"In good time. Twice now have I offered thee invulnerability for thine heart, and twice hast thou refused it-though in both cases, thou shortly thereafter hadst need of it."
"I will not take it," Magnus snapped.
"Be sure." The ragpicker grinned up at him, displaying several missing teeth. " 'Twill cost thee naught to take it, yet may cost thee dearly to tell me nay."
"Then I shall pay the price of obstinacy!" Magnus grated. "Begone, fellow! I've no use for thee!"
"Yet thou hast, or thou wouldst not be so strenuous in thy denial."
"Can I never be rid of thee?" Magnus drew his dagger, and the ragpicker laughed. "Steel cannot harm me, youngling."
"Nay, but this can." Magnus unscrewed the top of the hilt and shook out the little yellow-handled screwdriver with the image of St. Vidicon carved into it. He brandished it toward the ragpicker. "Agent of Chaos, get thee hence!"
"Thou shalt rue this denial!" The ragpicker began to flicker, like an image poorly received on a video screen. "Thou hast the wrong Agency, also . . ."
"Begone!"
And the ragpicker vanished.
Magnus slid the screwdriver back into the handle of the dagger and sheathed it with trembling fingers. He drew a long, shaky breath, telling himself that he was a fool to be so upset by the apparition.
Then he began to believe himself. He could very well be just such a fool, and a coward to boot. He rode on through the woods, his self-doubt deepening and darkening.
Magnus rode out of the woods into a river meadow. A doe saw him coming, looked up in alarm, and whisked away toward the trees, her fawns behind her. Magnus watched them go, mouth twisting in self-disgust. He knew they were only fleeing at the approach of possible danger-but it made him feel as though even the wild animals didn't want to have anything to do with him.
He dismounted, tied his horse and took the bit out of its mouth so that it might graze, and turned away to the river, following its course with his gaze, off toward the western glow where the sun had set. He thought of pitching a proper camp, then dismissed the notion as being too involved. He sat down on the bank beneath a huge old willow, to watch the water flow by, likening it to the stream of his life, wondering how so much of it could have gone by so quickly, and how his personal river had taken a wrong turning at some point. Instead of being his father's strong right hand, he had become an emcumbrance; instead of achieving rank and reputation of his own, he had become only an embarrassment to the Crown; and love seemed to elude him as thoroughly as though it had never known he existed. The only women he attracted were those who wanted to use him in one way or another, to debase him or feed off of him. He knew there were good women in the world, but they seemed to find him unappealing.
At least, he thought they were good. He hadn't come to know any of them well enough to be sure.
He threw himself back on the bank, heaving a sigh. Could he have done better? Or was this just the hand of genetic cards Fate had dealt him? All the titanic power inherited from his parents, all Fess's education and training-all of it came to nothing, less than useless, if he could not harness it to a good purpose.
There must have been a way he could have used those gifts in a more profitable fashion-more profitable for himself, and for all those about him. A huge longing welled up in him, to know, to see if he could have done better with what he had....
And he remembered Albertus, his analogue in the world of Tir Chlis, far and remote in another universe. The two of them were almost exactly alike, so much so that Magnus had been able to borrow Albertus's power when he was himself incapacitated; it was almost as though they were two different poles of the same globe.
Turn the globe. See what the other side was like.
He did. Trying to relax, he closed his eyes and concentrated on his memories of Tir Chlis, a land of silver woods and magic, of monsters out of legend and a faerie race out of folklore-not diminutive, gauzy-winged manikins, but tall, impossibly slender people of amazing powers, whose morality was only barely recognizable, if it existed at all, and who were as likely to be malevolent as beneficent.
Within that world of haunted nights strode Lord Kern, a magician and aristocrat almost identical to Rod Gallowglass, with a wife very much like Magnus's mother, Gwendolynand two sons, Albertus and Vidor, who were virtual duplicates of Magnus and his little brother Gregory. He visualized Albertus's face as he had last seen him, then imagined how it would change as he had grown-into a long, lantern-jawed visage with a prominent nose and deep-set eyes, crowned by a thatch of black hair--
The very image of Magnus himself.
The image began to gain substance; the world about it began to seem real. Magnus reached out in longing, a pulse of pure thought winging to his analogue: How fares it with thee, my co-walker?
There was a feeling of surprise, not unmixed with wariness, but both subsided into delight. There was a quick panorama of battles fought--evil wizards countered by Albertus and his family, maidens alluring but demanding, other maidens devastating in their loveliness but only civil in their greetings and shattering in their disinterest-of massive frustration and feelings of failure.
Magnus felt commiseration surging up in answer-in truth, the fellow was so much like him that they might be one and the same! For a brief instant, their miseries mingled....
Then a sudden, jarring jangle broke the trance, and Albertus was gone. Magnus sat bolt-upright, staring about him at a night suddenly gone silent, hearing the jangling diminish into a silver chiming. His pulse pounded in his ears; he looked about him wildly, and saw that one of the moons rode high over the clearing, its beams streaming down toward him....
And down that beam of silvery light floated a gauzy shape, gaining substance as it touched the ground-a tall, impossibly slender lady on a milk-white steed, which, like herself, was so fine-boned as to be almost attenuated. Her face was as pale as the moonlight, with huge eyes and high cheekbones, and red, red lips. She wore a grass-green gown of silk, framed by a velvet mantle, and she chimed as she rode toward Magnus. It took him a moment to realize that the sound was coming from little golden bells that were tied to the horse's mane.
He realized he was staring. He shook his head, scrambled to his feet, and doffed his hat, bowing. "Greetings, fair lady! To what do I owe this pleasure?"
"To thine own efforts, Warlock's Child," she answered, smiling.
The term rankled. Magnus forced a smile. "Surely I am worthy of the title in mine own right, lady."
"Indeed." She tilted her head to the side, amused. "Thou must needs be so, if thou canst open a pathway betwixt this world and Tir Chlis."
"Open a pathway?" Magnus stared. "Lady, I but sought to commune with my ... friend. . . ."
"Co-walker," she supplied. "Doppelganger. He who is like to thee in all respects, even to his miseries."
Magnus took a long, slow look at the lady, reassessing her-and feeling a chill at the thought of her powers. "Who art thou, lady, who knowest this of me?"
"I am a Queen among the Faerie Folk of Tir Chlis, young warlock," she said, "and I have come to visit thee."
She was easily the most beautiful woman Magnus had ever seen, with a face that would have made the greatest sculptors of the ages ache to carve her likeness; but no marble could be colder or more flawless than that moon-pale complexion, nor could any star glow brighter than her eyes. Her gown was low-cut, revealing an impossibly voluptuous figure with an incredibly small waist. In every way she was dainty, delicate-and hard, so hard. "Lady," Magnus murmured, "I am not worthy of thy regard."
"I believe thou mayest prove so." She reached down to touch his face, and his skin seemed to burn where her fingertips lingered. Suddenly, she was the only thing that mattered in all the universe; home, parents, siblings, king and queen, even God himself, seemed remote and unimportant. In a strange, detached way, he knew he was enchanted, but did not care. "All I wish," he breathed, "is to prove my virtues in thine eyes."
"Not too many virtues
, I trust." She gave him a sidelong look through lowered lashes.
Magnus reddened. "All virtues that become a man-such shall I prove."
"Thou must needs come with me, then." Her tone became peremptory. "Thou must now run beside mine horse, for thy poor nag of mortal flesh ne'er can go where we shall wander. Thou must needs come with me now, and serve me seven years."
"Only that?" Magnus protested. "Must I leave thee then?"
"That, we shall speak of anon," the lady said. "For now, follow." She turned her horse about and set off.
"As thou wilt," Magnus murmured. He followed, running lightly by her side, unable to take his eyes off her face-and amazed to find that he could keep pace with her horse.
Dimly, he realized that he was running up a moonbeam, that what he was doing was totally impossible-but the moonlight dimmed, and darkness closed all about him, unrelieved even by starlight; he ran only by the glow emanating from the Queen of Elfland herself, through a darkness that made the night seem bright-but he found that he did not mind, did not care at all, so long as he was by her side.
She glanced at him once, pleased and amused, then turned her face toward the direction in which they were travelling and sang a low, soft song of a cambric shirt.
Up into the sky they ran, with the moonbeam beneath them, till Gramarye was a small irregular shape on a huge globe behind them. They came into the light of the smaller moon, just as the larger seemed to swing behind them, blocking the planet from their sight. They were in the dark of the moon now; its face was black behind them, its rim etched by scattered light, but they ran on a beam from the smaller moon, ruby beneath them. Then that ruby deepened and thickened, until it seemed to Magnus that he ran through liquid; his legs began to ache, and his steps slowed. His breath came in huge, tearing gasps, and he saw, dimly, that the smaller moon had turned dark too, while the larger had disappeared completely, and with it, the planet wherein lay his home; but the sight bothered him not at all, strangely, and he slogged onward, through a liquid that became thicker and thicker, yet his speed seemed not to slacken.
"Thou wilt never come to Elfland thus," the lady said, and reached down her hand toward him. He caught it, feeling himself unbelievably privileged to be allowed to touch her fingers; but she lifted him up behind her as though he weighed no more than a lady's fan, and he swung about onto the horse's rump, gripping its sides with his knees. She pulled his fingers down to her waist, saying, "Hold fast." Magnus did, with both hands, astounded that something that looked so dainty could seem like spring steel beneath velvet, and by the wonder of the curve of her hip beneath the heel of his hand. They rode in total darkness now; the only light was the glow that emanated from the lady herself, and from the sluggish crimson tide below them-but from the darkness all about came a hissing surge that grew into a roar, then retreated to a hiss that grew again and again in a regular rhythm, like the surge and ebb of the tide, but was compounded of white noise.
"Where are we, lady?" Magnus shivered, though he felt no chill.
"We ride between the worlds, young warlock," the Queen returned. "We ride in the Void."
Magnus felt his scalp prickle; the eerie sensation spread down his back and into his thighs.
But light blossomed ahead, swelling into a vista of trees and grass and a turquoise sky. "Are we come to Tir Chlis, milady?"
"Nay, wizard-knight," she returned, "for so I shall call thee, thou hast yet to be knighted, for I perceive thou dost merit it."
Magnus stared. "Why, how canst thou know?"
"From the tang of Cold Iron about thee, which runs deeper than bone-for here between worlds, it is the essence of a man that shows, not the dross of his skin and visage only."
"Muscle and bone may yet matter, in Tir Chlis." Magnus spoke from vivid memory.
"Aye, yet we are not come there yet." The vista grew wider and wider about them, till the horse's hooves thudded on solid earth. It slowed, nodding its head and blowing through its nostrils, then stopped. Magnus looked up at transparent leaves that seemed to have been carved from slices of emerald, growing from boughs that wore a golden sheen. Fruit hung from that tree, swelling with ripeness, like pears with double tops that turned at angles to one another. Magnus gave a cry of joy and swung down from the horse, leaping to catch at one of the fruits.
"Oh, nay, sir wizard!" the lady cried. "Do not touch the fruit of this garden!"
Magnus yanked his hand back just short of the fruit, and turned as he dropped back to the earth. "Oh, lady, I implore thee, let me pull some of it down for thee to feed upon! For we have journeyed long, and journeyed far, and thou must needs be a-hungered. Only fruit of such beauty as this could be fit for so fine and fair a lady as thyself!"
"Right gallantly spoke." She smiled, her eyes glowing. "Yet know, Sir Wizard, that he who doth touch that fruit will feel horror touch his heart, and he who doth seek to eat of it will die in torment."
Magnus looked up at the fruit sharply, then closely. "Lady, how can this be? For never saw I fruit that looked more marvelous and wholesome than these!"
"They are fair," she returned, "but this little world is but an island in the Void, with many worlds about it-and some are places of torment for souls that seek viciousness, who believe that only by strife and hurting of one another can they thrive. Nay, further-they might swear that only by beating and slaying of one another can the worthiest be found."
"'Tis hellish," Magnus breathed.
"Hellish indeed, and corrupt-and corruption doth breed disease. Nay, all the plagues that are in these hellish worlds do light here, and are gathered up by these fruits. 'Tis on this they batten-the energies of misery and agony that arise from millions of tormented souls."
Magnus drew back with a shudder.
"Therefore, seek not to satisfy thine hunger with such fruits as these," she counselled, "and be not concerned for me, for we of the elfin blood know hunger only rarely; for the greater part, we dine for pleasure alone. Yet thou, I see, art sore a-hungered, now that thou hast paused to think of food. Thou mortal folk must ever be gathering substance into thyselves, for thy bodies do spend it most extravagantly." She cupped a hand in her lap; something twinkled there, and gained form. "Yet I have here a loaf of bread." She held up both hands; energy sparkled between them, taking the form of a bottle. "And here I have a claret wine. Nay, take them from me, that I may descend, and thou mayest dine and rest thyself a while."
He came to her gladly, took the loaf and bottle in his left hand, and held up his right. She clasped it and stepped gracefully down from her mount, who immediately lowered its head and began to graze. The lady drifted over to a tree, folded herself beneath it, and spread her skirts about herbut in such manner as to reveal the outline of hip and thigh. "Come." She reached up toward him. "Sit by me, and dine."
Magnus sat gladly, set the bottle down, and took up the loaf-but, on the verge of breaking it, he remembered what he had heard about faerie food, and hesitated.
The lady laughed like the tinkling of the bells in her horse's mane. "Thou dost fear that tasting of the food of Elfland will bind thee to the elven kind, dost thou not? Yet thou art bound to me already by thine own desire and will, and I promise thee, this food will hold thee no longer than they."
Heartened by her promise, and not even thinking to question it, Magnus ate. A few bites were enough to satisfy him, and a single draft of the wine. The Queen folded them away, still amused, and patted her knee. "Come, lay down thine head and rest thee, and I will show thee fair visions that shall amaze thee."
Nothing loathe, Magnus lay down, breathing in the sweet aroma of her perfume, amazed at his own delight in her presence. "Why, then, show me, fair queen-but they must be sights wondrous indeed, to rival my first view of thee."
"Silver-tongued knave!" She gave him a playful tap on the lips-and he parted them immediately, but too late. "Now behold." She laid one cool hand across his forehead and pointed with the other.
The turquoise sky seemed to thicken th
ere, churning in a whorl of smoke that opened like an iris to show a picture of a hard-packed dirt road, little more than a trail, running arrowstraight through a thicket of thorn bushes and briars, clustering so thickly that the road was frequently lost to view.
"See thou yon straitened track?" she asked.
"I see." Magnus was even more impressed with the huge panorama of leaden sky that stretched above the briars, even to the horizon, for the land was as flat as a tabletop. "What gloomy road is that?"
She gave him a keen look, though he could not have said whether it was of amusement or wariness. "That is the path of righteousness, young wizard, and few indeed are they who inquire after it. Why, then-wouldst thou live a righteous life?"
Magnus chilled the automatic answer on his tongue and seriously considered the issue, searching his feelings. Then, slowly, he nodded. "Aye, lady. I find it within me to hope that I shall. I do wish it, verily."
"Thou art a most rare man indeed." Her manner seemed frosted suddenly, though Magnus couldn't have said how; he could detect no outward sign. "Rare, and more so, in that thou art a wizard, and might have what thou didst wish of this mortal world."
"'Tis not the mortal world I hunger for," he said quickly, "but thine."
"Yet my folk are not concerned with righteousness, young man, nor with aught but their own needs and amusements." She waved a hand, and the picture shrank in on itself, becoming again a roiled knot of smoke. She gestured, and it widened, opening again like the iris of some giant eye, to show another view. Magnus looked, and saw a wide and glittering road that wound easily up across a gentle rise, then dipped down out of sight, but rose again, twisting through a gently rolling landscape that was filled with flaming flowers under a cerulean sky adorned with clouds like bursts of incense. He even seemed to smell the perfume of the flowers, thick and sweet, and immensely sensual. In spite of its enchanting prospect, he found it oddly repulsive. "What track is this?"
"Yon broad, broad way is the path of wickedness, young wizard, though many think it the road to Heaven. Yet the delights it doth seem to promise are fewer than those it doth bring, and its destiny is the death of all joy." She looked down at him with a smile of odd interest. "Dost thou not find it appealing?"
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