Madoc wore a heavy, primitive crown of gold, inscribed with Celtic knotwork and set with more rubies, on his handsome, blond head. He made no attempt to disguise his cat-pupiled green eyes or pointed ears. His costume was an elaborate and thickly embroidered antique-style tunic and trews made of gold and scarlet silk; on his feet were sandals that laced up over the legs of the trews. The leather was studded with gold, as was the heavy belt at his waist. A crimson mantle of silk velvet was held to his shoulders by matching Celtic circle-brooches. His jewelry, aside from the crown and the brooches, consisted of a pair of heavy gold armbands and a gold torc with monster-head finials.
Shar could not help thinking that he looked like an art supply catalog on two feet.
Shar stepped carefully down from the platform, which held the physical counterpart of the Gate in the Forest, and made her way across the vast and empty floor. She kept her face impassive right up until the moment that she came to Madoc's feet.
Then she allowed her face to assume an expression of amused irony. "I think you owe Frank Frazetta licensing fees," she said.
Madoc frowned, a flash of real anger, as his impassive mask slipped for a moment. Shar smiled. Madoc hated being reminded that the elves copied everything they did from humans, and he hated it even more when she recognized the source.
"Don't mention Frazetta's name to me again. He has caused the Unseleighe enough trouble. You're making no progress in dealing with Tannim," he said abruptly, as she crossed her arms over her breasts and took a hip-shot, careless stance designed to tell him without words that she was not impressed.
She shrugged. "It's coming along. You know as well as anyone that Oberon has been taking an interest in Keighvin and his crew, and that includes Tannim. Challenge him without all the proper protocols and you could wind up answering to the High King. Again. Just because he threw you out of the Court once doesn't mean he can't choose to come after you."
Madoc flushed. "You haven't stayed long enough to get Tannim's response to your challenge!" he accused. "You're toying with him! Enough of your foolishness! We are not engaged with this plan to amuse you. Deal with the man and have done with it!"
She lowered her eyelids to hide her anger at the tone of command he had taken with her. He should know better than to take that attitude with her—
Suddenly, a soft popping sound signaled Azure's arrival into the throne room, speeding towards her with obvious excitement. Something must have happened to make her pet seek her out here! She raised her hand to warn Madoc not to disturb the creature—
Too late.
He was already irritated with her, and this intrusion gave him an excuse to vent that anger on something connected with her.
He blasted the hapless creature into the back wall with a flick of his hand. It whimpered once, and died.
Shar felt stunned, as if she had taken the blow herself. She stared at the remains of her pet, then transferred her gaze to Madoc. The Unseleighe yawned, rubbed his chin, and smiled at her lazily.
"Next time," he purred, "curb your dog."
At that moment Shar made up her mind about which side she was on.
She gave no outward sign of her thoughts. Instead, she said, "What do you want me to do? Don't you realize what weapon he's likely to choose for the Challenge? Cars. Racing. His Mustang against mine." She gritted her teeth and went on with the deception. "In anything else, I could best him, but not that. He's better than I am or ever will be, and no amount of magery is going to counteract his skill."
Madoc frowned, as if that had never occurred to him. "Well, kill him, then!" he snapped.
But again, she shook her head. "Oberon," she said succinctly. "If you don't want Oberon's attention, play by the rules of the game. We've issued the Challenge; we can't kill Tannim out of hand now. Remember, if you violate the rules, no Unseleighe will ever trust you. He has to accept the Challenge, and you're going to have to figure out some way of making him choose magery or some other weapon I am superior with. That's why I've been drawing things out; I've been trying to get him off balance enough that he won't think of racing as the response when I finally let him respond."
There. Bite on that awhile.
She seethed with anger at the wanton, pointless destruction of Azure; she would mourn the poor little creature later, when her privacy was assured. But the best way to get revenge on Madoc was to frustrate him, to make him angry. If he lost control of himself, he would do something stupid, and he might lose all of his allies. That would put him right back at square one, all of his plans in ruins, all of it to do over again. But this time it would take much longer to undo all the damage. Look how long it had taken Vidal Dhu to regain his reputation after losing to Keighvin Silverhair the first time!
Madoc frowned fiercely at being confronted with the truth—but then, unexpectedly, he smiled.
"But he cannot choose racing if he has nothing to race with, can he?" the Unseleighe lord said with glee. " 'Tis simple enough: we steal his precious Mustang with magic, and bring it Underhill! There are pockets we can armor against the harmful effect of so much Cold Iron—and I myself have enough power to bring the vehicle here!"
She blinked, taken aback—then quickly recovered. "What if he comes after it?" she countered. "What if he brings help with him, armed with Cold Iron weapons?"
"Then he but proves my point to Oberon," Madoc retorted with triumph. "And we can lay a trap for him. Oberon cannot object to our squashing him like an impudent insect if he brings Death Metal into Underhill!"
She was too well-trained to panic, but her mind raced as it never had before. "Let me deal with the car and set the trap," she said quickly. "Why waste your energies on dealing with something I can handle with impunity? Then you can confront him yourself, power intact."
Madoc nodded slowly. "You have a point," he admitted. "It would exhaust me to bring the car Underhill; it would serve us little if I cannot be the one to defeat him here." He straightened regally on his throne. "Very well," he said, his arrogance as heavy a mantle as the red velvet shrouding his shoulders. "Deal with it, Shar. Bring the car to the Underhill pocket nearest the Hall of the Mountain King. The Norse are used to the presence of metals; it should cause a minimum of disturbance to their magics. And if it troubles them—" he smiled, a snake's smile as it prepared to sink its fangs into the neck of the prey "—well, I offered an alliance, and they refused me. They can deal with the consequences."
She nodded shortly and turned on her heel, striding to the Gate at the other end of the hall and presenting him with her back instead of retreating, walking backward, as an underling would do. In that much, at least, she could offer open defiance. Her jaw was clenched so hard it ached, and her hands twitched as she forced them to remain at her side without turning into fists.
He had gone too far. He had neither the right nor the cause to callously slay Azure. Now it was time for her to think, plan everything with absolute care, and then act. She must kidnap the Mustang; she must make sure that Tannim would follow it. But the result of that would not be what Madoc supposed. She would best Madoc at Madoc's own game.
And, fates willing, feed him his own black heart at the end of it all.
* * *
Shar crouched in the gravel of the driveway of Tannim's house. Her fur was almost black under the pale moon, and she laid out the last components of her spell with care. Her tail lashed as she spun out the energies, linked them all in together, and flung them with handlike paws at the Mach I—
She held her breath, waiting, as the spell settled into place, a gossamer web of her power laid carefully over the layers and structures of Tannim's spells on his Mustang. As delicately as this was made, it still might set off his alarms—
It didn't, and she let out her breath in a rush. It had been damned difficult to get past all his mage-alarms and shields and this close to his parents' house, even wearing the true-fox shape. She had never been so close to triggering someone else's protections in her life, and she suspect
ed that only her form had kept her from setting off all those alarms. It would have been disaster if she somehow set off the protections on the Mustang.
She had known from the moment Madoc opened his mouth to order the Mach I's capture that Tannim would, if the car was merely taken, simply write it off as a loss. He would know it was going to be bait in a trap. When he refused to come after it, Madoc would insist that she make good on the Challenge, assuming that Tannim would have to choose some other weapon.
The trouble was, Tannim could still choose racing. He could have the damned Victor GT sent down here to him if he wanted. He could buy two identical cars off a showroom floor.
Madoc would know she could not match him on a race course. He could do something stupid to hex the race, but he would do it in the mortal world, where he could not operate as freely as she could. Yes, she could work this into Madoc's downfall, but there would be a sacrifice she no longer wanted to make.
Madoc would murder Tannim, as he had murdered Azure. SharMarali Halanyn vowed, on the spirits of her ancestors, Madoc Skean would have no more victims.
She had to do something to make it look as if the Mach I's disappearance was an accident. If it happened while he was doing something to the car, he would not assume it was a trap.
So, she laid in a spell to open a Gate to the appointed place the moment Tannim tried to set another spell of any kind on his car. With her nipping at his heels, it couldn't be long before he did just that. She would be ready to snatch his car away before he knew what was happening.
And since the Mach I would not end up anywhere near Unseleighe domains—as per Madoc's orders—he would assume that something had backfired in the spell he had set, and come after his wandering Mustang.
Or so she hoped, for his sake. If he did that, she had a chance of saving him and engineering Madoc's downfall.
The only other way of saving him would be for the two of them to join forces and take Madoc on. She knew how strong she was—and in a head-on confrontation, Madoc would win over her. He was the better fighter. The strengths of the kitsune lay in subterfuge, trickery. The strengths of the dragon—
She had not learned. Not well enough. Her father had not taught her enough to become a rival to his power. If Ako had remained with Chinthliss, perhaps—
Perhaps changes nothing, she scolded herself, and crept carefully down the driveway, still in fox-shape. She was strong enough to hold her independence only because Charcoal would not challenge Ako and her family, and because the Unseleighe did not realize how she had come to despise them. They thought they still ruled her, and permitted her what they thought was the illusion of independence. She could not protect Tannim alone. He could not withstand the full power of the Unseleighe alone. His friends from Fairgrove could not reach him before Madoc murdered him, if Madoc struck without warning.
They would have to join forces, and for that, she would have to show herself as his ally.
She looked back over her shoulder at the house once she was safely outside the perimeter of Tannim's shields. A single light burned in the room she knew was his.
What was he doing? Trying to extract information from her carefully Cleansed gloves? Thinking? Dreaming?
Of her?
She shook her head violently, her ears flapping, and sneezed. Then she spun around three times, a little red fox chasing her tail, and reached through the thrice-cast circle for her Gate to home.
* * *
Tannim pulled the Mustang into Chinthliss' slot just before sunset. His mentor had told him on the phone when Tannim called him this morning not to bother to appear before then; his own researches would not be completed before dark.
So he and Joe cruised around Tulsa in the afternoon. Fox still hadn't put in an appearance.
But the mysterious, dark-haired woman in her black Mustang certainly did. She was tailing them.
She made no attempt to hide, but she also made no further attempt at contact of any kind. In fact, the two times he had tried to turn the tables on her and force a confrontation, she had managed to vanish into the traffic.
She stayed no less than three cars behind him, and no more than five, no matter what route he chose; even when he was certain he'd managed to shake her, she always turned up again. He thought he'd lost her when they pulled into one of the malls, but when he and Joe came out again with more clothing for Joe, she was there, parked three rows away from the Mach I, watching them.
When he stopped to fill up the tank, she was in the parking lot of a fast-food joint across the street. When he turned onto the Broken Arrow expressway, she followed right behind. He got off and thought he'd lost her for sure when he didn't see her following on the little two-lane blacktop road he'd chosen—but as soon as he came to a major intersection, there she was again, as if she had somehow known where he was going.
She finally vanished when he pulled into his folks' driveway, hot and frustrated, and doing his best not to take his frustration out on Joe.
He certainly hoped that Chinthliss would have better news for him than all of this.
She hadn't shown up on the drive to the hotel, so that was a plus. Maybe following them around all day, between the power-shopping and the aimless driving, had been driving her as buggy as being followed had driven him.
She sure as hell hadn't learned anything interesting. Unless it was which stores had his favorite brands of clothing.
They piled out of the car and started up the walkway in the blue dusk. Chinthliss met them at the door, letting them in without any of his usual banter. That was enough to make Tannim take a closer look at his friend. Chinthliss had a very odd, closed expression on his face.
"What's wrong?" Tannim asked bluntly.
Chinthliss shook his head and waved them both to seats on the couch. The two gloves lay on the table, in the exact middle, side by side, both of them palm showing. As Chinthliss took his own seat, Tannim watched him closely. Something was definitely up.
"I believe I have the identity of your challenger," Chinthliss said, abruptly, with no warm-up. "I don't know why she has challenged you, for certain, but I can guess. And I hope that I am wrong."
"So who is she?" Tannim asked when Chinthliss had remained silent for far too long.
Chinthliss drew himself up and tried to look dignified, but succeeded only in looking haggard. "I would rather not say," he replied. "It involves something very personal."
That was the last straw in a long and frustrating day. Tannim lost his temper. Chinthliss liked to play these little coaxing games, but Tannim was not in the mood for one now.
"Personal, my—" Tannim exploded, as Joe jumped in startlement at his vehemence. Then he forced himself to calm down. "Look, lizard," he said, leaning forward and emphasizing his words with a pointed finger. "I've told you a lot of stuff that was damned personal over the years, when it had a bearing on something you needed to know. You know that nothing you tell me will leave this room. Time to pay up. I have to know this stuff. It's my tail that's on the line, here!"
Chinthliss licked his lips and tried to avoid Tannim's eyes. Tannim wouldn't let him.
Finally Chinthliss sighed and let his head sag down into his hands. "It is very complicated and goes back a long time," he said plaintively, as if he was hoping Tannim would be content with that.
Not a chance. "Ante up, Chinthliss," Tannim said remorselessly. "The more you stall, the worse I'll think it is."
Chinthliss sighed again, and leaned back in his chair, eyes closed. "It all began twenty-eight years ago, in the time of this world," he said, surprising Tannim. Huh. He wasn't kidding about it being a long time. That's a year longer than I've been alive.
"This occurred in my realm. There were two young males, constant rivals. One was called Charcoal, and one, Chinthliss," his mentor continued. "They both courted a lovely lady of the kitsune clan. She was young and flirtatious, and paid the same attentions to each. Very—ah—personal attentions. Chinthliss was the one who temporarily won her, most
ly because Charcoal became insufferable. But it was not Chinthliss who fathered the daughter she bore."
Tannim sat bolt upright. Chinthliss—and a kitsune?
"The daughter was charming and talented, and Chinthliss had no qualms with accepting her as a foster-daughter, even though Charcoal had gone beyond being his rival and had become his most vicious enemy. But—he had many things on his mind, and eventually the Lady Ako became disenchanted with the lack of attention he paid her, and left him." There was real pain on Chinthliss' features, the ache of loss never forgotten and always regretted. "When she left him, she took her daughter. He never saw either of them again."
He opened his eyes at last, and Tannim locked his lips on the questions he wanted to ask. "That was when Chinthliss realized that he needed others, and began looking for someone—yes, to take the places of Lady Ako and SharMarali. Stupid, I know, for one person can never replace another, but I have never been particularly wise, no matter what my student might say to flatter me. . . ." His voice trailed off for a moment, then he looked Tannim straight in the eyes. "I never found anyone to match Ako, but I did find an eager young mind to teach, a protégé, someone to take the place of little Shar. That was why I gave him the name, `Son of Dragons'; not only as a joke on the name of his real, blood parents, but because he became a kind of son to me."
Tannim licked lips gone dry, and prompted him gently. "Is this—Shar—the one who's been following me?"
Chinthliss nodded painfully, as if his head was very heavy and hard to move. "I don't think there can be any doubt," he said. "Especially since there is only one kitsune-dragon I know of, and in the past, I heard rumors, rumors I had thought I could discount. I thought that Lady Ako had Shar safely with her; the rumors were that not long after I began teaching you, Charcoal asserted his parental rights over the girl and took her off to be trained by himself and by his allies. The Unseleighe."
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