Any Man So Daring

by Sarah A. Hoyt

  Thus speaking, Quicksilver raised his hands, moving them through the air in precise movements that Will had long ago learned meant invoking magic. Fairykind magic, invoked at need and with almost no price, save a small depletion of the whole of magic in the hill.

  Normally, when Quicksilver did this, sparks of magic flew between his fingers, the fatuous-fire of magic and of power that foretold the effect that magic would have on the natural world.

  Now Will saw the magic, but did not feel it. How could that be?

  Quicksilver was the king of the hill and had at his disposal such strength and force, such power and might, that all he had to do was express a desire and it would come true.

  Thinking this, knowing that what Quicksilver wished was Will out of here, out of his sight, out of this magical place where yet the elves planned to ensnare Hamnet, he jumped.

  Jumping, he landed on Quicksilver, and to his surprise Quicksilver fell beneath his weight, and thumped to the hard sand with a most human noise of injured flesh. A most human grunt escaped from between his immortal lips.

  Will again felt confused. What he expected to happen turned out very different from his expectation. Yet was that not the nature of these creatures? Did they not cast their veil of illusion around hapless mortals and make a mockery and a shadowland of what had been rational expectation and reasoned reality?

  “Oh, villain, this shall not excuse the injuries that thou hast done me.” Will raised his fist above Quicksilver’s still, pale face as if to strike it. Why did the king of elvenland look so cold, so dispirited — nay, so scared, like a child lost in the night who knows not what to do?

  Were those tears that trembled on those moss-green eyes, giving them the look of forest lakes, or yet of a forest submerged, an Atlantis lost?

  Will brought his fist down and, instead, took his hands to Quicksilver’s doublet, grabbed him by the padded shoulders, and shook him, now hitting him against the hard, packed sand, now lifting him from it.

  Quicksilver felt unresisting in Will’s grasp, his weight no more than the weight of a few dried leaves on the forest floor, a wisp of wind-blown sand.

  Will thought how, in the legends, fairy gold often turned out to be some dried leaves, a handful of trash from the forest floor, and shivered.

  Was Quicksilver himself that immaterial? Was he a thing of cobwebs and dreams?

  But, if so, what gave him such power to kidnap Will’s son, to disrupt Will’s life, to threaten Will’s family, to reach for Will’s heart?

  Will looked at the green eyes and found them fixed on him with no resentment, nothing but a vague hurt, a pained pity. He shook the king of fairyland again. “Fight, fight--why don’t you fight? This shall not excuse the injuries that you have done me.”

  Quicksilver drew breath, noisily, loudly enough to be heard over the howling wind. “I do protest I never injured you, but love you better than you can devise.” He lifted his hands and again he showed them to Will, empty of weapons and devoid of magic. “I am here, Will, to deliver your son from the clutches of this land, as though it were my own son, kidnapped. I’m here to protect your name and family. Go, good Will. Go and be satisfied. Be satisfied.”

  Satisfied? Will stared down at the king of fairyland. Quicksilver could crush Will with a word, could he not? Quicksilver could crush Will with his own strength, his physical strength that was elf-given and full of that fire of fairyland that blew the very engines of creation.

  And yet, he lay there, still and meek.

  “Please, allow me to send you back to your books and your rooms, your city and your human occupation, and I will bring you your son — I give my word in bond. I will bring you your son by night’s fall. Listen, good Will, only listen to me.” The voice of the princely elf rose in a high, desperate keening, the sound of a child trying to wheedle agreement from his powerful parents. “Listen to me.” And now the voice had an edge of unmanly crying, and tears rolled from the moss green eyes, down the marble-pale face of the king of elvenland.

  Will jumped up and stood well way from Quicksilver, who remained sitting and who but lifted a hand to wipe away his tears.

  “Oh, calm, dishonorable, vile submission,” Will said, wiping his own hands to his trousers, as if by doing so he could wipe away Quicksilver’s touch, Quicksilver’s contagion and all the feelings, good and bad, passionate and hurtful, that lay between them.

  And, staring down at the king, Will trembled, for who the king was, for what this meant. For if the King was weak, if he cried, meant that Quicksilver was not truly guilty?

  And then, who was? Who’d done this outrage? To whom should Will appeal for the return of his son?

  And could he trust Quicksilver?

  Or did the Lady Silver’s passions now control Quicksilver’s behavior? Did she still love Will?

  If so, would that accursed love have led her to stealing Hamnet?

  Why did Quicksilver cry?

  Once, Silver had seduced Will as much with her tears as with her slim form and the rounded softness of her bosom.

  What did Quicksilver seek with these tears of his?

  His own voice came out trembling, shocked. “What is this? What mean you by it? What do you want with me?”

  Quicksilver dragged himself to his knees, in slow movements, like a bruised mortal, like a suffering penitent, and on his knees turned to look at Will. “What is this you ask? A game is afoot that neither of us chose to play, Will. Your son was kidnapped by an enemy of mine own — nay, by my nearest relative, and yet an enemy. And therein lies the fall for you and me both, that my heir kidnapped your heir and brought both of us here. Do you know where we are, good Will? Oh, can you scope it?”

  Will shook his head and took a step back and Quicksilver took a step forward, still on his knees.

  This position of the king--this submissive, abased position--scared Will more than had Quicksilver strode about shouting commands and commanding thunderbolts.

  Quicksilver’s paleness scared him too, and Quicksilver’s tears, and Quicksilver’s trembling lips.

  If the strong trembled so, if the one who had made this plan was this scared, what would not befall those without power, Will himself--and Hamnet?

  Once more, Will tried to conjure an image of his son, as he had seen him, six months — or was it eight months? — ago.

  A fair child, with golden brown hair and yellow-gold falcon eyes, a miniature of Will himself and, as such, deserving of all love. For who could help but love himself? Who could help but wish the best for himself?

  And into that image of himself, Will had vested the best part of his heart, the kindest part of his soul.

  And now Hamnet was endangered by the same creature who’d once led his father astray. His father’s past would mar Hamnet’s future.

  Yet there the plotter knelt, seeking, in the guise of a lamb, to hide his lion heart.

  Will sought for words, for insults, but could find neither.

  And Quicksilver, as though taking Will’s silence for interested attention, said, “We are in the crux, Will, the crux of magic. Faith, I didn’t know it existed until now. But I’d heard of it, legends, told by elf mother to elf child, just like legends of fairyland are told to human children.” Seeming to find this funny, he smiled, or at least attempted to smile, a ghastly stretching of his too-pale lips. “At my mother’s knee I heard it, and from my nurse who was a high princess of fairyland, I begged stories and legends about it.

  “The crux, it is said, was blown from the very heart of the universe, and, fiery and full of magic, it sped, a different way from the world of elves and the world of mortals.

  “It went deeper, and it burned stronger than any other world, and thus — full of magic and fiery power -- it became the beating heart of all worlds.

  “From the crux comes all magic and all strength, the force of life and the joy of spring. Yet this very land, strong though it is, is dangerous. It is as dangerous, faith, as holding fire in your hand. In this island
of magic, where we now find ourselves, everything is different from what it should be. There is brawling love, and loving hate, and you see yourself wholly, without disguise. Even those without power at all are full of force, and in this magic land, thus, one cannot step but falsely, as magical quicksand twists and writhes beneath our every footfall.”

  Having thus spoken, Quicksilver looked up at Will, like a petitioner might look onto a sacred image, pinning all his hopes of justice and redemption upon its still, unmovable face.

  Yet Will felt his face move, his features contort, displaying bewilderment.

  But he must not be bewildered, he must not hesitate. This creature was so powerful, and the depths of his cunning so unfathomable, that Will could not afford to show his naked face to its conniving.

  He saw Quicksilver’s lips move, as though the king of elves searched for yet another way to tell what must be lies — surely this must be lies, for how could it be true? How could Quicksilver be truly weak, truly devoid of schemes and hopes?

  “Be still,” Will yelled.

  And, as he spoke, Quicksilver stopped all movement, though his eyes showed the frantic hope, the frantic need to speak.

  “I wish your lying mouth were stilled, that you could no more utter a sound,” Will said bitterly.

  Quicksilver’s mouth opened as though to scream, and his lips formed “Stop,” but no sound emerged.

  Only the wind howled, the storm raged, and Will felt a bitter anger burn within his chest. Quicksilver would mock him now? He would mock Will by pretending to be mute?

  Yet he felt something — something like a cobweb catch at his hands.

  It was invisible, but he could feel it, tacky and soft to the senses.

  The creature was trying his magic tricks.

  “Why should I believe your lies, O lying king? Why should I believe you’d save my son? Did not your kind once steal my wife, my wife and daughter both? Did not you yourself plot my destruction?”

  Quicksilver’s lips formed words, rapidly, eagerly, but their movements were as unreadable to Will as words in a book to a man who doesn’t know the mysteries of the alphabet and the secrets of phonetics.

  “Oh, cease your mockery,” Will said and raised his closed fist and sped it through the air. A good way away from the elf — as far away as he could be and still speak to the elf and hear him through the maelstrom that surrounded them — Will punched the air and wished that the punch were directed at the elf’s face and that Quicksilver could feel the strength of Will’s wrath, the force of his hatred.

  As he wished it, as his fist wounded the wind, so did Quicksilver’s head rock upon his neck, so did he trip back as though the punch had hit him full on the face.

  This much could be mockery and mimicry, but — before the seeming mockery inflamed Will’s anger yet anew — Will saw Quicksilver’s lips bloom in blood, as though blood had burst forth through the pale skin under impact.

  Quicksilver opened his wounded lips and screamed — Will was sure it was a true scream — though no sound emerged.

  What magic was here? What mystery?

  Will remembered how Quicksilver had said that here, in the crux, in this strange land, those who had no power in the world of men were full of power.

  Will had desired Quicksilver to be still. And lo, Quicksilver could not speak though he wished it. Will had desired Quicksilver to be hurt, and there, the king of elves, kneeling on the sand, had been struck by the magical equivalent of Will’s fist and the raging anger that impelled it.

  Will stood, amazed, watching as Quicksilver regained his knees and wiped his sleeve across his mouth — leaving his face stained with a streak of sparkling red elven blood.

  Quicksilver opened his mouth, then closed it, looking as though not sure, not assured enough to speak, not certain of his matter, not commanding his strength.

  And Will, feeling dread fill him as never before — for, if Quicksilver were truly powerless and Will powerful, the world had turned upside down, and in a world turned upside down, how could a man find footing? — spoke, his voice slow and dripping with the dread of a man faced with the impossible. “Speak, O king,” he said. “Regain your voice, and speak true, how this may be, that I perform magic and you have none.”

  “It is the crux,” Quicksilver said. His voice was softer than ever, meeker, a mere whisper like that of a lost soul upon the wind that whistles past the graves in an ancient graveyard.

  “I have magic. But yours is stronger, and I cannot protect myself from it. It is the property of the crux, the matter of my discourse. This is the crux of magic, the blessed and cursed land where every time and every magic current crosses. It makes the powerless powerful, the powerful powerless. It twists and winds around us all, and by our being here, we endanger with our thoughts and actions, crux and magic, and fairyland, all.” Quicksilver took in breath through his wounded lips, a quick breath snagged upon grief, somewhere between a hiccough and a sob. “We should leave. All of us should leave.”

  And now Will believed him, and now he stood amazed, and stepped back, more fearful than ever, not of what Quicksilver might do to him, but of what he, himself, might do to Quicksilver. Afraid of this magic he didn’t know he possessed, of this unwanted power coursing through his veins.

  He looked at his hands as though they were strangers', through which such strong magic might flow, and his not knowing. He closed his lips firmly which, suddenly, could weave strange and abiding spells.

  Yet, he watched blood flow down Quicksilver’s face, from his injured lips -- rivulets of suffering that didn’t belong on the immortal face. Will felt himself pale and his eyes open in horror at what he’d done.

  Quicksilver, again, wiped his mouth to his black velvet doublet. Already the wound was healing by his magic or the virtue of his immortal flesh. “You do not know how to do it, and you might, beyond the attempts you make, cause more injury, and besides....” Quicksilver shook his head. “And besides, having done magic in the crux, having tapped into the strength and might of ancient fire, you will already, on Earth, when you return to it, have some magical power. The more magic you do, the more power you’ll have. Who knows what use might not wake in you? A creature divided, neither elf nor human....” Quicksilver frowned, as if a new thought had occurred to him. “I am, myself, a creature divided, my loyalties and hopes, my desires, my very self sundered in twain. I would not wish it upon you....”

  Quicksilver would not wish it upon Will. Was that kindness? Fear? Will opened his mouth, to speak, but stilled it again, afraid of what his words might do.

  And yet he wanted to order Quicksilver to tell the truth, the whole truth. Had Quicksilver, truly, not commanded any of this? Had Hamnet disappeared without Quicksilver’s knowledge or against Quicksilver’s wishes? And if so, what could Will do? Should Will truly leave? Leave now, before the crux changed him forever? Leave now and trust this powerless king, no matter how well intentioned, to bring Hamnet back to Will from this land of miracles and terrors?

  Before Will could speak again the black vortex which had faded above them came back in a howling of wind, a breath of thunder.

  It was a many-fingered vortex, reaching to the beach and the forest and who knew where else?

  Through the blowing sand, Will felt more than saw two bodies hit the beach.

  And as the howling calmed and the vortex vanished, a voice called from behind them, “Get away from the villain, mortal, for we’d not hurt you.”

  The voice was that of a young girl, but gifted with immortal music, with harmonies such as befit the voices of angels.

  Will turned around and, shocked, stared at the face that matched the voice.

  The girl — an elf — stood at the edge of the beach and pointed at them with a trembling finger.

  She was an angel, woven of light and graceful in stature and face. Her delicate features, her spun-light hair, made her look like God’s very messenger descended from above. Her light green dress floated about a figure pe
rhaps a little small, a little slight, caught between childhood slimness and the strength of adulthood.

  She would be beautiful when she grew fully, Will thought, more beautiful than any woman he’d ever seen.

  And, caught between her present beauty and the certainty of her future wonder, Will felt his mind dazzle, his mouth go slack, and his eyes round in shock as the young woman pointed her finger at him.

  Behind her, still on the ground, still looking stunned, a young man lay. Nay, a young elf, judging from his perfect and delicate features. Like her he had blond hair, but as he shook his head and sought to raise himself on his elbows, the eyes that looked with dumb rancor at Will and Quicksilver were black as night.

  “You, villain,” the girl said. “You, traitor, get away from the mortal, if you prize him, for in our wrath we might well injure him as we punish you.”

  Will, too shocked to be offended, raised his hand to his chest and asked, “I? A villain?” And, glancing back over his shoulder at the kneeling Quicksilver and back again, “And him? Mortal?”

  Scene Fourteen

  The same beach, on the same shores of a magical ocean, the same wind roaring loud and afflicted, like a mother mourning a child’s loss. Quicksilver starts to stand up, as Will stands, his back to him, staring at a small the intruders Miranda and Proteus.

  Miranda couldn’t understand her uncle’s question.

  Why was he so surprised? Didn’t he know himself for a villain?

  She knew what was right and what wasn’t. Oh, sure, she’d been raised in an isolated castle, by a creature not human. But she’d had the long memory of mankind and elvenkind both, available to her through the legends and stories in the Hunter’s library. She knew what was right and what was wrong, and who was good and who was a villain.