"If you say it, lady." Cort took his hand away. "Only speak to me, and I will notice nothing else." She laughed, a sound like a springtime brook. "How gallant, sir! Where did you gain such a silver tongue?"
Cort wondered about that, himself. He'd never been much of a man for the ladies before-but then, this wasn't flirting. He meant every word.
The oldest of the Fair Folk, a man, took a medal lion from about his neck and hung it on a velvetlined circular pad, as though it were a diamond on a tray. They were in a vestibule, magical in its decoration. The walls were smoothly curved and intricately patterned in the light of the floating lamps. The floor was carpeted, no design, but thicker and softer than any Cort had ever seen. The chamber was about eight feet square with an eight-foot ceiling.
Something whined behind him. Cort glanced back, marveling as metal spun outward to form a circular door opposite the outer portal. He smiled, the wonder of it all heightening the euphoria he felt as he glanced back at Desiree. She returned his smile, then followed the others through the door and on into the Hill, which meant Cort did, too, behind Dirk and Gar.
The Fair Folk men had to stoop as they came through the inner portal. Desiree followed the rest of the band through the inner door. Cort stepped through, too, and heard the whining again. Turning, he saw metal sliding in from the sides, making the doorway smaller and smaller, like the pupil of an eye in bright light. He shook his head in amazement, then turned to follow Desiree, and stepped into Fairyland indeed. Cort looked about him and caught his breath.
They were surrounded by marble buildings, none more than a story tall, with green grass forming broad lawns about them. The stone was pastel in its swirling patterns, and each house's walls were pierced with broad windows glinting with glass. Cort had never known panes could be made so large, for not a single window was subdivided. The doorways were intricately carved, the panels bulging in bas-relief sculptures.
Gar and Dirk were tossing meaningless phrases at one another.
"How old is that style of hatch?" Dirk asked. "Iris doors went out of use three hundred years ago," Gar said, "though my family archives said they were very popular for two centuries before that. I'm amazed it still works."
"You know too much," Lavere said sternly, but the duke commanded, his voice no longer sepulchral, "Let them speak. We must know how much they know."
Dazed, Cort looked about him as they strolled down the street that led from the plaza. Now that his eyes were accustomed to it, he could see that the light really wasn't as bright as it had seemed at first, but was soft and rosy, from lamps that rose from the roofs of all the houses. Garlands of flowers grew from the lawns, the roofs, the windows, the vines that climbed the corners of the dwellings. The air was warm, and sweet with the perfume of many blossoms. It invited a man to relax, to rest, to dally in love ...
His gaze strayed to Desiree again. With a start, he saw she was watching him with a smile of amusement. "What think you of our hill, sir?"
"Wondrous," Cort told her, "and everywhere beautifui-but nothing so beautiful as yourself." She lowered her gaze demurely. "I think you praise me overmuch."
"I speak only truth," Cort breathed.
She looked up at him, a calculating, weighing gaze, but with a smile that was inviting nonetheless. Then she tossed her head and turned away. "Come, sir! We must attend the duke!"
They went on down the lane, and Cort wondered where the rest of the people were. But he followed Gar and Dirk steadily, even though they were making more of their meaningless noises.
"A domed city," Dirk was saying, "left over from the colony days. Didn't the history say the first colonists lived in domes while they were Terraforming the planet?"
"It did," Gar confirmed. "Apparently not all of them felt the urge for the great outdoors."
Dirk eyed one of the lamps at the top corner of a house. "Lighted by electricity, and I'll bet there's a nuclear generator busily breeding more reaction mass for itself. I hope it's far underground."
"It must be," Gar said, "or the people would show a lot more mutation than they have."
"Everything we're seeing could be explained by genetic drift and good nutrition," Dirk agreed. "I'll bet each house has a vegetable garden and robots to till it, and the lamp's emit imitation sunlight while the people sleep."
"They wouldn't want it while they're awake, with those fair skins," Gar agreed.
"Where did you learn these words, sir?" Maora asked, frowning.
"In school," Dirk told her. "We're from very far away."
"In space or time? For you speak as good a Galactic Standard as we, though with a slight accent."
"Do I really?" Dirk asked, looking up with interest. "Say, can you tell the difference between my accent and my friend's?"
"It is noticeable," Maora said, with an odd frostiness to her words. Her glance was concerned. Dirk decided to relieve her mind. "If only Magda were here to see these wonders with me!" he sighed, and promptly fell despondent.
"He loves a lady, then?" the woman asked, interested.
"Totally smitten," Gar told her.
"That explains it, Maora," another woman said, and to Gar, "No Milesian man can resist a woman of the Fair Folk. Therefore we know you for one of us."
"Really?" Gar asked, amused. "How do you know I'm not just in love with the girl I left behind me?"
"If you were, your young friend's state would make you sad, reminding you of your love," Maora said, nodding toward Cort.
"I fear there's some truth to that," Gar sighed, glancing at the lieutenant. "What am I going to do with two lovesick comrades? Have pity, ladies! Tell your friend Desiree to free my companion from her spell!"
"She cannot," Maora said simply. "His heart is hers; he is past her control in that."
"But only in that," Gar qualified.
Maora smiled, relaxing, almost gloating. "In all else, he will gladly do as she bids."
Gar knew there were limits to that, but wasn't about to bet on what they were.
As they came toward the center of the dome, the buildings grew taller, having more headroom. They began to hear music, reeds and strings, with an odd beat from softened drums that seemed to invade Cort's head and work itself into his blood, until his heart beat to its rhythm. Finally they came to a palace that towered three stories high in the very center of the town. It was brightly lit both inside and out, and in the wide plaza before it, the Fair Folk were dancing--stately, courtly measures that were somehow also completely voluptuous.
"What make you of that, my friend?" Gar nudged Dirk.
"Hnnh?" Dirk tore an envious gaze away from Cort's infatuated face and looked about him. "Hey! It's the town square of the colony dome. And the courthouse, probably, or at least City Hall." He inhaled deeply. "I don't know what they're serving for refreshments, but it smells delectable!"
Cort snapped out of his daze, turning to stare at them, appalled. "Don't eat or drink anything! If you do, you'll be in their power, and they can keep you as a slave or companion for twenty years!"
Amused, Desiree assured him, "Do not flatter yourself, mortal man. We would scarcely want you for so long a period."
Cort turned to her, dismayed. She laughed at the look on his face, then, instantly contrite, touched his cheek and told him, "But if I did, be sure that you would want to stay, and we would have no need of enchanted food or drink."
Cort let himself drift into her eyes and knew her words for truth.
"Indeed, you are far more likely to want to stay than we are to desire your presence," Maora said, though the measuring look and sultry smile she gave Gar belied her words.
"Come, hero of daring." Desiree turned, holding out her hands and making an invitation somehow into a challenge. "Are you bold enough to dance with a woman of the Sidhe?"
She pronounced it "shee," and Cort grinned, taking her hands. "Bold enough for a she indeed!" Then they were off, whirling and turning as though they were thistledown in the wind, instantly lost in a world
of their own, in which nothing existed except the music, and each other. Maora smiled, taking Gar's hand. "Will you dance, too, sir?"
"I thank you, but shanks so long as mine are clumsy in such giddy measures.... Trouble breathing, friend?"
Dirk's whole body shook, as though strangling a coughing spasm. "Yes, you might say I had trouble swallowing something," he wheezed.
A golden-haired boy as tall as Dirk's shoulder came twisting through the crowd and bowed to them. He was already broad in the shoulder. "My lady, the duke wishes to speak with these Milesians."
CHAPTER 15
"Milesians? " Dirk frowned, turning to Maora.
"Mortals" she explained "who are not of , the Fair Folk. Go with the lad; he will lead you to the duke." She turned away to a tall, handsome man who stepped up to take her hand. She laughed gaily as he swept her off-into the dance. Gar followed her with his gaze.
"Regrets?" Dirk jibed.
"Yes, but not about her specifically." Gar turned back to the youth. "We shall be honored by an audience with His Grace."
"You are courteous, for Milesians," the boy said in surprise. "Follow, then." He turned and went.
" `Milesians,' " Dirk mused as they followed "I think there's an awful lot of Celtic influence here."
"Not my area of study," Gar said. "What are the signs?"
"The Irish called their last wave of prehistoric invaders Milesians," Dirk explained. "The scholars think they were the ancestors of the modern Irish. They drove the earlier invaders, the Tuatha de Danaan, `the people of Danu,' before them, until finally the Old People withdrew into the Hollow Hills in disgust. The medieval Irish referred to them as the Daonine Sidhe." He pronounced it "Theena Shee."
"They lived inside the green hills or in a land under the waters."
"Let's hope these people see themselves as Daonine Sidhe, then," Gar said grimly. "Put on your happy face-here's the duke."
Their young guide led them up to a high dais, where the oldest of the Fair Folk sat alone, in a gilded, high-backed, intricately carved armchair that gleamed with the look of neither wood nor metal, but of some sort of synthetic. The boy bowed. "My lord duke, here are the Milesians."
"Bravely done," the duke said, and waved him away. "Go now to the dancing, Riban."
"I thank Your Grace." The boy bowed again, and went.
Dirk gazed after him. "How old is he? Fourteen?"
"Ten," the duke snapped. "The Fair Folk grow tall from childhood-and you are most lacking in courtesy, Milesian!"
"Oh, sorry." Dirk turned and bowed. "Thank you for your hospitality, Your Grace."
"Better," the duke said, mollified. He turned to Gar, who bowed and said, "You are gracious, Lord Duke."
"This one, at least, knows manners." The duke looked him up and down. "I might almost think you were of noble birth."
"I am the grandson of a count, Your Grace, and the son of a lord."
"Then you are no man of this world of Durvie!"
"Your insight is excellent," Gar confirmed. "We have come from off-world."
"I might have known it, from the things you've said! Have you laser rifles of your own, then?"
"Not with us, my lord, but we have both fired them in battle, yes."
Dirk stared at him in alarm-he was giving too much away.
"How much else have you recognized?" the duke demanded.
Dirk sighed. If the cat was out of the bag, it might as well yowl. "This Hollow Hill is a colonists' atmosphere dome, the portal into the hill is an airlock that's no longer used for keeping the breathable air in, and your medallion is a wireless audio pickup that feeds loudspeakers high up on the hill. Its amplifier has a digital reverberation unit, a frequency equalizer, and a basso enhancer."
The duke sat rigid, his eyes smoldering. At last he said, "You are as knowledgeable as I had feared." He turned to Gar. "And you? What one of you knows, both must!"
"We have different areas of expertise," Gar temporized. "For myself, I conjecture that, like those you call Milesians, you're descended from the original colonists, but your ancestors chose to stay in the domes, rather than go out into the world and farm. Tell me, are all the Hollow Hills inhabited by tribes of Fair Folk?"
"All," the duke confirmed. "Those whose people abandoned them were taken as homes by those who grew to be too many for one single hill. They scorned the ancestors of the Milesians for being so uncouth as to grub in the ground, and the Milesians scorned them for choosing prison over freedom." He smiled vindictively. "The more fools they! As they found when the famines came and they had foolishly spawned as many brats as each of them wished! They came against our ancestors in their hordes, trying to batter a way into the hills-but our ancestors had never forgotten the magic of their textbooks and learning programs, and to add to the power of the nuclear generators, had learned how to tap enough geothermal energy, and to harness wind and water with turbines that charged storage batteries, so that they kept the machines working. Our ancestors took up the laser rifles they had learned to repair, and mowed down the Milesians by the hundreds. Oh, some of them died in those wars, but each took a hundred Milesians with him, and another of the Fair Folk rose up in his place!"
"Giving rise to the rumor that you couldn't be killed." Dirk suppressed a shudder.
"So your people all still learn how to repair the machines, and operate them?" Gar asked.
"All indeed! Some even become obsessed with such learning, and ferret out new knowledge, inventing new devices!"
"A rather solitary occupation," Gar noted. "There are some solitary Fair Folk, yes," the duke agreed, "but there were always leprechauns and their like among the Old People. Most, though, fulfill their assigned hours at the consoles and the repair benches, then pass the rest of their time in cultivating the arts, and in the delights of conversation." Dirk suspected that "the arts" included martial arts, and that "conversation" covered a lot of flirtation, dalliance, social maneuvering, and jockeying for status, but he was wise enough not to say so. "Now we live in luxury," the duke went on, "with leisure for learning and revelry, while the descendants of those who yearned for the freedom of the plains and forests must toil and sweat for scraps of bread, and strive against one another in ceaseless combat while we live in harmony."
"Do you really?" Gar asked, interested. "How do you manage that?"
"We meet to discuss such issues as might cause friction-"
"All of you together?"
"Of course." The duke frowned. "There are not so many of us that the town square cannot hold us all."
"And if one of you is angry at another?"
"We hear their arguments at the assembly, and all decide together who is right to what degree, and wherein each should be blamed."
"A time-consuming but effective way of governing," Gar said. "However, you have plenty of spare time, don't you?"
"That is our privilege," the duke agreed, his voice guarded.
"Bought at the price of being able to roam freely, or to do as you damn well please even if it doesn't suit the others-but the Milesians have little enough of such freedom, either."
"Much less, for most of them," the duke said darkly.
"But you also choose leaders," Gar pressed. "How did you come to be duke? Simply by living long? Or by birth?"
"By long life and acclamation," the duke replied. "There are many of my generation still living, but I was the one for whom the most applause rose when the old duke died. As to leading, I preside at the assemblies, and speak for us all in dealings with other hills. That is all.".
"And command if you need to fight the Milesians," Gar inferred: "I assume, though, that you ride to one another's hills now and again, probably at each equinox and solstice . . ."
"And woe to the peasants who cross our paths." The duke smiled, eyes glowing. "I congratulate you on having discerned how we use the legend of the Wild Hunt, and the solstices and equinoxes as well, to add to our mystical aura."
Dirk frowned; the duke was being entirely
too open.
"I am sure it keeps you safe, and prevents your having to burn down more than a few Milesians," Gar said diplomatically. "I would further conjecture that the festivals you hold on those occasions center on the exchanging of genes."
"The festivals are also chances for athletic contests, which inspire our men to strive to perfect themselves in body and in skill at fighting," the duke said sharply.
"And of course, the winner finds himself more attractive to the women of the neighboring Hill," Gar interpreted.
The duke's smile was brittle. "A tactful way of saying that we make no bar to the young, and not so young, who wish to taste and revel in one another's joys."
"An excellent safeguard against inbreeding," Gar agreed. "Still, you must need the occasional influx of genes from completely outside the Fair Folk community; your gene pool can't be very large."
"You guess rightly, which is why we tolerate Desiree's desire to amuse herself with your friend," the duke said with a hard smile. "In fact, every now and again a Milesian proves so diverting that we allow him to remain among us all his days."
"Or until you tire of him?" Gar smiled, and recited,
"He has taken a coat of the even cloth, And a pair of shoes of velvet green, And till seven years were past and gone, True Thomas on Earth was never seen."
"Even so," the duke said, "and those whom we find diverting, we keep until they start to age and lose their beauty. Those who cease to be diverting, we keep in other ways-those who cease amusing, or learn too much."
"Learn what?" Gar asked. "That you're only human, and can be slain like anyone else?" Anger sparked from the duke's eyes. "Yes, that and more," he hissed. "But we are not `merely human,' like these Milesians, these clod-poll folk among whom you've been wandering!"
"They're not all clods!" Dirk spoke in anger, the vision of Magda bright before him. "Some are beautiful, some highly skilled, many excellent soldiers! The rigors of their lives have made them hardy and strong, clever and skillful! Some are even as wonderful as any of your Fair Folk!"
"Ridiculous!" the duke snapped. "Are any Milesians as tall as we, as graceful or as handsome?" Dirk frowned. "So you think that your inbreeding has made you superior to the people of the outside world."
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