by Nina Mason
From her father’s stories, she knew the Lord of the Thitherworld was Madoc Morfryn, father of Merlin and twin of Oberon. Unlike Oberon, a mere trickster, Lord Morfryn was malevolence personified.
“Just how did your people end up in the Thitherworld?”
He didn’t answer. Maybe he hadn’t heard her. Just as she opened her mouth to ask again, he looked up from his cooking.
“We retreated here to escape persecution and to protect Danu’s lost children.” Breaking her gaze, he checked the rabbits for doneness and, once again, raw lust simmered in her pelvis. “One day, when humankind awakens to the truth, we hope to return to the Hitherworld to restore the species sacrificed to that trinity of greedy gods worshipped by so many in the world of man.”
Gwyn didn’t understand. “What trinity of gods do you mean?”
His face took on an expression of forlorn. “The ones humankind calls Progress, Profit, and Convenience.”
* * * *
Leith waited on tenterhooks for Sir Axel to return with word from Queen Morgan. He’d already waited more than an hour and was growing restless. He sucked in a breath, advising himself to have patience. An hour was but a moment in Thitherworld time. He might well wait days or even weeks to learn his fate.
A heaviness settled over his heart as his thoughts turned to Gwyndolen. Where was she now? What was she doing? Was she still with that handsome druid or sailing toward Avalon by now? Neither prospect made him easy. The Druids of Brocaliande practiced Sex Magick, believing the energy of arousal and orgasm could be harnessed for mystical means. It was a coupling devoid of passion.
Even so, the prospect of Bran or anyone else having relations with his darling mouse made his heart sick and his stomach hurt.
He bit his lip, raked his hair, and wrung his hands. Waiting was sheer agony given the stakes. Not that he had much choice in the matter.
A splash drew his attention toward the waterfall through which Sir Axel had disappeared. In the pool, dripping wet and wading toward him, was the big red-haired knight wearing a maddeningly unreadable expression.
Leith, thrumming with impatience, hurried toward him. “Well?”
Sir Axel mopped his face with a meaty hand. “First of all, I’m no charades player. It was anything but easy to do your bidding without speaking your name.”
Leith’s impatience rose from a simmer to a boil as the big knight shook his wet mop of ginger hair like a shaggy retriever.
“And…?”
Combing back his wet locks, Sir Axel gave Leith a hard look. “She’ll let you cross, though I’d strongly advise you to reconsider.”
“Why? What did she say?”
The guardian held up his hand and looked away. “That’s all I’m at liberty to disclose without breaching my fealty.”
* * * *
Leith’s gut was in knots as he approached the iron gates separating Castle Le Fay from the rest of Avalon. They were as intricate as lace and embellished in places with golden leaves and rosettes. They also were unexpected. Back when he’d been here, there were no gates around the fortress.
Posted at the gates were two guards. Oddly, they were uniformed in the manner of English soldiers back in his day. Red frock coats ornamented with buttons and braid over white waistcoats and knee breeches. Both sentries wore swords at the hip and carried muskets affixed with bayonets. The sight of them activated a new torrent of adrenaline.
He searched their expressionless faces. The sallowness of their complexions suggested they weren’t human, but neither were they drones. Faeries, even the Unseelie ones, possessed a luminosity these beings lacked.
With every nerve-ending buzzing, Leith approached one of them. A rank odor assaulted his nostrils. Holy Christ. The guard reeked of rotting flesh.
Reviled, he swallowed. They had to be vampires of the sort that rose from the grave. He’d never met one before, though he’d heard plenty of stories. Their kind kidnapped faeries to keep or sell as sex slaves. Last he’d heard, they were the sworn enemies of Avalon. But, then again, so were most of the other occupants of the Thitherworld.
Back in the tenth century, there had been a war between the Thitherworld kingdoms. A cruel and bloody war, from what he’d heard. Morgan had forged no alliances since, so it seemed strange that she should suddenly be hiring vampires to guard her castle.
A sudden onslaught of dread threatened to strangle him. Swallowing hard, he addressed the guard. “I’m Leith MacQuill. Sir Leith MacQuill, one of the queen’s knights. She is expecting me, I believe.”
The guard looked at his partner, who produced a jangling ring of keys. Turning on his heel, he unlocked the gate and pushed it open just far enough for Leith to pass through.
Holding his breath to block the stench, Leith stepped past the guard and through the gap. Only when the gates clanged shut behind him did he lift his gaze to the castle’s familiar façade. Built in the Middle Ages, the structure boasted a steep slate roof, soaring spired towers, and vine-covered stone walls.
The castle stood on a tidal island in the middle of a deep loch. For wingless creatures, the only way in or out was to cross a rickety wood-and-rope bridge. Leith wasn’t fond of heights in the best of circumstances, and these were far from ideal. The loch below might look to be a soft enough water landing, but it was inhabited by a herd of ravenous water horses.
Leith swallowed hard and sucked in a breath. Rotting wooden planks held aloft by rusty wire stretched out before him. He grabbed the rope railing, badly frayed in places, to steady himself. The breeze, though mild, rocked the bridge from side to side. Below, icy water and flesh-eating equines threatened.
He shot an angst-filled backward glance at the gates. The guards were watching. Another pair waited on the other side. There was no going back. Not that he would. Gwyndolen needed him. If he hadn’t been so stupid and selfish, she’d be safe and sound back in Barstow right now.
Heart hammering against his ribs, he set out across the bridge. The structure swayed like a hammock. Planks creaked under each step. Down below, the water horses circled. Sweat moistened his palms and armpits. Please, let him make it across. Not that the fate awaiting him at Castle Le Fay promised to be any better. In fact, it was probably worse. Much worse. At least the water horses would kill him quickly.
As he took the next step, the board snapped in two. He lost his footing as one leg plunged downward. A surge of adrenaline stopped his heart. He was down on one knee with his leg through the break, gripping the ropes for dear life. Sweat poured down his brow, stinging his eyes. He took a moment to collect himself before dislodging his leg from the gap. Christ, that was close.
Too bloody close for comfort.
Back on his feet, he took a breath and carried on, his gut as knotted as the ropes he clung to for safety.
By the skin of his teeth, he made it the rest of the way across. The guards, making a sandwich of him, ushered him through the castle’s main entrance and down a wide corridor lined with tapestries and suits of armor. The cloying scent of incense hung in the air.
After walking the equivalent of three city blocks, the guards stopped outside a stately pair of red-lacquer doors.
“Wait here while I announce you to Her Royal Highness,” one of them said.
The guard who’d spoken pushed through one of the spring-mounted red doors. The other remained at his side.
Leith, eager for a distraction, took in his surroundings. The queen’s collection of antiquities had multiplied in the years he’d been away. The crystal and gem-studded mortar walls were barely visible through the display of ancient artifacts, archaic weaponry, bejeweled crosses, and stiff but colorful depictions of angels, martyrs, and saints. For some inexplicable reason, Queen Morgan had a morbid fascination with the iconography of Christianity.
“Her Majesty will see you now.”
Leith’s chest tightened as the guard opened the door. The cloud of incense that escaped nearly choked him, but at least the scent masked the stench of the guard
s as they escorted him inside.
At the far end of a long red runner, the queen sat upon her lavish golden throne. Though he couldn’t see her eyes across the smoke and distance, he could feel them burning into his soul.
As he drew nearer, dread tightened its grip on his innards. He couldn’t bring himself to look at her face. She was too beautiful. If he looked, he’d be awestruck.
She wore a cloak embroidered with silver and gold threads partially concealing an ankle-length gown similarly embellished around the sleeves and hem. On her feet were brocade slippers studded with gems. As ever, she held a golden scepter shaped like an erect phallus.
Movement off to the right drew his gaze away from her. A portly gentleman was seated at a desk between two wire-screened bookcases. He wore a long red coat similar in style but far more elegant than those donned by the guards. Gold embroidery trimmed every edge. He wasn’t a knight; Leith knew that much. Only fit, well-favored noblemen were knighted in Avalon. The fat man, hunched over a stack of papers, was writing with what sounded like a quill. As the scribe or whatever he was turned to look his way, Leith’s heart froze in his chest.
It couldn’t be.
And yet, it was.
Cadaverous complexion aside, he would know that bloated face and those beady eyes anywhere.
Fuck.
The fat man was none other than the Butcher of Culloden, back from the dead and looking worse for the experience.
“Well, well, well. So, you’ve come crawling back to me at last.”
The queen’s dulcet but taunting words snapped Leith’s attention back to the throne. A chill went through him as his gaze met hers. Her eyes, hypnotic emeralds framed with sweeping dark lashes, smoldered with suspicion.
Otherwise, she looked exactly as he remembered. Spoiled, selfish, and almost too beautiful to gaze upon. Her face was a perfect alabaster oval. Her eyes were large, her nose small, and her lips full and seductive. Her hair fell like skeins of golden wool to her waist around which wrapped, over diaphanous watercolor layers, an old-style kilt of red-and-green tartan. From her belt hung a large white rabbit pouch. On her forehead, from an encircling silver chain, dangled the dreaded jewel of enchantment—a smoky Cairngorm quartz crystal that could turn any who gazed upon it too long into her willing slave.
“As you see, my queen.” He bowed at the waist to avert his eyes from her and the gem as well as to demonstrate subservience. “Thank you for granting me the privilege of an audience.”
The queen regarded him for a long moment as she idly twirled a long strand of her hair. “Sir Axel informs me you wish to offer yourself as the tithe to the Dark Lord. Have I been correctly informed?”
Heart pumping hard and fast, Leith kept his gaze on the floor. “You have, Your Majesty.”
“Is it also true you seek a favor in exchange for your offer?”
He sucked on his cheeks before answering. “It is, my queen.”
Morgan’s sharp laugh gave him a jolt. He raised his gaze to hers. The green fire he met singed his courage.
“I do not grant favors to traitors, my knight,” she said. “I should have thought you’d learned that long ago.”
Fuck, what now? Backpedal, suck up, or both? “My queen, I promise you I meant no—”
“Silence! Do you think me a fool? I know it all. Know about your treachery, know that you brought me the heart of a sow, know that Belphoebe yet lives, know that she bore you a son. When I find him—and mark my words, I will—he will be roasted on a spit in the courtyard, after which my loyal subjects will sup on his flesh. Just as I will yours, my knight, as soon as you’ve disclosed his whereabouts.”
A cruel smile bowed her lips as her gaze shifted between him and the guards who still flanked him. “Did you think I didn’t mean every word of my curse? Or that I would condescend to end your suffering by making you the tithe? How little you know me, my knight. To your great peril.”
Looking pained, she turned away and waved her free hand at him in a dismissive gesture. “Collar him and clap him in irons, take him to the dungeon and do your best to extract the information. I cannot bear the sight of his deceitful face another instant.”
Shit. His only way out was to shift—but into what? Before he came up with a suitable creature, the guards grabbed him, and locked his wrists behind him in manacles made of iron, the bane of all faeries. As long as iron touched his flesh, he wouldn’t be able to shift.
As the guards dragged Leith toward the door, the queen said to the duke, “Do what you must, but do not let him die. Dead men tell no tales, after all.”
“Very good, your majesty,” the undead Hanover prince returned. “You can count on me.”
The order chilled Leith to the marrow. In life, the Duke of Cumberland had been the harshest of brutes. There seemed little chance he’d softened in the ensuing centuries. From what he’d observed, sadists tended to get crueler with time, not more benevolent.
The queen’s harsh laughter echoed through the chamber as the guards dragged him toward the exit. They proceeded to haul him, feet scraping the stones, through the palace’s labyrinth of passages. They passed some of Morgan’s attendants, a handful of naked drones with bobbing erections, and several couples engaged in various erotic acts—commonplace spectacles at Castle Le Fay.
That he saw no other knights came as no surprise. The breeders were kept in their quarters, a former guardhouse, until summoned to the royal bedchamber. They could go as far as the borders of their own yard, but no farther without receiving a shock from the torques they were forced to wear. At night, their hands were bound behind their backs with ropes to keep them from squandering what belonged to the queen.
Still, better a knight than a page. Pages were kept in a stable and forced to eat from a trough. Their food was laced with a potion that made them both sterile and perpetually aroused for the convenience of the ladies of the court.
The guards halted before a planked door with iron strap-hinges. The one on Leith’s right removed a ring of keys from his belt. The keys jangled, the lock clicked, and the hinges groaned as the door opened. On the other side was a downward staircase chiseled from the bedrock.
Gripping his arms hard enough to hurt, the redcoats dragged their prisoner roughly down the steps. At the bottom stretched a long, narrow corridor lined with what appeared to be impenetrable iron doors. As they towed Leith along, muffled sobs, wails, and moans filled his ears.
They stopped outside one of the doors. The guard on his left held him while the other again took the keys from his belt. Shaking one free, he inserted the end in the lock and jiggled. The door swung open with a blood-chilling screech.
The guard still with Leith grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and flung him across the threshold with impossible strength. He landed hard on his hands and knees on a thin bed of soiled straw.
“Don’t get too comfortable,” the one with the keys offered with a laugh. “We’ll be back for you in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.”
The door slammed with a thunderous clang, leaving Leith in darkness. He waited for his vision to adjust to the dimness before rising to his knees. The cell was cramped. No more than seven square feet. Shackles and chains hung from the rusty iron plates lining the walls. Letting out a groan, he rolled onto his side in the straw, shut his eyes, and tried not to imagine the tortures to which Butcher Cumberland might subject him.
He must have dozed off because the next thing he knew, pain exploded across his ribcage. Someone had kicked him hard enough to crack bone. Clenching against the pain, he opened his eyes and looked up. There, staring down at him, were the same two guards who’d brought him in.
“Get up, arsehole,” one of them jeered. “It’s time.”
Hindered by the pain in his ribs, Leith clambered to his feet. The instant he was standing, the guards grabbed him under the arms and hauled him out of the cell. They dragged him back down the long hall of cells and into a dimly-lit room.
A quick glance in the poor lig
ht revealed smooth stone walls leeched through with crusty veins of lime. The guards set him on his feet in the middle of the floor and ordered him to strip. He knew better than to argue.
As he pulled off his clothes, he looked about, shuddering as he took in his surroundings. Some of the instruments he recognized: the rack, the bed of nails, the breaking wheel, and the iron maiden. A heraldic banner depicting a shield under a crown supported by two rampant griffins graced the far wall. Emblazoned on the shield was the letter A, for Avalon. Under it, on a ribbon, was the island’s motto.
Esto perpetua.
May it last forever.
Every cell in his body pulsed with dread as he continued to strip. When he was done, the guards stood beside him, but, to his growing vexation, did and said nothing.
Finally, after what seemed an eternity, an enormous owl flew through the window. The white feathers and heart-shaped face told him the bird was a barn owl—the largest he’d ever seen by far.
After circling the room a few times, the bird landed on a perch atop a stone dais. Drawing in its great speckled wings, the owl tilted its head and regarded Leith with its huge yellow eyes.
Just as he started to say something, the owl hopped down from his perch onto the dais and began to shimmer. Gradually, the shimmer became semi-transparent, as if made of vapor rather than flesh, blood, and feathers. Little by little, the Duke of Cumberland took shape before him.
Leith’s stomach did a somersault as his gaze traveled over the vampire’s bloated body. His skin was sallow and blotchy, his breasts as big as a woman’s, and his junk all but hidden under the sag of his sizeable belly.
“On your knees,” Cumberland barked.
“Why?”
He had a good idea why Butcher Cumberland wanted him to kneel down.
“You’re in no position to ask questions.”
Leith stuck out his chin in defiance. “Perhaps not, but I’d sooner die than suck your cock, you fat fuck.”
The guards grabbed him by the arms. Cumberland stepped forward. Leith drew up his knees and shot out his legs. His feet struck the duke square in the chest. Cumberland staggered backward, arms spinning like whirligigs. As he dropped on his arse with a grunt, the guard with the keys turned and brought his knee up hard between Leith’s legs.
