Silver's Lure

by Anne Kelleher

  And where could such an object come from? he wondered. What kind of crystal possessed that kind of power? The trees certainly didn’t remember such an event—he had looked all through the Mem’brances, as the druids called them. But the Mem’brances stopped abruptly, and it was said that with the coming of the khouri-keen, the druids stopped harvesting the rings of bark that recorded the memories of the trees. What kind of crystal could have shattered with such force and such rupture that an entire race would switch from one kind of magic to another?

  Tree magic was undeniably long and slow and difficult to learn compared with managing the khouri-keen; what the gremlins lacked in self-control, they made up for in swiftness of manifestation, making tree magic far less attractive to the druids. In all the time he’d been in Shadow, he’d only deciphered a small bit. But maybe, it occurred to him, the trees remembered the crystal in its original state…so was there any mention of some kind of powerful crystal?

  He wracked his memory, trying to recall. But the only mention of any kind of stones were the four globes the Hag’s cauldron rested on, representing each of the four elements. This wasn’t arcane information—everyone knew that there was one of obsidian for fire, pearl for water, moonstone for air and stone for earth. Stone for earth, he mused. But what if it was crystal, not stone? If one of the Hag’s globes had shattered, might it not be powerful enough to create a race of beings inextricably linked to itself?

  “Khouri,” he began again. “When the crystal made Khouri—” He hoped that at least was the right way to phrase the question. “When the crystal made Khouri, where was it?” He held his breath and waited.

  There was a long silence. “Far below,” one piped up.

  “Far within,” another said.

  “Far away,” wailed a third.

  “Long ago,” whispered a fourth.

  “Can you show me where?” Timias leaned forward, chills running up and down his spine. He cupped the three crystals protectively in his upraised fist.

  “Maybe,” one whispered.

  “Perhaps,” said another.

  “Not yet,” muttered a third.

  “Why not?” Timias frowned.

  “Not enough to know the way,” answered a fourth.

  Not enough gremlins. Timias sat back, thinking furiously. Everyone—even the waterlogged—knew that the greater the magical working intended, the more crystals required. The greatest concentration of crystals, therefore, was at Ardagh, where they were kept buried under the central altar, with wardings to prevent the gremlins from taking them. But maybe not these gremlins here, he mused. Not if these gremlins were acting under the order of a druid, who understood the ward. The gremlin dens formed the first line of magical defense, in fact, because the goblins couldn’t cross a gremlin field, for some unknown reason. But if the gremlins were gone, if the crystals themselves that stabilized and bound all the magic were removed, the way into Ardagh, the seat of druid power and the central point in all of Brynhyvar, would be open to Macha and her horde. Timias smiled and leaned forward. “Let’s play a game, shall we?”

  “Game?”

  “Khouri likes games.”

  “Khouri loves games.”

  “Can Khouri all play?”

  “Of course,” Timias answered smoothly. “Of course, all of you will play. I want you to find all the chambers under all the Tors—run there as fast as you can and gather up all the crystals, as many as you can, and bring them here, to me, with all the Otherselves, as many as you can find.”

  “All?”

  “Many?”

  “All Otherselves?”

  “It’s the crystals, more than anything,” he said. “Of course bring Otherselves—bring them all with the crystals, right back here. And wait.” He gave the pouch a little shake. “Wait for me, do you understand?”

  “Khouri understands Keeper,” they whispered. “Khouri understands.”

  The druids would come after him, he knew, once they realized the crystals were missing. They might be heading into Faerie already, though he doubted they’d move that quickly. It wasn’t enough to take the crystals—he had to prevent the druids from coming after them. This time of year they were all massing in one place. Even Ardagh wouldn’t be invulnerable to an attack by flesh-crazed goblins—especially an Ardagh robbed of its gremlins and their power. And destroying the druids would prevent them from coming into Faerie armed with silver and taking the crystals back.

  “Go on, then. Bring them here, as many as you can—all the crystals, all the khouri-keen.”

  To his amazement, they converged on him, falling at his feet, kneeling and kissing his hands, ankles, his hair, anything they could reach. He swatted and kicked them away, and they tumbled back, big eyes riveted on him with raw adoration. “Go!” he cried.

  “We knew this day would come,” they cried, swarming over the border into Shadow, arms overhead, capering and jumping and dancing. “We knew this day would come!”

  Timias sat a moment longer, feeling the weight and the warmth of the crystals through the pouch, considering. Once the druids were eliminated as a threat, what then? How to harness the power in these creatures so that Loriana would accept their presence in Faerie was a problem he hadn’t yet solved. He got to his feet, tied the pouch to his belt and removed all the rest of his clothing. He headed down to the caves where the goblins lived, confident he could draw on the power of the crystals to shift his form at will.

  Bran was dreaming. The dream began when an enormous raven swooped him up and away from the goblins, into the trees and over the border into a sunlit realm of spreading oaks and warm, moss-covered rocks. He had to be dreaming, he decided, because giant black ravens didn’t swoop down and yank people away from goblins. Yet his shoulders were still sore from the raven’s talons digging painfully into his flesh. He sat up and looked around. The light was curiously intense, the colors sharply defined and incandescent, as if the leaves, the moss, the trees themselves, were lit somehow, from within.

  “Hello, Bran.”

  The soft voice made him jump. He turned to see Loriana sitting on the ground beside a trickling fountain. “Wh-where am I?”

  She smiled, looking up and around as if seeing the place, like him, for the first time. “This is the Deep Forest of Faerie. Most mortals never come here.”

  “How did I get here?”

  “My grandmother brought us both here. She wanted us to be safe.”

  “From what?”

  “Bad things. Like goblins, who never come this deep into the wood.” She was beside him, and he hadn’t seen her move.

  “Why don’t you just stay here, then?”

  “All the real magic’s on the border of things. Don’t worry. We’re safe here for now.” She smelled sweeter than the lavender, her skin smooth as cream mixed with honey. She was tiny and delicate beside him, fine-boned as a hummingbird, her golden red hair as lush as silk, turned by the sunlight into the color of fire. He felt himself grow hot and hard, felt his skin flush red. Her breasts brushed his arm as she picked up his hand and clasped it between both of hers.

  “Loriana—” He pulled away from her, afraid and breathless and wanting all at once. Words tumbled out of his mouth. “The other night, when we were together, I started to see things when you kissed me—parts of things that didn’t make sense and I wondered what it was supposed to mean, but then on the road—”

  She was staring at him with her big green eyes in a way that made it very hard to think clearly. “Then on the road,” he said as the memory of those tortured trees, the dying druids, sobered him. “We came upon a grove, filled with sick and dying trees.”

  “The trees are dying here, too. The trees around the Forest House—those people threw silver in the spring, and the poison spread. Father’s doing all he can, but he’s afraid if the goblins come—He’s afraid if the goblins come again, the trees will not stand.” She bit her lip and blinked away the tears. “Grandmother wants us to stay here till she comes for us.”r />
  He looked around. Above him, the boughs of the trees were lacy against the blue, blue sky. The moss was thicker than the richest carpet in his mother’s house, and Loriana was more beautiful than any human girl he had ever met. “Isn’t there anything we can do to help?”

  “I hope so.”

  “What do you mean?” he asked, not understanding, even when she traced a single finger down the curve of his cheek to his lips. “How—”

  She pressed her finger against his lips. “Shh. Don’t you understand? You have to listen.”

  “Listen to wh—” As he tried to ask to whom or what he was supposed to listen, she pressed her lips on his open mouth and twined her tongue in his.

  Pleasure, hot as fire, pure as cold air, jolted through his entire body as her arms went around his neck. He lost his balance and fell back on the velvety ground. Suddenly he wanted nothing more than to feel that moss against his skin. She was already slipping her hands under his shirt, and the fabric felt gross and thick and far too heavy. With a quick jerk he pulled it off and over his head and turned to face her. She picked up his hands and drew them to her breasts, placed his thumbs deliberately over her nipples. He felt dizzy and his vision clouded.

  “Lie back,” she whispered directly into his hair. The heat of her breath went straight down his spine, into his groin, and under him. In the ground beneath him, he felt something stir. Many somethings, in fact, like tiny feet.

  “Wh-what is that?” he asked, alarmed. The sensation was like ants crawling on his skin, but through the moss, as if they never broke the surface of the ground.

  “It’s the trees,” she said, raising her eyes, looking up and around. “It’s the trees—waking up and knowing you as their own. Lie back and let them have you, like I’ll let you have me.” She moved on top of him, then, so that his phallus was positioned between her thighs, her breasts over his chest. Gently she slid down. Below the moss, he felt the sensation increase, so that he felt himself suspended between two places and two persons. For the longest moment he could ever remember, he stared into her eyes as she enveloped him, took him deep into herself, even as deep within the ground, the great trees all around him pushed up, invading some deeper, even more intimate awareness with a force all their own. Helpless to resist, he surrendered to them all and felt the memories of the trees flood into him, searing into his consciousness like a flood of pure hot light. I can do this, he thought. I can heal the trees.

  Bran opened his eyes. Apple Aeffie was sitting beside him and Loriana was curled on her side, snoring ever so slightly, her hand pillowed on her cheek. “Apple Aeffie!” he cried. “What’re you doing here?”

  “Be careful what you wish for, boy. Be careful who you trust here. The sidhe never give without taking. Make sure you understand what they intend to take from you before you give your gifts away.”

  “I don’t understand.” Bran frowned. He glanced down at Loriana. He knew he was dreaming, and yet, he also knew that this was all happening. His skin felt thinner, his bones lighter, his blood once again felt light as foam.

  “That’s the trouble,” Apple Aeffie said, and then she was gone.

  “Hello, Bran.” Again, he jumped. Loriana was looking up at him with those long green eyes, smiling sleepily. She sat up beside him. “Who were you talking to?”

  “An old friend,” he said, trying to remember what she’d told him. Be careful what you wish for. Be careful who you trust. But how could he not trust this small, sweet creature, whose face and form were more perfect than any he’d ever seen?

  Loriana smiled up at him. Her head was pillowed on the crook of her arm, and with the other hand, she reached out and traced the line of his arm all the way from his shoulder to his wrist, raising gooseflesh. Then she picked up his hand, brought it to her lips and sucked each fingertip in turn. “Come back,” she whispered, drawing him back beside her. “Come back.”

  She cupped his face in both her hands and brought his mouth down to hers, guided him between her thighs. “More,” she whispered.

  She raised her hips and he slid into her. Apple Aeffie’s words echoed through his mind: The sidhe never give without taking. His spine tingled, his blood seemed to boil in his veins. He felt as if something had ignited deep inside him, a new need that demanded to be fed, a need that only Loriana could fulfill. The flame rose higher and hotter, drove him harder and faster, spurring him into her faster and surer than before. She lay back, thighs drawn up, knees bent wide and spread, arms wide, her eyes closed, fragrant and pliant as a lily. Be careful what you give away. Be careful who you trust.

  The words drifted through his mind, their meaning lost in the driving rhythm of the motion of his thighs pumping into Loriana’s. He felt a curious warmth seeping all through him, a gentle lassitude creeping out from his core, and even as he felt his climax build, even as he felt the pressure in his loins reach the breaking point, he felt something else flow out of himself, something that left him feeling very weak and very sleepy. He collapsed almost on top of her, and shut his eyes, falling at once into a deep and dreamless sleep.

  The harsh cry of a raven woke him up. He looked up to see the big bird circling above the trees, Loriana standing up, eyes shielded from the sun with one hand over her forehead.

  “What’s that?” he asked sleepily, wondering if maybe he was dreaming again.

  “Come,” she said. She held out her hand and pulled him up, dizzy, sick and weak. “We have to go back.”

  “Go back?” he asked, trying to stand upright. “Go back where? To Shadow?” He should go back, he thought. That’s what Lochlan had said, wasn’t it? That a mortal shouldn’t stay too long in TirNa’lugh? He tried to remember but there was so much swirling around in his head—pictures and phrases, songs and faces, all blurring and blending together. This isn’t good, he thought.

  She tugged on his hand harder and, helpless to resist, he stumbled after her, head spinning. When he noticed that the berries on the holly trees had begun to glow a soft red, he thought maybe he was dreaming once again.

  The smell of fresh mortal saturated the heavy air within the caverns beneath the river, a wet miasma at once tantalizing and obscene. Timias scuttled along the uneven passage, the bag that held the khouri-crystals firmly tucked beneath his tail, trying to give his senses time to adjust.

  He hesitated in the opening. Thousands and thousands of eggs lay piled on the edges of the cavern, heaped on boulders, wobbled in niches on the walls. Corpses, fresh and bleeding, lay piled amid stacks of discarded, broken bones. Females leaped from partner to partner, copulating furiously at every turn. He clutched the bag of khouri-crystals tighter, and dared to raise his eyes to the queen’s throne where Macha crouched at its apex, gnawing what looked like a woman’s leg.

  She raised her head, sniffed experimentally. Yellow slime drooled from her jaws as she chewed, swallowed, then ran her black forked tongue over her maw. She tipped her head back, noisily sucking out the marrow from the bone, but her eyes roved across her court in his general direction. He wondered if she could smell him, and hoped she’d be too satiated to try to run him down again. Limp bodies of goblin males sprawled on the various levels of her throne, some headless, some with their torsos ripped open. Goblins were known to kill their mates and the queen was obviously no exception.

  Nauseated, Timias raised his eyes to the vaulted space above her throne, and felt his gorge rise. His knees buckled, and he nearly dropped the pouch as his tail snaked out to hold his balance. In the niches above the throne, the heads of sidhe stared sightlessly into space. They were new, he saw, and to his complete dismay, he recognized Auberon’s.

  Auberon, he thought, and the air rushed from his lungs as if he’d been punched. If his adopted brother was there, what about Loriana? Frantically, he scanned the rows of heads, many not more than skulls with hair attached and didn’t see her, even if, with a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach, he recognized many more of Auberon’s court. Was it already too late? he wondered. Ha
d the goblins won? With nothing to stop them or even hold them back, had they simply overwhelmed the sidhe? He tightened his hold on the crystals. He could do this, he thought. If there was just a little more time…He edged into the room, hoping a female wouldn’t grab him. It was too bad the normal border crossings might leave him open to attack from the mortals.

  If he could send the goblins off to feast on the druids of Ardagh, he might at least have time to learn what happened to the sidhe. But that would mean engaging Macha, and he wasn’t sure he could do that and survive. Maybe you should just go back to the MotherWood, he told himself. Maybe that would be a better idea. With the crystals, with the gremlins, he could wreak havoc on the mortals to his heart’s content from the safety of Faerie…assuming Faerie was a safe place. If I use the goblins against the druids, I can use the crystals against the goblins, he decided. And the sidhe would be the most powerful of all. With his heart beating audibly, he crept along the edge, trying to avoid all notice by the howling, capering goblins.

  He was almost there when he felt an arm go around his waist and he was flung onto the rock floor with a hard crack to his skull. The female was on him before his vision cleared, forcing his double-pronged phallus into the tight aperture between her thighs. But unlike anything he’d ever experienced with a mortal or sidhe, the fluid burned as it poured over him, scalding his flesh like fire. He tried to squirm away, but her tail snaked out from under her, wrapping itself around one ankle. She dragged him back and tried to flip him over, but he kicked up, flailing at her with his tail.