things Da is watching out for. It isn’t mean. It likes people.”

  “So I see,” Denoriel said. “Did you really create that, Elizabeth? Or is this something you and your new friends cooked up to tease me?”

  “No, Lord Denoriel,” Elidir said. “I swear on the Great Mother that Mechain and I were surprised half out of our wits when we felt a making taking place. “And we felt it from the direction in which we had sent Elizabeth to be with Harry. We both called her name and ran to where we thought she must be. It had to have been her making.”

  “Indeed it is her making,” Mechain added. “There is no other Sidhe in this place, only you and we two.” She looked around in a worried way, met and held Elidir’s eyes, and then said, “We will not make that garden here. Perhaps this mist has been used too often.”

  “And I think Elizabeth has seen quite enough of the chaos lands,” Elidir said, eyeing the kitten. “Perhaps we should move on to the Goblin Fair now.”

  Mechain cleared her throat. “I’ve lost the Gate,” she said, reluctantly. “I’ll need a little while to orient myself—”

  “It’s that way,” Elizabeth interrupted, pointing.

  “That way,” Elidir repeated, his gaze fixed on Elizabeth, his voice flat.

  “Likely it is,” Harry said, grinning. “Elizabeth has odd Talents. She can see through illusion—”

  “Not here,” Elizabeth remarked. “I see the meadow and the trees and the manor out of Denno’s windows just like everyone else, and he says that’s an illusion. And I don’t see the Gate. There’s just a place where I feel the mist isn’t and a humming. I think that’s the Gate. That’s what it felt like when we stepped out of it.”

  Mechain, Elidir, and Denoriel all stared at her as if she had grown an extra head. Elizabeth looked from one to the other anxiously, wondering for the first time if she had done something wrong. Then Harry came up behind her, put his arm around her waist and swept her forward in the direction she had pointed.

  “Never mind, love,” he said laughing. “They are only wondering why they never thought of feeling for the Gate.”

  Mechain cleared her throat again. “That’s true, young mortal. We can see an open Gate, and that is what we look for. Once you pointed out the effect of the power of the Gate, we too could feel it. Just, we never connected the concentration of power with the Gate.”

  By the time Mechain finished speaking, the Gate was in sight with the four elvensteeds grouped around it, grazing.

  “Grazing?” Mechain said. “From whence came the grass? Elidir, does it seem to you that we should look for a different Unformed place?”

  “Yes. Yes indeed.” Elidir agreed. “Grazing. But there was no grass when we came.” He sighed, looked at Elizabeth accusingly.

  “It wasn’t me,” she protested. “God’s Grace, I was nowhere near. It wasn’t me.”

  They all looked suspiciously at the elvensteeds, who ignored them and continued to crop grass. Then they all looked out at the mist, but it was behaving in a perfectly normal way.

  After a few moments, Elizabeth sighed heavily and then asked plaintively, “Can we go to the market now?”

  Chapter 25

  Pasgen stepped out of the fourth Gate he had transited on his way home from Rhoslyn’s domain, frowning. It was a nuisance, he thought, looking around the Goblin Fair, to waste so much time in devising devious routes so that no one could identify his home or Rhoslyn’s. Then he smiled. They both had been extra careful since he had found and retrieved the token of Rhoslyn’s skin and flesh their mother had given Vidal.

  The retrieval had not been very difficult, using the lindys. That was a nice piece of mutual work, Pasgen thought as he walked into the body of the market. Rhoslyn had created the little creatures, but he had modified the spells on them so that they were much more useful.

  His eyes lingered for a moment on a memory book displayed open on a counter. Words began to form on the clear blank pages. He sought the key. It was a simple one; he found
it and erased the words. He chuckled softly as he turned away. Vidal could use one of those. Likely he did not even know the token was lost … if he remembered ever having it.

  Pasgen glanced around and oriented himself. He knew the market very well because of passing through so often. Now, which Gate should he use this time? He had sensed no interest in him since he left Rhoslyn’s domain and Vidal was not even at Caer Mordwyn. Still, he would take the Gate to that Unformed land that was so peculiarly alive. The echoes that resonated in that mist would totally confuse anything that clung to him.

  On his way, he noticed a narrow booth that had no real occupant. A lifeless simulation smiled and beckoned to anyone who approached the booth and proffered a sheet of paper. Doubtless it had a name and address and an explanation of what the owner of the booth offered.

  Pasgen hesitated, walked up to the booth and examined it carefully. He did not take the sheet the simulation offered. He was not the least bit interested in torture and murder no matter how lifelike the simulacra were. It was the booth and the idea of advertising for clients that interested him.

  Rhoslyn had told him about his mother’s desire to set up as a healer—and not confine her work to those of the Unseleighe domains. Pasgen’s immediate reaction had been to forbid such a harebrained scheme, but Rhoslyn’s suggestion of using the empty house and the change in his mother had both worked on him. He continued to walk toward his goal, now examining the people who patronized the Goblin Fair.

  There were every kind. A party of mortals laughing and joking among themselves passed him—possibly changelings stolen from the World Above, but also possibly mortal mages, who had keys to come here. Two Sidhe, definitely Bright Court, came from a side aisle. They glanced at him. One started to raise a hand in greeting and then dropped it. Pasgen lifted the side of his lip. Faery-folk flitted here and there. A group of dark Sidhe came from an aisle opposite the Bright Court Sidhe. They stopped abruptly and stared. Pasgen heard the heavy tramp of an ogre behind him.

  Certainly Llanelli was right about there being a wide enough range of folk to be clients. And with a simulacrum—Pasgen had found the lifeless simulation rather unpleasant and Rhoslyn could provide a much better booth-tender—to hand out the sheets and even answer simple questions, Llanelli might well draw some clients.