Albric thought that this time fairyland had caught the human. Now would Cedric stay, in thrall of Lady Breena, a shadow in the court, spending his all too brief mortality upon worshiping her in vain.
Yet when the singing was done and the court retired, the human told the king in unbowed tones, “You have one day and one night, king. And not one night more.”
***
The puck, or another puck, as they all looked alike, and were all pieces of the same creature, part woodland and part fairyland, wood and bone together, looked at King Albric with the baleful look of a puppy who knows the master is displeased. “Nor has Peaseblossom returned,” he said. “Nor is there, yet, a message from the North.”
And the king paced, half the night long, wondering what the queen could mean, and why she would let both their peoples suffer for his old sins.
Not that it had been a sin, he thought, to leave her when he’d found that she’d meant to use her dark magic to bind him to her – no, the sin had been to fall in love with her. Oh, how he missed her midnight hair, her snow white skin, her red, red lips, and her body as passionate as his kind could never be.
And her heart full of treason.
But even traitors must know when they could not survive by themselves, without those they would abandon and watch die.
“Send Aster after Peaseblossom then,” he said. “For I must have an answer from the North.”
***
During the day, the king waited and thought. Like a woodland creature caught in a trap, he saw no way out, but that which would cost him a part of himself. He rose every time he heard the sound of hooves. It wasn’t like the queen of the North to travel by day, but his emissaries might.
She’s been massing her armies, he thought. She’s been ranging her soldiers. The terrible Orcs, the fearsome redcaps shall soon come and descend upon Cedric’s people and render all of it moot. They shall destroy and maim and so fill the humans with unreasoning fear that mortals will never again trespass upon the halls of fairy kind or the glades sacred to our magic. The ones who survive will be fearful and small, and pour out a libation of milk every morning, to the kind elves who allow them to live. And no more will they build, and no more will they plow, and iron shall be banned forever more.
He paced and thought, and he thought and he paced, and he twisted his hands together in distress, while his attendants stood by and watched, quiet and fearful. And part of him dreaded having asked her for help, for once she came, how was he to stop her. Her magic was cruel where his magic was kind, her magic killed while his magic protected, and when they were together there was no safe place to be and nowhere anything mortal or fragile could hide.
And what would the queen think of Lady Breena, whom Albric had thought to marry, someday soon – when he no longer dreamed of the queen’s dark hair, of her skin of snow, of her red, red lips and that body that was like the heat of day, like the force of the sea, like the joy of life?
He thought and he paced, but there was no certainty and there was no hope, and there was no answer from the North.
Lady Breena would have to lie with the man named Cedric and endure his rough human nature and his crude natural ways.
***
Tonight the walls themselves shone, as though sun rays were captive within them. A million butterflies fluttered and sparkled in the air, filling the hall with the giddy joy of nature unbridled. All the ladies and lords of fairy kind had dressed at their brightest and adorned with colored feathers and sparkling jewels.
The bards sat on gilded chairs at one end of the salon, clutching their golden harps and waiting for the lady Breena, who now came walking into the salon, dressed all in red.
Red like the firelight was her dress, red like the spring robin her cloak. Her hair was caught up in a ruby sparkling with something like flames. And her feet were encased in shoes embroidered in thread that shone like more rubies.
Cedric rose and went to her. Beneath the glittering ceiling, amid the glittering pillars of the salon they danced. They spun like whirlwinds, in the arms of the music, perfect together, each step exact.
Her body molded to his, his steps assured, hers echoing them exactly they flitted and flew, now fast now slow, now sad, now joyful – a reel and a turn, a careen and a winding down. In each other’s arms, they sparkled and smiled.
And Albric thought perhaps this would do it. Perhaps no more would be required.
But after the dance, when even the glittering elves of the court of the blessed were tired and broken by their exertions and joys, yet Cedric remained unbowed, untired.
He bent and whispered upon Lady Breena’s ear, and then, with her by the hand, he approached the king. “Remember oh king. This is the last night of three. Tomorrow at dawn I will have your answer for what it’s to be – exile or the plow, restriction or fading. You have this night to think. And not one night more.”
***
Her sighs and his laughter, and the sound of kisses echoed through the palace and pierced through the magical walls. They branded like iron and they cut like a blade.
“Send Rosepetal,” the king screamed, above the sound of sighs and the echo of kisses, his throat tight with grief, his eyes blurring with unshed tears. “Upon the bridge of air, to the Queen of the North, to beg for an answer, to beg for rescue, to tell her I’m hers to do as she please, to tell her that she can have blood and pain and fire and grief, but not to leave me waiting for an answer from the North.”
And the servants cowed, and paled and hid, but Rosepetal sprang upon the bridge of air, running like the wind, determined to bring them succor from the North.
***
Morning dawned fair, the sky like the skin of a newly ripe peach and a little breeze bringing with it the chill of dew and the tinge of charcoal from the human village.
The king rose, as though he’d been long dead. Dead and buried, and gone. How fortunate they were, his father and forefather and those before him, who had not had to face this: a young crude race, full of harsh devices. They were dead and past suffering, one with the wind, and the glittering air, and the hope of spring – they knew nothing of the iron that poisoned the land and made its fruits inedible; they knew nothing of men, who hated fairy kind.
In the looking glass, made of a perfect sheet of primeval ice, the king saw himself. His hair had turned white, his beard yet whiter, his eyes as light as the fog that clouds winter nights. His hands trembled and his lips sagged. He’d lost his way and nigh lost his wits.
The servants who’d looked after him for the millennia of his untroubled reign, now cowered in shadows and looked on him as though he might at any moment order them to destroy or kill or maim.
But his madness was past. There was yet no answer from the North. The Queen of the Dark, the Lady of Shadows thought she’d live on well and long with him. She had laughed at his messages. She’d scorned his desperate submission.
Only one thought remained, only one spark kept the king’s heart from feeling as cold and dark as winter with no hope of spring – and that was that the lady Breena’s love had conquered the dark savage heart of the man named Cedric.
***
She woke in his bed, his arms around her, his heart beating fast, his lips searching her.
“Come with me,” he said after he kissed her. “Come and be my wife.”
For a moment she stared at him, her mind caught in his eyes like blue ice, his features so rough. She’d thought she’d hate him. She’d thought to touch him would be to betray fairyland and her immortal kind. She’d thought she’d forsaken her ambition, she’d never be queen.
Now on waking it was as though she had been asleep, not just all the night, but her whole life long. The dreams and the thoughts of her life in the palace, the spinning of a trousseau, the playing on the harp, the songs and the waiting, how long had it been?
Centuries, millennia, and yet this morning, she was a maiden, young and fair and new, just coming alive, just learning of the world.
“It will be hard,” he said. “I won’t lie to you. My people and yours they are not alike. Your people are light, and air and wind, mine are the Earth and all that grows on it. We use iron to till, and we herd rough beasts. We live on coarse stuff, as coarse as we are.” He looked at her, intent but kind. “And yet inside, you will always remember, being a Lady of the air, a Princess of light; and many a time you’ll wonder why you left, for the hut of a farmer, the pain of birth, and the cry of the babes. I won’t lie to you. I want you to come willing and knowing, and be my farm wife, and remain by my side, till our lives are told and the Earth claims us.”
She knew it was true – she’d heard them cry, the women who lived with men like Cedric and bore their babes and spun their clothes, and wore themselves out in tending the fields. She’d seen them shiver in winter and swelter in summer.
But ah, she’d heard them sing in the spring, of love most strong, of two souls like one. She’d seen them smile at babes, newborn, and she’d watched them kiss their rough farming men. And until now, she’d never understood, the joy in their eyes, the spring in their step.
“I will come with you,” she said. “Wherever you go. But won’t fairy kind die in that world of yours?”
He’d laughed loud, and shaken his head, swift. “Not if you wish to live, for you must know that every human inside knows what it is like to live forever and to be magic and air. It is all in the mind, caught in the rough body, and if you find your joy in between, then you’ll be one of us, and you’ll belong with me.”
***
“My Lord, my Lord, wake and attend.”
The king woke and turned, in surprise and fear, to face his servants standing beside him: Rosepetal and Aster and fair Peaseblossom.
He sat up, his covers clutched to him. “Is it here at last? Has it finally come? Has the queen of the North sent her armies and bands, the horrible orcs and the blood-mad redcaps? Will she wreak vengeance? Will she come and save us?”
Their faces were grave, they did not encourage him to hope for much. But they had a letter, frail parchment, well folded.
Rosepetal knelt and handed it to the king, with her head bowed, her eyes looking down. Was that a tear glittering in her softly shining eyes? Was the news so bad? Was all lost, then?
The king didn’t know, he could not see. He broke open the seal of the dark queen.
Before he could read, a puck came in. “Milord, I have a message, from the Lord Cedric. He has dressed in his clothes, he’s put on his spurs, he says he is leaving as fast as he can, and he needs your answer, or it shall be the plow, because he said, my Lord, you get not a moment more.”
“He leaves so soon? He wakes so bold? The fair Lady Breena didn’t touch his heart, didn’t bend his mind?”
“The Lady Breena is dressed and stands with him, ready to go to his world, to become his kin.”
“But the iron in his spurs, the iron in heart?”
“She chooses to be human,” the puck said. “Till death them part.”
“I will come to him,” the king said. “As soon as may be.” And he opened the message from the dark northern queen.
His tears they shone, between eyes and paper, and obscured his vision, and made it hard to read. Through them he could see no more than a few words, glittering at him in her slanted hand, powerless was one and already surrendered and all lost and our sin and will scarce remember.
He blinked. Hot tears ran down his face to his beard. And his sight became sharper and the words clear.
Alberic recall, it began without fear. How you left me, it must be now a good thousand years. Oh, it wasn’t our fault, we could not have lived forever together. Your magic and mine could never exist in the same palace, in the same people. Our brief, pleasing sin was loving the opposite. The day longs for night, but it should never meet. And night craves the day, with its light and its heat, but one destroys the other wherever they touch.
Remember you left me, to save all of you. And you left me behind to mourn all I’d lost.
But you left behind two slivers of you, two sparks of the day growing in the night. A boy and a girl, neither light nor dark. They could not live here, and they could not live there. They were left at the door of a poor human hunter, as humans used to be, all fear and all silence. I thought them gone, I thought them lost. I thought no more of them, nor of you, nor of love. I enjoyed my hunt, I craved my pleasure.
But they lived, they grew, and they married humans, and their children, bright, had more children still, till now every human born of clay and blood and of iron and fire carries within a spark of our magic, a hint of our love, a bit of the day, a shadow of night, the fire and the ice that should never meet unless they die. And yet they live, and yet they grow.
And it is our love that gives them force, that feeds their power that makes them create, that tames the iron, that helps them plow, that gives them the courage to challenge us both.
I’ve already surrendered, I’ve already agreed, to come no nearer men than to touch their dreams.
Farewell my beloved, from now on we’ll be like shadows that pass in the world of men, like fleeting illusions dancing in the wind. Our children will live, our children will grow, till they cover the world with their fire and their plow – a touch of the night, a touch of the day, a hint of enchantment and a taste for blood.
Ah, Albric beloved, we’ve grown a fine brood.
Heart’s Fire
A COLD WIND BLEW IN OFF LAKE MICHIGAN sprinkling a fine, freezing drizzle over the city of Chicago.
It was so overcast that the magically suspended El cars, riding the air above the city on a charmed path, barely cast a shadow on the buildings and bundled-up passerby below. Too cold for May, and local businesses were feeling the sting of the weather.
The Chicago Institute of Arcane Art, normally a hub of magicican-artists the world over, looked empty and grey. Enchantment Place, the famed magical mall was so empty many shop owners had closed.
And in a little jewelry shop tucked inconspicuously between the Familiar Pet store and Steel Crazy, Ausenda Cuorefueco reached discreetly for the paperback romance tucked in her purse. She wedged it under the glass counter, at an angle, so no customers would see it. Should a customer come in, of course, she thought sullenly looking up and through the narrow door with its gothic lettering proclaiming Heart’s Fire – Enchantment From The Old Country.
Around her, as she bent her head over her book, sparkled a fortune in jewels – pearls with a butter-soft sheen that would never fade; rubies that appeared to be on fire; diamonds that looked like a bit of sunlight captured and shown off to advantage against black velvet. The funny thing was that if those were the only ones in the store, her father would probably not have made Ausenda miss her classes at the university to sit here, on this dank, rainy day, waiting for customers who’d never come. Just because her mother was ill – or suffering from those hypochondriac complaints to which all great witches were subject – and her dad had to go to Gary to do something or other at their lapidary, it shouldn’t have meant Ausenda had to be confined in the store for the day.
The store had adequate enough protection – both mundane and arcane. An alarm would sound at the police station if anyone so much as breathed on the glass cases while the store was closed. And through the Fate Protection Agency, an Erynis would follow the luckless thief until he returned what he’d taken or was driven mad. And besides, her father was a strong sensitive. He would be able to foresee danger. And plan for it.
But, the problem was not with these beautiful and expensive trinkets so openly displayed. The whole reason for Ausenda’s father to have her here was because of the door at her back. That door which only opened to customers who asked specifically for the arcane jewels, and who passed her dad’s magical scan, led into a small dark room. There, more jewels were displayed on v
elvet cushions, each surrounded by a magical field to keep them from interfering with each other. These jewels, Ausenda’s mother’s work, were charmed. Charmed for happiness or wealth, or who knew what else. And they could only be sold to people with magical power and, further, people with magical power who would know how to control it. Which meant people who could interfere with foretellings. People who could disguise a break in with magic. A good sensitive like Ausenda’s father was needed to keep the trinkets from falling in the wrong hands. And even he might not be enough.
Which — Ausenda thought, peevishly, glaring down at the book where the main character had just refused an offer of marriage – was a reason it was so stupid to leave her in charge of the store. She might be her parents’ only child, but she was also the first Cuorefueco in generations uncounted to have not even a glimmer of magical power. Which was why she was studying accounting at college. She would be able to help with keeping the store going, but for the main part of it – for the charms and the attending at the store and all – her parents would need to hire someone.
And it was no use at all for them to continuously try to match her with this sorcerer or another. So and so’s nephew and such and such’s cousin were always being dragged home for dinner by hopeful parents. And she knew it was no use at all.
Oh, it was not that she was ugly. Though she’d never consider herself pretty, she was small and neat enough, with a pleasing figure, oval face and long, straight dark hair. Her one beauty were her eyes, grey and soft, like evenly sparkling silver.
But even if she’d been the most beautiful woman to ever walk the Earth, she knew better than to get into a relationship with a sorcerer – even those who showed interest. A mortal in love with a magical being always got the short end of the stick. Always.
Ausenda started to lift her leg to cross it, and the movement – so easy in the jeans she normally wore – was arrested by the tightly-cut grey skirt. She sighed, putting her leg down, and was adjusting the skirt when the magical chimes on the door tinkled. And she looked up into the face of the most handsome man she’d ever met.
Here Be Dragons: A collection of short stories Page 18