Amber Magic (Haven Series #1)

by B. V. Larson

  Into this scene, Myrrdin stepped forward once again.

  “I should have hunted you down and struck you dead the first time you ran from me!” raged Oberon. He held aloft Lavatis and the Jewel released a brilliant blue radiance which none could look into. “I will summon the rainbow and destroy you all!”

  “Then you will have no more feasts, my lord,” pointed out Myrrdin.

  “Then so be it!” cried Oberon.

  Myrrdin sighed, he had hoped it would not come to this. “Then I have no choice but to check you with Vaul,” he said, producing the Green Jewel of power and holding it aloft. It exuded its own bath of green light, which conflicted with Lavatis and together the Jewels cast an eldritch brilliance the blue-green color of the sea. Myrrdin’s company and Oberon’s retinue both retreated in dismay, shielding their faces from the awful twin glares of raw power.

  For once, Oberon was truly at a loss. “How?” he demanded.

  Myrrdin shrugged. “In the Deepwood, I was driven into the underworld by Herla. Many of my comrades perished, but we did rediscover this lost power,” he said bravely. Inside, he was nowhere near so calm, as he had only begun to understand the workings of the Jewel. It was all he could do to command Vaul to cast a brilliant glow. He had hoped to keep the Jewel secret from those of power for some years so that he might master it fully.

  Oberon had lost his rage, and now had turned thoughtful. The rainbow he had summoned now marched up behind him to stand upon great shimmering legs. It was a terrible sight for mortal eyes, and some perished quietly in the forest that night from sheer fright. “I am certain that I have a better mastery of Lavatis than you do of Vaul. Perhaps it is best that I destroy you now and so become master of two colors.’“

  Myrrdin shrugged again. “It is all one to me. Many times tonight I have surprised you. One more time will be enough, should you require it. But….”

  “Of what do you think to speak?”

  “It does seem to me a big risk to take over a simple matter of food. We will provide for you and yours, but we ask a boon.”

  “Speak!” commanded Oberon. “What do you ask?”

  “Each year, at the end of harvest, we will give you one part in seven of our goods, which is enough to feed you all. We will make this Offering on the night of the Harvest Moon, which is tomorrow night. In return, you will swear not to allow your people to harm us, lure us from our homes, place changelings in our cradles or execute curses against us. In essence, your people will not be allowed to walk these lands, and they shall be recognized as the lands of humanity.”

  There were a few titterings and catcalls among the Faerie at this. Oberon silenced them with a wave of the hand. “What else?”

  “I further propose a Pact, between us, against the Enemy and his Dark Ones, which is to say, those among your kind that have elected to become his minions. You must keep them from harming us, and we will do what we can to keep them from harming you.”

  At this point, many of the Faerie voiced their contempt of the humans and the Kindred. They called out shrill insults toward the humans, and some tried to slip away into the trees and circle around behind the mortals. Oberon deliberated for but a moment.

  “I accept,” he said, as Myrrdin had gambled he would, for Oberon himself was almost as afraid of Herla as was Myrrdin. The added power of Vaul would do much to hold his nemesis at bay. The Faerie were shocked, and quieted suddenly. Bright eyes suddenly slitted and became dark as many of them vanished into the trees to show their disapproval.

  Despite their misgivings, the Fair Folk honored Oberon’s word, ceasing their cruel tricks. The rainbow strode away toward a distant storm cloud without releasing its wrath. On the thirty-first night, a great Offering was gathered. From that year to this, for many centuries, when the moon waxes gibbous and heavy with orange light and hangs low and full in the sky, the Offering is made. In this way has the Pact and the peace been maintained.

  Chapter Eleven

  The Shining Lady

  There had been a gasp or two when Gudrin had mentioned Stone Island, the very land on which they stood, but everyone had managed to keep from interrupting her story until she was finished.

  “The town common! You were talking about our faerie mound!” broke in Tylag, his eyes gleaming.

  Gudrin didn’t take offense this time, as she could tell that her audience was well in hand. She merely glanced up and nodded, a smile playing on her lips. She took a long draught of beer from a mug that was offered her and sat back to rest. With the now familiar ritual, she closed her book, wrapped it, and tucked it under her arm.

  After thinking about Gudrin’s story, there was little debate left in the council members. It was speedily decided that the Talespinner should stand in for Myrrdin. As twilight was only a few hours away, they adjourned and everyone headed for the town common.

  The Harvest Moon Festival was in full swing now, with many folk from Riverton, Hamlet, North End, Swampton and even distant Frogmorton feasting and reveling. There were contests of strength and speed, foot races and tree felling. The berrywine casks flowed freely and many of the people wore masks with floating ribbons and gauze in the guise of the Faerie. Usually stolid and unwavering in their conduct, men and women danced with partners that they would not recall in the morning. Children formed their own faerie rings around tall poles, winding ribbons of every hue into shimmering rainbows.

  As twilight fell bonfires were lit upon the common. Yellow firelight illuminated the dome tents and cast wild shadows of the dancing revelers upon them. Brand watched the shadowy forms on the tent walls and once thought to see the capering form of a true goblin. He turned to examine the dancers, but all were human.

  Above everything, the moon waxed full and washed the common with its dusky orange light. As it was every year, something of the Wilds slipped through into the River Haven. Things that were held at bay during the rest of the year awakened under the Harvest Moon. The term of the old Pact had ended and the new Pact had yet to be renewed, and in that brief span of time, the people were lost to the effects of the Fair Folk and the full moon.

  Brand looked upon the festival differently this year, finding a kind of terror in it to think of a world where every night was lost such as this one was. What would the world be like without the Pact? Everything good and solid in his life looked now to him as a treasure suspended above flame by a tiny fragile thread. Should the thread ever break, all he had ever known would be lost.

  Gudrin climbed the hill at the end of the common to the grove of trees that hid the faerie mound. Only Modi accompanied her, against the wishes and warnings of the clan leaders. Modi had promised not to enter the glade, but only to stand in the trees and observe. The council warned him that only the Talespinner should be present, and that any other entering the clearing did so in peril of his life and soul. Modi only grunted in acknowledgment before stumping after Gudrin who had begun the trek. Gudrin walked as one burdened, and appeared to everyone to be older than she had at any other time. She kept her wide-brimmed hat pulled low over her brow, bore her odd rucksack over her hunched shoulders and kept her book clamped beneath her arm.

  “It’s time, boys,” hissed Telyn in their ears. Brand and Corbin turned to find her face poked between the two of them. “Here are your wards,” she said, handing each a circle of river stone with a hole worn in the center and a thong of leather run through it. They took them and hung them about their necks. “I found them in stream beds, worn through naturally. Drilled holes wouldn’t work.”

  “Where’s yours?” asked Brand.

  “This lucky ash leaf is even more potent, but more fragile,” Telyn said as she fluttered her charm at him. The lucky ash leaf bore two terminal leaflets instead of one. She met his eyes and he frowned at her, reaching to take her arm. This was all the warning she needed. With a laugh, she evaded him and ran away into the darkness behind one of the domed tents.

  “By the River,” swore Brand. “She’ll not escape us so easily this
time!” He and Corbin ran after the fleet-footed girl, cloaks flying and heavy boots crunching the slushy earth.

  “Hey!” shouted Jak behind them. “Where are you off to?”

  Brand and Corbin made no attempt at replying, knowing that they would need all their attention to keep Telyn in sight. She led them on a merry chase, darting between vendors’ carts and under tables spread with fine foods. Corbin, rather than following her every step, chose to drop back a bit and cut the corners of her winding, twisting path. He even managed to snatch up a leg of roast fowl on the way past a table that boasted an excellent feast. Brand, lost to the chase, ran on his long legs with great loping strides.

  There were many cries of distress at their passing. “Hey you louts!”

  “Stop running!”

  “The Rabing boys are after that Fob girl! I wonder what she’s stolen now!”

  “You’ve crushed my foot!”

  “Off with you then!”

  Soon, a pattern emerged from Telyn’s mad course: each twist, every turn, took them closer to the wooded area at the base of the hill that backed the common. Brand, worried that she would vanish in the murk below the trees, put on an extra burst of speed. Corbin, huffing and blowing, groaned and then followed suit.

  Telyn glanced back at them, and for a moment Brand was gratified to see her teasing face take on a cast of concern. They were clearly gaining on her. She stopped laughing and gave herself to running directly toward the woods.

  She did actually reach the trees before Brand caught up. She danced behind a tree and Brand fell against the other side, eyeing her around the trunk, and breathing hard.

  “Brand Rabing, don’t you touch me,” she gasped between gulps of air.

  “Give over this folly, Telyn! I’m not about to have you taken to serve some ungrateful elfkin as a foot maid!” said Brand, reaching for her. She shrieked and ran laughing into the forest. Knowing he was about to lose her, Brand threw himself at her, and managed to catch hold of her foot. They both fell in a tangled heap, leaves flying.

  They sat up and regarded each other for a second. Brand thought she was the most lovely thing in the world, seen only in the light of the bloated Harvest Moon, with twigs and leaves in her hair and streaks of dirt on her face. He bent forward to kiss her.

  “Hullo there!” shouted Corbin, huffing into the trees and cupping his hands to call to them. He tossed aside a clean bone from the fowl he had devoured on the way. Brand and Telyn straightened suddenly, feeling foolish. Brand helped her to her feet. He kept one hand on her arm, even after she was standing.

  “Oh, there you are,” said Corbin, putting his hands on his knees to relax and breathe more freely. “Oh, I can’t believe you caught her, Brand. I would sooner chase one of the Wee Folk into the High Marshes!”

  “Yes, she will see nothing of the Faerie tonight,” said Brand.

  “Oh, but how wrong you are,” breathed Telyn. The boys turned to her with questioning looks, but she was looking away, into the forest. They followed her gaze.

  There before them, deep in the forest, moved a stealthy shape. In the darkness, they would not have been able to see it, but it gave off a pale blue-white radiance. It went from tree to tree in a crouch, ignoring them and heading for the top of the hill. Brand estimated the creature to be perhaps half his height. An elfkin? A manling or a goblin? He couldn’t tell. Reflexively, his hand went to the ward hung around his neck. Relief flooded through him to find that it was still there.

  “One of the Fair Folk,” whispered Telyn. Her voice was that of one seeing the divine. While they watched in stunned silence, the creature turned to look at them. Its eyes slitted and its ears laid down as would a cat’s, then it opened its mouth to reveal thin delicate fangs that glistened with unearthly light. It turned from them and moved deeper into the forest.

  “A goblin,” whispered Brand, half to himself. “I had never thought such a creature would be so entrancing.” He turned to look down at Telyn, but she was no longer at his side. He looked around wildly, then noted that the disappearing goblin had a fluttering shadow following it that did not glimmer in the darkness.

  “Damn her silent feet! We must go after her, Corbin,” Brand said, beginning to run.

  “I rue the day I became your cousin,” lamented Corbin, trotting after him.

  They caught up with Telyn at the edge of the clearing in which the faerie mound stood. The goblin was nowhere in sight, but what Brand saw in the clearing quickly made him forget everything.

  A hundred of the Faerie or more thronged the clearing. Winged figures fluttered about in a circle, dancing about the ancient barrow as though walking on air. Many more earth-bound shapes cavorted and leaped in the grass. There were tall ones, almost as big as a man, and tiny ones, no larger than sparrows. All of them, even those most alien of aspect, held an unearthly beauty that took the breath from the mortals. All were sleek of limb and easy of movement, their impossibly smooth muscles rippling beneath their pale white skins. From each of them, a pale blue-white nimbus glowed. From the entire assemblage a powerful combined radiance shone, so that the clearing was lit up as if by the light of a dozen full moons. Brand knew that they reflected the moonlight, which was the source of the radiance. On nights such as this one, when the moon was round and full, the Fair Folk became the Shining Folk.

  Oh, and the music, the sweet music! It filled Brand’s head with glories untold! The heady scents of honey and hot spices and wild flowers assaulted him as well, overwhelming his senses. Caught and paralyzed like a rodent beneath the stooping falcon, he could do nothing but stare.

  The Faerie floated and danced, feasting upon the Offering, which covered the mound and much of the clearing. One of them took notice of the River Folk and flittered close. Brand stared at the tiny form, a perfectly-shaped nude female with hair of gossamer and wings of fragile crystalline light. So exquisite was her beauty that he took a step forward, all but entering the clearing. She smiled at him, and came closer. She could not have been more than a foot in height, but he could little resist her beauty all the same. He felt a restraint, and looked down to see that Telyn had his arm, and was trying to keep him from walking forward.

  “Hold your ward close!” she hissed to him. He did as she told him slowly, like one moving in a dream. The tiny female Faerie halted her advance and backed away. She flittered back to join the others, giving him a final regretful shake of her tiny head.

  Now that he had his ward in his hand, Brand found that he could think somewhat more clearly. A bare sliver of concern impinged upon his mind as part of him realized how close he was to his doom. He blinked in confusion.

  A booming voice rolled across the clearing and the crass rude tones of it ripped a hole in Brand’s heart. The entrancing power of the Faerie left him, and he felt a terrible wrong had been done. That a sad, sad mistake had been made. He missed the power of their spell with all his being.

  The voice belonged to Gudrin, who now stumped into the open. She spoke to the Fair Folk as though they were worthy of no special reverence, as though they weren’t exalted beyond all mortal pretenses. Brand felt she was a crude thing, insulting, an animal with the presumption to speak to its betters. It took some moments before he was able to comprehend the words.

  Reading from her book, Gudrin spoke at length in a ritualistic fashion, presenting the Offering to the assembled Faerie. The Fair Folk all but ignored her, seemingly intent on little other than devouring all they could of the feast. When the Talespinner asked who among them would accept the Offering on their part and renew the Pact, there came from the Faerie only scattered tittering laughter.

  Gudrin closed the book with a thump audible across the clearing. She took a step forward, brushing aside a Wee one that had gotten too near her heavy boots. She raised her arms on high and held her book aloft. “I demand that your lord come forth to meet me!” she cried. “I speak on the behalf of all the River Folk!”

  Suddenly, a figure of astounding beauty appeared befo
re her, as if stepping through a door in the empty air. She was tall and lithe, dressed all in white, with long hair of spun gold and eyes of silver. Her unearthly beauty struck through to Brand and Corbin, so that both of them gasped and went weak at the knees. No human woman could ever possess such beauty, for she was perfect. Brand felt a rush of blood run through him. He was suddenly full of heat and passion as he had never felt before. His mind burned. Corbin took a half step forward, and then fell to his knees groaning and holding his ward to his eyes.

  “The Shining Lady!” gasped Telyn in terror. “Brand, Corbin, avert your eyes! She is one of the shades in league with the Enemy!”

  The boys tried to turn their faces, but only Corbin succeeded, keeping his ward to his face in trembling hands. Brand couldn’t tear his eyes away from the most beautiful female creature that had ever lived.

  Even Gudrin was affected. She staggered forward, and then halted, swaying slightly. Still, her hands were outstretched above her. The golden clasp of her book glinted in the moonlight.

  “Look upon mine beauty,” the Lady said to Gudrin, “Accursed, Ugly creature, constructed of oil and filth, is it not thy heart’s desire to share in my perfection?” The glimmering figure drifted down the mound ever so slowly.

  “Lady,” said Gudrin, her words coming with difficulty. “Lady, why are you here? Why do you torment us?”

  “Brand, something is wrong!” Telyn hissed in his ear. “Brand, we must get away from here!”

  “A kiss, only one kiss,” mumbled Brand.

  She shook him, and Brand was distantly aware of her, but his mind was focused upon the Shining Lady. He took a full step forward and now stood at the edge of the clearing. Sweat poured from him, his head had filled with sweet music and the powerful smells of lilac and mint. In desperation, Telyn tugged at him, but against his tense muscles, she could do nothing. Corbin remained on his knees, clutching his ward and shivering.