Bones of the Fair

by Host, Andrea K

  Aristide did not seem to disbelieve his apprentice, instead saying practically, "The power is going somewhere. If it's an enchantment, we may be able to divine intent closer to its centre."

  "But how do we stop it?" Aspen exclaimed, then started down the stair, weaving on his feet. Magical strength was all about how much power you could channel at once, and for how long. If Gentian was any judge, Aspen was operating at his greatest volume, sprinting madly up an arcane mountain. Sustaining this kind of outflow for more than a couple of minutes was painful, and would leave him exhausted. And if he didn't stop – she'd heard of mages bursting their hearts.

  Not to mention...

  "There are other sources," Gentian said, and took Aristide's absent nod to mean he'd already detected the near and distant pyres of major casting. She followed the two men to the house, guessing at just who else was helplessly pouring out their utmost for no purpose of their own. And found an immediate answer in Rua Ketu and Hapt-lo Dest.

  Aurak Bes, following his two guards down the main stair, was the only one of the three Atlarans not drawing power. He looked from Aspen to Aristide, but wasted no words, simply leading the way to the front hall and out into the central gardens of the valley.

  A point of fire grew on top of the pavilion of stone trees. Unlike the spark of blue that had yesterday uncovered the valley, this stayed fixed, roaring its strength. Around it, like sailors siren-called, came those it fed upon. Chenar and Rydan, Captain Djol, Jurasel, Kestia and her eldest daughter Desseron. They joined Aspen, Rua and Hapt-lo Dest on the grass at the lake's edge, pale from strain, sweating with effort. The rest of the valley's stolen mages gathered impotently at their sides.

  "Stop this. Now."

  Lady Dhara hadn't directed the order to anyone in particular, and no-one responded. What could they say? The casting was on a grand level, but although Gentian could sense the stolen power taking on purposeful form, its intent remained completely, infuriatingly hidden. Since it seemed the mages being used as fuel were equally perplexed, those untouched had little chance of interfering. Attacking a spell you didn't understand was an invitation to catastrophe, especially when you wanted to prevent the inevitable backlash from striking those building the thing.

  For the first time since they'd entered the valley, Gentian thought the whole company had forgotten animosity. A palpable horror gripped them instead. For they were ants in a flood: small, helpless, entirely lost to the current. They could only watch, hoping the spell completed before anyone died, and that they could devise some protection when it released. That no-one even suggested a prudent retreat was a measure of both the spell's power and the demoralising effect of its casting.

  "It can't be the Fae," Prince Jurasel said, suddenly. His strength showed in his upright stance, head held high, though the veins stood out in his neck. "She hasn't even stopped playing."

  It was true. Drifting at the edge of hearing was the complex cascade of notes Gentian had been catching notes of all morning. The general wash of magic toward Suldar's location hadn't changed at all.

  "Who else?" Chenar's question lacked any hint of hostility, what attention he could spare from his own plight reserved almost entirely for his brother. A mage's ability to sense and channel power strengthened with age, and Desseron and Rydan were both growing increasingly distressed, not used to sustaining such an outflow. Gentian could only be grateful that the two youngest children had been spared. Captain Djol, by far the weakest mage present, was on his knees, gasping for breath.

  "It just wouldn't make sense for the Fae to be doing it," Jurasel replied, taking an unsteady step closer to the lake's edge. "This is big, but we've already seen what she can do. Why use others to power a spell she could manage in moments? She doesn't need us."

  "Then who does?" Princess Kestia's voice was flat, drained, but her eyes were bright with fury as she held Desseron upright.

  "It's peaking," Aristide said tersely. He hadn't taken his eyes from the pavilion.

  Aurak Bes drew a basic shield over them all: a bubble of force sparking rainbows at the flow of still-streaming power. Then, as abruptly as it had started, the draw of power ceased and the shield smoothed to invisibility. The point of fire on the pavilion's roof grew brighter still, and Gentian looked away, blinking, straining to understand its intent before it moved from preparation to action. A weird peace settled into the stretching pause, where all that could be heard was gasping breath, and, distantly, Suldar's harp.

  Aspen sat down abruptly. "I swear if this place doesn't start making sense soon I'm going to scream," he said, voice high. "Does anyone have the least idea what the wretched thing is doing?"

  "It's eating the sky."

  "An illusion-breaker. The damn thing's an illusion-breaker."

  Kassen's quavering pronouncement and Jurasel's half-reverential exclamation came on top of each other. The sky, blue, cloud-studded, was being pulled toward the valley's centre, stripped away to reveal a dome of unbroken pearl-white. The truth of the valley dragged into chill reality.

  That clear view of their prison's dome faded almost immediately. For the illusion which had hidden it also provided the valley's light: the spell was sucking them rapidly into darkness.

  And as the last shred of light was consumed, memory rose up to crush Gentian. Fourteen years of morning fragments. Always, that blow of hate, the accompanying revulsion and – held within it – the sense of being trapped. A furious, desperate need for escape from some place, some pitch black torment beneath a hundred-weight of stone.

  Grass prickled beneath the palms of her hands. She was shaking, gasping terror into sooty nothing. Dimly she could hear voices, the others yawping useless reaction to the darkness, unable to see its effect on her. And she refused to let them see, driven back to her feet as much by pride as a suddenly active sense of self-preservation. Because she was certain now, retained no shred of doubt that the thing that made Darest unliveable was here, that this was It's prison, and that It was trying to get out.

  Gentian barely managed to force herself upright before half of them were conjuring mageglows, blinking around at each other. She must have lost only a few moments to that too-tangible memory, and now worked on shifting her expression to something less than completely undone. Whatever the truth of the situation, revealing to this hornet's nest of royalty her lifelong link to their unknown attacker was anything but wise. She wasn't sure what to tell even Aristide, who had every reason to investigate rather than kill her.

  Then she remembered Captain Djol, and realised it was too late.

  "No music."

  Lady Dhara had barely spoken before the current of magic toward Suldar shifted. A sudden surge in the tide.

  "She's putting it back."

  If ever there was an apt demonstration that it wouldn't make sense for Suldar to be tapping their power, it was the ease with which she brought back the sky. It flowed from every horizon: brilliant blue, streaks of white, a flare which became the sun. All trace of stony truth wiped away in moments.

  As Suldar's harp once again began to speak, Gentian followed Aristide's lead and sat down, joining the rough circle of mages swiping sweat from their eyes and trying to regain their composure. But for their complete and evident exhaustion, it was as if the illusion-breaking had never happened.

  "I own, I cannot fathom this Fae," Seylon Heresar said, sounding ever so slightly breathless. "It's as if she wishes to pretend we aren't here, and acknowledges all this with only the deepest reluctance. That was patently an attempt to break her hold on the valley, and what does she do? Waits until it's over, then wipes it away. We are – for I cannot see this little display any other way – we are obviously tools brought here to help...something defeat her, and how does she react to our appearance? She shuts the door in our face and ignores us. Like the child who hides by covering its eyes."

  "Perhaps she doesn't consider us a serious risk," Lady Dhara said in a preoccupied voice, her attention taken up with soothing her and Prince
ss Kestia's son while her wife checked over their wan and shaking eldest daughter.

  And, as had been inevitable, Prince Chenar said: "Not ignored us entirely." He was thin-lipped, strained and weary. "Perhaps, Lord Couerveur, you would care to explain what brought Suldar to speak to you this morning?"

  Gentian couldn't quite stop herself from looking at Captain Djol. The Easterner's head was bowed, posture utterly drained, attention unfocused. As if he was in no way a factor in this discussion. For all that he'd heard every single word Suldar had said, and seen fit only to pass on the fact of the conversation, not its content. More than curious.

  Without any hint he was aware of Captain Djol's existence, Aristide said: "That, I believe, was progress. Magister Calder is able to detect an...entity, something other than Suldar. Suldar saw her reaction to it this morning – which says something in itself to how much attention she is paying us – and was disturbed enough to seek out Magister Calder and confirm what she had felt."

  Nothing but the truth. Spectacular. Gentian forced herself to match his assurance when they turned to her. "I'm not sure if it's in the valley or not," she said. "I certainly don't feel it now. But there is something very powerful, and...very angry. What I felt was only a flash, full of hatred. I think it fair to say Suldar was shocked that I could feel it, and very worried."

  "So, our first guess might be right. Gaoler and gaoled." Lady Dhara looked toward Suldar's building, then shrugged. "And any plan we might make a very public thing it seems. Was it trying to communicate with you?"

  "I–" Appalling concept. "I really don't think so. Unless It's – unless it's unable to hold back its anger, no. No."

  Aurak Bes had been watching her as closely as the others, but with a better knowledge of her usual manner. "Not by any means a potential ally?" he asked, softly.

  "Could we even dare to risk that?" Lady Dhara shook her head at her own question. "Lie down with something the Fair are afraid of?"

  "When the alternative's permanent exile under some benighted Darien mountain?" Jurasel had regained a little heat. "If we're in the same prison, working to the same goal – do we have any choice?"

  "When did it offer one?" Chenar, hand on his brother's shoulder, managed a mournful anger. "Ally? Did it, perhaps, humbly beg your pardon? No. If we're to escape this place, it will be despite this, this entity, as you call it."

  "That is certain." Aurak Bes was absolute. "To release such a thing upon the world would be intolerable. Our freedom will not be bought at such a price."

  "Sir," said Jurasel, with evident restraint, "if you have any suggestions on how we are to make any difference either way, I would be glad to hear it."

  "We might start by finding our enemy." It was Aristide who answered. He nodded toward the building marked by a statue of its occupant. "Suldar we have seen, and I agree that it makes no sense to lay blame for this assault at her door, but nor does it appear we will receive any help from that quarter. We are less than likely to prevent further attacks when their mechanism is hidden from us, so we must go to their source. Whether we are equal to facing what we discover is another question."

  "Very optimistic, brother." But Seylon Heresar's silken tone was almost perfunctory, his attention to the problem. They were, Gentian was coming to realise, really rather alike. "So we search the valley. For?"

  "Other Fae. Exits, concealed rooms, a prison within a prison. History. The key to escape may be found in the events leading up to Telsandar's disaster, and the Fair were ever record-keepers."

  "Something for those of us who can read those knots." Heresar's smile thinned. "But if these attacks are frequent, we will hardly have time for leisurely research. What else?"

  "Convincing Suldar to speak to us is an obvious route, but one I would not push. Discovering some protection against this usurpation of casting must be a priority, and I will work with Magister Calder on catching a greater glimpse of the entity she detected. But for the rest of this day I suggest that those of us still able work on an attempt at a keyhole breach of the shield. I doubt it will succeed, but it is our ultimate goal. There is no leaving while it stands."

  Heresar glanced at his prince, then nodded. "Then let's hope it falls before we do."

  Chapter Eleven

  Aspen still couldn't find the right word for the way Aloren moved. She didn't glide, and he'd hardly call it a saunter. Certainly nothing so simple as walk, and stride was out of the question for one so luxuriously languid. There was something innately effortless, and yet commanding of attention. Progressed, perhaps. Even wandering off alone in an abandoned Fae city, she conjured cheering crowds, brought to mind a trail of courtiers and attendants.

  "Do you believe in coincidence, Highness?" he asked, catching her up despite the need to hide from what had just happened, not to mention the screaming exhaustion demanding he crawl under the nearest bush and expire. But curiosity had long been his harshest mistress.

  "When the occasion demands."

  She was humming to herself again, pausing in providing her own processional music only long enough to answer. The melody matched Suldar's. And it was Suldar Aloren was moving toward. She glanced up at the statue's face, then moved to circle the Fae's blocky white building.

  "Coincidences happen," Aspen told her, keeping pace. "But usually there's a deeper explanation."

  "And what coincidence exercises you so?" she asked, indulgent but absent. Her attention was more for one of the high, lanced windows leading into Suldar's building. They began well above head height, were as blocked as the entrance, but with some kind of cloudy glass. The faintest shadowy shapes were visible inside.

  "Two groups," Aspen said, watching her face closely. "I discount the youngest two, Kassen and the boy–"

  "Prince Chiall."

  "Chiall. The rest of us fall neatly into two groups. Those heading back to bed, limp as rags and just as useful. And that little collection out there trying to do something particularly difficult with magic. All our acknowledged Magisters, scholars with a passion for their craft, and I guess just a little harder to, ah, usurp than the rest of us. And then, Highness, there's you."

  He'd won that slow, amused smile, and a moment's full attention. "Yours is a passion for people," she said, a simple statement of fact. "Tell me what you think of Suldar."

  "I've been trying not to," Aspen said, then looked uneasily toward the nearest window. "I don't know – I have a hard time putting myself into her shoes. A thousand years down here, doing what? Playing those harps?"

  "If she wasn't mad to start with, she would be by now?" Aloren was apparently not concerned at the prospect of Suldar eavesdropping on everything they said. "That lessens any need for this to make sense. Perhaps, being bored, she brought us here just to watch us try to leave."

  Aspen could see this was an explanation that Aloren could relate to. "I guess, if we don't find anyone else in the valley, we'll have to ask ourselves that again. Are you going to answer my question?"

  "You didn't ask one," she pointed out. "Perhaps you could answer one for me."

  "Yes?" Aspen came alert, any thought of Suldar blown totally out of his mind by the hint of shared secrets, of camaraderie, in Aloren's honey-treacle voice.

  "Why did Magister Calder fall over when the lights went out?"

  ooOoo

  She hadn't waited for an answer, and Aspen had been left to stumble off to bed, head full of unpleasant questions about the Fae taint and Gentian, and the memory of Aloren humming Suldar's melody. Tired as he was, all the worst possibilities woke him again and again, leaving him a frazzled tangle in a sour, stale bed. There were too many things that could be happening while he played hydra with his thoughts.

  It was no wonder Gentian was such a repressed, squashed down little thing. Bad enough to wake without fail out of nightmare every morning, to have every sleepy lie-in stolen from you. For it to not be your own fears, but a cold and nasty, completely hidden thing that no-one else believed was real? Clawing at the inside of yo
ur head. Trying to get out?

  And that was the question. Aspen was fairly sure Aloren wasn't going to go asking it of anyone else in the near future, but if things like this morning kept happening, the Diamond was going to need more than a few brazen half-truths to keep the little gardening mage in one piece. Pity he seemed to have decided she was Darest's best hope for getting rid of the malison.

  And that was an interesting thought. Gentian wasn't going to make herself popular refusing to help Darest, but perhaps the situation could win Aspen some favour. Naturally the Diamond could arrange matters so that the woman wouldn't be going anywhere 'til he was done with her, but there were a thousand other things that would be requiring his attention as well, once they finally escaped. If Aspen could do a little judicious nudging and convincing, well, that would be a service surely worth a little reward? By late afternoon, making the attempt seemed far more attractive than lying in bed, so he started out with manipulation in mind.

  He spotted Gentian immediately, out in the central garden teaching Desseron, Kassen and Chiall how to grub themselves up with dirt. Since Lady Dhara was in close attendance, looking faintly wry at the accumulation of mud, he decided to postpone the attempt. Especially when Rua and the Guard Dog were over by the lake, poring over a big sheet of paper.

  "I'm guessing the Aurak didn't finish his divination," Aspen said, as soon as he was in earshot.

  "It was a poorly timed interruption," Rua agreed. "Your Lord has agreed to assist him in another attempt this evening."

  The Diamond would enjoy that. "Does that mean you'll be busy tonight?" Aspen asked, letting himself hope.

  Those warm eyes crinkled. "Hapt-lo Dest is to assist," she said, placidly. "Captain Djol and I are detailed to the search."