by Ken Altabef
At least she had cast aside the glamour of human female and now wore her true appearance, an elegant faery of great poise and beauty. She dressed in faery clothes—a blouse made of overlapping birch leaves in yellow and green, leggings of white spider silk, her belt a living vine flowering with purple wisteria buds. But still she wore the name Theodora like some type of dark funerary shroud. Meadowlark could not bear it. Her name was Clarimonde and it meant ‘Brilliant Protectress’ and it was a fine name, a perfect name.
The dozen faeries in the meadow below danced the Spring Hitch, a non-sexual dance that served also as a form of martial practice. It was a dance of sharp movements, of jutting elbows and precisely-timed kicks. Clarimonde held the center of the group now, with three others circling her as the music played—drums and pan pipes and castanets. At a certain musical note, the three came at her in a chaotic charge, all spinning, laughing, leaping. Clarimonde worked hard, dodging all the fists and feet coming at her while still keeping time to the music. Ducking under each leap, she forced the other three dancers to adjust in midair lest they crash together.
She did a rolling handstand and a flip and then an over-the-head kick coming back the other way. The three regrouped and came at her again, spinning and dodging among themselves with blinding speed. Every time a foot or open hand neared another dancer’s face it was held back with expert precision, passing only a hair’s breadth from its target, although clearly there had been enough room to strike if one wanted.
Meadowlark noticed that Clarimonde never once glanced up at him. Neither did any of the others. Oh, they knew he was there all right. Of course, no one would dance with him. Not anymore. Merry Meadowlark they don’t remember. The light-hearted jester, the frolicking prankster was long gone. Morose Meadowlark he was now. Sitting up a tree, ignored, despised, no longer worthy of a smile or friendly glance. They can see me if they care to, he thought. See through the façade. Traitor, traitor, or savior, savior? Let them scoff if they want. I don’t care.
But Clarimonde should look. Why does she never ever glance up my way? Is she pretending not to see me or am I totally invisible to her?
He’d saved her life. She should be a little bit grateful. And it hadn’t been an easy thing either. Under the Dark Queen’s spell. Forced to do her bidding. But he just couldn’t just stand by and watch as Aldebaran ran Clarimonde through. So he dove in, wearing a yellow dress, to offer his own life for hers. To save her, he would have taken Aldebaran’s sword thrust, right through the corset. Right in the heart. Luckily it hadn’t come to that but he’d been willing. He’d made that clear. That should count for something.
But nothing counted for anything with these ungrateful louts. He had left them once, to join the Winter Court. And why? Because he couldn’t stand being around Theodora—Clarimonde, Clarimonde, Clarimonde!—she may insist they call her Theodora but he would not. She was Clarimonde. The bright and shining protectress. So he’d gone away to the woods, to that hideous child-eating hag Black Annis, to the Winter Court and back again. But now he was in the same position as before only worse. Clarimonde was still there—just there—so close and yet so far away. He watched her move and dance. She smiled at someone else and he remembered the taste of her lips, her passionate kisses, back across the years. He remembered the fevered embrace of her thighs, her shuddering sighs. Long ago but not so far away—right near this very spot in fact—they had made love at the foot of the great tree on more than one occasion. He watched her kick out at the other dancers, the fine curve of her thigh, and remembered the soft quivering flesh that nested there.
Achh, it was all too much! Maybe he should leave again and go, go, go but there was nowhere to actually go. He couldn’t return to the Winter Court. The Dark Queen would have his head in an instant. To Black Annis? He’d parted on bad terms from that hideous wretch, having stolen her secrets. So what would he do? Wander the woods alone? He’d already done that too, and found no joy in it. He should. He should go. Then these fools wouldn’t have Meadowlark Barb-sprite to kick around anymore.
But he couldn’t. Not when there was a chance of making Clarimonde see. See that they were meant for each other. Her husband was out of the picture. They’d been apart for over a year. And good riddance to that lordly fool! Time for Clarimonde to get over it. But she kept distant from the other faeries and refused to take a new lover.
And neither had he. It was bad enough they all despised him but that wasn’t the real reason. The truth was he wanted her and only her. It was a bizarre way to act, a form of madness he was sure, and yet he could not deny what his heart told him. Faeries don’t fall in love. Faeries don’t sit in a tree pining over someone. Meadowlark had never been like that. He’d wielded his cock as freely as anyone. But somewhere along the line things had changed.
Fie! He should go down there right now. He should make her see. But what to say? He was practically tongue-tied whenever he tried to speak to her. A heavy heart bears not a nimble tongue. The sharp movements of the dance reminded him of her attitude over the years, of all the times she’d rebuffed him in the past. Even before she’d married Grayson, she had thrown him aside, writing him off as a cast-off plaything. And when she had rebuffed him over and over across the years, he’d done his best not been to bothered by it. Water off a duck’s back, wasn’t that the saying? And he was a mallard. A mallard! But now...
Things had changed. If she should rebuff him again—knowing what he knew—feeling what he felt—he couldn’t stand it. He might as well die. And he wasn’t ready to die just yet. Not over a girl. But then again, he had been willing to die for her once already. If then, why not now? The point of Aldebaran’s blade, a stab in the heart. It was all the same. He would find a way.
Chapter 8
“Go in!” said Pox.
Weasel stood staring dumbly up at the captain of the Queen’s guard. Pox was every inch a warrior. Tall and lean and well-muscled, his bare chest and arms were covered with runic tattoos. His skin had the color and mottled texture of putrefying green mold, his nose long and hooked, his black hair drawn back in a pony tail. For a long time Weasel had fantasized about joining Pox’s elite brigade, the Wild Hunt, but had never made any sort of move in that regard. He was too small and weak and slow. And besides that, Pox and the others terrified him.
“Move! Move!” said Pox. He grabbed a handful of Weasel’s linen shirt and hauled him through the door. The two others, Pease-pye and Deelia followed along behind.
Weasel fell to his knees inside the Dark Queen’s audience chamber. He glimpsed the platform, where a vague form sat on a gilded chair, and then fixed his attention on the jagged creases between the stones of the floor. He dare not look at her directly.
The silence stretched on. Sweat burst along Weasel’s forehead. He licked parched lips, fantasizing briefly about a cup of cool thistlewine.
“These three? A motley crew indeed.” The Queen’s voice rattled him to the core. Her sharp, demanding tone stung his very bones. “You there! What’s his name? Weasel?”
Weasel struggled to quiet his pattering heart as someone confirmed his identity. He did not look forward to what must happen next.
“You! Weasel! Look at me.”
Weasel tried to swallow his terror but his mouth had gone completely dry. Slowly, he raised his gaze to the throne. Even a brief glimpse of the Queen took his breath away. Dresdemona was magnificent. Her skin had a deep copper hue with a slight metallic sheen that glistened across her sharp cheekbones and full, sensuous lips. An elegant copper headpiece rested on her brow, her long dark hair trailing out from it in sinuous curls. Her eyes were enormous and black as pools of liquid tar. Her body was lithe and muscular, her breasts bare and high, the nipples large and full of dark copper color. Weasel wet his pants.
“You understand what you are to do?” she asked.
Do? He would do anything. He would lay down on his belly and crawl to the podium, he would lick the dust from her feet, he would tear open his chest and dra
w out his beating heart and hold it up for her to spit upon.
He tried to answer but no word came out. Weasel coughed and sputtered and lowered his gaze again.
“Well, you certainly seem pathetic enough,” said the Queen, “But I’m not entirely satisfied with these others. What is your name?”
“Deelia,” said the faery beside Weasel. She was but a child of ten, a skinny green-faced waif.
“Break her arm, Pox,” said the Queen. “And that other one, the mother…”
The child screamed in pain then began loudly sobbing.
Weasel forced his eyes shut.
“The mother?” said Pox.
“She’s too pretty. Do something about her face.”
After they had gone, Dresdemona ordered Oberon brought into the chamber. At eight months old, the child could not yet walk but enjoyed crawling about the place, fingering the sparkling facets of quartz embedded in the floor of the cavern. Only the two banshee handmaidens, Chlomaki and Maghella, were allowed in attendance now. It wouldn’t do for the people of Deepgrave to see their future king scuttling around the floor like an animal. Faery children were normally born at age ten, hatched out of their protective mushrooms in a much more self-sufficient state. Oberon was the first live-born baby the realm of the Winter Court had ever seen. It would be too easy for him to be perceived as a freak. He must be revered. He must not suffer the indignities she had been made to suffer, the ostracism that had driven her into the arms of the cruel Nephilim called Oggdon.
She had first met Oggdon on the ridge that separated the Effranil’s territory from the other pocket dimensions of Avalon. She’d been willing to submit to him, to accept his foul caress, to take his corruption inside her body. But he had suddenly changed his mind, thinking first to strangle her, then to let her go. He’d told her to return the next day for some sort of a lesson.
Only a fool would have gone back to meet him again. Or a teenaged outcast with nothing to lose. Oggdon could have had her or killed her, but hadn’t done either. He wanted something else from her, but what? And this lesson he offered, Dresdemona felt certain it must be important.
She returned to the craggy ridge on the far outskirts of her home. This dire spit of land bordered one of the other pocket dimensions and the character of the landscape was wilder here, the rocks jagged and pointed as they stretched up from the barren, dusky terrain. Just beyond the ridge was a barrier, invisible to the eye, that would not allow passage beyond. She stood alone on the ridge. Dresdemona strained to see the world on the other side, which she presumed to be the realm of the Nephilim. The barrier was smooth as misted glass, allowing only vague silhouettes of a darkly shadowed realm.
Maybe it’s better, she thought. Better if he doesn’t come. Even just the memory of the brief touch of his mind the previous day nauseated her. Oggdon was half-demon, a creature that could only be described as evil. His twisted desires were so perverted and strange. Why was she willing to submit to him? She should go back before it was too late.
She smelled brimstone behind her and turned to face him.
A sneer curled his lip. “I didn’t really think you’d come.”
“I’m not afraid,” she lied.
“Good. Get on your knees.”
Dresdemona didn’t budge. “Why am I here?”
“I said I was going to teach you something.”
“What?”
“How to make people do whatever you want.”
Was he serious?
“I warn you—it’s not easy. And it will cost you.”
I’m not afraid, she thought. Not afraid of consequences and not afraid of you. She folded her legs beneath her. Fine. If this was what he wanted, she would kneel and she would listen. She hadn’t come this far to turn away. Whatever the cost, what he offered might well be worth the bargain.
“Every faery knows how to put on a simple glamour,” Oggdon said. “How to fool the eyes. But what you don’t know is the sense of smell is even more powerful than that of vision. Smell controls mood, memory, attitude. A demonstration.”
Dresdemona suddenly felt light headed. As she knelt before the Nephilim she was overcome with an incredible feeling of desire. It burst like lava rising up from a volcano somewhere deep inside and it was hot and it was wild and it was completely irresistible. Ugly as he was, she must have him. She must throw herself at him, tear down his breeches, take his foul member into her mouth.
“Don’t move,” he commanded.
She must obey. She could not move.
She knelt before him, her whole body trembling in the grip of this painful conundrum. Ravaged by feelings of lust amplified over anything she had ever felt before for the boys of the Effranil, she could not move. She wanted him, she needed him, she had to have him, but…
She strained to push forward, to reach him, to touch him but she could not move. Such an intense, burning desire and unable to move. It was exquisite torture. Her head felt as if it might burst into flame. She felt faint.
And then he released her. She jerked forward slightly, still slave to unrelenting desire and then the lust itself had gone and a hollow, sad feeling took its place. She shrank backward, crouching awkwardly in the dust.
“How did you do that?”
“The scent of cardamom and rusty nails.”
“But… I didn’t smell anything.”
Oggdon’s laugh was cruelty incarnate. “Of course not. You don’t want them to know you’re doing it, do you?”
“And you’ll teach me this? Why?”
“For my pleasure,” he said icily.
“You could have had me before.”
“Stupid girl. I don’t want you. What point is there in corrupting you? I tasted your mind. You’re tainted already.”
Despite the insult, Dresdemona felt a wave of relief. She had thought in order to receive this gift she might have to satisfy the demon’s baser urges at last. But now she began to see his real point. Oggdon’s only satisfaction came from spoiling the innocent. Dresdemona was Effranil but she had that song inside her, that little bit of chaos she’d not only created but embraced. I’m ruined already.
Oggdon cast his gaze back over the distance, to the shining city of the Effranil. He knew what she was thinking, how she planned to use this new weapon, especially on boys who had rebuked her or even on Horaus himself. Oggdon hoped to plant a seed of corruption that would engulf the Effranil. He was quite pleased with himself.
Chapter 9
After Dresdemona had taken her instruction from Oggdon she returned to the Effranil, dusty and dirty and having missed all her lessons of the morning. It wasn’t her first time guilty of truancy and she foresaw no real problems. Her tutors, the other children, everyone among the Effranil—all of them—paid her as little attention as possible. They already considered her a contaminant. Now, if they only knew…
“Where have you been?”
Horaus, chief of the council of elders, blocked her way. He was as tall and proud and haughty as any of the Effranil. His face somewhat resembled that of a hawk, with light feathery hair, a hooked nose and the predator’s incisive gaze. “Where have you been?”
“Walking,” she said. “I was upset.”
His nostrils flared. “You smell of brimstone.”
Damn! He already knew. Her plans were ruined before they’d even begun. She had only one chance. If she could use what she’d learned, right here, right now. But she wasn’t sure. She’d had no time to practice, to hone the skills required and this new type of scent glamour—gladdrun Oggdon had called it—was complicated.
“Brimstone! This is entirely unacceptable,” Horaus said.
We’ll see about that, she thought. She lashed out at his mind, clutching quite clumsily at him, trying to project that certain smell, the one that mandated obedience.
Horaus slapped her across the face. Dresdemona fell backward and collapsed on the ground. The council chief looked down at her with those merciless hawk-like eyes. Dresdemona did not
like Horaus, had never cared about his opinion of her, but now…
Now he gazed down at her with a look of disgust that chilled her soul. He snapped his fingers.
Dresdemona awoke outside the compound, her face still burning where he had slapped her. Her ankle twisted painfully from the way she’d fallen.
Some unknown length of time had passed, but she couldn’t be sure how long. And it was difficult to reconcile just exactly where she was. The coarse grass beneath her feet was a dull green rather than the brilliant multicolored lawn of Avalon. The sky did not shimmer and glow, the air smelled bland and stale. In the distance she could make out the spires and towers of the shining city of the Effranil. She got to her feet, pain cramping her ankle. She took a step toward home. But she could go no further. She faced another invisible barrier—this one keeping her out.
Her new reality came crashing down. She was trapped outside the barrier with no way in. No way to get home. And in the other direction?
She went a little way, expecting at any moment to be beset by Oggdon or some other Nephilim but it became clear she had not entered that shadowy realm either. This was someplace else. She crumpled to the ground. She did not want to go on. She had ruined everything. First with that unnatural song and then with a perverse need to do everything differently, to mess everything up. And then, with a ridiculous attempt to control Horaus. What a complete idiot she had been. She’d lost her home, her people, everything.