“I didn’t hear much love in what you said to him.”
“What do you know about it?” said the druid girl.
Good point, Lukas conceded. He could not but remember Marikke and the boy, whom he had found in Caer Callidyrr mired in courthouse bureaucracy, impoverished and without hope. He had taken them in, telling himself he would protect them, at which task he had failed, and the Savage had failed also.
“Where will you go now?”
“Back,” Eleuthra said. “King Derid will need eyes in Moray now the Beastlord has returned.”
Her own eyes were red with tears. Gaspar-shen stalked toward them, a smile on his face. “What did you think of the wine?” Lukas asked.
“I detected hints of blackberry and smoke. A high glycerin content. You can tell from the streaks along the glass. Perhaps we should go.”
Lady Amaranth had lost her brother, Coal. She also had a distinctive way of showing her grief, which was to simper adoringly with her hand on Prince Araithe’s arm as she approached them. “My nephew has consented to let you stay. He said you could play in his orchestra.”
Lukas glanced up at Gaspar-shen. What did I tell you? he thought. “The prince does me too much honor,” he said without rising to his feet.
“Then you accept?” Her eyes maintained a wistful, pleading look, at odds with the rest of her expression.
“My dear, I think it best to take the captain at his word,” said Prince Araithe.
Lukas looked beyond them toward where another figure had entered the circle of firelight, a woman in a long, flowing gown that, like the prince’s raiment, seemed to project a kind of desperate sensuality. The velvet clung to her breasts like a layer of skin. Despite her witch’s mask, Lukas recognized her. For reasons he couldn’t decipher, he’d been expecting her.
“Ware,” said Gaspar-shen.
Lukas stood up. The lines on his friend’s forehead pulsed dimly, red and gold. Which meant—what, exactly? You’d think he’d know by now. People were like undiscovered continents, what they did, what they said, what they meant. As the leShay queen moved toward them, tripping lightly over the grass, as you might say, he allowed himself a small, sweet moment of sadness, and in his mind he captured three small images from the past, because he guessed there’d be no time for contemplation once High Lady Ordalf opened her mouth—first, Marikke, her stiff yellow hair hanging down over a face flushed with concentration—she was performing some ritual in Chauntea’s honor, some brimming liquid in a bowl of light. Second, the calico-haired boy, his fingernails extended in surprise. Third, the Savage, but not wrecked to pieces the last time he’d seen him, a new self erupting out of him, but at his ease in his black clothes, his dark face shining, a gold coin in his outstretched hand.
“My dear boy,” said the queen. “My love, how could you invite so many to your party, and not me? Who is this … whore?” she said, not deigning to look at anyone except her son, peering up into his face, so close to him now that he was obliged to take a step backward and let go of Lady Amaranth’s arm. “Who is this … diseased slut? Does a mother’s advice mean nothing to you? Your father died of a venereal infection, as you know. And he was in his … prime.”
Well, that should get the ball rolling, Lukas imagined.
At first he’d thought Lady Ordalf, not to be outdone, had assumed a mask that was the ugliest in the entire citadel, a grotesque apparition of white skin patched with scabs, a long, beaked, unblown nose, and broken teeth. But now he saw her mask was actual flesh, a small piece of illusion that was now undone, melted away, revealing the golden eyes, sweet features, and laughing, purple mouth of the leShay queen.
Really, Prince Araithe was not clever. “Madam,” he said, his face stiff with shock, “may I present to you my aunt—”
Ordalf whipped her head around, and any thought Lukas might have had that she’d relaxed or forgotten her malice toward her younger half sister was immediately dispelled. But then her face again reformed into beauty, and she held out her hand, displaying a ring on her right forefinger that, Lukas imagined, she wanted Amaranth to kiss.
Or maybe not. Amaranth, also, had taken a step backward. The queen spoke again, her voice lovely and melodious. “Captain, I believed we had a bargain, and that you were to deliver to me one small spherical part of this merchandise, and not, as I see now before me, the entire shipment. Was it too much to ask, that my wishes be fulfilled? Here you’ve given me too much of a good thing, which is worse than nothing at all. I believe that voids our contract, and that you can expect nothing more from me, and the matter of three hundred gold pieces …”
Of all the world’s races, Lukas decided, the eladrin and elves cared the most about coin, perhaps because they lived so long. Still, it astonished him that she could not refrain from haggling, even at a moment like this one.
“Of course,” she said, “I also was unable to keep my side of the bargain, to keep your gnome on this side of the Nine Hells. The giantess I showed you, she separated her torso from her legs without even the benefit of a knife and fork.”
These words were worth more than any of the gold she owed, Lukas thought, because they showed both she and her son were lying, and Suka might be alive for all they knew.
“Thank you,” he said, and she glanced at him briefly, stuffed with contempt for his sincerity, which she could not hope to understand.
“Sister?” Lady Amaranth began.
The music was silent now, as if everyone in the clearing had become aware of this knot of difficulty under the tall trees. Ordalf held out her hand. The ring on her forefinger began to glow, an amethyst.
And as if it had been pushed out from its center, Lukas felt an odd sensation travel through his body and then beyond him out into the clearing, a wave of inertia that dulled and numbed his senses and made it hard to move, hard to think. He imagined the synapses and ganglia of his body set alight as with a gentle electricity, impeding his control. Or it was as if time had slowed for him and all the others whom the wave had touched, the force out of the jewel. Only Lady Ordalf was unaffected, the author of the spell. She sauntered easily to stand next to her sister, immobile and, as Lukas could see, petrified with fear. The leShay queen reached out with her left hand, and with a cruel familiarity she moved her fingers over Amaranth’s face, brushing her cheek, pulling at her hair, tweaking her ear then moving down her neck over the yellow rose tattoo, while at the same time murmuring as if to herself a soft commentary on her sister’s plainness and defects, her unpleasant pallor, her red freckles and red hair, filthy and unbrushed, and was this a twig in it? You must have gotten your complexion from your father. And what are you wearing? She moved her hand down the front of Lady Amaranth’s shirt, modest and androgynous, homespun in her Moray workshop, dyed in earth colors—Lukas could scarcely move a muscle. His body trembled, and with great difficulty he turned his face an inch or so to see if Gaspar-shen was having any luck, but the genasi stood beside him like a statue. Eleuthra was no better. The musicians, instruments still raised, had stopped their playing. Time itself had stopped, or almost stopped, for all but the night birds that still passed over head, and for the drow captain, who had come closer, sword drawn, a puzzled expression on his face—a warlock, then. Lukas had been right.
“Mother,” admonished Prince Araithe. He also was unaffected, because this demonstration was for him.
Full of anger and distress, Lukas watched the queen hesitate at the collar of her sister’s shirt then find the hidden buttons and undo them one by one, whispering all the time, “Let’s see what you have under there. Ooh, gooseflesh. Is my hand cold? Now tell me, do they have baths on Moray Island? Or I suppose when you lie down with your wolves, you can expect some fleas—my son, are you listening? If you feel some itching down below, you’ll get no sympathy from me. No soothing liniment. You’ll have to work on that yourself. Look here, an undershirt. She’s playing hard to get. Look at her bosom, do you like that? So pert and fresh. It’s because she’s never
borne a child.”
She’s going to strip her bare, Lukas realized. She’s going to strip her naked in the middle of a crowd of strangers. Frustrated, he tried to raise his hand. With his utmost strength, he turned his head to look at Amaranth, and saw that she was staring not at her tormentor, but at him, her cheeks on fire, a pleading look that animated every feature of her beautiful face. And so he did not allow his eyes to shift from hers, as he listened to the leShay queen continue her repetitive litany: waist and hips too narrow, unsightly and disgusting hair, thighs too bony and muscular—don’t you see?
Lukas did not see.
“Mother,” said Prince Araithe, his voice petulant and sharp, and Lukas tried to guess its tone. Certainly there was no pity in it. As Gaspar-shen had tried to analyze a glass of wine without tasting it, so the ranger followed the music of the prince’s voice, until he knew the melody: irritation. Hurt pride. And that was all.
And so suddenly, with the force of a blow, Lukas understood what they were talking about, the mother and the son. And Amaranth also understood. He’d seen her weep on several occasions, and now he waited for the tears to form, and overflow her eyelids, and drip down her motionless cheeks—she was too horrified for that.
“Mother, stop.” The prince was humiliated to see his property displayed like this, ruined for him.
“No, my son. This is how it must be. Look where my hand is. Over her womb. Oh, but I will twist her up inside. I have the power to do that. I can make her worse than barren. She will breed monsters. You have not seen such monsters yet.”
Lady Ordalf had gone too far. Enraged, the prince struck at her with his golden hand, knocked her to her knees, cutting her cheek so that the amber blood flowed out. He reached down, grabbed hold of her right hand and dragged the ring from it, threw it off into the shadows, and at that moment everybody staggered free. But nothing could be the same. The musicians rose to their feet, kicked over their stools, threw down their fiddles and guitars—they knew they’d be punished for what they had seen. The drow priestesses cowered in the entrance to the cave, then disappeared inside. By the time Lukas reached Amaranth she had covered herself, but when he tried to touch her and comfort her, she struck at him wildly—stupid, he thought. Stupid, stupid. Eleuthra Davos was with him, and Gaspar-shen.
“Come,” Lukas said, and led them out of the circle of torchlight. Lady Ordalf had collapsed onto the grass, and now her son knelt over her, sobbing, his golden fist clenched. Lukas imagined they might have a few minutes, and he led the way out of the clearing, into the dark, sticky forest of evergreens. “This way,” he said, not knowing where to go. “Come this way.”
Not wanting, for sentimental reasons, to leave the shape in which she’d last seen the daemonfey, Eleuthra held out as long as she could. These were the lips that he had kissed. When the red wolf with the black mark had come into the clearing, she had climbed down into her bestial self to goad him, to signal her regret, if only for a moment—he was disgusting to her, after all. But when the Savage had wrestled with the wolf in the pool, had slit his stomach and dyed the water red just at the moment the gate began to swirl, she felt he had penetrated with his knife the wolfish part of her, cut her to the heart. In Callidyrr, in her druidic studies and devotions she’d discovered her animal nature, had rejoiced in it for years, but at a cost. Two creatures in one body—how could she expect to feel unmixed emotions? One part hated what the other part loved.
So as she squatted listening to the music in the clearing, she had resolved to hold onto her human shape, for the sake of the music, the dancing, the fine clothes, the wine, and the memory of the daemonfey. But like an addict she had become more nervous and distracted as the moments passed, particularly as the knot that tied Lady Amaranth to her family grew more twisted and strained, and finally burst apart. She had found herself scratching her armpits and rubbing her lips, itching beneath her uncured wolf skin until she could scarcely tolerate her own humanity. And so when the ranger brought them in under the trees, she found herself subsiding gratefully into her lupine form, a drunkard forgetting her own promise of sobriety, happy to see the bright colors grow dim, at the same time that the darkness brightened. She leaped away into the night forest, and immediately forgot the lover she had left to die.
Forgot him even though, as her senses sharpened, she caught the stink of other fey and realized the danger they were in. Doubtless the ranger knew it also: These pines and fir trees had kept down the undergrowth, and they could make good time along the woodland paths, over a turf of silver needles that deadened their footsteps. But among the heavy tree trunks she could see the fugitive shadows of other creatures, fell denizens of Winterglen, who had gathered in around the citadel to listen to the music, the human music the fey loved, because it spoke of transience to eternal creatures, and passion to the passionless. And so they had come like moths to a flame, night hags and feygrove chokers.
But the music was over now. Released from its power, they looked about themselves, their anger and their spite redoubled, because they’d been forgotten for a little while. Caught and released, now they looked to enslave others. And as the druid, the genasi, the princess, and the ranger made what speed they could, they picked up stragglers behind them, and on either side, and now in front. Where the largest trees were choked with vines, long sinewy arms with three-fingered hands reached down to snatch at them. The ranger had lost his bow in the gate but had retained his sword. He and the genasi slashed at them while Eleuthra hung back. A dusk unicorn, blood flanked and grotesque, loomed out of the shadow and she swiped at it with her claws, while all around them she heard yelps of pain out of the howling hags that shambled toward them through the trees, their hands held out, their bodies stinking of rot.
The ranger didn’t know where he was going. How could he know? His only thought was to bring the girl away. But now Eleuthra wondered if in the minutes that had already passed since they had left the clearing, Prince Araithe had forgotten his distractions and was weaving a spell out of Citadel Umbra, a web of Feywild creatures to disarm them and bring them back. She leaped after the unicorn, chased it away. But beyond it, back they way they’d come, she saw the moving shadows of a pack of hounds, saw their yellow eyes as if reflected in a fire. Had the princess lit her beacon again? That would have been foolish. No, the light was from elsewhere, up ahead. She turned and ran back to the others, who had paused in a boggy open space, where the pines gave out into the softer, deciduous trees. There in the middle burned a bonfire, which had not been there even a minute before, and around it turned, as if following the steps of some simple dance, a circle of figures—eladrin, the druid guessed at first. That would have been a welcome sight, and doubtless that was what had drawn Lukas out of the trees. But then she saw him raise his sword, and saw also the faces of the graceful creatures illuminated in the firelight—fey lingerers, knights and ladies who, zombielike, refused to die. Still animated by hate, or malice, or thoughts of vengeance against those who had stolen their enormous lives away, they had gathered near their living brethren, a pack of ruined ghosts. Only in the darkness did their skull-like features retain even a shadow of their beauty, and now the darkness had fled. Bowing and turning, they circled forward, clad in moldy, slimy armor, though their swords were bright.
“Shit,” said Lukas. “Fall back.”
In her wolf’s shape, complicated human speech was hard to care about, hard to listen to, hard to understand. But she could handle “shit, fall back.” So where? Behind them were the chokers and the hags and the hounds now spreading out around them, weaving back and forth among the trees. Eleuthra wondered if this was still her fight, and what would happen if she slunk away into the trees, protected by her beast’s shape—no. These were the daemonfey’s friends, and she would fight for them. She’d left him to die facing Malar the Beastlord.
They hung together in a knot, the four of them. But now others were converging out of the shadows: drow soldiers. And to Eleuthra’s astonishment they c
ut and hacked through the whimpering fey. A choker, its arm severed, howled from a bole of vines. The lingerers, undaunted, still moved forward, but Eleuthra could see there was some magic with the drow, a warlock or other conjurer. Snarling, his lips drawn back, she could feel the electric thrill of magic in her heavy teeth. The bonfire snuffed out as if the gods had pissed on it, and in the stinking smoke she could see a drow captain in black armor, the same one from the clearing at the citadel, his white sword burning with a lambent flame. Lukas was with him, and the fire-striped genasi, and she also bounded forward, seizing a dead knight by the arm, dragging him down into the mud, trying to kill him once again. Above them, lightning flashed out of a cloudless sky, and it began to rain.
The drow’s ears were full of iron rings. His white hair was fastened behind his neck with an iron pin in the shape of a crab. His voice was high and soft and unpleasant, a sound like the rushing of the wind. “Come,” he whispered. “Come with me.”
There were seven drow soldiers, and also one of the priestesses or handmaidens of Lolth, the first one who had spoken to them in the temple of the Spider Queen—Amaka, she had called herself. Her eyes were wide with fright, but she ran with them under the trees, barefoot, her pretty white dress stained and ruined, the red cord missing from around her waist. The drow captain led them onward, still away from the citadel, and once again into the pine forest. In time Eleuthra could see they followed a stone road that had risen out of the accumulated needles. Now there was a low stone wall on either side, and a series of carved bas-reliefs. Still they hurried, and the wall rose higher, and Eleuthra realized it was because the road was sinking, a tunnel now, as the wall closed over their heads.
There was a light up ahead, a thin light spilling from a doorway, which the captain pulled open to reveal a guardroom lit by a smoldering brazier, and a couple of astonished guards. He swore at them, pulled them from their chairs, chased them out into the tunnel to wait with the rest of the drow, while he brought Lukas and the others into the room. His sword was still drawn, still smeared and smoking with the slimy yellow blood of the lingerers.
The Rose of Sarifal Page 23