The fairies had been wondrous, gossamer things, like lithe, flimsy women with wings like butterflies. Wherever they flew they left a sparkle, streaking the air with all the hues of sunrise. Never in his life had he seen anything so delicate, so ephemeral, and so beautiful. They had made no sound at all but their motion was music.
Then one of them had hesitated, hovering a moment, and darted across the glen to beat its wings furiously just inches from his face. Its tiny, golden eyes had widened in shock as it realized that its suspicions were correct. He could see them. He had been watching them.
The vicious little thing had clawed his cheek, drawing blood. As Conan Doyle hissed and clapped one hand to his face, they had all darted toward across the glen to a large tree that lay on its side next to a brook, its roots torn from the ground and jutting like the antlers of a monstrous stag. The fairies had disappeared amongst those roots and Conan Doyle had taken a closer look, still pressing his fingers against the scratch on his cheek.
The spell of revelation had uncovered more than the presence of the fairies. The crown of jagged roots that circled the felled tree hid a secret. The tree was impossibly hollow.
Conan Doyle had dropped to his knees and bent low to look inside. Deep within that tree he had seen a glimmer of light. And he had crawled inside.
"Arthur!"
Fingers snapped in front of his face. He blinked several times and found himself gazing into Ceridwen's violet eyes. His breath caught in his throat again and he breathed in the aroma of lilacs, the scent that came off her so powerfully it weakened him. She looked as though she wanted to strike him down with her elemental staff. It took him several seconds before he could glance away.
"You are not the magician I thought you were if you cannot enter the House of the King without it beguiling your senses," she chided him.
Yet wasn't there a hint of amusement, even affection in her gaze and her tone?
Conan Doyle dared a soft smile. "It has been a very long time. Even such sweet marvels as are to be found in Faerie fade when time and distance intervene. I confess I was so overwhelmed, simply being back here, that I did not steel myself for the way in which just breathing the air can spin one into flights of fancy… or memory."
For a moment there seemed to be a twinkle in her eye, but then Ceridwen's expression hardened, a veil of sadness drawn across her face.
"Yes, well, do not let it happen again. Flights of fancy can prove very costly, of late. If Morrigan returns, such reckless whimsy could cost your life."
Conan Doyle stood straighter and nodded once, matching the severity of his expression to hers. Yet his eyes hid the memories he had, of Ceridwen coming to him as he neared death, of her bringing him back to Faerie, showing him the herbs that would return vigor and youth to him, the same herbs that still kept him young. He had known enough magic by then to cast the illusion of his own death. Anything else would have horrified and astonished the world. He could not have continued to live the life he had before and begin to grow younger, like Oscar Wilde's fancy. And in the end there was nothing he wanted so much as to disappear into Faerie, to see the world of the Fey through Ceridwen's eyes.
There were so many things that he wanted to say to her, but none of them would be appropriate. He had given up his right to say them long ago. So when Ceridwen turned to continue on, her long linen gown and robe clinging to her lithe form, he followed.
Though he forced himself to focus, to avoid being swept away with the magic of the place, the way the air itself seemed to sparkle, he could not help glancing around several times. Ahead the hill rose up and up and the House of the King had been carved from its face. Spires of rock shot from the ground and there were barrows bulging up from the earth. Elegant arched windows seemed out of place in rocky ledge. Flowers bloomed atop the hill in such abundance that they seemed to spill down its sides.
Amongst the flowers there were fairies. Not people of Faerie, like the warriors, scholars and magicians of The Fey, but the little people, the ferociously beautiful winged creatures he had first met in Cottingley well over eight decades before. Their colors put the flowers to shame and they flitted about the House of the King as though it were their own home. And in essence it was, for Finvarra had extended his protection to all the races of Faerie who would show their faces to the sun.
Streams flowed down the hill, from trickle to brook to torrent, and the sound of the water joined with the perfume of the flowers to lend Conan Doyle a peace he had not known since the last time he had stepped inside the King's Door.
Surrounding the hill, the House of the King, were seven clusters of large trees, four to a cluster. In each small copse, the branches of the trees reached out to one another, twining together with such design that Conan Doyle could only ever think of them as braided. The braided branches created a basket in each small copse, sometimes twenty, sometimes thirty, sometimes forty feet in the air. And in its midst, gripped in the same way that the head of her staff gripped the sphere of ice, was a dwelling formed of woven leaves and branches and vines, with flowers sprayed across their roofs.
For nearly ten years they had lived in one of those treetop homes, called Kula-keaine by the Fey. Conan Doyle could still remember Ceridwen's caresses and the way her violet eyes gave off the slightest glow in the darkness when only the rustling of leaves and the songs of the night birds kept them company. As they progressed, Ceridwen resolutely refused to look up at the Kula-keaine where they had made their home, where they shared all of themselves, heart and soul.
They strode along a western path and up a winding set of stairs made from thick roots that protruded from the earth to form steps.
"We're not going to see the King?" Conan Doyle ventured.
Ceridwen did not turn to him when she spoke. "Yes, we are."
He said no more after that, only followed along beside her as she led him around to the western edge of the hill, where the water that came from the bowels of the earth fountained out of a hole in the green and gentle slope and became a rushing river that ran for several hundred yards before disappearing into a cavernous hole in the ground.
A black-cloaked figure knelt at the river's edge beside a pile of cut flowers. He wore a hood to cover his face and the daylight seemed repelled by him, as though a pool of night gathered around him. One by one, with a ritual bow of the head, he dropped the flowers in the rushing water and watched them borne away. Conan Doyle's heart ached to see him, for despite the black mourning clothes and the gathered shadows, he recognized the figure by his stature and carriage and the dignity with which he held his head and moved his hands.
Together Conan Doyle and Ceridwen approached.
"Uncle," the Fey sorceress said.
As though he had not heard, he picked up another flower and dropped it into the river, repeating the motion of his head and muttering quiet words. Only after the flower had disappeared into the gullet of that underground river cavern did he turn. His face was pale and gaunt, but behind a curtain of his long silver hair were eyes alive with fury and grief.
"We have a visitor," Ceridwen said, and there was a softness in her tone that both pleased Conan Doyle and pained him as well.
Conan Doyle sank to one knee. "King Finvarra. Time has passed, but I hope I am still welcome in your Home."
As though floating, the king rose from his spot by the riverside. He drew back his hood and a fond smile creased his face, yet somehow without dismissing the sadness there.
"You have come at a difficult time, Arthur. But I am pleased to see you, nonetheless. There was great disappointment, even bitterness, in the wake of your departure when last we met, yet you are still and always will be welcome in my Home. I only wish you had returned at a time when a celebration would not seem so grotesque."
Still kneeling, Conan Doyle lowered his gaze. "I understand, My Lord. I could not have hoped for such a welcome for a prodigal. You shame me."
A small sound came from Ceridwen, but Conan Doyle ignored it and she
said nothing.
"There is no shame in heartbreak, Arthur," King Finvarra said. "It happens with the best of us. You yearned for the world of your birth and my niece would not leave hers. Hearts have been torn asunder by far less. Have you returned under the guidance of your heart?"?Conan Doyle felt his face flush. He looked up, trying not to see the way that Ceridwen turned away at the very same moment.
"My heart has been here since the day I left, My Lord. It has remained among the Fey, in Faerie, and may well be here until I die. But, no, that is not what brings me. I have come with a warning. And, I confess, hoping for some help. Dark power is at work in my world. Terrible omens. Unnatural magic. I don't know what malign intelligence is behind these events, but they have enlisted one of the night tribes to — "
Finvarra stiffened and glanced at Ceridwen, whose eyes narrowed. So taken aback was he by their reaction that he stopped speaking and only studied them expectantly.
The king stared at his niece. "There, perhaps, is our answer."
"What?" Conan Doyle asked. "What is it? What answer?"
Ceridwen's gaze was cold. There were many unformed thoughts and hopes in the back of his mind about his return to Faerie, about Ceridwen herself, but they were extinguished by that one look. There was only war in her eyes now.
"One of the night tribes, you said. Which one?" Ceridwen asked.
"The Corca Duibhne. They have straddled our two worlds for a very long time, but they have never been more than an annoyance. I've never seen them so organized, so focused on — "
"You have my sister to thank," Finvarra said, his gaunt face now cruel and brutal. "For 'tis Morrigan whom the Corca Duibhne now serve."
Conan Doyle pictured the corpses of the Fey where they lay in the King's Garden. One of our own, Ceridwen had said. But even when she had explained that it had been her aunt, Morrigan, he had not put the pieces together.
"But why?" Conan Doyle asked, genuinely mystified. He searched Finvarra's eyes and then looked to Ceridwen. "If Morrigan wanted to rule Faerie, what does she want with my world? What is she planning?"
"You presume that her ambitions are so small as to extend only to ruling in my place," King Finvarra said. "But my sister has danced in shadows for too long. She knows all the secrets of the darkness. You can be certain that whatever she has planned it is not nearly so mundane."
His brows knitted as he turned to Ceridwen. "Arthur has come for help, and he needs it, no question. You will go with him — "
Ceridwen gripped her elemental staff more tightly and shook her head. The flame that burned within the ice sphere at its head blazed brighter and a mist of steam rose from its frozen surface. "Uncle, no!"
A deathly stillness fell over the king. Finvarra stared at her. "We have lived for eons with the philosophy that what happens beyond Faerie is not our concern. But we took Arthur into our Home, and he has requested our aid. Even had he not, we can not allow Morrigan to interfere with the human world. Faerie must be protected. Ritual must be observed. I cannot leave, nor can I send an army into the Blight. The veil between worlds might be forever torn asunder by such an incursion. But you, niece, you shall go as my emissary."
She lowered her head. "Yes, My Lord King."
Finvarra regarded them both. "It appears the fates have conspired to break the stalemate the two of you entered into long ago. Let neither sweetness nor bitterness distract you. If you are not watchful, Morrigan will end up with both your hearts, and she will feed them to her wolves."
The king turned his back on them, then and knelt by the river once more. He raised his hood and in the full light of day the shadows of grief gathered round him. Falling again into the rhythm of ritual, he dropped his hand to the array of cut flowers, lifted one and dropped it into the river, inclining his head as it went along its way. One flower for each of the Fey who had died at Morrigan's hand.
Dismissed, Conan Doyle turned to Ceridwen. "Shall we go, then, Lady?" he asked, and he held out his hand for hers.
"It seems I have no choice." She turned away from him and led the way back along the path toward the King's Gate.
The cleaver wasn't going to do Squire a damn bit of good.
In a fraction of a second a hundred bits of memory and realization came together in Squire's mind. He stood in the foyer of Conan Doyle's enormous, elegant home and stared at Morrigan. It had been a very, very long time since he had seen her last, but even that had not been nearly long enough. There wasn't a word in any language nasty enough to describe this bitch. She was sexy as hell if you were into that Goth look, not to mention chicks with claws instead of ordinary fingernails. But in his entire existence he had never met anyone who could make him feel so small with just a glance. He was a hobgoblin, and his kind was small enough as it was. Morrigan might be a queen of the Fey with all of the cruelty in her heart that her people were capable of, but she had none of their nobility, none of their honor. She was a sour, charmless, vicious cunt.
And he had used those precise words to describe her, to her face, the last time they had met.
Now she stood just inside the door, not far from the portrait of Conan Doyle's son that hung on the wall, with a pair of sunglasses dangling from one finger and a smile that could have sliced him open. Her eyes gleamed red and her nails, teeth, and spiked hair all seemed sharper than he remembered.
"Oh, yes," Morrigan hissed, running her tongue across her upper lip. "I remember you, hobgoblin."
Squire felt his knees turn to jelly. He offered a flickering smile that died instantly. He glanced at the Night People carrying Sanguedolce's amber sarcophagus like a bunch of ugly fucking pall bearers.
"Crap."
He turned and ran back the way he'd come, cleaver at his side. Hobgoblins were faster on their feet than most people presumed at first glance, but that was not saying very much. There was a limit to how swift anyone could be with legs that short. The veins at his temples pulsed and his boots shook the floor. Behind him Morrigan released a stream of derisive laughter and Squire could hear the grunting of the Corca Duibhne as they gave chase. Some of them were barefoot and their claws clicked and scraped on the wood floor.
"Son of a bitch, son of a bitch, son of a bitch," Squire whispered under his breath as he ran, knuckles white where he gripped the cleaver in his hand.
He was going to have to leave the house. Conan Doyle's house. The mage's own wards had not held Morrigan out and there was no way that Squire himself could defend the place. Conan Doyle was going to be more than a little upset, but somehow Squire had the feeling that paintings and antiques and even a little breaking-and-entering were the least of Conan Doyle's concerns at the moment. The big question was going to be what Morrigan was up to. Squire couldn't answer that question right now. He had other obligations.
The first was to survive.
The second was to do his job.
Barreling into the kitchen he leaped over a dead Corca Duibhne. There was a grunt of triumph behind him and he felt claws snag the back of his shirt. Squire spun and buried the cleaver in the creature's chest. It squealed and dark blood sprayed from the wound. The blade stayed buried in its flesh as it backpedaled, slapping at the cleaver as though it were a wasp instead of a cutting tool. For several, precious seconds, it prevented the others of its kind from reaching him.
Squire dove across the kitchen, toward the sink. He grabbed the handles of the two small doors under the sink and yanked them open. Even with what light there was in the kitchen the patch of shadow was deep and black. He ducked his head inside the cabinet and his shoulders were too broad to fit.
"Shit," he whispered, glancing back.
The Corca Duibhne had thrown their injured brother to the ground and were trampling over him. Even as he looked, Squire saw one of them stomp on the cleaver buried in the creature's chest, driving it deeper. Putrid blood ran in rivulets across the floor. The nearest one laughed as it spotted him.
"Where do you think you go, now, ugly turnip?"
Sq
uire sneered. This guy was calling him ugly?
And then he pushed. His bones popped out of their joints, his arms folding in upon his body, and he drove himself inside the cabinet and into the patch of shadows within. One of them snagged at his foot and he kicked its claws away and with one last, solid plant of his boot on the interior of the cabinet, thrust himself into the shadows.
The shadow-paths opened before him. He could feel them, sense each walkway around him. His eyes were open but there was no color, only levels of its absence. Squire felt at home here, much more so than he ever did in the other world. This was where he belonged. He was not small here, not ugly or freakish. He was not a monster. Here in the shadows he was agile, graceful, and strong.
There was no time for him to pause and reflect now upon Morrigan's attack and what it might mean. There was time only to move, to walk the shadows. He had survived. Now it was on to his second priority.
The darkness rushed past him, caressed him, as Squire hurried along the shadow-path to his first stop. He could feel Conan Doyle's house around him, navigated by instinctual awareness of the ways in which the real world entwined with the shadow world. Moments after he had disappeared inside the kitchen cabinet he reappeared inside another, much larger enclosure on the second floor of the house.
The weapons closet.
Hobgoblins could see better in the dark. Squire looked around and felt a surge of grim pleasure as he surveyed the swords and daggers, the bows and battleaxes, the maces and morningstars, and the more arcane weapons, his favorite bits and bobbles. Poison dueling pistols. Ectoplasm garrotes.
Beyond the doors of the weapons closet, which allowed only a sliver of light to enter, he could hear the thumping of the Corca Duibhne's incursion. Glass shattered and doors slammed. Morrigan must have been aware that he was a shadow-walker, but still they were searching for him, or trying to find out if anyone else was in the house. There were animal growls that went along with the Night People's movements through the house, but Squire was no longer listening. He was in a hurry now.
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