Any Man So Daring

by Sarah A. Hoyt

  Had he told the truth? Was it a matter of Will’s believing and magic would be done? Was it a matter of his will power, not his knowledge, not his power?

  Will thought on this as the centaurs awakened. He thought on it as, still bound, he was thrown over the back of the dappled stallion and Quicksilver over the back of the brown one. With Caliban trotting behind, they set off down the true path to the castle.

  Could Will make his gag fall by wishing it?

  He looked at Quicksilver, who appeared half dead, and tried to wish his gag away with all his mind.

  He visualized his gag untying, falling off. He thought that he felt the cloth give, loosen upon his face.

  Then Will thought of Quicksilver telling Will that if Will performed magic in the crux, then he would — forever — be magic even in the world of men.

  Was that true? Will thought, and the fear of that, the fear of that unwanted magic tainting his everyday existence, like a cold blade upon his neck, like a strangled fear at his throat, stopped his ability to concentrate.

  He tried to move his lips, but the cloth was tight as ever over them.

  Was he a coward?

  Faith, he didn’t know, but he feared that he and Quicksilver and Hamnet and all would be lost, and Will would never test the limits of his courage, the bounds of his ability.

  Oh he wished that Quicksilver could hear his thoughts, as Marlowe’s ghost could.

  And in wishing so, in screaming Quicksilver, within his mind, he found that something happened.

  It was as if the thought pushed on a barrier that, turning into a door, swung inward.

  Quicksilver raised his head, looked at Will. Quicksilver’s eyes opened fully, their moss green depths trained on Will.

  And his pale lips shaped, “Will?”

  Scene Thirty Seven

  Quicksilver, slung over the back of the brown centaur, jarred and jostled by the pace of the creature, as it trots down the true path.

  Quicksilver heard Will call out to him and, opening his eyes, found Will’s gaze trained on him, those odd golden eyes that looked still as in Will’s youth, but now filled with such shock that it made Quicksilver want to laugh despite it all.

  You heard me, Will’s mind-voice echoed in Quicksilver’s mind.

  Quicksilver smiled, nodded. How odd it felt — Will’s voice in his mind. How far he’d come that Will’s small attention, Will’s agreement to speak to him, even to mind-speak, made him so grateful that his eyes tingled with tears.

  Oh, Silver had loved this mortal desperately.

  But then, why did Quicksilver still feel this gentle enchantment towards the mortal with the falcon eyes, the receding hair, the fear of all things magical?

  Marlowe says you must accept Silver, or you’ll both die, Will said.

  Marlowe? Quicksilver thought, raising his eyebrows in surprise. What did Will mean?

  He didn’t know if Will heard his thought, or just read his expression.

  Will’s golden eyes became intent, fixed, and Will’s mind-voice, hesitant and unpracticed, whispered in Quicksilver’s thoughts, Marlowe’s ghost. I’ve been seeing him for days now. He says he gave me his poetry and, with such a bequest or the good thereof, came his inability to go on towards heaven or hell. Now he wants to save us that he might be freed and join his son in heaven.

  Will frowned, and his eyes showed doubt of what he, himself, said. At least, he thought, that’s what he claims, but, faith, I believe that he still loves...you.

  Quicksilver laughed at this, for here was the wonder.

  In her life, Silver had loved no one but Will. In his life, even Quicksilver’s love for his wife paled in comparison to this affection he’d caught from Silver like a catching sickness. And yet, Will spoke of love for either aspect of Quicksilver as a strange thing, incomprehensible, to be pondered and thought of and not fully believed.

  Will--staid, sane Will--could never love an elf, much less a divided elf, and half of it a male.

  And Marlowe, whom Silver had used for her pleasure, whom Quicksilver had used for his plaything, had loved Quicksilver so truly that, having died for that love, he still did not consider it enough.

  He says, Will said. That unless you can become Silver again, become one with her, you will die. This seems to pain him.

  “Die,” Quicksilver whispered. “Die? What can I do but die?” For Proteus will kill me today. He will kill all of us.

  Lifting his head at an awkward angle, he saw the white castle at the center of the crux moving ever closer as the centaurs trotted towards it.

  Its white, tall towers defied even the best elf architecture.

  Quicksilver had heard the conversation between Proteus and the centaurs yesterday. He knew what would happen when they got there, when they joined Proteus and Miranda there.

  Proteus would use Miranda to protect himself from the vengeance of the hill and with one murder rid himself of all rival claimants to the throne of fairyland. And there was nothing Quicksilver could do to stop him.

  After a night of writhing and trying to think his way out of this cunning trap, Quicksilver had found that perfect despair that was like calm at the eye of a storm.

  Miranda was powerful enough, faith, to shield Proteus from the results of killing a king of the hill. Though chances were she would die from it.

  And if not... if not, Proteus intended to kill her, that he could reign alone.

  Oh, the poor besotted girl. Quicksilver pitied her most heartily, for he knew what it was like to love in vain. But he knew not what he could do about it. Not while he was wrapped in this net that suppressed all his magical powers.

  He watched the centaurs talk to each other, even as they galloped on the smooth road, ignoring the captives on their backs.

  He thought they would not ignore Silver thus, and felt a momentary relief that Silver had not fallen to their crude mercies, for hot-blooded centaurs always craved human or elf female flesh.

  But on the heels of that very relief, a contrary thought crept. For Silver would get them to remove the net. Quicksilver would wager on it.

  Centaurs had ever had an eye for elven beauty. If only Quicksilver could change into Silver—perhaps confuse the centaurs with the change...did they know he could change? He hadn’t changed in the last ten years, never in public...perhaps he could convince them that Quicksilver had escaped and left a beautiful girl elf in his place.

  Then, perhaps, the centaurs would be stupid enough to free Silver. Oh, they would free her only to rape her, or so the legends said, although they all spoke of inebriated centaurs and these were sober.

  But if they freed Silver, Quicksilver’s magic would be enough to oppose them.

  Oh, if only Quicksilver could change into Silver....

  He reached inside him for the memories of Silver, for Silver’s warm affections, and tried to shape her from the effluvium she’d left behind.

  Scene Thirty Eight

  Proteus and Miranda walking down the true road, towards the white castle at the center of the crux.

  As Miranda and Proteus walked the true road, drawing nearer the castle, Miranda tried to discern her father’s standard upon the towers, but the flagpole over the castle was empty. And, try as she might, she could not see -- upon the ramparts -- even a trace of brown curls, or the glimmer of those broad shoulders: of the mortal raised as prince of elfland, as the Hunter’s own pupil.

  Had she imagined it? Had she imagined all?

  Her dread, her grief, her anger, beat within her like warring tides, and made her wonder about her sanity.

  Still she smiled, and kept her voice even and low.

  And tried to slow Proteus down.

  For though she was sure of being prepared, though she was sure of her power, she feared that her death was waiting by those white ramparts.

  “Wait a while, love,” she said to Proteus as he strode ahead of her. “Wait a while. For my feet hurt and I’m all out of breath.”

  “Miranda, there is
not time to wait,” Proteus said. As he spoke, he pressed on in broad strides, at an almost-canter. “Miranda, we must press on, for the day is short and after this day will we forever be part of the crux, bonded to it by magic and unable to live as ourselves. If you prize me and our future happiness, we must press on.”

  Miranda sighed and pressed on, for what could she do? What could she say that would justify her dread and not give away what she knew of him?

  Yet as the castle drew near she felt something falling over her — a heaviness, like a blanket that muffled her thoughts and sensations and made her feel as though she were walking, asleep, through a dreary, sleeping world.

  Had she not heard the conversation the night before, she’d have thought she was tired.

  But as it was, she knew her disease for its symptoms -- a compulsion upon her. She pushed at it with her will and held it at bay with her anger.

  She wondered if Proteus could feel her resistance.

  It seemed to Miranda that -- now and then -- he stared at her doubtfully, out of the corner of his eye.

  She would gladly have told him what she thought of him and ended this deadly charade.

  She was tired, she was hungry, she was scared. The world in which she’d longed to live, the world that had seemed so enticing in her solitude had proven bewildering and passing strange. It was but an unknowable land, populated by people that belied all tales.

  How could anyone, human or elf, find her way amid these beings that deceived with their very appearance and lied even to themselves?

  But she was all that stood between Proteus and sure death for all his captives, sure death for the unending worlds.

  She had to stay free. She had to muster all her strength for the duel that she would have to fight.

  For now that her uncle was captive, of all of Proteus's intended victims, only she had the power to oppose him.

  Scene Thirty Nine

  Quicksilver, bouncing on the back of the centaur.

  Quicksilver abstracted himself from surrounding reality, from the approaching castle where he’d meet his death, from the centaurs and their stink of hot, sweaty horse.

  He thought of Silver as he never had, as a part of himself as inextricable, as true as Quicksilver.

  Had he ever wished himself rid of Quicksilver? No, for that would have been madness.

  Then why had he thought he could be rid of Silver? How had he thought he could survive without her?

  Yet, from his first conscious thought, from his first moment of realizing that he was not like his brother, his parents or the other elves around him, he’d wanted to be just Quicksilver --and no Silver.

  And how strange it was — Quicksilver thought now — that Silver had never wished to be rid of Quicksilver. The thought had never crossed her mind.

  How strange, Quicksilver thought.

  He thought of Silver. He looked at Will and remembered Silver’s love for Will and how, even now, Silver couldn’t help but think Will attractive. For Silver loved more than Will’s body.

  In the timorous mortal, she loved the glimmer of unbound genius, the hope of a soul too large to be contained in any time or place. It wasn’t yet true. Will was now small and self-contained, keeping himself within narrow, safe boundaries. But to elf sight it was obvious how large the soul loomed within — how brightly it could shine if it were allowed.

  He thought of Silver, naked, crying by the pool of magic.

  All he could think, all he could feel of her, he imagined in his mind in exquisite detail.

  Then he attempted to slip into the memory as though it were a dress, a favorite suit.

  The net that, upon him, prevented any magic, could not prevent his change. He knew that. Silver was not some magical transformation, but another side of him, and it should be as easy to become her, as it was to breathe or smile or talk. Even when, before, he’d been deprived of his magic, he’d always been able to change.

  Though he’d wished not to. Oh, what a fool he’d been.

  But now Silver’s aspect felt unaccustomed, like a tight dress that no longer fits.

  It was as though — in a featureless plane — Quicksilver pursued the fleeing Silver, calling after her, while she, a beloved phantom, ran ahead of him — ever ahead, ever out of his reach.

  She’d not listen to him.

  He thought back on Vargmar’s execution, when she’d severed herself from him. It seemed to her that on remembering it, he heard her voice in his mind, calling, “Wait, wait. Don’t give the defeated a martyr around whom they might hatch fresh plots. Exile him, rather, disgrace him, and then shall he be nobody.”

  If her voice had thus been in his mind, he’d ignored her.

  And what a fool he’d been. Her solution, unorthodox and against the cannon of the kings of fairyland, might have worked. His had surely failed.

  How he wished he’d listened to her.

  As he thought this, it seemed to him that Silver’s phantom in his mind turned and stopped running, and smiled at him.

  He remembered all the times that Silver had led him astray, every time Silver had played him false and dashed Quicksilver’s planning on the shores of her uncontrollable behavior.

  Yet, if Silver was himself — as she must be — it was Quicksilver who’d gone astray himself.

  And just as many times, she’d served him well.

  Why, did a man whose hand dropped a coin blame the hand and forthwith punish it? Nay, he knew his hand was but part of himself. It was madness to think of it as separate.

  And so it was with Quicksilver and the Lady Silver. For Silver was himself.

  But he must change. He must.

  Thus thinking, he forced himself into the shape of his memories of Silver.

  For a while nothing happened, and then it seemed to Quicksilver that something ripped, some resistance broke.

  He felt his form change within the net.

  Taking a deep breath, Silver let her voice erupt, high and melodious, from her lips. “Oh, help. Help me.”

  The centaurs stopped.

  Will, laid across the centaur next to Silver’s, opened his eyes almost to splitting.

  Silver smiled at him. How beautiful Will’s eyes were, and how scared he looked.

  She would swear that beneath the kerchief that bound his mouth, Will attempted to grin.

  A dreadful longing for Will filled her. Oh, what she’d not give to touch his face and kiss his lips one more time. One last time?

  “Lady, who are you?” the centaur over whose back Silver was lain asked, turning back his broad, barbaric face.

  Silver smiled at him. She made her voice small, shaky and as full of fear as it wished to be. “I don’t know. I am but a common elf, and of a sudden snatched, from my palace of delights, I found myself here. I don’t know how this happened, how this came to be.”

  “It’s a trick,” said the dappled centaur. “He’s changed his aspect.”

  But the brown centaur looked back, derision in his voice, “How could he, when he has the net of Circe upon him?”

  His fellow shook his head. “And yet he did.”

  “He did not.”

  Silver felt Quicksilver’s anxious fear climbing within her.

  The centaurs are suspicious, Quicksilver thought. This won’t go well.

  Hush, she thought, and she tried to calm him, while she said aloud, “I know not of whom you talk, not what this awful device is, on which I find myself imprisoned. Oh, free me that I might go in peace.”

  The dappled centaur turned around and reached with eager hands for the lady. His fingers felt rough, hot, and eager on Silver’s shoulders, clawing at the net.

  But his friend moved out of the way, pulling Silver from him. “No. Do not. How could he transport himself and substitute another with Circe’s net upon him? Think. Do not do what he wishes you to, do not. Or all will be lost.”

  “Please, let me go,” Silver screamed.

  Inside her mind, Quicksilver whispered, They neve
r will; we’ll all die here. How ineffective you are. Why did I want you back? Oh, that I’d been a single being.

  “Please free me,” Silver said, her desperation betraying itself in her voice.

  “Do not,” the centaur said. “I don’t know why, but I know it’s him, the old tyrant who has kept our people pining and rotting under his dark rule. If we free her, we free him, and then we shall all die -- stallion and mare and tender foal. His vengeance will fall upon our people and make no distinction between guilty and innocent.”

  It is not my fault, Quicksilver protested. Why are they attacking me for this? Oppressed? Why, they are foreigners, and they live as they ever have. They must have someone civilized keeping them under control for they are, themselves, brutish and unruly.

  “And for this he will kill us if he gets free. Be not a fool, Chiron.”

  “Please, let me go,” Silver said, and cried now. The centaurs' words and Quicksilver’s foolish prattle all filled her with fear and despondence.

  But the centaurs looked at her tears and were not moved, and Quicksilver’s anger fought within her, and she felt herself being pushed away, pushed, while Quicksilver shoved in to take her place.

  Quicksilver lay, exhausted, atop the horse, the net enclosing him in its lethal embrace. Sweat ran down his back in freezing rivulets. He’d accomplished nothing.

  Chiron laughed. “See? I told you it was the old tyrant?”

  Why did they call him a tyrant? He’d done nothing other sovereigns of the hill hadn’t. He’d been no more, no less, than the king of the hill.

  Tears sprang to his eyes at the centaurs’ coarse laughter.

  Had this role of king, into which he’d fitted himself, like water into an empty, been unworthy?

  Would he have done better with his flawed, double nature, than in the diamond perfection of the king’s role?

  How could that be?

  It could not, he told himself, closing his tear-stung eyes. It could no be true that Quicksilver’s ancestors were unworthy and that flawed Quicksilver and Silver, conjoined, would have made a better king.