by Sarah Hoyt
The new machines and the newfangled magical ways to improve the land meant fewer people working there, but fewer famines too, and the people came to the cities willingly, to work punishing industrial jobs that were, nonetheless, better than the farm jobs they'd left behind.
All that – the new society, the strange way of seeing things, even the way that, the moment they’d come to Avalon Antoine had been captured and held hostage by Sydell – should have scared her; and it had, as had her servitude to Sydell while trying to earn Antoine’s redemption. But she had never been this scared.
At first she thought that she would have earned Antoine’s way out. By the time she realized that wasn’t possible…. She swallowed hard at the memory of Antoine’s animated corpse. By the time she’d realized she couldn’t save him, things had gone too far out of control for her to feel fear as such. She’d been too busy saving Seraphim and… and a fine muddle she’d made of that. Maybe that was why in the fairytales they never had the princess rescue the handsome hero.
But no, truth be told, the handsome hero had also made a muddle of it. At least, he wasn’t here, she thought, in this net in which the rest of them were caught, spinning over what appeared to be an endless void, punctured with pinpoints of star light.
She closed her eyes and told herself – hard – that there was no net, no pinpoints. That she was free and near the throne room. But nothing changed. She could feel the threads of the net – thick, and made of what fishing line would be if it were as thick as mooring ropes – digging into her back. She could feel Akakios’s bare feet digging into her side. And she could smell them all: sweat and fear and various grooming products.
Her eyes came open again. There was absolutely no point closing your eyes and pretending if you couldn’t, in any way, make it true. People had pulled away from the center, by their weight creating niches in the net, which allowed them to spread out. Michael – she assumed he was Michael, since he looked like the changeling she’d first seen in Michael’s workshop – sat sprawled, his back propped on the side of the net, his arms akimbo. His eyes had lost their vacant, shiny look, and his brows were now knit, over his nose, in a puzzled frown so reminiscent of Seraphim it made something within her ache.
Caroline and Akakios had backed away together. Nell noted they were holding hands, and cringed a little inwardly, wondering what Seraphim would think of that. A lady in Britannia had limited say on whom she wished to marry, and Nell would be willing to bet even a Centaur Prince would not be considered an eligible match.
A quick look at the remaining person, Gabriel Penn, lying still at the bottom of the net, looking up at the top where the net was gathered and held. It was nebulous up there, and Nell could not see how or what held it. “It will not disappear, no matter how much I think about it being gone,” she told Gabriel.
He turned to look at her, and she scuttled back, alarmed. He looked… wild – she thought. His hair had now come completely undone, and there was an odd shine to his eyes: not like Michael’s but more as though he were laughing wildly at some joke only he knew. In their situation, she couldn’t imagine what that would be.
There was wild humor in his voice, a hint of suppressed laughter. “No, you wouldn’t be able to,” he said. Worse, his voice echoed in odd harmonics that she couldn’t quite place.
Michael spoke before she could ask Penn what was so funny – not that she meant to.
“I was dreaming,” he said. His voice sounded small and very young, as if he’d been a little boy, instead of a teenager. “I was dreaming about….” He made a face of deep thought. “There were machines, but… he… he– The King– He said that… He told me I’d have power, and I– ” He burst into tears, and like that, the mad, laughing light went out of Gabriel’s eyes. He seized hold of the threads of the net, dragged himself to where Michael was, put his hand on Michael’s head. “Never mind. Never mind. It was all a bad dream. It is always best if you don’t think of Fairyland as more than a mad dream. When they– ” he took a deep breath. “When we get in your mind, it splits it. We’re not the same as you are. We’re not– ”
Akakios said one word that Nell, without understanding it, knew meant King, or Sire, and then in English, “You know now that you must take your place. You have come to the prophecy.”
The mad light was back. Penn, matter-of-factly wiped his younger brother’s face with a handkerchief pulled from his sleeve, and managed to look tired, even as the mad light came back into his eyes. “I see the design,” he said, "and the intent pulling me in, damme.”
“Intent?” Nell said.
“The prophecy,” Akakios said. “It said a man born of elf and human and raised on Earth would come back and become king of Fairyland, and– ” an elven sound—"is the man.”
“Mr. Penn?”
“Yes, that is my other name. It translates loosely as "Night Arrow." I haven’t used it since… Never mind. The prophecy. I grew up with it. I think it intended me for the role. Stories that old, particularly in Fairyland, acquire a power. It pushed me. I did not want it but….” He made a face. “Never mind. It might have to be.” He looked at Akakios. “I’m not sure I appreciate centaur interference, though.”
Akakios’ face went stern. “My father sacrificed his first-born and risks me for– ”
“Oh, very well,” Gabriel said, a king dismissing a pointless complaint.
“But how do we get out of here?” Nell asked. “And where are we?”
“I fancy we are between worlds,” Gabriel said. “Not that way. There is air here, of course, but we’re not quite in any world, anyway. Even if we got free, there would be nowhere to fall.”
“Then– what?”
“I’ll have to borrow power,” he said. “I’ll have to use the power of one not confined in this trap.”
“What do you mean?”
“The king of Fairyland,” he said, "can reach the magic of any of his subjects. I’ll have to reach for one of them. But since I’m not yet the real king, it will have to be someone I know well. I’ll use that magic to transport us out of here. And then, I think, curse it, I’ll have to fulfill my destiny. But you and the others… Take them, Princess, and see them safe.”
A Matter of Power
“One doesn’t,” the honorable Jonathan Blythe said, “simply walk into the royal palace. Particularly not–” he gave Seraphim Ainsling, lately the Duke of Darkwater a derisive look, and Marlon Elfborn, or perhaps Sydell, a puzzled one. “Particularly not, I say, when one has a price on one’s head.”
Seraphim raised his eyes at Jon, who seemed to suddenly have become all too sober, even if he retained his easygoing mannerisms. “Is there a price on my head, Jon?” he asked softly. “You said my title was removed, my property impounded – I presume – and I presume, as well, that I am under suspicion of murder, for I gather that’s the excuse for all this, that unfortunate man who died on my estate? That I’m under suspicion of using illegal magic to kill him. But I’ve not violated one of those laws that put you under an immediate death sentence.” Seraphim tried very hard to keep from sliding his gaze sideways at Marlon. “And even if I had, surely it would be a matter for the courts first? I am a peer of the realm. I might be tried in absentia, but surely I must be tried before I am condemned.”
“Who said anything about laws or the realm?” Jon said. “Who said anything about trials, either? Or the death of the man on your estate? Sure, that’s what they used to impound all you own and to discredit you in the eyes of the world, but if you believe that is what you’re in real danger from, then you have no more wit than hair, and I wash my hands of you.” He looked up, and must have read the plain incomprehension in Seraphim’s eyes. “Ask instead why you were ever in danger – why there was a man on your estate. He was dead before he ever came to you, by the way. He has been dead for at least a year. And he was not, at that, exactly a man, but never you mind that.”
“I am not sure what you mean,” Seraphim said, and he meant it. He
had no idea where this Jon Blythe had come from, who could spin plots and ideas that of course Seraphim had thought of, but only in the privacy of his own mind, and then quickly dismissed as too preposterous. It was impossible that a vast, shadowy network had been conspiring to ensnare him. Surely, what had happened to him was a series of spectacular bad luck, or else…. His mind stopped, because he knew for a fact that a royal princess had been whisked out of the realm, and Jon said it had been Sydell’s and the Blythes' doing all along, but if it were so– “But why me?” he said. “Oh, surely, I was … involved in many worlds, and they could have brought me to trial on that, since it violates the royal decree about dealings with other Earths, but what can that have to do with—”
“No,” Jonathan said. “They couldn’t have brought you to trial, because you know too much, and had they brought you in, the examining magicians would learn of it, and some of those are incorruptible old sots, as you well know.”
“I?” Seraphim leaned back. He noted without thinking that Marlon had cleaned up spilled tea and broken porcelain and also that Marlon had poured Seraphim a new cup of tea and, having whisked from somewhere a glass decanter, was pouring an amber drop in it.
“Oh, brandy,” the Honorable Jonathan said. “I say, can you—”
“No,” Marlon said, drily. Then to Seraphim. “I think you should have what I’ve poured for you. It will help you.”
“I—” Seraphim said, and obeyed automatically, though objecting, “I am not so much shocked as puzzled. I’m trying to think what I know that would give any examining magicians anything upon which to unravel a conspiracy. I know I have rescued…. This would be in the last month, I presume, since before that, they might know what I was doing but no one did anything about it.”
Jonathan inclined his head. “They weren’t sure what you were doing until my dearest sister accepted your offer last month. They suspected you might have taken over the role of witchfinder, which was your father’s before it was abolished, of course. But they didn’t know, and surely they couldn’t prove it.”
“The role of—”
“I see. Your father never told you?”
Before Seraphim could answer, Marlon intervened. “That part I know, though I didn’t know you’d taken it over, have you, Seraphim?”
“I took over my father’s work.” The brandy might have been a bad idea, as Seraphim’s head ached fit to split. “If that is what you mean. I never heard of an official role, but when my father… After the funeral, Gabriel, who was cleaning my father’s room and disposing of his effects before I moved into it, brought me some very odd artifacts, and also a diary he found concealed in a cunning place only a person of my father’s blood could open. Through it I found that though my father had many failings – and his failings were as real as his virtues – that his career hadn’t been as deliberately ruinous as one would think. I mean, he still gambled. I think he was addicted to the rush of gambling, to be truthful. And he….” Seraphim smiled a little. “One can’t deny that he left more by-blows throughout the district than any but the noblest of royal lines have ever managed to leave, which, considering he wasn’t working on a kingdom scale, must be, I suppose, counted to his credit. But—” He paused. “But the truth is that most of the time he was away from us, most of his months of seeming neglect of his family, he was in fact occupied in rescuing unfortunates from worlds where magic is illegal. Gabriel and I… resumed his work.”
“The work of the witchfinder,” Marlon said, "of which your father was the last official one. And before you excoriate him for not living within his means, do keep in mind that he used to get a stipend for this work, and was used to a vast royal largesse.”
“Oh,” Seraphim said. Now his head was spinning and he knew this was naught but a mad dream. “But no one told me! Not even Mama.”
“No, of course not. If she suspected what he was doing, better to keep it secret,” Jon said. “But they would suspect you, particularly as your personality changed overnight after your father’s death. So… when my sister accepted your so-very-kind offer.” He grinned. “Remember she asked you for a lock of your hair?”
Seraphim remembered, because it had seemed such an odd sentimentality in Honoria.
“You didn’t give her a lock of your hair, Ainsling?” Marlon asked, shock and amusement mingling. “Of all the crack-brained—”
“I thought nothing of it. One doesn’t think—”
“No, of course not,” Jon said. “You did an awful lot of not thinking, Seraphim. But that is why you can’t walk into the palace. If you do, they will know you, no matter how you disguise your magical power or your physical body. They have a lock of your hair, Seraphim. They have a part of you and can trace your magic. They’ve already used it to send you on a tour of the worlds, I suspect, and try to get you killed. And I think the only reason we’re safe here is that Marlon has made this proof against all but his own odd brand of magic.”
“Of course,” Marlon said, drily, but yet managing to convey the impression of having arrived at a momentous conclusion. “That is it precisely. My brand of magic. Neither human nor elven, nor dragon, but with hints of all of it. It is what has allowed me to survive in hiding this long.” He looked up at Seraphim and grinned. “And it will now allow me to use it to disguise you. Because most of it doesn’t come from Earth, they cannot trace it. Because I’ve long ago cut off the sovereign of Fairyland, he can’t trace my power. We shall disguise you, milord duke, and you shall go, while we go about our several missions. And at the end of this you’ll be a duke again in fact, and everything restored to its proper place.” Something to his wry smile said there were things that could not be restored. "So. My magical power it shall be.”
Blindly
There might have been more embarrassing things than finding himself being attired by the Honorable Jonathan and the publicly known to be non-honorable Marlon Elfborn, but if there were, Seraphim Ainsling would rather not experience them.
It wasn’t so much the attiring, as Seraphim had dispensed with valeting too many times to need that material kind of attention, but the procuring of an old suit of Marlon’s, a detailed discussion of whether or not the suit was too good and would draw attention and finally – but not least – that Marlon had re-sized it by frowning at it, with no visible magic expended, and no passes or magic ritual employed.
This was starting to worry Seraphim as much as anything else about this whole affair, and he’d ventured to ask Marlon, “How much magical power do you have – precisely?”
He got back a weirdly unfocused look and a shrug. “It’s not how much power,” he said. “It’s which power. If I access my elf power, I have normal power for a half breed. That is what I normally allow to be seen. In the home—” He stopped and shrugged. “But there’s also dragon power, I suppose. I used to have no idea what it was, but I suppose that is what it is. And there is human power, since my ancestors were noblemen and therefore magical. And I can draw from all of them…. Often do. I just learned early not to let it be seen, and to operate like anyone else. Part of the reason I felt– That is, I didn’t have to disguise my power around Gabriel. Being of the royal blood of Fairyland, his is a match for mine.” He gave a pallid smile. “But we’ll not speak of it.”
And with that, and a few comments from Jonathan, they’d let Seraphim go, attired in his borrowed suit, an unexceptionable suit of black wool with a white shirt, but not at all something that Seraphim would normally have worn. Whatever Marlon had done to dim Seraphim’s obvious power signature, he’d done other things also. Looking at himself in the mirror, Seraphim found he looked… blurry.
“I made it difficult for anyone to focus on your features,” Marlon had said. “Unless you wish them to.” He’d hesitated. “While it’s possible no one would associate you with the Duke of Darkwater, dressed as you are, they might, and you can’t risk it.”
“Features like mine are no great distinction,” Seraphim had said curtly. “My father ma
de sure there were plenty of them about.”
“Not exactly like yours,” Marlon said. “Gabriel’s comes the closest to that. And both of you are distinctive-looking enough, and both of you fugitives. But he told me, yes, that there were plenty of other bastards on your line.” He’d hesitated. “Will you tell me, perhaps, why your father chose to shelter Gabriel, while ignoring the others?”
“I don’t think he ignored the others, exactly.” Through Seraphim’s head had paraded a number of tenants, farmers, servants, all of whom bore a distinct resemblance to him and all of whom had been in some measure supported by his parents. “I think he left it to Mother to… to provide. Most of the time. He wasn’t exactly heartless, just the least… that is, he didn’t seem to think about his former paramours or … or their children, once he’d left them. But my—I think Gabriel’s circumstances were what made him bring Gabriel home. That, or perhaps the fact that he did resemble me so much.”
“I see.”
“Why did you wonder?”
“I thought perhaps it was the fear of that untrained talent and what it might do. Or that perhaps Gabriel—but no, it will not be thought of.”
Now, walking around to one of the innumerable entrances in the palace, Seraphim thought that he couldn’t stop thinking of whatever might be driving Marlon’s doubts. From the sound of it, he suspected Gabriel of something, or perhaps was afraid Gabriel had done something. For the life of him, Seraphim couldn’t think what it might be, but he felt as though the last few weeks had pummeled his ability for disbelief. If someone had told him that Gabriel had committed some horrendous crime, perhaps including murder, Seraphim would merely ask whom his half-brother had killed and why.