Silver's Lure

by Anne Kelleher

  4

  Faerie

  “So you see, Auberon, if we bring the crystals here, we won’t need the druids—we won’t even need mortals. Faerie will belong to us in a way it never did before. We’ll be able to make it everything—anything—we want it to be.” Timias sat back and noticed that the sky above the Forest House was slowly turning pink. He watched Auberon’s face, searching for some sign the stricken king had understood, or even heard what he’d said, for he asked no questions, made no response at all.

  Timias waited and wondered what the king would do or say if he knew that Timias was indirectly responsible for not only the queen’s death, but all the others, as well. A furrow had appeared between Auberon’s brows, his shoulders drooped, and he looked more like a stag than ever. The change was on him—soon Loriana would be Queen. Timias leaned forward and decided to try again. “I know it all sounds unexpected. But ask me anything, I can explain. We can use the khouri-keen, Auberon, just the way the druids do.”

  “The what? I thought we were talking about gremlins.”

  “We were—that’s the name the druids use—it’s the name they use for themselves. We can call them anything you like.”

  Auberon stroked the fine brown down that had appeared on his face. “This isn’t what I expected.”

  “But, Auberon, isn’t that why you sent me to the mortals? To learn druid magic? Those goblins last night—what if there’s more?” And there were, Timias knew. But he couldn’t say how he knew, or even that he knew, for that might betray the fact that the forest’s devastation and the death of Auberon’s Queen were his fault.

  Auberon stalked to the single window. He leaned on the frame and gazed down into the Hall, where the sidhe were preparing a pyre to mourn the passing of the Queen. “We have to do something. No one in this Court—except possibly Loriana—understands more how important it is we prevent last night from ever happening again. But you have to admit, what you propose is most…most…irregular. I expected some kind of tree magic, not this talk of bringing a new kind of creature into Faerie—”

  “You sent me to learn druid magic,” Timias replied. “Just because the old word drui means tree, doesn’t mean that’s where their magic comes from. It’s not the trees that gives mortal magic the stability that ours doesn’t have, it’s the gremlins, the khouri-keen. Don’t you understand, Auberon? The gremlins are the secret, not the trees. We won’t need druids to ground our magic in if we have the gremlins.”

  Auberon sighed. “I don’t know about this, Timias. This opens a whole new—”

  “How could it be what you expected? Auberon, I don’t understand. You send me into Shadow, charge me with something no sidhe has ever attempted, and now that I’ve done as you asked, you’re shocked it’s not what you thought it would be? Of course it’s different—the mortals are as different from us as water from air, as fire from water. The goblins are growing stronger. What if they rampage again tonight?”

  “I know you’ve done an astonishing thing, Timias.” Auberon clapped one hand on Timias’s shoulder and grasped his hand with the other. “I know your knowledge, what you’ve brought us—but today…now…” He attempted a thin smile that made his face look pinched in half. His eyes were hollow, as if the life had been blown out of them. “We’ll talk more later.”

  It was clearly a dismissal. But as he turned to leave, Timias said, “What about our bargain, Auberon?”

  “Timias, that bargain was made long ago—you can scarcely expect—”

  “Loriana’s ripe to choose a Consort, isn’t she?”

  “Soon. There are others for her to consider, of course—what I say may not matter.” Auberon refused to meet his eyes, and in that instant, Timias understood that Auberon had never thought he’d see him again, and it wasn’t so much his ideas that shocked the king as his return. That’s what Auberon really hadn’t expected, Timias thought.

  “You didn’t think I’d come back, did you? You never thought you’d have to keep the bargain, did you, Auberon?”

  “Is that all you’re concerned about, Timias? Whether or not I’ll keep to my bargain?” Auberon’s voice was low and savage. “My daughter’s lost her mother, Faerie’s lost its queen and I have lost over fifty of my most valiant fighters. We don’t even know what set the goblins off last night—that was no ordinary hunting party, that was a—a frenzy of some kind. And that stinking, poisonous mess. It’s clear we’re in the midst of some great turning of the Wheel. No one disagrees we need to do something. I’m just not sure what you suggest is the answer. This druid magic’s not—”

  “Our magic? Come, Auberon, you knew it was different.”

  “What about the blight in Shadow? The trees there are sick—there’re places we no longer go. What if by using druid magic, we invite the same infection?”

  “Then the sooner we create a kind of barrier between ourselves and Shadow the better off we’ll be. And we will not only be able to control the goblins, but we’ll be able to keep silver out of Faerie, too.”

  “You’ll have to explain all this to the council, Timias. I can’t agree to something like this without discussing it further. What would we do with these creatures? Even the druids find them hard to control, do they not? Perhaps we’d only trade one evil for another.”

  Timias flexed his hands into fists. He wanted to leap at Auberon’s throat but Auberon would think he’d been infected by his time in Shadow and might even banish him again. Then where would he go? Back to the miserably cold caverns he’d just managed to crawl out of? So he restrained himself, even as resentment burned in his bones.

  Why should the king understand what this knowledge had cost him? Auberon hadn’t experienced the long, uncomfortable nights when the scent of sleeping mortals twined around him like a rope, coarse and irritating and arousing all at once; the tedious days of dull, back-breaking work. No sidhe had ever attempted to pass as mortal for more than perhaps a moment or two—long enough only to lure the particularly enchanting one, or to beg from the especially kind. Timias had done the impossible. He had lived and slept and worked among the mortals right under the noses of the most sensitive of druids, and no one had known. He’d even incurred their wrath by experimenting with druid magic, using it in a way no one else had ever tried, to create the cloak of shadows. The cloak of shadows he’d lost so cavalierly in Macha’s hall.

  “I’ve called a convening,” Auberon was saying. “Tell the council all you’ve told me. I’ve not said no.” And then he was gone, in the manner of all the sidhe, who could appear to be by one’s side at one moment and then vanish in the next.

  Timias sank onto the window seat, a hollow feeling in his chest and nausea in the pit of his stomach. He could well imagine the way his brother’s Council would greet his suggestion. Without Auberon’s support and endorsement, the sidhe would laugh. They probably wouldn’t laugh if they knew he could turn into a goblin, however.

  Through the latticed floor, he could see into the hall below, where the sidhe flitted in and around and among the trees like shining orbs of light. He wondered what they would do to him if they knew that he was what had set the goblins off last night. He suspected that the druids’ punishment would be mild in comparison. All his life, he’d been the strange one, the odd one, the one that was different from all the rest. He’d gone and done the thing not one of them could do, and he wasn’t going to get anything from it at all—not even, apparently, gratitude.

  He heard a rustling in the woven branches above his head and raised his eyes. “You can come down now, Loriana.” He took a deep breath of the fragrance that betrayed her, an unmistakable combination of roses and night-blooming jasmine. It had seared itself into his consciousness as he had led her back through the trees. One of the ivy-laced branches trembled. “Come, Loriana, I promise I won’t tell.” A pair of bright green eyes peered through a gap in the tightly woven vines and the branches shook more violently. He heard a rustling and in a flash, she appeared at the doorway, her bright hai
r gleaming as the daylight brightened. He was acutely conscious of the way her gaze lingered on him, as if she was memorizing his every feature. “Are you looking for your father?”

  “I was looking for you.” Her forthrightness took him aback. She raised her chin. “You look surprised.”

  “I thought you’d be downstairs, princess, with everyone else.”

  She looked down, and for a moment, she looked just like the very young child he recalled. “I’m very sad about Mother, about my friends. But everyone blames me. They all say it’s my fault.”

  “Ah.” She was wearing a wispy garment made of spider silk, and around her waist she wore a belt of woven honeysuckle vine, just like the scrap he’d found beside the pool, and it was difficult to keep his eyes on her face. “So you weren’t supposed to be out there, were you?”

  She shook her head. “My father won’t even look at me. But I wanted to thank you for saving my life. I know I wouldn’t have survived if you hadn’t come along. And it’s not your fault Mother died, either, no matter what Grandmother says.”

  “Finnavar blames me?” How was it still possible she was here? wondered Timias. She’d made his life a waking nightmare, as the mortals said. The least he’d hoped for from his banishment was to return and find her gone. “She’s still here?”

  “She says she won’t leave because she’s worried about what’s happening.”

  Timias took a long look at the princess before him. Her eyes were a brilliant shade of green, her skin flawless as a pearl. But it was her hair that was her great beauty, her hair that even in her childhood set her apart from the other sidhe. It glowed rich and red as fire, coppery and orange in the twilight and like pale spun gold beneath the moon. Her fragrance entwined him, more potent than Auberon’s dream-weed. “I don’t want you to think I’m angry with your father, princess.” He wondered why he felt it necessary to tell her so. “I just don’t want what happened last night to happen again.”

  “I don’t think my father wants it to happen again, either.” Loriana said. “I know I don’t. What is this bargain you spoke of?”

  The air between them hummed with a palpable tension. Timias cleared his throat, trying to think of what to tell her. It had been one thing to ask for something, it was quite another to have it standing before you. “Perhaps I’d be wrong to hold your father to something he clearly never believed he’d have to keep.”

  “What do you mean?” Loriana frowned. “What was your bargain?”

  “He didn’t believe I’d come back.”

  “You came back to save me,” Loriana said. As if she were afraid she’d said too much, she shut her mouth audibly. She hesitated for just a moment, and then she was gone, leaving him stunned, his mind whirling with possibilities he had never dared imagine before.

  Loriana fled, heart beating like a hummingbird’s wings. What everyone said about him was true, but not in the way they said it. There was something different, something strange about Timias. But it wasn’t just the way he looked or the intense way he stared at her. He reminded her of the young mortal who’d burst through the border with such raw and rampant power. That’s how he’s different, she thought. He’s got that same sense about him. Maybe that’s what her grandmother meant when she said Timias was dangerous. When their eyes met, she’d felt a jolt of energy so intense it took her breath away.

  She slipped through the trees. In the hall, a few of the sidhe had already begun to sing and their voices followed her, calling for their late queen to return. The leaves rustled softly all around her. Part of her wanted to go there, to seek the comfort of her kindred. But part of her knew she’d be greeted by stares and whispers. It wasn’t just the loss of the queen they blamed her for—it was Chrysaliss and Tatiana and all the warriors, too. And it is my fault, she thought miserably. “How can I ever be queen after this?” she muttered to herself.

  “It’s not your fault, Loriana,” Finnavar’s voice was a harsh whisper from the branch just above.

  Loriana gasped and looked up. “Grandmother? Is that you? Are you following me?”

  “Someone has to keep an eye on you, Loriana. Your father’s not thinking clearly, that’s obvious. Come up here and talk to me.”

  Loriana made her way through the branches and saw why Finnavar had chosen that particular perch. The branches were covered with thick green moss, creating a private sitting space. Loriana nestled into it while Finnavar balanced beside her. “First of all, you’re not responsible for what happened last night. You were wrong to leave your bower, when you’d been forbidden. But no one could’ve known—no one expected—it wasn’t your fault.” She made a little noise, between a sniff and a caw. “If anyone’s to blame, it’s Timias.”

  “But why, grandmother? If it weren’t for him—”

  “Rather convenient that, isn’t it? The night the goblins rampage, he happens to show up just in time to save the princess? Where was he coming from, that’s what I’d like to know? He’s not been in Shadow, he’s not been here. So where could he have been? Maybe no one else cares enough to ask those questions but I do. And so should your father.”

  “He told Father he got into trouble with the druids, and when they banished him from the land, he couldn’t get back to Faerie, either. He’s been trying to come home for a year and a day.” Timias hadn’t exactly said below and between what, Loriana thought. “He said he had a lot of time to think about things—things he learned from the druids.”

  “Your father would do well to forget Timias ever came back.”

  “But, Grandmother, why? If Grandfather loved him—”

  “Your grandfather loved him the way you love a pretty pebble you might find lying in a stream or under a tree.”

  “So the story is true, then? He really did find Timias under a tree, in the woods? And there were animals fighting over him—about to eat him?”

  “Ha. Is that how the story goes now? Allemande told me he found him in a cave. At least, that’s what he said happened. He was out hunting one night—oh yes, don’t look surprised. We could hunt at night, then, for the goblins were thin wormy things, kept well pacified by the druids. I’ll never forget the morning he brought him home. The sun had just risen and I had gone to bathe. And Allemande came to me, carrying something that looked like a bulging white worm.”

  Her grandmother’s voice faded into a harsh whisper, and Loriana wrinkled her nose. “It really looked like a worm?”

  “Until I got close. And then I saw it was a child, a newborn child still in its caul. It was squirming—a piece of it had already come away from its face, or it might’ve suffocated. Allemande said he’d heard its cries coming from the cave. He called back his hounds and crawled inside and found it.”

  “The child—that was Timias?”

  “That’s the name Allemande gave it. I was glad I had no part in that at least.”

  “But why didn’t you like Timias? Wasn’t he just a baby?”

  “He didn’t smell right, for one thing. In fact, he never smelled like anything at all. He didn’t feel right, either—slippery, somehow, as if his flesh could slide off him at any time. And he was never quite where you expected him to be. I wanted as little to do with him as possible and insisted on bearing Auberon. That was my mistake.”

  “But why, Grandmother?”

  Finnavar reached out with one curved yellow nail and gently tucked an errant curl behind Loriana’s ear. “Because things come in their time, child. Like the seasons, like the turning of the Wheel—some things cannot be called into being before their time and some should not. I forced something into being that wasn’t quite ripe—and look at him. Auberon’s not the sort of king Faerie needs now. Why do you think I stay? I know the mistake was really mine.”

  “What sort of king does it need?”

  “Oh, child.” Finnavar shook her head. “It needs a queen. Already your father’s time is passing—if the goblins don’t get him, he’ll have Changed by MidWinter, if not before, and all of Faerie will be yo
urs, to win or lose.”

  “Win or lose? What do you mean?”

  “Every time the Wheel turns—for example, when a monarch dies and a new one rises, or an old season passes and a new one begins—there’s the possibility that everything that exists will collapse and go down into chaos, into the Cauldron. That’s what the druids would say. It used to be we could trust them to manage things, but these days…we must look for another way. I resisted the Change with everything I had. I was afraid Auberon wouldn’t be equal to the task.”

  “Isn’t that why Timias wanted to go to Shadow? Learn the druid magic?”

  “Forget Timias. He’s not important. You and I—the once and future queens of Faerie—we will work our own magic.”

  “How? What kind of magic?”

  Finnavar’s smile stretched wider and her lips cracked and began to flake away. When her mouth came back together, it resembled a beak even more than before. “Old druid magic. The kind the druids themselves forget.”

  More confused than ever, Loriana glanced over her shoulder, almost wishing someone would come along and shoo her down to the Court. But most of the others were already there and this spot was well secluded. “Grandmother, I don’t understand. Isn’t druid magic what Father—”