Whether any Bright Sidhe would be willing to be attended by a Dark Court healer was a different problem entirely. Pasgen hoped not. It would be safer for Llanelli if her clientele was principally Unseleighe or those, like the gnomes and fauns and nymphs, who had allegiance to neither court. But when she explained what she wanted to do, Llanelli was so much more alive, almost what he remembered her to have been like when he and Rhoslyn were children, before Vidal had bent so much of her spirit in trying to break it, and before she had sought oblivion in drugs and Dreaming.
Pasgen swung left and saw ahead of him the area in which those who came to the Fair left their transportation. The Gate he wanted was at the far end of that field. The ogre’s steps were getting too close. Pasgen stepped aside between two booths just as four elvensteeds came up to the end of the transport area. He heard the ogre grunt with anger and sheer off in the opposite direction.
Two ancient Bright Court Sidhe slid down from equally ancient elvensteeds. The male hurried over to another elvensteed which was, inexplicably, carrying a young mortal man and held up his arms to …
Elizabeth! Pasgen could hardly believe his eyes. That fool Denoriel, just dismounting from his own elvensteed, had brought the girl Underhill! Pasgen’s eyes glowed. Now he would have her! The mortals who had passed him a few moments ago would make perfect tools. And had he not seen fauns and nymphs … and goblins, too?
The fauns and nymphs could be set to dancing and playing a silly game, then the goblins could try to join in. No matter if the goblins had no evil intent, the nymphs and fauns would panic. Pasgen drew a deep breath of satisfaction. Utter confusion would result—not enough for Removal but enough for his purpose. Pasgen watched for one more moment to be sure that the party was coming in to the Fair and then slipped away in the direction he had seen the mortals going when they passed him.
Denoriel was somewhat anxious about taking Elizabeth to one of the great markets, but Elidir and Mechain and Harry, who had proposed the Goblin Fair because it had more of the kind of toys that might amuse a child, had no doubts. Three Sidhe and a mortal should surely be enough to protect one girl-child at the Goblin Fair which, like the other great markets, did not allow the use of weapons or violence. And, again, he could not bear to disappoint Elizabeth, who was dancing about on her toes—with the winged kitten she had created in her arms—flushed and eager.
The Gate they had almost lost in the mists of the chaos land took them safely back to Old Elves Hame Gate where Elidir called up a subsidiary control plaque. That there could be such a device caused Denoriel to raise his eyebrows. His surprise made the old Sidhe chuckle.
“We could not pattern and repattern,” Elidir admitted, “but we could have as many controls as we wanted. True, you have to touch it, not think at it. This one only has the three markets as termini.”
“Most of us had nowhere else to go and nothing to do so we used to go to the markets a lot.” Mechain laughed. “But since the advent of this busybody—” she smiled at Harry “—we have plenty to keep us occupied. For today though, the Goblin Fair it is.”
And darkness and falling were replaced by a enormous open space in which were set, tied, chained, and otherwise fastened every kind of beast and vehicle Elizabeth had ever seen—and a great many that she was sure no one on earth had ever seen. She would have begged to get down and walk, although the distance was considerable, just to look at the weird beasts and even weirder conveyances, but the elvensteeds were already cantering down a wide central aisle to what was apparently an entry to the Fair itself.
A high arch over the aisle said goblin fair and below that all welcome. But directly in front of the arch, so that one had to walk to one side or the other to pass, was a large notice board that said no spells, no drawn weapons, no violence and below those words another line: on pain of permanent removal.
“How strange,” Elizabeth said.
“What’s strange, love?” Harry asked, and then began to laugh. “Now that was a stupid question. I’m sure everything is pretty strange to you.”
“Yes.” Elizabeth laughed too, but she pointed to the signs. “It’s strange that the words should be in English … isn’t it?”
“Oh no, they’re much stranger than that,” Denoriel said, coming up on her other side. “The signs are in any language whoever is looking at them can read. And, I suspect, if the being can’t read—like an ogre or an imp—what the sign says makes speech or … or just is inside their heads.”
“And they mean what they say,” Harry said, accepting a silver wire from Denoriel and fastening it across the place where the holder opened to let him seize his gun.
“They do indeed mean what they say,” Denoriel warned, wiring the hilt of his sword to the scabbard. “The Removal is permanent. No one I know of has ever found out to where the being is Removed, and I’ve never heard of anyone coming back either. While you’re here, Elizabeth, no spells, no mischief, no fighting.”
She shook her head. “Really, Denno, when have you ever known me to strike anyone?”
He laughed. “That tongue of yours can draw blood.”
About to riposte as they passed under the arch, instead Elizabeth stopped to stare at still another huge sign blocking the aisle. This one said caveat emptor.
“What language is that sign in, Denno?” she asked.
“Elven for me. What is it for you, Harry?”
“Same as it’s always been. Latin. ‘Buyer beware.’ I wonder why it’s in Latin rather than English?”
“To fix your mind on it better,” Elizabeth said. “When I have to remember something, I usually write it down in French. Then it sticks in my head.”
Denoriel smiled and then sobered. “That’s another sign that means what it says. It’s said of the Goblin Fair that if you find your heart’s desire here and can purchase it, to have it will make your heart break.”
But Elizabeth wasn’t listening. They had passed around the sign and she was staring from side to side at the brilliantly colored booths with their counters full of an endless variety of goods. She hurried to the right to pick up an exquisite comb carved of horn and set with sparkling jewels. The vendor began to tell her of the wonderful things the comb would do for her hair. He was a tall, very thin being, apparently unclothed except for the flashing scales on his skin. From the way his body bent and his arm curved, he seemed boneless. And when he lifted another comb, seemingly of ivory, Elizabeth could see that his fingers—of which there were too many to count—were webbed almost to their tips.
“Do you want that, dear heart?” Harry asked, a hand on his purse.
“Perhaps,” Elizabeth replied, smiling at him, “but not now. We have barely come in.” She looked around. “I can see that it is not possible to visit the entire Fair, but I need to look a little farther before I decide.” She looked up at the vendor. “Thank you for telling me about the combs. I will remember. We must pass this way to leave the Fair so I will have a second chance to look at your combs.”
They went forward a few feet before Elizabeth darted left to examine some ribbons. Those did not hold her long, although they were of colors no person from the World Above would ever see. However, they twisted and writhed in a way that made her think of worms on a hook and she put them down and backed away.
The momentary disgust passed in wonder over a kaleidoscope that showed not patterns of crystals but moving pictures of people at a dinner and then dancing and then climbing a stair and then …“Oh!” Elizabeth said; Harry took the tube and put it to his eye, also said, “Oh!” and put the instrument back on the counter.
“My fault,” Denoriel said, beginning to laugh. “Look there. It says ‘Cycle of Life.’ But I didn’t know it would show everything.”
They wandered on. Mechain bought Elizabeth a frozen treat on a stick. It was lusciously sweet and rich but so cold it made her teeth ache so she could not bite it and it started to melt. That was easily attended. The kitten quickly licked all the drips off her hand and clean
ed up the bottom of the stick too.
The vendor there looked mortal, except that his eyes were strange, almost without pupils behind large spectacles. It was safe to eat, Mechain assured Denoriel. But Elizabeth had already gone ahead with Elidir who was showing her a small but beautifully engraved silver mirror. Elizabeth held it up to her face, and gasped.
“What is it, child?” the old Sidhe asked, putting his arm around her as she shuddered and handed him the mirror. He looked, shook his head. “I only see my face, sweetling. What do you see?”
“Also my face,” Elizabeth replied, but in a breathless, shaking voice, and tilted the mirror so that it showed both of them.
Elidir looked like Elidir, the skin perhaps a trifle more transparent, the hair whiter, thinner. And Elizabeth looked like Elizabeth, but her face was different, taut with tension, hard with ambition, and the eyes … the eyes were almost as old as those of Elidir.
The Sidhe put the mirror down. Elizabeth reached toward it as if she would pick it up, and a squat, wide-mouthed goblin popped up behind the counter.
“The mirror is priceless,” the goblin began. “With it you can see inside those you must deal with. You can see—” Its voice checked and its eyes fastened on the kitten, which was suddenly squirming in Elizabeth’s grip. “What is that?”
“A kitten,” Elizabeth replied, using the hand that had been reaching toward the mirror to stroke the little creature to quiet it.
“With wings?”
She tilted her head to one side. “Ah, I am not quite sure how that came about.”
“Can it fly?” the goblin asked, and suddenly stretched a very small, stubby pair of wings on its own back.
“A little,” Elizabeth said, recalling that it had got from where it was created to her in the Unformed land, but not very gracefully and it had virtually fallen into her arms. The kitten was now squirming more violently. “Poor thing, I think it wants to get down, but I can’t let it go. It will get lost and stepped on.”
“Give it to me,” the goblin said. “I will put it down in the booth.”
“You will give it back?” Harry said, coming up from behind.
“If the little mistress wants it back, yes.”
Elizabeth, who was in the act of handing the kitten across the counter, almost snatched it back, but it leapt from her hands to the goblin’s naked shoulder where it stood, its claws unsheathed and digging into the goblin’s skin. The goblin seemed totally unaware that the claws should hurt. It raised a hand to tickle the kitten under the chin, and the kitten responded with a rasping purr. A beatific smile widened the goblin’s mouth until it seemed the creature’s head would split in two.
“You want the mirror?” the goblin asked. “Look again. Look at your friends, at those who say they love you. Know the truth. I will trade you the mirror for the kitten.”
Elizabeth’s hand went out toward the mirror. She pulled it back. “That would not be fair,” she said. “The kitten is a construct. I do not know how long it will … exist.”
The kitten rubbed its furry head against the goblin’s cheek. It closed its eyes and stroked the kitten with one finger, careful of the wings.
“For an hour or a day or however long it can live,” the goblin said.
Elizabeth reached for the mirror again, but paused before she touched it. She examined the goblin’s rather horrendous appearance, the green-gray leatherlike skin, the round, flat yellow eyes, the wide mouth where bottom teeth peeped over the upper lip and fangs hung down from the upper jaw, the cruel, curved claws on the hands. Her eyes slid to the mirror but she did not pick it up.
“I don’t want the kitten to be frightened or hurt,” she said. “Not the mirror nor anything else is worth that.”
“Does it look frightened?” the goblin asked. “And I will swear to you that I will do nothing to hurt it and I will not let anyone else hurt it.”
“Elizabeth,” Denoriel said. “Take back the kitten. I will care for it. I told you so. That mirror is an evil thing. It will break your heart.”
“It is not evil,” the goblin said. “It is mindless justice without mercy, but not evil.”
Denoriel snatched up the mirror, pulled Elizabeth to his side, and held the mirror so she could see his face. He expected it to be deformed into a mask of greed, lechery, and hate, but it was not. The mirror showed his face, but lined with pain and worry, the large eyes full of fear. Elizabeth uttered a sob and pulled the mirror down. Harry snatched it away and looked into it. His glance traveled from Denoriel to Elizabeth.
“What?” he asked. “What is wrong? It shows my face, that’s all.”
Elizabeth came around beside him to look and the shock drained out of her expression. Her Da looked younger, the lines of pain graved around his mouth and between his brows during his illness were gone. Love shone in his eyes and sweetness and goodness dwelt in the curve of the lips.
“Oh, Da,” Elizabeth said and flung her arms around his neck. “Oh, Da. As long as you are here and I know you are safe and well, I will never be afraid.” Then suddenly she sighed and uttered a frustrated laugh. To the goblin, she said, “I’ve been a fool. I would take the mirror, but I must return to the World Above and I cannot bring anything made with magic there.”
The creature stroked the kitten gently. “The mirror was not made in this world. There are things here that come from—” he shrugged “—elsewhere. Metals not known Underhill or in the World Above, tools that do things on their own if a being activates them. The mirror is not Underhill magic. Whether it will work in the World Above, I do not know.” It shrugged again. “As you do not know how long the kitten will exist.”
“Don’t, Elizabeth!” Denoriel pleaded. “It is better not to know some things.”
“Mayhap,” she said softly, picking the mirror up and tucking it into the pouch tied to her belt. But then she took Denoriel’s hand, which she held very tight. “It showed me the truth about you, Denno, and about my Da. It might break my heart … but it might save my life, too.”
“What’s the matter?” Harry asked again.
“The mirror shows what’s inside a person, Harry,” Denoriel said, his voice reflecting his inner tension.
Harry shook his head, completely bewildered. “No, it doesn’t. It just showed my face.”
Denoriel began to laugh. “Yes, Harry. It just showed what you are—better than gold, better than anything in this world or the World Above.”
“Does the mirror—”
Elizabeth had turned toward the inside of the booth, intending to ask if the mirror needed any special care, but the goblin was gone as was the kitten, and the counter in front of the booth was empty. Elizabeth’s hand flew to her pouch, but the mirror was there, and when she looked into it, it showed the same hard face that she had seen before.
“I’m not sure I like that,” Denoriel said. “It’s as if he and the booth were set here just to attract Elizabeth. Let me see that mirror again and make sure there is no spell in it that will slowly affect her.”
Somewhat reluctantly Elizabeth took the mirror from her pouch. Denoriel looked at it, felt it, touched it with his tongue, finally shook his head. Mechain took it from his hand and stared at it, obviously extending her senses. After a moment she also shook her head and handed the mirror to Elidir.
“It has no magic at all,” Elidir said, sounding shocked. “No magic I can sense.” He shuddered slightly. “How can it do what it does without magic?”
“There is power in it,” Denoriel said with knitted brows, “I could feel it, but I cannot touch it. It is a different kind of power than what we use.”
Elidir was also frowning. “And Elizabeth did not choose the mirror. She was looking at a strange thing with a black panel. The goblin pushed a button and pictures that moved formed on the panel. I did not like the pictures for a young girl so I showed her the mirror.” He cocked his head. “Does it not seem to you, Denoriel, that the goblin was strange?”
“Its tenderness to the
kitten was certainly unlike any goblin I know,” Mechain said.
“That was not pretense?” Harry asked.
The three Sidhe all shook their heads. “One can feel the anger and evil in them,” Denoriel said, then smiled. “You always react to them with loathing, Harry. How comes it that you did not pull Elizabeth away from the booth?”
“I don’t know.” Harry frowned. “I didn’t feel the disgust I usually do.”
“What does it matter?” Elizabeth asked. “The mirror is still here and it still works.” She tucked her prize away again.
Mechain said, “No harm. But I will say this, that I have never felt from a goblin what I felt when it stroked that construct. If I dared to think that a goblin could love anything, I would say that it loved that kitten. Long may it live.”
Denoriel still seemed uneasy, but there was no sense in standing by the empty booth. They continued on, looking at this and that. Elizabeth was transfixed by a huge roasted drumstick. She kept shaking her head and saying she could not imagine what kind of chicken could grow such a leg and that she surely did not want to meet it. Elidir laughed and bought the leg and when she bit into it her eyes widened with pleasure.
“It isn’t chicken,” she said, handing the leg to Harry.
He took a bite and agreed with her strongly enough to walk back and purchase a leg for each member of the party. They walked along, eating, stopping at still another booth to buy cloth to wipe their greasy hands and chins. Then they stopped in a tent where drinks were served. Elizabeth asked for ale, which she said would go best with the taste of the leg she was eating. Elidir and Mechain obtained mead. Harry and Denoriel drank wine.
As time passed, the worried frown smoothed from Denoriel’s brow. They talked of the strange wares offered for sale. Elizabeth was particularly interested in the books, Harry in the weapons, most especially in those that used cold iron in some form, Mechain and Elidir in spells, some on single sheets, some in grimoires. Eventually, rested and drinks finished, they rose and walked on, but this time they did not get far.
Ill Met by Moonlight Page 48