The air was oppressive and very wet and the road appeared to curve up the hill, away from the lake. He heard loud trickling and looked up. A run-off brook wound its way down the mountain and across the road. He’d have to cross the water to continue after Bran, who’d rounded the curve, and now was nowhere to be seen. But instinct—or maybe the old druid’s words—made Lochlan hesitate. You’ve faced Humbrian pirates, the wild men of the Marraghmourns and the outlaws of Gar and now you’re afraid to cross a stream? The doubt that taunted every warrior whispered through his mind. It wasn’t even a stream, really, just a channel that rainwater carved into the hillside. But it was at just such a place that one was most likely to fall into the OtherWorld of TirNa’lugh, where both sidhe and goblins roamed, dangerous to mortals in very different ways, but equal in peril.
He’s more than he appears. “Bran?” he called. “Bran, wait for me.” Cursing Bran beneath his breath, Lochlan spurred his horse forward, and the animal didn’t even seem to notice the water crossing the road. Inexplicably, the light began to fade, the shadows deepened. The road took another turn, pitched sharply up a hill. “Bran?” he bellowed at the top of his lungs. “You wait for me!”
The high-pitched yelp that came in answer galvanized Lochlan. He sped around the turn and pulled up straight.
Bran stood spellbound in the center of the road, staring straight ahead at a naked girl bathing on a riverbank that shouldn’t have been there. A young moon had already risen in the purple sky, spilling silvery light across the sidhe-girl’s shoulders, reflecting off her copper-colored hair with a pale gold glow. Almost black in the shadows, her waist-length hair fell fine as spider silk across her naked breasts and her nipples were pink as quartz and pebbled from the chill of the gurgling brook. She turned this way and that beneath the bending willows, splashing the water all over herself. Droplets gleamed like opals on her shimmering naked flanks, fell like diamonds from her fingertips. A high laugh floated through the trees and Lochlan looked up to see more eyes, more pointed faces and tiptilted breasts peeking through the trees.
“Look, it’s mortals.” The whisper floated down from somewhere up above, and Lochlan saw the red-haired sidhe turn to Bran, arm extended, smiling as she strode up through the water to the bank. To Lochlan’s horror, Bran smiled back and leaned forward, hand outstretched.
“No,” Lochlan bellowed. If this was what the old druid had meant, he should’ve spelled it out for him, not warned him in a riddle so dense it sounded like nothing more than good advice to any traveler. How could they have blundered into TirNa’lugh? Only a druid could take you there, and more important, only a druid could lead you out. There were stories though, of warriors on the brink between life and death, who’d fallen into the OtherWorld, and stayed held captive there by the sidhe. He dug his heels so hard into his horse’s side the animal reared and screamed his displeasure, so that Lochlan had to struggle to bring him under control. Bran didn’t even appear to notice as his own horse began to dance skittishly beneath him. His eyes remained fastened on the sidhe.
The other sidhe were creeping down the trees now, luminous as fireflies, green eyes glowing in their narrow pointed faces. They were all beautiful, all naked, all with long limbs and flowing hair. He could feel warmth emanating off their skin, even as their unearthly fragrance twined around him like tendrils. He forced himself to concentrate on the feeling of the horse, solid and scratchy and real between his thighs, on the weight of the weapons strapped to his back and his waist, on the feeling of the hair prickling on the back of his neck and not on the aching pressure rising in his groin. “Bran,” he said again, this time with even more urgency. He reached over and cuffed the boy’s head. “We’re not meant to be here, remember? We’re on our way back to Eaven Morna, remember? Throw them your apples and they’ll let us go. I’m taking you back to your mother, Bran. Remember? Your mother, Meeve. Your mother wants you home. We’re going home, Bran—home to Eaven Morna. Home to your mother and Eaven Morna.”
“Mother,” Bran repeated, his cheeks pale, his eyes wide, beads of sweat rolling down his face. The sidhe were singing now, something soft and low and nearly indistinguishable from the gurgling brook and the whispering of the leaves, but Lochlan could feel it; tempting and wooing and sweet, twining in his hair, trailing down his back like the long slender fingers that even now were reaching down and out of the branches. If they touch me, I shall be lost, he thought. But he had to save the boy.
“Give them the apples, Bran, now. Now!” Lochlan cried. He swatted Bran across the shoulder. He helped Bran toss the bag to the sidhe and shook the boy’s shoulder. “Home—home to Eaven Morna!”
Drops of sweat big as pearls glimmered on Bran’s upper lip as he stared, mesmerized by the naked sidhe. Lochlan felt his own resolve weaken. He leaned over, wrapped the reins around Bran’s wrists, slapped the horse on the rump. The gelding leaped forward. They fled down the road and across the border, back into a wind and rainswept dusk where, impossibly, the watchtowers of Eaven Morna twinkled on the horizon.
2
Faerie
“Auberon?” Melisande’s soft voice broke the stillness of the summer twilight, taking the King of the sidhe entirely by surprise, penetrating the soft pink fog of dream-weed smoke. His queen seldom attempted the winding climb to his bower at the top of the highest ash of the Forest House because she, unlike almost every other sidhe, was terrified of heights. It was one reason he’d chosen her among all the others to be his Queen. Now she perched in the archway of the bower, quivering only slightly. Her long fair hair, fine as swan’s down, feathered around her shoulders, down her back and chest. In the orange glow of the setting sun, it gave the illusion she was covered in white feathers.
She’s begun the change, he realized, and looked down at his own furred flanks. When the change in both of them was complete, it would be time for their daughter, Loriana, to assume her place as Queen of the sidhe and all the creatures of the Deep Forest. Presuming, of course, that all Faerie wasn’t turned into some foul wasteland overrun by goblins. It was beginning to seem like a distinct possibility.
He extended a hand, but she didn’t reach for it. Instead she looked at him, not with fear, but suspicion and he realized she was trembling, not with terror, but outrage. “What’s wrong, my dear? You look upset.”
“Is what your mother told me true?”
Anger flashed through him, but he controlled himself enough to smile tightly and beckon. Finnavar was an interfering old crow who belonged, like the rest of the sidhe who completed the change, in the Deep Forest. “I can’t imagine what sort of mischief she’s making now. Come sit, my dear. Tell me all about it.”
Melisande raised her chin. “Should we call it mischief when it’s our daughter’s choice that’s being bargained away? And if we do, I don’t think she’s the one making it.”
Auberon clenched his teeth. In the midst of everything else, his mother couldn’t resist causing trouble. She stubbornly refused to leave the Court, creating an embarrassing situation. It was as if she didn’t quite trust him to rule. Despite all his directives to ignore her no one really did. Her instincts both for causing trouble and ferreting out information remained intact. “Let’s talk.”
“You admit it.”
“Beloved, I—”
“Oh, enough. I’m not your beloved.” She stalked into the room, anger making her sure-footed. “Is it true you promised Timias that you would ask Loriana to consider choosing him to be her Consort?”
“My dear, you’re shaking—there’s no need for unpleasantness—”
“Unpleasantness? Auberon, our daughter is not a prize to be awarded or a—a possession to be handed over. How could you listen, let alone agree—He was raised beside you in the nest—If you were mortal, you’d be brothers and such a thing not even considered.”
“Melisande.” He picked up his pipe. “Don’t you understand it’s not important? I don’t think he’s coming back—I never expected he’d be back, to tell
you the truth.”
“You didn’t?”
“Of course not. It was as absurd an idea as I’ve ever heard—learn druid magic and bring it here to Faerie.” He picked up her hands and brought one, then the other to his lips. “Sweet darling queen, it was a way to find something for him to do.”
“So what exactly did you agree to?”
Auberon shrugged, picked up his pipe and tapped dried flowers into the bowl. “He asked me if I’d approach Loriana and ask her to consider his suit. It seemed a small enough thing—considering I didn’t think I’d ever have to do it. Where was the harm, after all? It made him feel useful, gave him a purpose.”
“And what if he does? What if he comes back?”
“You have been talking to my mother, haven’t you?”
“Loriana is of an age to consider such things. Look at us, Auberon—you and I are clearly entering our change. When your mother tells me you’ve made some kind of bargain involving our daughter—”
“Enough, Melisande. There’s no bargain involving Loriana or anyone else. Timias has not been seen in—I’ve forgotten how long exactly. Maybe you should ask yourself why my mother sees the need to bring it up now?”
“She’s concerned. The Wheel’s turning—we have to prepare ourselves and everyone else.”
The dream-weed hit his head just as she spoke. It elongated her words, separated out the subtle shades of tone and melody, turned the light around her face ethereal and fey. He was captivated by the glints of pale yellow and tender gray in her hair and in her eyes. In all the time he’d known her, he’d never noticed these before. A vein beneath her ear beat a steady tattoo in her throat, in time to that which pulsed up through his feet. The firs stood straight and tall, black against the indigo sky, the drooping branches of the enormous willows all silver by their sides. The first stars had already appeared. A low pounding throbbed through the trees, and the leaves rustled as the branches swayed in time.
A horn rose in the distance, its note pure and piercing as a shaft of morning sun. It stabbed into his awareness, made his ears ring and his head ache.
“Auberon?” Melisande shook his arm. “Did you hear that? That’s the alarm. The goblins are rising.”
There was a screech in the doorway. Finnavar stood there, looking like an enormous raven cloaked in black feathers, her nose and chin fused into a long shiny beak, her arms folded back. “Where’s Loriana?” she croaked. Her beady eyes darted right and left, her feathers gleamed blue in the purplish shadows. “Have you seen her? I’ve looked everywhere.”
What little color there was in Melisande’s face drained away. “She’s been told not to leave her bower at dusk.”
“She’s not there now,” the old sidhe screeched.
“She has to be,” cried Melisande as the dull vibration grew stronger, and from somewhere far away, they heard a faint roaring, growing ever louder as the wind carried it closer.
“She isn’t,” answered Finnavar. “Follow me.” She flapped awkwardly off without another word.
Melisande pulled away from Auberon and rushed out the door, nearly colliding with Ozymandian, the captain of the guard. He scrambled past her, brandishing his spear. “My lord.” He sketched a salute, then said, “My lord, you must come. Something’s roused the goblins—all of them, apparently—and it seems they’re headed this way.”
Red steam rose from fire pits of glowing molten rock, seeped from crevices in the floor and hissed from fissures high within the cavernous chambers and passageways that were the realm of Macha, the Goblin Queen. The floors were slick in some places and sticky in others, and the smell of excrement was everywhere. Timias shrank behind an enormous boulder. The air was thick with the steady throb of drums, a sound so constant he sometimes thought it must be coming from inside his own skull. He cocked his head and listened to the squeals and screams and bellows echoing from the chamber, trying to decide if he dared to take the only direct route he knew that led to the surface of Faerie. The druid spell of banishing had finally worn off. He could feel the tattered remnants shredding off him like an old cloak, one thread at a time. He had never expected it to be as effective as it was, for it not only kept him from Shadow—anywhere at allin Shadow—but it prevented him from returning to Faerie, as well. For a mortal year and a day, he’d been trapped in the strange nether places of the World. He was impatient to return, and he risked a slow death by searching for another way to the Forest House. The effects of the banishment still lingered, preventing him from directly returning to the Forest House.
He’d counted on Macha’s halls being silent, the goblins curled up fast asleep, thin and gray as the ghosts of the mortal dead whose flesh they consumed. But something must’ve happened, he mused, in the time he’d been banished. Somehow they’d gotten a taste of living flesh.
It was possible he might find another way to the surface, but he could just as easily encounter lairs filled with starving hatchlings. If the goblins were this lively, they were certainly copulating. The cloak of shadows, woven with a mortal druid on a Faerie loom, might not fool the goblins. Like a river of velvety water, the cloak flowed out of his hands, vaporous as fog, dense and wet as the Shadowlands themselves, its one edge jagged where Deirdre had ripped it in half. He wrapped it around himself, careful to tuck it well over his face and around his hands. He was more afraid of how he’d smell than anything else. But he had to risk that a wafting scent of Shadow, while alluring, would not be as riveting as the sight of a sidhe scurrying along the perimeter of the cavern.
With a last check to make certain he was completely covered, Timias edged down the widening passageway, careful to keep to the sides where the shadows were thickest and his cloak provided the best cover. But he had not counted on the stench.
The closer he got to the central hall, the stronger it was. It pervaded his nostrils, crept into his skin, insinuated itself into the crevices around his nose, his fingers. It filled his mouth and made him gag. Dizzy, eyes burning, Timias crept along the Hall, trying not to breathe too deeply. It was worse than the foulest cesspit, the fullest charnel pit in Shadow.
Behind him, a noise made him flatten himself against the jagged outcroppings along the wall, and as he watched in horror, he realized the source of the wet trail of slime. It was blood—mortal blood, gelling as it dried. It dripped from the squirming, screaming, struggling bodies of the mortals the goblin raiding party was now dragging along or had slung over their backs. Some struggled and kicked more than others, but one thing was very clear to Timias: They were all still very much alive.
The coppery scent of the blood, the acrid tang of urine and the fetid aroma of feces, bowels opened and bladders spilled filled Timias’s senses. Timias waited until the tramp of goblin feet had faded. His eyes were finally adjusting to the reddish light, and he crept, one hand clamped around his nose and mouth.
Macha, the enormous queen, crouched at the peak of her throne, her beady eyes bright in the nightmarish light. She uncoiled and coiled her tail, reflexively, surveying the scene before her. The goblins were all over the hapless humans, tearing them apart in a frenzy of showering blood and ripping flesh. The ragged end of a leg was tossed up toward the queen; she snarled, reached for it and crammed it into her mouth. Red drool spooled down her chest as she chewed and swallowed and grinned. Timias could not look away.
With the same casual ferocity with which she crunched the bones and swallowed them, Macha reached for the nearest male, threw him on the ledge and proceeded to raise and lower her massive body over his, ramming him nearly flat with the force of her thrusts. She bared her fangs and howled, which sent up a chorus of answering screeches. The smoke and the smells and leaping goblin hordes were making Timias dizzy. He pushed himself hard up against the wall, trying to hold on to his bearings as a wave of nausea swept over and through him, nearly dragging him to his knees. He felt his legs begin to buckle and he clutched the cloak hard around himself, even as he tried to lean back. He tried to back up and realized he
was prevented by a tail.
His tail.
The cloak floated off his shoulders as he swung around, staring at the shadow that stood in stark outline against the rocks. His shadow. For a moment, Timias wondered if this was some trick of the light, some result of the druids’ curse of banishment. But no, he’d been himself in the passageway. He was sure of it. Of course he was. He remembered looking down and being grateful he was wearing boots. Boots. He looked down at his feet, and saw clawed toes bursting through the tips.
Behind him, he heard a hiss and a cackle that was taken up and turned into hoots and shrieks. Timias turned to see the goblins—every one of them, including the queen—looking back at him. And they were laughing. Or what passed as laughter. They were pointing at him, slapping each other on backs and rumps, rolling between the fire pits in unrestrained glee. What was it, he wondered. What’s wrong with me? Why are they all staring? What’s so funny?
And then he looked down at himself and realized that he not only appeared to be a goblin, he alone was wearing clothes. Am I mad? he wondered in an instant. But he didn’t have time to consider how this transformation had taken place, or why, because the other goblins—no, he told himself firmly. Not other goblins at all. The goblins. The goblins were creeping closer. Inspiration born of desperation gave him an idea and he knew what he had to do. With a bound, he decided to play the best of it he could. He swaggered out, into the center, gesturing and posturing. He held his maw shut, then bent over and pretended to break wind. Then he began to pull the clothes off, one at a time, throwing them into the assembly. The goblins shrieked and capered and he looked up, into the eyes of the queen.
“I don’t know you,” she said. Her black forked tongue flicked out and she sniffed, as if teasing out his smell from among all the other odors swirling through the cavern.
He felt as if her eyes were boring into the center of him, seeing him for what he really was, and he felt himself quail. Don’t collapse now, fool, he told himself. She was intent on looking for weakness, sniffing it out, determining which of all her many subjects she would allow to live. The weak she would kill. He forced himself to stand straighter, even as he noticed how her egg sacs bulged beneath her tail, how clear fluid spilled down the insides of her thighs, pooling around her feet.
Silver's Lure Page 5
