by L. K. Rigel
No one answered her knock.
“Hello?” Lilith called out again, but it was apparent Beverly and Dandelion were not at home. She opened the front door. “I came early.”
She crossed the threshold into the great room. No one was there. It was her lucky hour. Perhaps they’d gone to pick flowers for the dinner table. More likely, they’d forgotten their invitation altogether and had flown off to make love inside the aurora borealis.
Lilith scanned the great room on the off chance Beverly had left the journal out somewhere, but she found nothing and moved on toward the kitchen.
“Igraine!” a woman’s voice called out.
That name! Lilith whipped around, but no one was there. She headed back through the great room toward the bedroom, and heard the voice behind her again.
“Igraine, over here!”
“Where are you?” Lilith said, on the verge of hyperventilation. That was the name! The name of the ghost who’d been trying to insinuate herself into Lilith’s life. The voice was coming from somewhere here in the great room.
“Look at me.”
“I… I think you must be invisible,” Lilith said.
“Look!”
“Where?”
“Here, you stupid wyrding woman!”
“I’m not a… are… are you Mudcastle?” Lilith said. After all, the place was enchanted. Maybe the cottage was angry that Lilith had come inside with no one home. “Ooh!” She jumped, but she’d only seen her own reflection in the mirror on the wall.
“You’re not Igraine!” the voice said indignantly, from the mirror.
“I most certainly am not.” Lilith spoke with more force than she’d intended, but her breath was all over the place.
“I know you. You’re the faeling, Lily. Beverly’s daughter-in-law. What are you doing here?”
“I was invited,” Lilith said. “But they must have forgotten. Why did you call me Igraine?”
“I couldn’t see you at first. You felt like her, but… but that’s impossible. I was confused.”
“Maybe,” Lilith said. Maybe not.
“Maybe not.” The mirror echoed Lilith’s thoughts.
“What are you? Who are you?” Lilith said. “Do you have a name?”
“Boadicea,” the mirror said.
“Max’s sister. I remember,” Lilith said. “Morning Glory said Beverly is trying to set you free.”
“She can’t do it,” Boadicea said. “I knew she couldn’t, but…”
“I’m sorry.” Lilith unconsciously reached out and touched the mirror, then recoiled. “I’m sorry!” It felt so… wrong. Abomination, Max had called the mirror.
“What were you looking for, Igraine? I mean Lily. I can see just about anything. I probably know where it is.”
“I was looking for the Tales of Wyrd & Fae, the journal of wyrd lore. I need to find a way to stop my transition to full fairy.”
“Why? Everyone wants to be a fairy. Well, except goblins. Who have sense.”
“I want to be what my husband is. To stay in the same time line as Cade.”
“Ah, so it’s true love, then,” Boadicea said.
“You called me Igraine,” Lilith said. “Why?”
“I’m very old, you know,” Boadicea said. “In my captivity, I’ve seen many things. Centuries ago, the wyrding woman Kaelyn told Max that her ward, Igraine, would set me free. But she wouldn’t say how. And when Max spoke to Igraine after that, he didn’t bring it up.”
“Who was she?”
“That’s not the question, is it?” Boadicea said. “Not who is Igraine. You want to know why. Why did I think you were Igraine? Why is she trying to take possession of your life?”
“Yes, yes! I can’t let that happen, not again. I have to stop her.”
“Pfft, that’s easy. I can tell you how. But what are you going to do for me?”
“Anything.” Thank Sun and Moon. Someone who could help!
“You must go to the island.”
The island. “You know about the island? It’s real?”
“Go to the island, Avalos. There you’ll find Mistcutter, the Sword of Mist and Rain. Bring it here to me, and I’ll tell you how to solve your problem.”
“But where is the island?” Lilith said. “This Avalos.”
“I wish I knew,” said the voice in the mirror. “Max won’t speak of it. What? What is it, Igraine—Lily? Why are you smiling? Where are you going? Wait—come back!”
Lilith ran, propelled by excitement. Without knowing it, Boadicea had given her the answer. She fled Mudcastle, frantic to get away before everyone showed up and wanted explanations she couldn’t give. Not just yet.
She ran through the trees until she found it, where she knew it would be. She’d been so intent on avoiding the portal, from whichever end, that its location was burned into her brain. The smell of lilacs filled the air. She inhaled deeply and let the fragrance calm her as she stood shaking before Morning Glory’s device.
She closed her eyes and said, “I wish I was with Mistcutter on the island of Avalos.”
« Chapter 23 »
Lord Dumnos at Faeview
12th century. Tintagos Castle
The battle was ended, and the sun was going down on Tintagos Plain. Hundreds of men lay dead and dying on the fields outside the castle, and the body of one woman was lost at sea.
“She’s calling for you, my lord. You can’t refuse.”
Braedon helped Ross to his feet. The lad had found him, unconscious, bleeding, and sprawled over the rocks at the foot of the cliffs below Igdrasil, and had somehow hauled him back to the tent, still clinging to Excalibur.
It was all still a hazy jumble. Quinn had wounded him, a sword thrust into his side which should have been a mortal wound. Only Excalibur’s magic accounted for Ross’s survival. Enraged, he’d run Excalibur through Quinn’s heart and the man had… turned to vapor. Perhaps it was the bit of magic Igraine had wyrded into the sword.
Igraine, Igraine. How would he bear it?
He’d found a path behind Igdrasil that wound down the face of the cliff to the waters below. But she was gone. He’d fallen to his knees in anguish, screaming her name. When he looked up, the apple blossoms from her hair had floated to shore at his feet. He’d gathered them and tucked them inside his tunic and had lain down to die, not of the wound but of a broken heart and empty soul.
“Come, my lord,” Braedon said again. “Mathilde is calling for you.”
“Show respect for your monarch, lad. Call her the queen or her majesty.”
“I think not.”
“Braedon—”
“While you were unconscious, my lord, the battle turned. Stephen and Lord Sarumen arrived with a full complement and won the day.”
“Sun and Moon help us,” Ross said. “So it’s to be King Stephen after all. And Mathilde calls for me?”
They were to be executed for treason together, most likely.
“Lord Sarumen suggested a compromise, which Stephen’s agreed to. He will rule as king. But as Eustace died in battle and Stephen has no heir, Mathilde’s son, Henry Plantagenet, will succeed Stephen.”
“An elegant solution, worthy of Lord Sarumen,” Ross said. “I see you’re not in chains, lad. Have you gone over to the dark side?”
They walked through the castle gate, and Braedon uttered a short laugh. “It seems we both have, my lord.”
Gathered in the keep was a display much like that of the day before. Men on foot and on horseback surrounded the nobles they served while the denizens of the castle looked on.
“Lord Tintagos.” Mathilde called down from a wood platform which hadn’t been there this morning. Her son Henry was with her, and Prior Marrek stood self-consciously off to the side. Stephen was there too, and Lord Sarumen, as resplendent as ever.
Sarumen nodded in greeting. When he saw the sword Ross carried, his eyes lit up with desire and he gestured Ross to come up to the platform.
Ross turned to Braedon and pres
sed Excalibur into his hands. “On your life, keep this sword safe, in your possession only, or mine.”
Mathilde herself greeted Ross. “I’m glad you survived the day, Lord Tintagos.” She had lost the royal we. “And now you will kneel.”
Ross glanced at Braedon who’d stayed off the platform, still on the ground. The lad nodded encouragement, but for what? Ross was beyond caring. He was powerless to shape the world, obviously. He went down on one knee and awaited his fate.
Mathilde borrowed Henry’s sword, which only Ross—and Lord Sarumen—knew had once been his own. Ross thanked the high gods for that much. No woman could wield a sword with enough power to make a beheading painless—unless the sword was made of Dumnos steel.
“In Dumnos,” Mathilde said to the gathering, “Brother Sun and Sister Moon rule wind and water, land and fire. And for reasons we know not, the high gods want the land of Dumnos whole, inviolate, and watched over by its own sons and daughters. House Normandum acknowledges this to be true.”
Not what Ross had expected.
“Rise Ross—but first you must take a proper surname.”
It was the Norman way, taking a family name. Ross’s dear father had resisted, had held on to his Saxon heritage and had gone by one name to the end. Much good it did. He was always called Lord Tintagos, the baron, or my lord.
“My lord?” Mathilde said. “A name?”
“Bausiney,” Ross said.
The lady squinted, and bewildered murmurs and mumblings flitted through the crowd.
“Say that again,” young Henry said. Such authority in so brief a command. No doubt about it; here was a future sovereign.
“Bausiney,” Ross repeated with a glower, daring anyone to question him.
“It’s a sign of respect… highnesses,” Braedon called up from the ground.
“Go on, Sir Braedon,” Mathilde said. “Explain.”
“The name Bausiney. It’s a token of respect for the people of Dumnos, the old name for the road to Nine Hazel Lake where the Lady of the Lake holds Excalibur in perpetuity.”
Ross shuddered at the use of the sword’s name, but Braedon had sheathed it in his own plain scabbard and not even Lord Sarumen appeared the wiser.
“Bausiney, then,” Mathilde said. “Arise, Ross Bausiney, first earl of Dumnos.”
Later, when Ross came down from the platform, he shook Braedon’s hand. “You’re a poet,” he said, “and a man who can think on his feet. I knew I was right to raise you up.”
“Then I was correct.” Braedon smiled with pride. “You chose the name in honor of—”
“The article which must be returned before any mischief occurs,” Ross said. “But it will have to be tomorrow. I can’t leave the castle while Lord Sarumen is here or he’ll suspect something.”
“Let me return it to the Lady,” Braedon said. “Please give me that honor.”
“With my blessing,” Ross said. “Go.”
He left Braedon and went inside the castle, up the stone stairs, past his room, and up to the roof. He took the scoping glass from his pocket and ran his fingers over the etched apple blossoms. Pain seared his heart. He couldn’t understand how it was possible that his lungs kept breathing, his mind kept working, or that his heart kept beating—when she was not alive in the world.
Through the glass, he watched young Braedon ride out until the lad disappeared into the Small Wood. In truth Ross had chosen the name Bausiney not to please anyone else but to comfort himself. It called to mind the one site of all the moments of happiness in his life.
Days later, when Ross’s father had been properly buried and the grand people had gone back to London, Ross eluded his well-wishers and escaped the castle to go for a solitary ride. Despite all intentions to clear his mind of memory and pain, he found himself at Nine Hazel Lake.
As he dismounted outside the hunter’s cottage, he saw someone at the lake’s edge, staring out at the water. She was standing on the flat piece of slate Igraine had called the pounding rock, lost in thought, unmoving as he approached.
“Hello,” he said when he was at her back, and she swirled around, startled. She started to move her hands as Igraine had to weave a wyrd, and Ross grabbed her wrists to stop her.
“You!” He saw the ring on her finger, as Igraine had described, a double band, one silver, one gold. “You’re Elyse of Glimmer Cottage. You’re the most powerful wyrding woman who ever lived.”
Igraine may not have said that exactly, but Ross had learned that all manner of magical person liked to be known as the most powerful of their kind.
“What of it?”
“Have mercy on me. I’ve lost the only woman I can ever love. It hurts so much—I could die of the pain.”
“If I could change things, don’t you think I would?”
“But can you make this pain go away?”
Silence. Then…
“I can. But you must do something for me first.”
“What is it?”
“Your queen has made you an earl and given you lands on which to build a manor house. You will build exactly where I prescribe and precisely as I tell you.”
“I will if it’s possible.”
“It is. Athena.” Elyse mounted a horse, which Ross hadn’t even noticed until that moment. “Come with me.”
He followed her on his own horse. It took mere minutes to find what she wanted.
“This is the trooping trail.” She pointed at the ground they rode over. After another half an hour she said, “This is the fairy circle. A sacred place, where the fae must perform the ceremony to crown their next king. Build here, so that this clearing is at an innermost recess of your manor, enclosed by walls and roof, with no exterior windows. All doors and windows of the house must be rectangular, with hard angles. There must be no circular or curved orifices allowing ingress to the structure, and every door and window casement must be lined with cold iron.”
“Cold iron?”
“The cheap kind—iron from beyond Dumnos.”
“Done,” said Lord Dumnos. “Your hatred for the fae must run deep.”
“They killed her,” Elyse said. “I gave her to Kaelyn to keep her safe, and the fae found her anyway.”
“Then I hate them as well. I’ll gladly build over of their circle.” Ross said. “And what else?”
“That is all.”
“And you will take away this pain? You really can do it?”
“I can,” Elyse said. “I will. When the manor is completed.”
“How can I find you when it’s done?”
She smiled at him as if he was a fool. “I’ll know. I’ll find you.”
It took two years to build Faeview, manor of the first earl of Dumnos. Ross didn’t see Elyse in all that time. One night soon after he’d moved from the old cold castle to his comfortable new home, he went up to the roof, driven by loneliness, to look at the stars and perhaps see the northern lights.
He was beginning to wonder if Elyse had only used him to spite the fae.
“When will you come, wyrding woman, and fulfill your promise?”
“All is ready.” Elyse appeared there on the roof as if out of the air, holding a crystal vial containing a sparkling blue liquid. She held it up to the full moon and chanted:
Source of sorrow unending
Source of unbearable pain
Wash clean the wretched memory
But let the vengeance remain
“It is nearly done.” She handed the vial to Ross. “I kept my promise. Drink half. There’s a dose for me too.”
“This?” Ross said. “But it’s so beautiful—the color of her eyes. What is it?”
“Decoction of Lethe,” Elyse said, “with an intensification wyrd to endure throughout the subjects’ natural life. You and I are the subjects.”
“Lethe…” Ross stopped the vial at his lips. “Lethe, as in the River Lethe? You mean I’ll forget her?”
Elyse shrugged her shoulders. “It’s the only way.”
; “Then I…” Ross pressed the vial into Elyse’s hands. “To forget her, purposely… No. It would be like murdering her all over again. I’d rather live with the pain.”
“And I can’t bear the thought of remembering her—for centuries!”
Elyse drank the blue liquid, both doses, tears streaming from under her closed eyelids. She began convulsed and dropped the vial, then leaned against Ross. When the shaking stopped, she she looked up at him and pulled away.
“How… how did I get here?” She stepped back, her eyes fixed on him with no sign of recognition, and circled her hand above her head. “Unseen!”
She was gone, and he heard a horse whinny in the distance. At the fading sound of hooves on the ground, he ran to the roof’s edge. There was no sight of horse or rider.
« Chapter 24 »
Wennie
Thirteen years later. Faeview
Lord Tintagos dipped a cup into the cauldron hanging over the fire in Lord Dumnos’s chamber. He filled two goblets with mulled wine and set one on the bedside table. It would be cool enough when Ross woke.
As he did every evening since the Battle of Tintagos Field, Braedon’s well-loved mentor and brother—for that is what Ross Bausiney had become to him—had predicted he’d likely die in his sleep tonight.
The earl’s heart had proved stronger than he’d expected, or wanted.
Two short raps on the door, and the new girl entered the chamber. Without thinking, Braedon smiled and rose to his feet. It was a strange sensation, this shyness he felt around her. At thirty-two years, he was too old for it, but he had to admit it was wonderful.
“Good day, Lowenwyn,” he said.
“Lord Tintagos, I told you. Call me Wennie.”
So lovely. Her smile brought sunshine into the room. She smelled like spring flowers, and her ginger hair was a joyful riot of curls and color.
“Wennie,” said the man in the bed, the joker. Ross was awake after all. The earl shuffled up to a seated position and fell back against the bed pillows with the effort. “That’s a name for a chambermaid.”
