This Scepter'd Isle

by Mercedes Lackey

  The Gate. The Gate collapsing. Then the force Miralys had used to hold off the ravening energy of the failing Gate began to wane. Denoriel could feel the elvensteed's fear . . . and there was a wrenching, a last terrible effort, and then they were spilled out into . . . ah, now Denoriel at least recognized where they were . . . Wormegay Hold.

  Denoriel stroked Miralys, trying to pass into him some of his own power, but that attempt failed. Possibly the elvensteeds used another source of energy than that which powered elven magic, one that was as rich in the mortal world as Underhill. He had never known the source to fail, but now he felt Miralys's desperate effort to gather strength. Had the collapse of the Gate damaged the steed?

  "It's all right, Miralys," he said, stroking the silky hide, caressing the steed's head. "You don't need to carry us. Harry and I can get around Wormegay on foot. It's not that big. And we can stay right here for a while. I don't think anything's noticed us. Maybe I can raise a shield—"

  The thought was interrupted by FitzRoy asking anxiously, "Is Miralys all right?"

  As shock receded, Denoriel was better able to think. Harry's voice seemed to bring together the cloak, the reduction in his pain now that Harry was wearing it, Harry's need for protection, and the idea of a shield, which had come to his mind. It occurred to Denoriel that he could build a shield onto the cloak, which, hip-length on him, covered Harry from neck to ankle.

  As long as the boy kept the cloak closed, most of the invidious effect of the cold iron would be eliminated. If there was some threat in which the cross could protect the boy, he would only have to fling the cloak back. That would not break the shield and when the threat was gone, Harry could just close the cloak and the worst would be over.

  Settlement of the first question the boy had asked him—whether or not to cover his cross—somehow made Denoriel more sanguine about solving all his other problems.

  "Miralys is just exhausted, Harry," he said. "Are you all right?"

  "Oh yes," the boy said brightly but still watching all around. "But this place is a mess. Just look at this park. Half the trees are dead and the weeds are just growing over everything. The statue fell off that fountain in the middle and it's all black and slimy. I think there's a dead animal under the bushes over there. And there's a bench here, but I think someone . . . er . . . shit on it."

  Denoriel looked at the bench and shuddered. A gesture of his hand swept it clean. Another gesture sent the dead thing—he was grateful Harry had not seen it more clearly because it was a Dreaming Sidhe, not a dead animal—to a different corner of the area.

  "And look at those houses just outside the park. They're all falling down and mold is growing on them. Ugh! What's more, this place smells." FitzRoy glanced up at him before returning his attention to the area surrounding them. "I was never in a park that smelled before. I don't think this is where you expected to take me. Do we have to stay?"

  Denoriel saw Miralys fold his legs and sink down to rest. He put his hand on Harry's shoulder and drew the boy to the bench.

  "We have to stay for a little while, until Miralys feels better. Let's sit down, Harry. I have a lot to explain."

  "That would be good, Lord Denno," the child said solemnly. "I am much older than when we met and I . . . I don't really believe in fairy guardians any more. But some of the things you do . . ." He shook his head. "I never dared ask you, not even when we were riding out because I was so afraid someone would hear. What are you, Lord Denno?"

  Denoriel laughed weakly. "Actually, fairy gaurdian is pretty close to the truth. Do you know anything about the Sidhe?"

  "One of my tutors told me something about them, I think. We were studying the legends of the Welsh and Scots and Irish. When the Milesians defeated the Tuatha de Danaan, the Tuatha de Danaan went down into the sidhe . . ."

  He gestured wearily for the child to stop. "Yes, well, the story is a bit more complicated, but never mind that. The sidhe are not in Ireland alone. They . . . they are everywhere in the whole world. And it was not only the Tuatha who built or went down into them."

  "Are you of the Tuatha de Danaan?" A wide-eyed stare.

  Denoriel shrugged. "Some mortals call us elves. Some call us Faery. Some call us the Fair Folk." A smile twitched at his lips. "Some call us names that it is better a youngling like you doesn't hear. But as you call yourselves English, from the name of your land, England, we call ourselves Sidhe from the place we made for ourselves, the sidhe. Now, because many, many other folk than the Sidhe live in that place, we keep the name Sidhe and call the place where we live Underhill. Thus sometimes we call your world Overhill or the mortal world."

  FitzRoy clasped his hands. His eyes were enormous but bright with pleasure and excitement, not fear. "Oh, Lord Denno are you truly my own personal elven knight?"

  Denoriel flicked the boy's nose. "Certainly not! I am my own personal elven knight, as you are your own personal boy. I am not a pet or a toy and do not belong to you. When you are older, I will be able to explain why certain mortals are of great importance to the Sidhe. For now it is enough for you to know you are one of those mortals, and I am assigned to protect you. So, in a sense, I am your fairy guardian."

  The boy giggled, nervously. "But if you are my guardian, I fear you have fallen short of the mark this once! You saved me from those creatures that attacked us true enough, but I suspect that you have driven us from one peril to another."

  Denoriel sighed. "Well, this certainly isn't where I intended to take you. But I believe it was your cross that made the mess and wrecked my plan. Underhill we have a swift means of travel, which we call called Gating."

  The boy blinked. "Is that why we went into that dark place in the forest and of a sudden we were here?"

  Denoriel tried to scan the area around them for trouble and answer the boy's questions at the same time. "Yes. Exactly. But you know that your iron cross won't let any Sidhe nor many other Underhill residents touch you. It has a power of its own. And that power . . ." He searched for an explanation. " . . . ah, interfered with the magic power that lets a Gate move folk who are magical from one place to another. Look, you—" he pointed. "Look to that blackened place, there. That is—or was—actually the Gate where we came in. I'm afraid the cold iron collapsed the Gate where we entered so we can't get back by entering that Gate again."

  "But you saved us!" the boy exclaimed.

  Oh, how he wanted to take credit for that! But honesty forbade him. "No, I didn't. I didn't even know what was happening. Miralys saved us, which is why he's exhausted. There is a Gate there—" he pointed to the ruined fountain. "But I do not know where it goes, and I do not know where we can find another one."

  Harry bit his lip. "Then I'd better put my cross away."

  He shook his head; the motion made it ache. "No, you might need it. This place not only looks worse than the worst slum in London, it's more dangerous. You might need your cross for protection. The magic hereabouts is no help to us; I had rather see it disrupted."

  Harry put one hand on Denoriel's arm. "But it hurts you, Lord Denno."

  He managed a wan smile. "Yes, but I think I can solve that problem."

  Denoriel then told Harry about putting a shield on his cloak and how he could hide or expose the cross very quickly. In fact, he built the shield while he was explaining, and when Harry wrapped the cloak tight around him, Denoriel sighed with relief.

  "Yes, that does it. I feel much better—"

  He left the sentence unfinished and turned around sharply to look at Miralys who was heaving himself to his feet. Denoriel exclaimed wordlessly with concern. The elvensteed was in a sorry state. His coat was dull and there was a sort of insubstantiality about him.

  Before he could protest and urge Miralys to continue to rest, FitzRoy said, "There's someone coming. It's only a little girl, but she looks very strange."

  Denoriel whirled around, his sword coming out of its sheathe. Underhill little girls were often anything but harmless. He swept Harry behind him and
faced a starveling child, huge-eyed, pallid, dressed in limp tatters that were soiled with dark stains. Her hair was white and trailed behind her, the strands that brushed the ground tangled with twigs and dirt. A ribbonlike, pale tongue slipped out between her thin lips and licked them. And a sense of hunger welled out of her that nearly drew a cry of pain from Denoriel.

  "Pretty Sidhe," she whispered. "I can give you what will make Dreaming worthless. Give me that sweet and tender enchanted boy."

  "Go away," Denoriel said. "I will give you nothing, and of a certainty I do not desire anything you can give me."

  The huge eyes grew even larger. It needed all of Denoriel's strength not to fall into them. "If you will not give him to me, I will suck you dry and then I will have him anyway."

  Denoriel curved his lips in what was not a smile. "You would have already if you could. Go away and I will not hurt you."

  She laughed. "Even pain is power," the sultry whisper began again. "You did not bring that tender morsel here and bind it with spells for nothing."

  "What I do is none of your business," Denoriel snapped. "I said to go away and I meant it." He slashed at her with his sword.

  It did not touch her, but she shrieked anyway and opened a mouth that seemed to split her head in two, exposing long pointed teeth. Her hands came up, the fingers suddenly sprouting shining claws. Denoriel lunged forward and slapped his sword down hard on one hand. She screamed and staggered back, her hand blackening where the silver sword had touched it.

  Denoriel breathed a sigh of relief and stepped forward again. There were those that could not abide cold iron and those that could not abide silver. The creature, for it looked far less human now, retreated, spitting. But the sense of hunger that was sucking at him did not diminish, and Denoriel's long-sighted eyes saw other movement coming from the streets around the park.

  He heard Harry cry out, "Miralys!" and whirled. The elvensteed had just brought his front hooves down on a crawling thing that looked like an armored fish with the head of a tusked boar. Behind it something squirmed along the ground, the snakelike body creeping forward on thousands of tiny legs . . . no, hands . . . lifting the most exquisite Sidhe face toward him. An enormously long tongue suddenly snapped out of that face and flicked toward Harry. Denoriel cut it off and then severed the head from the body.

  "Behind you!" Harry gasped.

  Denoriel turned again, fearing that the ten or twenty creatures he had guessed were coming from the street had all arrived at once. Fortunately it was only the swiftest among them, a winged being that any mortal would have taken for an angel, so fair was its face, so glistening its multicolor wings, so pure a white its fluttering robe. Only a mouth gaping wide to expose long, pointed teeth and clawed hands outstretched to seize did not match the image.

  This time the silver sword did not blacken the hand it struck, but the scream from the faux-angel was just as heartfelt as that of the wraith because Denoriel struck off its hand. It groped with the other hand, stretching its neck, elongating it like a folded ribbon, its teeth snapping. But that was a fatal mistake, for Denoriel turned the sword and struck at that impossibly thinned neck. It severed as easily as the hand. The head flew off to his right as the body thudded into the ground.

  He heard the boy cry out in a brief triumph behind him and heard, too, Miralys's anguished groan as the steed raised his body and struck out backward with his hooves.

  "The Gate!" Denoriel cried. "Wherever it takes us will be better than here."

  He caught up the saddle, afraid to leave anything of theirs behind. Harry grabbed the trailing sleeve of his gown—the first time Denoriel had known the cursed things to be of any use. They made it to the rim of the fountain before anything else reached them.

  Harry leapt lightly up over the stone rim and on to the plinth, but he did not enter the dark haze that seemed to rise out of the black slime that covered it. Denoriel dropped the saddle beside him and turned back to urge on Miralys, who he thought was lagging behind to guard their rear, but he saw with horror that the elvensteed's mouth gaped open, foam dripping from his lower jaw, while his ribs worked like bellows. The steed was struggling to raise his legs over the fountain rim.

  Denoriel leapt down, not knowing what he could do to help, the elvensteed being many times his weight and beyond even elven strength to lift, just as a thing—like an antelope with a huge penis hanging down below its belly and, stuck on its neck, the head of a bird with bulging eyes and a serrated beak—struck at Miralys. The elvensteed shrieked and leapt over the fountain rim and up the two steps, shying back from the Gate itself only because Harry had his steel knife in hand.

  The bird-antelope struck at Denoriel. He struck back, and the creature was beakless. And before he could strike again and kill it, three other things—one like a bent-over old man but with the head of a vulture; a second four-legged creature with a toad's warty skin and wide mouth but with a crocodile's teeth and, incredibly, human-looking shoes on its four feet; and the third a bat-winged something with human breasts but a spider's head—leapt on the struggling bird-antelope and began to devour it alive.

  Denoriel raised his sword to plunge into the creature's throat in mercy, but Harry shouted at him, "Lord Denno, hurry! Miralys is falling."

  Turning to run to Harry, Denoriel himself almost fell. His arms felt like old, wet dishrags and his knees were shaking. He was cold and hollow, as he had not been since Mwynwen bespelled him. As he staggered up the two steps to the plinth he noticed that the air was empty. The horrors of Wormegay Hold were clearer to the eyes than the beauties of any other domain Underhill because there was no faint, near-invisible mist in the atmosphere.

  No time to wonder. Miralys was, indeed, sinking. With a cry of fear, Denoriel put his arm around the neck of the steed and heaved, kicking the saddle ahead of him. He grasped for Harry with his free hand as he pulled as hard as he could. He should not have been able to support the elvensteed, but Miralys was so light, as if he was only an illusory image of himself. The push should not have moved Miralys at all, but the whole entangled group staggered forward into the dark haze of the Gate.

  For a moment nothing happened and Denoriel gasped with fear. Had this Gate also collapsed or been damaged by the disaster at the other Gate? As the thought came, his strength was drained even further so that he fell to his knees. Indeed, he would have fallen flat on his face if Harry had not supported him.

  Then came the darkness of transition, the horrible feeling of being wrenched inside out. Usually that lasted so short a time that it was not significant. Now it went on and on. There was no sound. He thought Harry was shouting at him, but he couldn't hear. He could no longer feel Miralys. Lost? Could they be lost in the void through which the Gates made contact, terminus with terminus?

  Would they spend eternity in this hell?

  CHAPTER 19

  Almost mindless with terror, Denoriel finally recalled that there were open Gates, Gates that would take you anywhere you were strong enough to chose as a terminus, if there was a Gate terminus there. He fixed his mind on Logres . . . on Gating to Logres . . . blessed Dannae, how he wanted to get to Logres! . . .

  . . . and spilled out into a swirling mist so thick that he could barely make out Harry and the larger bulk of Miralys.

  The elvensteed, solid again, dropped to his knees, bearing Denoriel down.

  But a moment later, he shook himself, and then got to his feet. Denoriel no longer felt cold and empty. Mwynwen's spell was working again. He heard Miralys snort—a nice energetic snort.

  "Where are we now, Lord Denno?" Harry asked cheerfully. "I don't think this is where you wanted to go either—but it's almost like home. London has fogs like this. Are we back in London?"

  "I'm afraid not, Harry." Denoriel picked up the saddle. "Here, let's just step down—careful, there should be a sort of platform. Now hold on to me and don't let go. A foot away and I couldn't see you in this mist. We're in what's called the Unformed lands. If I were a strong enough m
agician, I could build a whole world in here."

  "Are we going to stay here while you build a world?" the boy asked.

  Denoriel sighed. He wasn't cold and empty, but he was so tired his knees felt soft. He bent them and felt around. Behind him there seemed to be a low platform of stone—he bruised a knuckle on it. That must be the Gate. Ahead and to each side, however, the ground seemed firm and dry. No one had even bothered to make grass. That was hopeful. Some mage had been here or there wouldn't be a Gate, but perhaps he or she had only wanted to mark an Unformed place for future work. He set the saddle down.

  "Let's sit down while I catch my breath."

  Harry sat down on the saddle. "After that are you going to built a world?" he asked with the typical persistence of a child.

  "No—no!" He sighed. Ah, the boundless confidence of the young. . . . Harry clearly thought he could do anything, and as flattering as that estimation was, he was going to have to disabuse the boy of it. "Unfortunately far stronger mages than I use these lands, and sometimes they are not kindly mages. Sometimes they create unfriendly beasts and leave them as guards."

  Harry patted his arm. "They couldn't be much more unfriendly than the beasts we met in that other place," he said, sounding forlorn. "Lord Denno, why did they attack us like that? We weren't threatening them in any way."

  "They were hungry," Denoriel said before he thought.

  Harry drew in his breath sharply. "They wanted to eat us? They are cannibals?"

  Denoriel was surprised into a thin chuckle. "I don't know that you can call them cannibals," he said, aghast at the horror he had suggested to the child and wanting to make light of it. "Cannibals eat their own kind. I'm not sure there were two of any kind in Wormegay Hold."