by Conn, Claudy
“Your mission, eh? Seems like you haven’t done a very good job of it, Danté, have you?” He put up his hand to stall me. “But tell me … why is she so important that she is your mission?”
Did he not know about the prophecy? He could not know … of course not—how would he? Only a Seelie Royal would be privy to the prophecy.
The four princes had moved forward as they tried to position themselves for a possible attack. I pointed my sword their way, and three of them stopped and backed up a step. One, however, remained where he stood and watched intently—I thought him the oldest and the other three’s leader.
I sneered as I said in their direction, “That’s right. You don’t want to get a booboo.”
I had a decision to make. Stop and waste precious time with these blackguards while my Z was in danger in a world full with monsters looking to feed? Or go after her? Hell, there was only one decision. Gais needed killing, but it could not be done now while he was guarded by four Unseelie Royals. It was said that their powers nearly … nearly matched the powers of the four Seelie Royals.
At the moment, in his new world, I had little chance of reaching Gais with my death weapon. He would shift as soon as I got closer. I sniffed the air, and with my tracking in place, I was on Z’s scent even as I shifted and heard Gais at my back …
* * *
“Z, look around yourself,” I said out loud. So, I looked around, I mean really looked around at the chamber I was in. The walls were made of irregular shafts of glass—no windows that gave you a vision of the dark world outside, but glass all the same; it was an odd sensation.
“What is this?” I asked myself as much as I asked Rolo.
“Not sure. None of this was here when I was—”
Exasperated, I cut him off. “So far, Rolo, gotta tell you—you are not behaving like an all-powerful Seelie Hallow.”
“And yet I am.” His voice held a note of superiority. “For example, haven’t seen this as it is now, but I know you should take those stairs.”
“Stairs? What stairs … there aren’t …” And then there were stairs right before my eyes. They too were made of glass, clouded glass, as were the railings on either side. I hesitated to touch the cold-looking glass railing, but when I clasped it, I found it wasn’t cold at all. It was warm and … inviting, and it seemed to beckon me to continue my journey upwards.
“Ahem.” Rolo cleared his throat and repeated, “Ahem.”
“Yes, Rolo, you are a boy wonder.”
“Not actually a boy, yet, although I do seem to have acquired a male-like essence over the last few centuries,” he said musingly. “Perhaps I would have been a male had I evolved into a Fae? I wonder if that is what happening …”
“Don’t you know, Rolo? Wouldn’t you know what you are evolving into?”
“No, not until just before it happens.”
“Damn, no wonder we don’t know how to use our Hallows.” I shrugged, as I had too much on my plate at the moment. “We’ll explore that another time, Rolo. For now … concentrate with me. We have to find a way out of here.”
“Have you tried calling to Danté?”
“No. I just assumed he would not be able to hear me while I was in the Dark Realm.”
“One never knows—try.”
Why hadn’t I tried? Because how could he hear me while I was here in this hell world and he was home? But, what if he could? Would I be putting him in danger? Yes, I would, but could my Danté handle it? Yes, he could. My mind reached for him and couldn’t find him, and even so, I shouted his name a few times. I waited, standing on the clouded glass steps. I waited, but there was no answering call back to me.
“Nothing, Rolo … can’t seem to get through.”
“Ah—perhaps this place is shielded against all intrusions. After all, Gaiscioch has entered the Dark Realm, and he is a Seelie Fae that has turned traitor. The Dark King would have blanketed his other palace with a protection shield. Tch, tch … it is somewhere, away from all this glass, and it is there he keeps dear Crystal safe—I would much prefer to be there.”
Ignoring this, I had to ask the driving question, “Why doesn’t King All-Powerful do something to stop Gaiscioch?”
“Ah, he no longer interacts in such ways. Remember—he killed Queen Bridget and feels he tampered with the fates. He tries to allow all others to carry through their own destiny.”
I sighed, as this meant there would be no help from King Powerful’s corner. I continued up the stairs and was met by a glass wall that, although not clouded, did not offer a view of the other side. Odd again. I don’t know why, but I reached out and touched it, and once more a robotic type of voice said one word: “Enter.” And the wall vanished.
Another glass room. Apparently the Dark King had a thing for glass; however, this chamber was circular, and the walls were covered with huge screens, not unlike TV screens.
I approached one, and as I reached my fingers towards it, it turned itself on. I stopped and tried not to be surprised. The human in me is always surprised by the extent of magic and science and how they are interwoven by the Fae. This was more … much more than any Fae magic or science I had ever witnessed.
And then I froze in place. Moving about in 3-D motion was Gaiscioch. I felt as though I could touch him—he was so close, so real. He, however, could not see me.
He was arguing with a beautiful woman, and I knew it could only be Queen Morrigu. His eyes were glittering with seething hatred—how could she not see that? He was shrugging her off, and I thought he was about to hit her, but he controlled himself and instead grabbed hold of her and stroked her neck. I had a feeling he really wanted to strangle her, and yet she fawned over him, caressed him, spoke sweetly to him. Ugh—how could she?
She made almost infantile sounds as she whimpered and cooed to him, and then all at once she dropped the pretty gold gown she wore to the darkly woven rug and displayed her provocative body enticingly before him.
It was obvious to me that Gaiscioch wasn’t interested. He turned his back on her and slammed out of the room they were in, which looked to be some kind of library or large and medieval-styled study. Apparently the screen display I watched meant for me to observe Gais, and so I did as the ‘camera’ (I don’t know what else to call it) followed his movements.
Gais strode hard down the long dark hallway and entered another room—a room whose walls were lined with bits and pieces of ancient relics, some of them Unseelie relics, others nearly worthless gypsy relics. He pulled at his lower lip, and as I watched him I felt a wave of nausea roll through my body and a fierce hatred well up inside me. Here was the man who had cloaked himself in the Féth Fiada, which made him invisible to my father, and then slaughtered my dad without cause. My father never knew Gais was there until it was too late. Gais had no fight with my dad; he could have come and gone as he pleased without hindrance.
Before I could reason with myself, and with my sword drawn and ready to plunge, I shifted, for I damn well meant to end this, all of this, and I damn well meant to shout my dad’s name, Nemid MacDaun, as I took Gaiscioch down.
Emotions are the bane of good sense. I was overflowing with emotion and used nothing of good ole common sense. What was I doing? I was feeling and certainly not behaving like the kind of warrior I would need to be to take the traitor down.
But, man, I made an entrance though, sword up and pointed inches away from Gaiscioch’s body as I screamed, “You are mine, traitor!”
And he should have been mine in that moment. All I had to do was shove my sword into his evil body … but I hesitated perhaps for a fraction of a moment, looking for the fear in his eyes, wanting to hear him beg for life—wanting the moment to last—and that’s where ‘emotion’ got in the way of good sense. I should have thrust my sword as soon as I arrived. I should have made my mark and delivered the death blow—and only then looked for all the rest.
Gais’s face was a mask of shock when he first saw me. It was obvious he had not expected
it and immediately realized I could have killed him, but he was able to recoup immediately. He shifted. Damn it all to hell, he shifted!
Rolo clucked at me. “You were too impulsive, and when that impulse might have worked, you were too hesitant.”
“You think …?” I ranted back at him. I had missed my chance. I silently cursed and berated myself. What was wrong with me? Just what was wrong with me?
Rolo ignored my sarcasm. “If you want to destroy Gaiscioch yourself, you will need to be far more ruthless than he. You will need now to come at him from behind—for he will not allow himself to be taken off guard again.”
“So I will,” I answered, but I was still in shock at having been so close to killing Gais, so close and yet—all had been lost when I hesitated. My father had trained me with the sword as a Druid priestess, and he had instilled in me the words, ‘Z, when you point your sword at an opponent, do not hesitate. Never point it at someone you cannot or do not mean to kill!’
Rolo was very irritated and displayed this in the tone of his words. “You cannot be honorable, Z. If you wish to destroy him, you must forego your notion of fairness. You must kill him any way you can. Honor can only stand against honor.”
Without another word, I shifted back to the glass chamber; Rolo continued to cluck at me. He got on my nerves, and I told him sharply, “Enough. I know—my bad. I missed my chance, so let’s chalk it up to learning a lesson.”
“As long as you realize why you didn’t kill him,” Rolo pursued.
“And why didn’t I?”
“It is obvious, Z … it is who you are. You didn’t kill him because he was unarmed. You wanted to face him on a level playing field. Honorable, yes, but infinitely stupid.”
“You are right. I bow to your wisdom. Now be quiet, Rolo, and let me think.”
* * *
“Danté … tch, tch.” Gais sneered at me. “What have you been reduced to—playing nursemaid to a nothing more than a girl …”
I ignored him as I shifted off. What I needed to do was find Z, my sweet enfant, and if that meant being a nursemaid, so be it.
I called to her in my head, and then out of frustration, I called her name out loud with no luck. What was going on? Why couldn’t she hear me? I had instilled a direct line between my Z and me. Was it something in the Dark Realm, blocking our signals?
Leaving Gais at my back had been one of the hardest things I had ever had to do. He needed killing—but I had needed to track Z while her scent was still fresh. Everything in the Dark Realm gets eaten up so quickly. At any rate, I did know that in all probability I would not have been able to bring Gais down with the four Dark Royals surrounding him.
My tracking of Z’s scent had brought me to an open, dark, and barren area. Other than the enormous Dark Fae anaconda slithering towards me, there was nothing around. Where could she be? Her scent was all around me, and yet there was no sign of her. Just what was going on? I breathed her in and allowed it to soothe my frazzled nerves. I am a Royal Fae, trained in logic, even more so than most of my kind, and I am always in control—or was … until Z entered my life. Now, I am a bundle of illogical thoughts, feelings, and conclusions.
I waited as the anaconda approached and realized it was one of the Dark King’s early experiments. There was no doubt more where this came from. I got a sense of its thought process, which was jumbled and unclear. It was but a thing—looking to feed.
It rose when it drew closer, and as it lunged towards me, I plunged my death weapon deep into its throat and ended its misery. It fell in a putrid glob of green, and I stood and stared at it, wondering how many others there would be and where the bloody hell could my enfant have gone. Her scent ended here. She could disguise her scent from all others, but I didn’t think she had acquired the skill as of yet to disguise it from me. How could her scent just end? For she had not shifted off; my gut (a thing Fae do not acknowledge but something I learned of in the seventeenth century from my human friend Dare and often listened to) told me this was where her scent ended without her shifting off.
I know where Queen Morrigu’s palace lies, as I have often observed her while in the company of the queen and Breslyn. The queen has an orb and has used it to track Gaiscioch unobserved as often as she could, though its use must always be limited for many reasons I’ve no need to get into now. The point is that I have learned through these sessions in just what area of the Dark Realm Morrigu’s palace resides.
However, even if I hadn’t known its location, I could have found it. Royals are trained from birth to locate what they seek by using their minds. Royal here. We use much more of our minds than ordinary Fae—it is built into what humans would call our DNA. I took a chance that Z might be at the palace, and I shifted once more.
I chose a neutral place to shift into at the palace, where I believed I might be able to scout about undetected. Wrong!
I had shifted right into the library, and there I found Queen Morrigu completely naked and lying on the floor fondling herself. I am a male—and have to admit I found her quite exquisite. I hesitated as I looked her over.
Seeing me, she sat up, touched her nipples, and smiled at me. “Join me—pleasure with me, Seelie Fae.”
“Get up, Morrigu.” I don’t recognize her as a queen. She was a Seelie Fae (not a Royal) that followed the king into the Dark Realm in search of his favors. She didn’t realize she would be trapped in the bleak world forever.
She pouted. “But we could have so much fun together, you and I.”
“We are on opposite sides, you and I,” I answered her. It occurred to me that she might know something about Z’s location, and once more I hesitated rather than shifting off.
She sighed, stood up, came at me, and put her arms around my neck, and before I knew what she was doing she began to hump my knee like a dog in heat!
* * *
“Rolo, I need Danté,” I said on a whimper. That was all there was to it. And a part of me hoped he had jumped into the pit and followed me into the Dark Realm. Had he found Sally—had he finished Dunbar the warlock? Would he find me here in this awful place?
Another part of me, the unselfish part, hoped he hadn’t jumped into the pit, because I didn’t want him in danger as well. This was an unimaginably awful world, and its very air made me feel … haunted.
At any rate, perhaps Danté would not be able to track me in the Dark Realm, so even if he jumped in after me, he might not be able to find me. Would his Seelie senses and magic work in the Dark Realm? I was in the turmoil of the unknown.
“Yes, you need Danté because you are not using your Daoine powers at all. You may want Danté, but you are at the point where you can take care of yourself, if you would but apply yourself. You are a princess, Z. Why do you doubt yourself?” Rolo sighed.
I shrugged and looked around the ‘entertainment room’ Crystal and the Dark King must use when at this retreat. It was the chamber with all the large TV screens hanging about on a wall of glass. She knew about webcams, so they must be able to watch even our world from here? At the moment, the screens were all blank, and then one of them wasn’t blank at all but presented a moving, breathing, 3-D image live in full, big-screen color!
I saw his face, my Danté’s face, with a background that could only mean he was in Morrigu’s palace. I stepped forward whispering his name with a longing that made me sick with disgust for myself. I was a hopeless, lovesick puppy.
And then, all hell broke loose in my heart.
Morrigu was naked, and he was looking at her—I mean, you know the way a man looks at a naked beautiful woman. He was really looking, and I didn’t like it—not one bit!
Natural, I told myself. Silly, jealous, infantile girl, I told myself. He is a male … and even the most faithful male will look at a beautiful female when she is naked, and, even if she is the enemy, she is still an exceptional beauty and … damn!
Was that steam rising from the top of my head? Was that steam coming out of my ears and my nostrils …
oh yes—steam.
Morrigu was on her feet and moving towards him. “Shift out,” I said out loud to him. “Now, Danté—get out of there. You came here looking for me, so look for me!” and then Morrigu had her arms around his middle, she was doing something obscene to his thigh, and damn it all to hell—the screen went blank. Blank, I tell you.
I banged on the screen and shouted out his name. This couldn’t be happening. Danté wouldn’t dive into the Dark Realm simply to make it with Morrigu. An important part of me knew that. The other part of me was just a crazy, jealous woman.
Rolo said, “Oh-oh.”
“Hush up!”
“I am a Seelie Hallow, and you should want to know my conclusions regarding the evidence we have just witnessed.”
“Well, I don’t.”
“However, if the screen showed you this and shut down at such inauspicious moment, there is a reason.”
“And what would that be?”
“Not sure.”
“Great, Rolo … just great.” I was beyond the ‘reasonable’ stage.
“It means that Danté is very capable of finding his way in the Dark Realm, but Danté, although a Royal, is not Daoine,” said Rolo.
“Yeah, so … he found his way right into Morrigu’s arms.”
“Chances are, Z, that he dove in after you and shifted to where he tracked you. We just came from the palace.”
“And he is looking for me with Morrigu wrapped around him?” I sneered, my brain still not operating in the normal mode. It was out there in loony tunes land with a vivid picture of him and Morrigu repeating itself as though stuck in that position.
“Morrigu, as I recall, was forever wrapping herself around anything that moved,” Rolo offered hesitantly.
I laughed in spite of myself and bit my lip. “Why can’t he track me here?”
“No doubt, it isn’t meant …”
“Why?”
“Because you are here to find your way out and more power along the way.”
“What more?”
“You need to come to grips, Z, with who and what you are.”
