A Strange and Ancient Name

by Josepha Sherman

  And was this what Serein had meant by his strange curse? That every time Hauberin slept, he would start to—

  Phaugh! I will not carry his words around like some idiotic little spell-slave!

  No? Then what was he doing wandering the palace corridors like some sleepless wraith? Hauberin gave a dry little laugh, stopping to lean against a wall, welcoming its support, enjoying its smooth coolness, his head thrown back.

  If anyone should ask, I can always blame my father’s blood.

  Prince Laherin had truly been a born traveler, wandering even into other Realms whenever time and royal duties permitted. Hauberin saw himself in his mind’s eye, a small, dark child staring wide-eyed up at the tall, golden-haired being who always seemed far too splendid to be merely Father, shyly asking the man to travel with him. Laherin had laughed, ruffling his son’s hair, promising lightly that yes, he would take the child-Hauberin with him some day.

  Some day. After the death of Hauberin’s mother, that promise had been forgotten. Prince Laherin had thrown himself into a frenzy of grief from which, in time, he had emerged apparently unchanged. Only Hauberin knew that some small corner of Laherin’s soul had died as well. There had been wilder and ever more perilous journeyings over the years, stolen in secret stretches of other-time, with none suspecting but his desperate son, helpless to stop him.

  And at last Laherin had found what, perhaps, he had been seeking all along: his death.

  Jaws clenched, Hauberin blinked fiercely, telling himself it was merely weariness lowering his defenses. After all, he and his father had never been truly close. And yet, and yet . . .

  Damn!

  The prince wiped angrily at his eyes and strode determinedly forward. Even after these six years, he hadn’t forgotten the anguish of suddenly waking knowing with a dreadful psychic certainty that his father was dead, slain by mischance or some yet-unknown hand—

  No. He wouldn’t dwell on unhappiness. If the past insisted on being recalled, he would think only of the bright days, of his father as happy explorer. As romantic, too, though none would have guessed it from that cool royal facade.

  Hauberin smiled. The man had definitely been a romantic. Who else would have fallen so deeply in love with a human woman, slight, dark little Melusine? Who else but a romantic would have ignored all the warnings and shocked murmurings from his court to make her his wife and royal consort?

  And what of Melusine? Hauberin could understand a human woman falling in love with a tall, golden Faerie prince. But what courage she must have had, even with love’s support, to come here to an unknown land and people, forever leaving behind all she knew.

  But she had succeeded in making herself a new life here.

  Hauberin’s smile softened tenderly. Ah, Mother. I do miss you, too.

  Of course he hadn’t realized her courage back then when he’d been a boy. She had been merely Mother, warm and loving, but with a wry wit to her that hadn’t allowed her son self-pity or shame. But his memories of her were a child’s memories; she had died so unexpectedly young, when he had been barely eight. Had things been different . . .

  Ah, but who could avoid Destiny? At least, Hauberin told himself, she had had the chance to love and know herself loved in return.

  And so I come to be small, like her, and dark. And half-human.

  Less than half-human.

  Hauberin shivered, and caught his cloak more tightly about himself. Serein’s odd, odd curse . . . What rumors had he heard? What secret whispers that the witchly consort’s father had been other than human?

  The prince shivered again, all at once feeling very young and very, very alone, aching for someone in whom he could confide, someone who wouldn’t use whatever he might confess as fuel against him.

  Alliar. If ever there was a friend who could be trusted . . .

  But Alliar had vanished for a time, in the manner of that restless wind spirit. Hauberin didn’t begrudge his friend the need for privacy, and of course the being would be back eventually. But until then he must be alone, and live with loneliness and—

  “Oh, enough!”

  The prince turned sharply in the direction of that terrace with the mountainous view. All this maundering self-pity was surely the result of too little sleep. The cold air should clear his mind.

  Hauberin stopped short, feeling a twinge of annoyance because someone was already out there on the terrace.

  Eh, but that someone was slim as a statue, sleekly golden against the darkness: Alliar!

  The being was perched casually on the very corner of the balustrade, staring dreamily out into the night, sharp, beautiful, sexless profile softened by a faint smile. One leg was curled bonelessly under, the other bent at the knee, arms wrapped around it, chin resting on it; Alliar apparently quite comfortable and at ease in that precarious pose.

  Hauberin hesitated, afraid to startle his friend while the being was so delicately poised on the edge of a sizeable drop. But a moon-moth large as his hand brushed his arm, wings flickering softly silver as it fluttered off, and he started involuntarily, not quite stifling a yelp. The faint sound was enough to alert keen-eared Alliar, who uncoiled back onto the terrace and around to face him in one lithe, wild-eyed leap.

  “Hauberin!” The being laughed softly in relief. “For a moment I thought you were a Night Gaunt.”

  “Oh, thank you!”

  Alliar grinned. “I didn’t mean it the way it sounded. But . . .” Wide golden eyes studied the prince, and the grin faded. “What’s wrong? No, don’t try to deny it. I’ve only been away for a short time, but there’s been such a change in you . . . And your eyes are so very weary.”

  “I . . . simply haven’t been able to sleep.”

  “Phaugh! I can see that. But I think that’s a symptom, as the healers would say, not the disease.” The being slipped silently to Hauberin’s side. “I’m not Ereledan, you know, or Charailis, or—”

  “Oh, Li. You know I trust you.”

  “Well?”

  Hauberin shook his head. “You were never meant to bear the weight of—of flesh-and-blood emotions.”

  “Don’t patronize me. Do you think wind-children have no emotions?”

  “Not normal wind—ae, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that.”

  He could have struck himself at the shadow that passed over his friend’s face. “It’s true,” the being said levelly. “It wasn’t till I . . . became flesh-and-blood myself that I could fully understand certain things. Fear. And hate.”

  “Li, I—”

  “And love, and friendship. Those two you taught me. Come now, what troubles you?”

  Hauberin stared into the earnest golden gaze, then glanced quickly away. “Serein,” he admitted.

  “Serein! But it’s been nearly . . . Surely you don’t still regret his death?”

  “Yes. No. Ach, wait. Li, the man was part of my life. Even if I did hate him for most of it. I can’t that easily forget him, or that he’s dead, or that mine was the hand that . . .” But Hauberin couldn’t finish that. “No, Li. I’m not a hypocrite. If I hadn’t . . . if he hadn’t died, he would have killed me.”

  “Then why let a dead traitor—oh, don’t look at me like that, that’s exactly what he was. Why let a traitor haunt your thoughts?” The glowing eyes narrowed warily. “Unless he really is haunting you . . . ?”

  Serein’s mockery, his certainty: “You’re not rid of me.”

  Hauberin forced a laugh. “Credit me with enough skill to banish a ghost.” He took a deep breath. “Serein cursed me.”

  “What! And you just stand here? By what Powers did he—ae, what Names did he—”

  “None. I had more sense than to let him finish.”

  Alliar blinked. “Why, then, whatever curse he began can have no hold on you!”

  “So the rules of such things would have it.”

  “But?”

  Hauberin sighed. “But, as I told you, I’ve been sleeping poorly of late.”

  “I don’t under
stand. Surely there are aids for those who can’t sleep? Potions? Or . . . some willing lady, Aydris or—or Charailis?”

  The prince snorted. “You saw her trying to seduce me during the Second Triad celebration, didn’t you?”

  “I . . . uh . . . assumed that’s what she was trying to do,” the sexless being said uncertainly. “But you didn’t seem to want to—”

  “And you don’t know why. Oh my dear Li, the woman despises me. The only reason she wanted to bed me was to snare my will.”

  Alliar’s eyes widened. “You mean, flesh-pleasures are that dangerous?”

  Hauberin bit back a laugh. “Not usually. In her case, however . . . With Serein dead, she’s virtually next in line for the crown—unless, of course, Ereledan murders her. If she could control me and take the throne, why, how long do you think she would leave me alive?”

  Alliar shuddered. “But I wasn’t thinking of politics,” the being said plaintively. “All I meant . . . I thought gendered folk found relaxation in that odd act of—”

  “Oh, we do.” He grinned. “But it would hardly be polite to use someone as a living sleeping-potion, would it?”

  The being let out a long sigh of frustration. “Will you stop playing games? If the difficulty isn’t simple lack of sleep, what in the name of all the Winds is it?”

  Hauberin winced. Unable to meet his friend’s fierce stare, he turned away, leaning on the balustrade, looking blankly out into space. “Dreams,” he said softly. “But then, you don’t dream, do you?”

  “Not as you do.”

  “You can’t possibly know the power our unconscious minds can hold over us.” He glanced at Alliar. “Do you want to hear the exact words of Serein’s curse? That I ‘know not peace, not sleep,’ till I learn my mother’s father’s name.”

  “Now, that’s an odd thing!”

  “Isn’t it? I didn’t take it seriously, of course, not at first, particularly since I knew no Binding Names had been invoked. But since then . . .” Hauberin paused. “It began so slowly, with the slightest troubling of my dreams.” He glanced at Alliar again. “All dreaming beings have such things from time to time. And I . . . was more disturbed by Serein’s death than I admitted even to you; I told myself it was natural for my sleep to be uneasy for a time after . . . that.”

  The prince felt himself starting to shiver, and snatched at his cloak, wrapping it tightly about himself, struggling for composure. “But with each night of the moon’s waning, I’ve been falling deeper and deeper into nightmare. Now, at Moon Dark, I—I can’t sleep, I dare not sleep—oh, Alliar, how do I rid myself of a curse that all the rules flatly state can’t exist?”

  “You have tried magic?”

  “Everything from the slightest little charm for sweet sleep all the way up to the Spell of Ryellan Banishment.”

  Alliar raised a startled brow. “And even that didn’t work?”

  “Other than alarming half the court sages, who were wondering just what their prince was trying to do, no. And if such a powerful spell failed, it . . . seems to imply something very unhappy.”

  “Eh?”

  The prince hesitated a long while. Alliar, with all the alien patience of a spirit, did not push him. And at last Hauberin said painfully, “I am a half-blood, after all. Not fully of my father’s kind, nor of my mother’s. Not quite looking or acting like either.”

  Even as he said that, Hauberin wished he could have taken it back; Alliar, after all, resembled no one in all the Realms. But the being only shrugged. “So? That just makes you—ah, what did I hear a lady call you?—intriguingly exotic?”

  “You’re missing my point, Li. Powers, not only don’t I know my mother’s father’s name, I don’t even know what he was! What if the mixture of races brought out some . . . instability, some slowly surfacing . . . weakness of mind—”

  “How dare you!” Alliar’s form blurred and shifted with the force of the being’s sudden indignation. “How dare you belittle yourself?”

  “Ai-yi, hold to one form! You’re making me dizzy.”

  The being grudgingly solidified, golden hair a wild aureole about the fine-boned head, eyes still fierce. “I just will not hear you talk about yourself that way. The boy who slew my . . . master, who freed me from horror: that boy had no ‘weakness of mind,’ and neither, by all the Winds, does the man he’s become!”

  Even Alliar had to stop for breath by that point, and Hauberin, half-astonished, half-touched by his friend’s vehemence, began warily, “But the curse—”

  “Damn the curse!” Alliar stopped again, panting, wild golden mane gradually settling sleekly back into place. So. Enough. It’s the lack of sleep talking, not you.”

  “Probably.”

  “Certainly. Come, let me hear the plot of your dream.”

  The prince gave the ghost of a chuckle. “Yes, Mother.”

  “What?”

  “Nothing.” He was deliberately keeping his voice light. “You do understand that such things can’t possibly sound so terrifying in the telling as they are in the dreaming. But, if you must have it: I’m walking down a smooth-walled, featureless corridor, dark, but not so dark I can’t see where I’m going. What I can’t see is the corridor’s far end, but the air is so close and chill that I very much want to turn and run. But I can’t run. Some terrible compulsion drives me on and on, even though I’m becoming almost sick with horror, even though I know there’s something waiting, even though I know that when I see the truth, I will—die.”

  Hauberin broke off with a gasp, shaking. “It’s all right,” Alliar murmured, putting a gentle hand on his arm. “You’re not alone now.”

  “No. Of course not.” After a moment, the prince continued softly, “Each time I sleep, I find myself further down that dark corridor. And lately I’ve been hearing a voice in the dream. All it says is a toneless, ‘Grandson, welcome.’ But there’s something behind the words that’s so very unbearable that I find myself screaming like a child, ‘I will not look! I will not look!’ And with that, of course,” Hauberin finished wearily, “I wake myself up.” He glanced at Alliar. “It sounds foolish now, doesn’t it?”

  “No,” the being murmured. “If, as I’ve heard, dreams seem quite real to the dreamer, then it doesn’t sound foolish at all. But why have you been trying to solve this all by yourself? Did you never think of finding help?”

  “Li, please. That’s the last thing I want to do.”

  “But—”

  “I did consult with Sharailan privately, pretending I spoke of some hypothetical case I’d come across in my studies. I think he believed me; our Sharailan has outlived any deviousness he might once have had. And he seemed genuinely intrigued by the problem. But for all his musings over past magics, he couldn’t come up with a solution. I didn’t dare press him, or go to anyone else. By that point, I couldn’t keep up the pretense long enough or convincingly enough for that. And if anyone should begin to suspect the truth . . . No, Li,” he added before the being could interrupt, “I’m not being overly cautious. Remember that time three years back, when I fell so feverishly ill from drinking seralis, because no one had remembered that the wine was poisonous to humans and might harm me, too?”

  Alliar shuddered. “Of course.”

  “Remember the whispers? ‘Sickly half-blood,’ ‘unfit to rule’—I wasn’t so ill I didn’t overhear them. Remember how many loyal vassals were ready to forget their loyalty? How many would-be rebels I had to put down—all the time worrying that I was bringing the land into civil war—to prove that human blood or no, I was still their prince? Li, I don’t want to go through that again.”

  “Oh, but surely things are different now. Your people love you.”

  Hauberin grinned fiercely. “Don’t be naïve. Some do, some don’t. Most are merely . . . politic. As long as their prince keeps the land peaceful and prosperous and lets them live their own lives, they don’t really care who sits the throne—as long as he can wield sufficient strength. I’ve worn the crown f
or only six years, a mere eyeblink of Faerie time, nowhere near long enough for everyone to be totally trusting of me.”

  “Ah.”

  “The slightest sign of human failings from me, and off they’d go again. With Charailis and Ereledan, doubtless, in the lead.”

  Alliar sighed. “What complicated lives you solid folk lead! But I agree: You really can’t go to anyone for help. Except to me, of course.” The being paused, head cocked to one side, considering. “Now, here’s a thought . . . Thanks to your mother, you know some spells foreign to this Realm. Suppose Serein had learned some, too.”

  “I doubt it. Can you see him ever sullying his hands with human magic?”

  “Ah well, we can hardly prove it now. It would have made such a lovely answer, though: none of your Faerie magic working against his curse because that curse wasn’t formed of Faerie Power.”

  Hauberin stared at the being. If the curse was real, if Alliar was right, and it was formed of alien Power . . . Without the Name and shape of that magic, he would never, ever, be able to lift the curse . . .

  The being could hardly have missed the sudden bleakness in his eyes. “There’s still one very simple solution, my friend,” Alliar said, “and I suppose only weariness has kept you from seeing it. Since you need your grandsire’s name, send someone into your mother’s Realm to learn it! Then whether Serein’s curse really is fueled by some outside Power, or whether you’ve—forgive me—fallen victim to the simpler power of suggestion, we’ve drawn the fangs of his malice.”

  Plain enough. Sensible enough. And Hauberin had already thought of it, and flinched from the idea. Now he turned away, biting his lip, feeling Alliar’s gaze piercing him like two golden darts. “Li, I . . .

  “What is it?” The being moved to face him, but Hauberin angrily turned away again. “Why, you’re afraid!”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  “Oh, really? Then why won’t you look at me? You’re terrified of the very thought of learning that name.”

  He wanted to shout, No! How should I be afraid? But not even a half-human Faerie prince could lie. At bay, furious at his weakness, and at his friend for exposing it, Hauberin whirled with a savage, “You go too far!”