Dockalfar

by Nunn, PL

  Something in his mind ripped and tore free. He could see her now, inside him, a bright beautiful bird that danced about his sluggish self. He reached out mental hands and touched her. He could feel her. Her warmth, her presence. She led him on, coupling with him and it was more than the physical sex could ever have been. She led him outside of the sweating bodies, drew him up into the sky and let him fly. He cried in awe. He cried at the world as he had never seen it before. The stars were white lights in the darkness, the moon a bulbous globe that beckoned. He could fly to the moon. She held him from trying with a caress. She demanded that he pour the newfound joy into her, pulled it from him. Desperately he grabbed to stop the theft, but she was too strong, too clever for him. So he searched for more.

  He opened a cleft and it poured in faster than she could take it from him. He was content to share with her. He was content to lie in her embrace exposed and besotted by what she had awakened. He trusted her. She told him he could trust her. No barriers between them. He had no notion how to raise the unnatural defense and she gently crumbled natural ones, insisting that it was for his own good, that he needed her guidance. He could do naught but believe in her. Let her walk the paths of his most secret inner self. She found his innermost fears and made light of them, banished them with a flick of her will. Traveled his memories, his cherished pictures of home and childhood and friendships gone by, and she made them inconsequential. She discovered his passions and his loves and they were nothing next to the glory that was Leanan.

  She made him forget and he let her.

  Then there was another. He started at the unfamiliar intrusion, reflexively snapping to attention and trying to force it out. But it was in him, and too powerful to oust. It made Leanan look tiny and pale. It was not gentle nor did it make excuses for its trespass. It ripped to shreds the walls Leanan had gently lowered and imprinted its will on his own. He cried out, struggling, shocked into hesitation and stupor. That was all it took. There was no fighting it. Only panic and fear, and the suffocation of free will. There was no will but the will of that power. He cried in desperation one last time, appealing to Leanan. But she watched impassively. A speck of light in the blackness that was descending like a great hand crushing the breath from him. Then nothing. Nothing.

  ~~~

  Azeral crouched in the darkness, hair falling over his shoulders. Two naked bodies lay before him. The pale skin of his daughter against the darker of the human. She smiled up at him, arms wrapped about her lover whose tear-streaked face was pressed to her breast.

  “You did well,” he complimented her, placing a hand on her hip.

  “It was not so distasteful a task,” she purred. The look of fulfillment was in her eyes. He looked at the boy. Not displeasing, for a lesser creature. Humans had always been a fascination of Sidhe.

  He ran a hand down skin that was not as soft as sidhe skin, but smooth and taut and covering lean muscles. And his. Leanan had opened the channel to earthly magic and had laid defenses bare and Azeral had swooped down for the kill, binding mind and will to him.

  It could not have been done once the boy realized the power and learned even some small degree of skill with it. The binding had to be done at the first discovery of magic, at the climax of mental release when he was defenseless against intrusion. Sex was the easiest path to that defenselessness for men. The moment when they felt most powerful and were most vulnerable. The moment when the woman held mercy in her hands and so skillfully and gratifyingly pretended that she was the receiver, the weaker of sexes.

  The boy belonged to him now, and Azeral had experienced a pinnacle of his own upon that realization, upon the feel of earthly magic that had been forever out of his reach filling a vessel that he held control over. The human could draw the unused magic of earth. Azeral could draw the power of the human.

  He would have to be careful. His binding was complete, and there were no natural defenses that he had left whole. It would be too easy to burn the vessel out.

  It was too valuable to risk that. Careful tutoring, careful training was what was required.

  He sat down beside them, calming his breathing. Leanan continued to look at him, stroking her human’s back. He leaned over the boy to kiss her lips, then whispered against them.

  “I give him to your care, daughter. Be careful with him. He’s fragile and precious.”

  “Trust me,” she smiled and he sat back thinking she was too much like him and not enough like her mother, who could very well be trusted. But of course, her mother hated him and would be surely content if he were dead. He thought that fine lady would be aghast at the new power he had claimed for his own. It was a pleasing thought.

  He kissed the boy’s slack lips, tasting his daughter upon them and she laughed softly, pressing against his shoulder, twining her fingers in his as they explored his new possession more thoroughly.

  ~~~

  The wind had picked up and gained an ally in the form of a light rain. It pattered softly on the leaves above, occasionally hitting Victoria as she walked the forest path. It was almost sunrise. Another sunrise in this land. She was alone. She was not frightened by the fact. She was tired, drained. Both emotionally and physically. Magically, she did not know how she was. Or what.

  She thought she might have been a monster. An anomaly, like Jackal and Hyde. A crazed, wild thing overcome by her own power. She felt corrupted. Dirty. She had used up all the tears in her long ago, when she had first fled. Tears of shame and horror at what she had become.

  What had she become? That she could create such beauty and yet plummet to such depths of moral taboo.

  That she could want something not even of her own race. No! Not her. She, Victoria, had not desired him. It had been the power driving her. Like some scheming split personality that took over her own. She despised him for driving her to it. She hoped him dead. But she knew he was not. She knew in her heart with a clenching certainty of dread that he would not give up so easily.

  A racking sob that she had no tears to give up to escaped her. Oh, Alex. Where are you. I need you!

  She needed to explain. To have him tell her he understood that she had not been at fault. To have him tell her she was not a freak. Just to hold her. She needed that more than anything. She needed to know he was all right. With all this newfound power of hers, it seemed reasonable that she might find him. That she might call out to him as she had the sprites and the fairy. But she was terrified to use it. If she called it forth it would consume her again and she would cease to be Victoria and become the wild creature whose primal urges controlled her. She could not risk that again. She had to keep the thing coiling inside her tightly leashed.

  So she walked through the forest, desolate. Hating herself, but unafraid. For the first time in her life she had no fear of physical harm. Mentally she was terrified.

  God, yes! But nothing that might attack her from the forest raised doubt. She came to the edge of the forest and paused in the lush undergrowth, staring at the rolling plain land. They went on forever. There was no telling where the sidhe might be.

  To walk them, without cover seemed foolish. If any sidhe lived under the hills, they would not open their dwellings to her, a human woman. And there were no berries or fruits to find on the plains. She sat down, under a tree and pulled her knees up to her chest. There was such pain there. Too much agonizing. Too little sleep.

  ~~~

  The fairies, those not huddling in the far corners of the Alkeri’na in terror, were greatly distraught. They chattered in agitation that was in no wise normal fairy behavior. No few of them wilted from unaccustomed worry. Most of them had done nothing other than dance and cavort about the endless reaches of the great wood for the duration of their immortal lives. Very few had ever seen death, other than what nature and its predators inflicted upon the unwary denizens of the forest.

  Most certainly none had ever touched death. Very few had seen one of their own kind struck down with violence. They had done both of those impo
ssible things in the period of one night. Most could not cope.

  Those that could whispered amongst themselves in hysterical undertones. Death was still in their midst and they had no wish to keep it there.

  The woman had gone, she had left Death. They wanted no part of it. None of them had ever heard tell of assassins or Ciagenii, but they instinctively knew that what lay trapped with the claws of tree roots wrapped about its limbs was deadly and boded nothing but ill for innocent fairy folk. They wanted it gone. They wanted…and this was a new emotion for fairy kind…revenge for their losses. They did not know how to go about either course. They feared going near. To release or to kill. They muttered and argued, wringing slender hands. And finally the eldest, the two that had seen the most of the world and of life, were elected to creep out into the glade and deal with the dark intruder.

  They clutched limbs, both of them, in trembling hands. They circled the still form and darted nervous glances into the foliage that concealed their brethren. They almost bolted back into the wood, at a movement of Death’s head as he observed them. They stood trembling under the quiet gaze, mesmerized by glittering sidhe eyes.

  Death was a sidhe. They knew sidhe.

  Knew the forest sidhe who dwelt in secrecy and hunted at night. Sidhe were not all bad. But there were some, who lived far away who were. They had heard rumors of those. But this one was more like the forest sidhe, earth colored and not overly tall.

  One of the fairies lifted his limb like a club. The eyes kept staring, unflinching and the elder lost his nerve. The club dropped and he turned desperately to his accomplice who looked no more certain.

  They both wanted so much to be gone from this place. They wanted to dance in far away groves.

  The one bent suddenly and tore at the roots binding one arm. The other stared for a moment, then crouched to help loosen the wood. They could not quite unbend it, but they made the dirt under it give enough for the sidhe to wriggle his arm free. They jumped back as he did that, sprinting for the wood, trusting Death to free himself. The mass of them fled, scattering through the wood. Not one cared to wait and see what Death would do. It would be quite a long while before they invited another outsider to share in their dance.

  ~~~

  She started awake with the thrill of a forest fowl. She was awkward and cramped between the roots of the twisted tree she rested under. It was a bad position for sleep. She looked out past the forest line. The sun drifted toward the horizon of hills. It turned the sky a muddy orange. After so long within the wood, it was refreshing to watch evening turn to night. What sunsets she had seen here in Elkhavah were spectacular, untainted by pollution and enhanced by the very magic of the land. And the land did have magic.

  She could sense it underlying the earth, the thin veneer of bark on the tree she rested on, in the spring at which she had slacked her thirst. This world was vibrant with it.

  Comfortable. It was an ancient magic, that was vast and well controlled. How the mindless earth could possess so much greater a power than what resided within her and remain calm and serene amazed her. She was afraid to even look for the faintly glowing aura that surrounded flowers and vegetation. Afraid that even such small dalliance would create the foundation from which she would loose herself.

  The undergrowth to her left stirred. She drew a breath, dreading intrusion.

  Branches snapped and something ungainly forced its way forward. Great amber eyes, framed by leaves and bramble, peered out at her. It paused, then thrust the whole of its sturdy, gray-furred body towards her.

  The gulun kit bawled out its annoyance at having to track her down. It twitched its long ears and walked right up the length of her to plant its paws of her chest. Victoria laughed in delighted surprise. Flabbergasted that the cub had found her after her roundabout trek. She buried fingers in the deep plush of its fur and hugged it to her. Phoebe’s complaints turned to rather deafening purrs. There was no judgment in the gulun. No abhorrence or fear in what Victoria was now capable of. Merely glad acceptance of her company.

  “What are we going to do, baby?” she breathed into soft fur. Phoebe, of course, had no answer. She only stretched her claws and demanded her belly scratched.

  Victoria did so for a while, lulled by cat purrs and warmth. Slowly, she became aware of another presence. As the realization grew, the fine hairs on her arms prickled. It was a quiet sense of presence, calm and patient. Almost, it willed her to take note of it. Carefully, she searched the darkening forest. If it was Dusk, she would never see him if he wished otherwise. But her very awareness of the presence led her to the belief that it was not the assassin.

  Then she directed her gaze upwards and saw her observer. Motionless, but not taking overmuch care to conceal herself, Aloe crouched on a sturdy limb. Her eyes were shadowed and the light of her soul tightly shuttered. Victoria could sense nothing of her. She blinked up at the sidhe, for a moment doubting her own vision.

  “Aloe?”

  The sidhe did not move. There was a wariness to her. A tension. Victoria drew a shaky breath, feeling herself the cause of the vigilance. She rubbed her cheek against Phoebe.

  “You brought Phoebe back to me. Honestly, I’d almost forgotten her.”

  The sidhe stared silently and Victoria got the impression she was being observed inwardly as well as outward.

  Finally Aloe shifted and her critical gaze wondered from Victoria to the hills beyond the fringe of forest. “What did you do?”

  “What?” Victoria was startled by the quiet seriousness of the voice.

  “What have you been doing these last few days?”

  “H-How do you mean?” she stuttered.

  The sidhe shrugged gracefully.

  “Altered weather patterns. Enough noise to call the dead from Annwn in the forest. The fairy folk fled to the far reaches… you’ve been busy.”

  “Oh,” Victoria mouthed. “That. I-I’m sorry. Did I do all that? I wasn’t quite myself for a while, but I’m better now. I think. How did you know about it all?”

  “How could I not? Your magic has no control. It blares like thunder clap.”

  “I couldn’t help it. I didn’t even know I was doing it… not all of it. I wasn’t sure about the storm. It seemed a little coincidental. It was so easy, it just swept me away. You’ve got to help me! You said you would.”

  The sidhe held up a hand to quell her rising hysteria. “Calm. I said I knew those who could. You’ve got it under control now. Hardly a peep out of you. You’ll do all right. I just was not certain for a bit how to take you. Your magic is strange. I’ve never met a sorceress with so much power and so little control. I don’t know if you are entirely safe.”

  “Sorceress? Is that what I am?”

  Aloe shrugged. “Maybe. Do you have a human term you prefer?”

  Victoria shook her head. “How do I do these things? Where did I get this power?”

  “Human magic. I suppose it comes from human realms. I’m not an expert on your kind, Victoria. Ashara is. Talk with her.”

  “Who is Ashara?”

  “Lady of the Liosalfar. Very wise. Very powerful. She’s been to your mortal land many times. The Liosalfar live past the Hollow Hills. It was where I was taking you before you disappeared.”

  “Disappeared? It was Dusk. He took me away against my will.”

  “The Ciagenii? The Father will not be pleased to know ‘That’ was under his hill. What did you do with him?”

  Victoria shook her head, not wanting to get into that particular subject. “I evaded him. He’s probably still out there looking for me.”

  “Evaded? You are talented. Well, if he is looking, we had better not dally here.”

  “It’s almost night,” Victoria reminded the sidhe. “Should we travel in the dark? Truth to tell, I’m very tired.”

  “I’d rather risk the hills in darkness than the forest with a Ciagenii on the prowl. And this one does seem to be persistent. I’d also not wish to inflict ourselves on more of the h
ill sidhe if he insists on invading their domain in search of you. Unspeakably rude, you know. But what laws ever extended to Ciagenii anyway?”

  “All right.” Victoria put Phoebe down and climbed stiffly to her feet. She was uncomfortable on the subject of Dusk, but vaguely curious to find out something more of the elusive assassin.

  “Is it magic he uses, to totally shield himself? I could never see the inner light that everything else here has.”

  Aloe leaped down from her perch and cast Victoria a skeptical glance. “He has no magic. No Ciagenii does. You see no soul-light because he has no soul. He’s a running dog. A creature that belongs to another. His soul was taken from him at birth and sold whatever lord bid the most to have a Ciagenii all of his own.”

  “His mother sold him?” Victoria gaped.

  “It’s the way. Ciagenii are… rare. Sought after. Your personal pest is probably one of five or six in the whole of Elkhavah. They are born with an inner knowledge, a reflexive sense, if you will, to know the one mortal weakness of every living creature. There is nothing alive that a Ciagenii cannot kill. What you have after you, my human companion is very, very deadly.”

  “So they sell them. They take their souls?”

  “Would you have a slave that could kill you in the blink of an eye and not have the ultimate control over him? Believe me, betrayal to the one who holds your soul is unthinkable.”

  ~~~

  There was dancing. It was slow and surreal. Alex spun in ever widening circles with his arms around Leanan’s slender waist, her hands about his neck.

  Her skirts whipped about his legs, her tiny bare feet soundless on the marble floors.

  Other couples danced about them, graceful and almost studied in their movements.

  The fairy musicians followed the ever wandering court as it danced. Their eyes were mournful and jealous. The court had no care. The drink and the night and the smell of incense chased conscious thought far away. There was only the eyes of the one you danced with, and the flickering of torch light on endless columns and the fog that tangled about their ankles. They danced in silence, no conversation or laughter. Nothing but the pure strains of music and the soft swish of material or the silky rasp of flesh against flesh.