He’d long since surrendered any hope that someday he might be.
Chapter Two
The boy was gone.
Mace found out about it when he was in a council meeting, where he sat on the board to represent the sylphs. Leon Petrule was talking, still the Valley’s chancellor at fifty-nine, though Mace had heard rumors that his wife gave him three more years to retire or she’d cut his ears off. Mace had been thinking to himself that he doubted the human would ever allow that to happen when he felt Lily’s usual calm placidity flip over into horror and rage, and he was bolting for the door before he even realized he was moving.
“Mace?” The queen gasped from the head of the table. There was no order in her tone, so he kept going, shifting his form and racing for the nearest sylph vent to the surface. People ducked out of his way, running from the black cloud that was his natural form. They always did. In the Valley, all battlers preferred their human bodies, and the stronger ties they gave to the human women they loved. To see a battle sylph in his real shape was to know that somewhere nearby was a threat.
What’s going on? asked Ril, the other battler on the council, speaking directly into his mind. Ril’s tension was obvious, and it spread through the rest of the hive. In another minute, the battlers would all be rising.
My master needs me, Mace told him. He felt Ril’s tension ease. This was personal, not something that would involve the hive as a whole. Mace had seen other battlers run off for no reason more pressing than that their masters were feeling lusty, but his Lily had never called him for that. Their lovemaking was controlled and planned. Other than the time one of her orphans decided to fall out of the tree in the front yard and break both his legs, she’d never put out a call that drew him from his work.
She wasn’t at their home. Instead, Mace tracked her a short distance away, to another neighborhood with houses similar to their own, most of them decorated with the pine branches and garlands that heralded the Winter Festival. The parties that marked the event were only days away now and people were already starting to go from door to door, visiting their neighbors and wishing them well. Lily hadn’t gone on such a visit in years and hadn’t made Mace go in even longer, and though the house Lily stood in wasn’t one he’d ever accompanied her to or even visited on his own before, he knew the family who lived there, just as he knew every human in the Valley.
Mace landed before the front door, shifting back to human shape, and charged inside, not bothering to knock. The door led straight into the living room, and the couple standing before Lily jumped at the sight of him. Even if they hadn’t recognized Mace, they would have known what he was from his blue uniform with its gold trim, worn by all battlers so that there were no mistakes made by human men. Angering a battle sylph might just turn out to be fatal.
“What’s going on?” Mace demanded.
The woman before Lily held a boy, her arms around his neck and her hands clasped so that the knuckles were white. Her husband stood nearby, swallowing nervously at the sight of the battler. The boy was rebellious and scared.
Lily spun toward him, years seeming to drop away in her concern and anger. She looked glorious to Mace. “I came to get Jayden. He was never here!”
She was upset about that? “Where did he go?” Mace asked. It had been five peaceful days since the boy left. Still, he mused, even a human could travel a long way in that amount of time. Perhaps Lily had a reason to be upset.
Crem’s parents felt concerned to him. “He didn’t come here,” the mother told Mace. “We didn’t know he was supposed to be staying with us.”
Lily muttered something under her breath that was completely unrepeatable.
“We d-didn’t know,” the father stammered. Most sensible men were afraid around battle sylphs, Mace especially.
The young boy’s defiance grew, and Mace looked down at him. “Where did he go?” he repeated.
“I dunno,” Crem said.
“You’re lying,” Mace told him flatly. The boy jumped. His parents looked at each other. “Where is he?”
“I don’t know,” Crem said again, and Mace’s hand shot out faster than any of them could react. It locked around the boy’s throat, and he hoisted him up until his shoes were four feet off the floor. Both parents screamed, but Mace ignored them—though he did feel a little bad about the mother’s fear.
“Where is he?” he asked a third time.
The boy was ashen-faced, his father trying to work his terror into enough anger to attack. That would only get him killed, so Mace stared at him. The man blanched and backed up. The mother clenched her fists, though, readying herself for a charge that Mace wouldn’t be so quick to retaliate against.
“MACE!” Lily barked. “Put him down!”
That was definitely an order. Mace set the boy down. “Where did he go?”
The boy started to cry. “To Eferem!” he sobbed, turning to find comfort with both his parents. “He went to Eferem!”
“Why?” Mace asked, totally baffled. The kingdom of Eferem wasn’t quite the threat it used to be, but he couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to go there.
“Tell us why, child,” Lily demanded as Crem kept crying. His parents felt like they very much wanted to tell Lily to take her concerns and get out of their house, but neither of them wanted to face Mace’s reaction.
Crem eyed the battler over his shoulder, his face covered in snot and tears: little boys were especially disgusting. “He said he wanted to show you. He wanted to be a swordsman,” he spat, “but no one here gets to. So he took a mail convoy to Eferem.”
To be a swordsman? For Eferem? Mace had heard of plenty of stupid human motivations before, but this was definitely up there. He looked at Lily to see her regarding him, and he had a sudden, very uncomfortable understanding of exactly what her next order was going to be.
Chapter Three
Ruffles adored him.
Mace padded along the dusty road, all four feet moving smoothly. A great deal of work had been done in the Shale Plains since the Valley was established, but the battling sylphs who’d wrecked the original grasslands so many centuries ago had done a thorough job. It took a long time and a lot of work to get the land to come back to life and stay that way without constant attention. Mace had heard that one day the plains would become one of the wealthiest farm belts in the known world, but that probably wouldn’t happen in the lifetimes of any of the humans living in the Valley right now. So it stayed a mostly barren, shale-filled dead zone, filled with slowly spreading wild grasses. The sylphs used them to anchor what little soil there was while they labored to create more. In that soil lay the Valley’s future, which made the effort worthwhile.
It also made traveling a pain, though Mace was doing so in the most efficient way possible, other than flight. He trotted along the side of the sylph-made road in the shape of a large, darkly mottled mastiff. It wasn’t a shape he was used to, but it was no different than any other form he could take, and certainly it was easier than having to bring horses, which he’d need to take care of.
At least Ruffles was capable of taking care of herself, since the dog was trained to hunt. She was a shepherd/mastiff mix from the Valley’s anchor pool—animals specifically raised and trained to be bonded to sylphs who didn’t want or couldn’t handle human masters. Though they usually preferred it, sylphs didn’t need to be linked to a human in order to stay in this world. Nor did they need one to feed from, as they’d previously believed. Any large-enough animal could provide a sylph with energy and a hold on the world, and when the master was an animal, there was no chance of the sylph receiving abusive orders. For some emotionally wounded sylphs, that was a good thing, though Mace knew of one earth sylph with a dog who was very good at getting across the concept of “Take me for a walk,” and they all did “Feed me now” quite effectively. Anchor animals were usually fat.
Most sylphs didn’t want to have to rely on the anchor dogs, though. Their love was unconditional and simple, but for many, i
t was too simple. They could give energy and companionship, but no sylph/dog bond could ever come close to the soul tie they all craved from a human master.
In this case, Ruffles was a better choice to take along than an eighty-two-year-old woman who needed a cane. Mace didn’t know how long he would be gone, and he did need to restore his energy levels on a regular basis. That was Ruffles’s job. She was a year old, ninety pounds, and furry, her tongue hanging out and slobbery as she ran at his side. She was meticulously well trained, used to sylphs and their ability to change shape, and even in dog shape, Mace was impressed at how well she obeyed his nonverbal orders. She paced him easily, having been kept fit by her trainers. Mace had never bothered to pay attention to any of the anchor dogs in the Valley before, but with sylph instinct, now that Ruffles was his master, he wanted to protect her. Her emotions were uncomplicated, and she was ready to follow him anywhere, so long as he wanted her.
Given he was the one used to following, it was really rather nice.
The two trotted down the road, wending their way through the spread-out ranks of a mail convoy, the only sort of transport that traveled at this time of year. Mace suspected these men were only doing so now in order to get to their homes in time for the Winter Festival. In the Valley and Shale Plains they were safe from attack, but outside sylph-patrolled lands the roads weren’t always guarded. The men rode with swords at their belts and crossbows on their backs.
From the look of it, Crem was right: Jayden had left the Valley by working for an earlier convoy. This one probably wouldn’t have needed the extra manpower. There were only a half dozen riders and a short string of pack mules loaded high with mail. This was likely the last convoy to leave until spring, and the men peered down at the passing dogs in puzzlement. Mace ignored them, but Ruffles slowed, wagging her tail up at one of them when he clucked. His emotions showed the man thought he was looking at an unattached animal.
Mace swung his big head around. “Leave my dog alone,” he growled.
The man jumped, the others gaping with their jaws open. Ruffles gave them all a very doggy grin, and she broke into a loose run, easily keeping up with Mace as he himself ran, intent upon leaving the irritating convoy behind.
At this time of year, traveling at a rate of thirty miles on a good day, the trip from Sylph Valley to Eferem’s capital took a week for a standard merchant caravan. For a couple of dogs the journey would be much shorter, not that Mace was expecting to have to go all that way. Not if he could possibly avoid it. Eferem at the best of times was a city he never wanted to see again. Eferem in the grip of the Winter Festival could only be a hundred times worse. Humans were far too invasive into personal space for his liking at this time of year.
At a battle sylph’s flying speed, the trip to Eferem’s border could be done in hours, but Mace didn’t have that option. For one, Ruffles wasn’t likely to understand being carried inside of him, unable to see, but feeling every twist and turn of the flight . . . The thought of what she might do while inside him was beyond disgusting. More importantly, the treaty between Eferem and the Valley forbade sylph battlers from passing over the border, save in defense of Eferem itself. Mace had considered that a human rule, not that he would have gone by the border without a very good reason, but the absoluteness of the requirement had been forced on him.
The rules had been given to him while they were at the Anchor Center, the attendant off picking Ruffles as a dog specifically trained to keep up with an active battler. The lazy beasts sprawled out in the front area of the center hadn’t appealed to Mace at all. They’d been mostly mutts, all of them looking at him as though they’d just love to have him jumping to bring them dog food for the rest of their lives. Mace understood the importance of the animals, but he didn’t want to cater to one.
“I suppose we’ll have to build a dog house for it after you get back,” Lily remarked, sitting in a chair beside the fireplace. She’d insisted upon coming and he’d carried her the entire way, cradling her inside the warmth of his natural form. She was a bit pale, but there was a flush of the anger he still felt inside her, along with the worry. Her concern about Jayden was driving her nearly to distraction.
“Yes,” he murmured, determined to tie the boy to the house when he brought him back.
Lily frowned down at a mutt sitting beside her and staring up at her, its tail thumping against the floor. “I don’t want this animal inside my house,” she decided. “Muddy things. I’d be cleaning up after it all the time.”
Mace hesitated. He had no tie to the animal, but soon enough he would, and deep inside, the thought of leaving it outside wasn’t a lot different from the thought of having to leave Lily outside.
Lily looked at him, picking up on the sudden emotion inside him, but before she could say anything more, the door opened and the queen walked in. Solie had always been a lovely girl, but she’d grown over the years into a beautiful, confident woman, and the battle sylph who followed behind her had paced the appearance of his own age to match hers. They looked as though they belonged together, and Mace could see the soul tie between the two. Their bond was much deeper than any Mace had any hope to experience, and he bowed to both of them in respect.
“My queen,” he said.
Solie smiled at him, while Heyou grinned. “Hi, Mace,” he teased. “Hear you lost somebody. You know, I don’t have to keep a twenty-four-hour guard on my kids.”
Mace straightened up, studiously ignoring him. Of course he didn’t. Of Solie’s children, both fathered with the help of two different human men, one was a quiet, contemplative boy, more interested in studying than going anywhere, and the other one was guarded twenty-four hours a day by a battler that never left her side. Seeing he was being ignored, Heyou just grinned wider.
“I’m sorry that Jayden is missing,” Solie told Mace. She’d always made it a point to remember everyone’s name that she could, and for that, the humans of Sylph Valley loved her nearly as much as the sylphs did. Mace nodded back, pleased at her concern, but even more annoyed at the boy for doing anything to upset her. Solie just shook her head. Thanks to her status, as long as she was close enough, she could feel his emotions as easily as a sylph, and she could feel his ambivalence. A moment later, he knew she could feel his ambivalence turn into something else entirely.
“I want you to be very careful in Eferem, Mace. You know how tenuous our peace treaties are. I want Eferem to be more than just our neighbors—I want them to be our friends.”
Both sylphs stared at her, Heyou’s mouth turning down into a frown. “You’re about to take all the fun out of this for him, aren’t you?”
Solie ignored him, eyeing Mace, and he felt the lack of compromise in what she was saying. “I’m not telling you to hide what you are or why you’re there, but I don’t want you to be obvious about it.”
“Meaning?” he asked slowly.
“Meaning no going to your natural shape unless you absolutely have to. Don’t flaunt being there to Eferem’s troops.”
“You really are taking all the fun out of it!” Heyou wailed.
“And no killing,” Lily added. Mace turned to look at her, sitting at the fire with the light of the flame flickering on her wrinkled face. “You’re only going to retrieve a single boy. You won’t have any need to kill anyone.”
Mace looked at his master, wanting to argue, wanting to protest, wanting to point out that, treaty or not, Eferem wasn’t their friend and he didn’t know what he was going to face. He wanted to say that he was one of the most powerful sylphs in the entire Valley and it was beneath his dignity to skulk on the ground and chase a child who meant nothing to him anyway. He wanted all of that and he looked into her eyes, those eyes that had ruled him for so many years, and then he looked down.
“Yes, Lily,” he agreed.
“Well, crap,” Heyou muttered. “Now I’m not going to ask if I can go along.”
At least Ruffles didn’t mind the style of their journey. She ran at his side happily, to
ngue hanging out and tail wagging, even as the snow fell around them and turned her into a white caricature of herself. Since the shale was sharp enough to cut her pads, they kept to the road through the plains. She seemed tireless.
“Seemed” was all it was, though, and Mace made his pace match hers. She was happy just to be out with him, and curled against him when they stopped to rest well shy of the forests of Eferem. Her emotions were peaceful and happy, calming without being demanding, and Mace nuzzled her, wondering why Lily hadn’t suggested this solution for him for when she passed away. Many sylphs who’d had the strongest bonds now took anchor animals when their masters passed, not wanting to face the pain of potentially losing another human again so soon. Dogs didn’t live as long, but there was no risk of a true soul tie with them.
He supposed that in the long run, Lily knew it wouldn’t work. Ruffles could give him energy, and she loved him with all the doggy fervor in her soul, but she couldn’t give him the deeper connection for which he’d come through the gate from his world. He needed companionship, equality, conversation. He needed a sentient lover to feel complete, not a pet, and though he’d long since given up on finding it, part of him needed the deeper-still soul tie like the one Heyou had with their queen. Still, for all that he’d only taken her on for the sake of this journey, Ruffles was his for life, for the bond between them could only be broken by going back through the gate—which he would never do—or by death.
Mace licked the dog’s ear until she fell asleep, warm against him despite the snow that covered them both. She had a home with him, and he wouldn’t risk her safety any more than he’d risk Lily’s. They’d find the boy and they’d go home, and that would be the end of it.
He lay beside the sleeping dog, not needing to sleep himself, and waited for her to wake. Ahead of them, the forests of Eferem were just a haze barely visible through the snow, and he cursed the stupidity of a boy who would choose this time of year to run away. At the same time he was grateful, since it had brought him Ruffles.
A Midwinter Fantasy Page 11
