A Strange and Ancient Name

by Josepha Sherman

  He bowed slightly, arms flat at his sides, the Single Courtesy of ruler to ruler, and she dipped her head in response. But her eyes, oh her fierce green eyes devoured him, as though he were the lover she had awaited all the endless years. Or, perhaps, the savior.

  Uneasy, Hauberin said, “Lady! You look at me as though you know me, but I fear I don’t know you.”

  For a moment longer the hungry eyes studied at him. Then the Lady murmured, “I thought it would be simpler, since you are but chaikulai. I was not told you are of the High Ones’ blood as well. Ay me.” Her sigh was soft and infinitely sad.

  The vast cavern suddenly seemed chokingly close. Hauberin straightened, trying not to show his growing alarm, all at once very glad of those protecting bonds of hospitality. “Told by whom, Lady?”

  “There is no need for you to know. Forgive me.”

  She raised a weary hand. And the gathered Fées rushed forward. For a few precious moments Hauberin was too stunned by impossibility, by this breaking of unbreakable Faerie Law, to fight back. Then he raised a wild swirling of Power to hurl his attackers away—only to have it smothered by the sheer volume of their weaker magics.

  All right then, damn you, we’ll do this the human way!

  Hearing Matilde’s scream of fury and a Fée man’s grunt of pain—no delicate flower, she—the prince slammed a foot onto someone’s instep (thinking wildly, I’m getting good at brawling!), managed to kick back into someone else’s shin, but then they were upon him, pinning him back against a wall, grabbing at his limbs. He thought he glimpsed shame in the green eyes, mixed with desperation, but before he could call on their now-tarnished honor, a Fée chanced to catch his arm just above the healing arrow-wound, twisting it, and the prince gasped with the unexpected shock of pain, going submissively limp before the wound could be torn open yet again.

  But as soon as he had caught his breath, he shouted to the Lady, “And is this how you keep your vows? You lie as well as any human!”

  The Fées murmured angrily, tightening their grip on him, but their Lady never stirred. “What I do, I do for my people.”

  “Even if it means destroying their honor?”

  “Ahh,” she sighed, “what is honor where a chaikulai is concerned?”

  “Stop calling him that!” That was Matilde’s outraged voice; she might not know the word, but she couldn’t have missed the contempt behind it. “He is a prince!”

  The Lady smiled faintly, inviting Hauberin to join her bitter humor. “And how can there possibly be honor when humans are involved? Listen to me, chaikulai: we are old, far, far older than your few years—ah yes, I can feel your youth. These were our lands once.”

  “No!” Matilde shouted. “They were never yours!”

  “Be still.” A world of warning was in the simple words. Matilde, no fool, fell silent, and after a moment, the Lady continued softly, “For long and long and long we lived in these lands, shunning only the gaudy sun, glorying in the wonders of mortal night. The humans were as they are now: ugly, foolish things. We ignored them or, if they dared disturb us, toyed with them as the fancy moved us. We lived in peace. But then the iron-wielders came.”

  “And they drove you back into these caverns,” Hauberin continued impatiently, “where you lingered and dwindled. Yes, yes, I can guess the rest of your story. What I don’t know is why you stayed.”

  The Lady raised a languid hand. “These were our lands.”

  “Oh, please. I don’t believe that any more than you. You are of Faerie, not Earth. Why didn’t you return?”

  The air was suddenly so sharp with tension that Hauberin braced himself, sure his captors were going to strike him. Instead, to his amazement, the Fées keened softly in anguish. The Lady’s voice was so quiet he almost didn’t hear it over their lament. “We were in this Realm far too long. The way home was lost to us, lost to memory, lost . . .”

  “Lost . . .” the others repeated, a thin whisper of sound.

  But while they keened, their guard was lowered. In a sudden fierce rush of strength, Hauberin tore free—

  Only to stop dead when he saw Matilde trapped in Fée arms, a bronze Fée dagger to her throat.

  “And outside,” the Lady said in her quiet voice, “the other, the spirit-in-flesh, is caught by us as well. Do our bidding, chaikulai, and they live. Deny us, and . . .”

  “Damn you, what do you want of me?”

  “Only one thing, only this: to follow where you are bid.”

  A Fée woman bent and scooped up the forgotten signet ring in one smooth motion. Hauberin took it from her, feeling the psychic thread once more. “But this is insane! There was no need for force—or for you to break honor! Following this trail is what I wanted to do from the first.”

  “Is it? Come.”

  She stepped with delicate grace from her throne, gesturing to him to follow, the stiff green folds of her gown brushing softly against stone as she walked the length of the cavern. There before them, almost beyond the reach of the lilialli’al, was the mouth of yet another tunnel. But this one was never a natural thing. About it flickered the faintest hint of Power, as though there was something very much not of mortal Realms at work.

  “Look into this passageway,” the Lady said softly. “Mark it well.”

  Puzzled, Hauberin obeyed, the feel of the ring telling him that yes, this was the way he must go, down this corridor . . .

  . . . down this dark, featureless corridor . . .

  All at once he knew it. All at once the air seemed turned to ice about him, crushing him, stealing his breath, his thoughts, his life:

  This was the corridor out of his nightmares.

  I can’t go down that, I won’t!

  “You must,” the Lady murmured, and Hauberin realized he had shouted that aloud. “You must go, or your friends must die. It is as simple, I fear, as that.”

  “No, wait!” Matilde screamed, and Hauberin turned to see her struggling to pull free from her captors, stretching out her arms to him with a lover’s longing. “You can’t go without letting me say goodbye!”

  Now, what . . . ? the prince wondered. But he’d play along; before anyone could stop him, he rushed to embrace her, a corner of his mind wryly amused at the melodrama. But then Matilde’s lips met his in a long, fervent kiss, and for a moment Hauberin forgot they were only acting, for a moment forgot everything but the passion suddenly blazing about them both. He straightened, seeing Matilde staring up at him with something of the dazed wonder he felt.

  Then Hauberin came back to himself with a shock as the disgusted Fées around them muttered, “Chaikulai and human . . . doesn’t even honor what diluted Blood he has.”

  “You’re fine ones to worry about honor,” he began hotly, but Matilde hurriedly whispered in Hauberin’s ear what must have looked like an endearment but was actually, “I don’t dare use this, not while they’ve got Alliar.”

  Impatient Fée arms pulled them apart—but not before Hauberin felt Matilde slip a cold, hard something into his sleeve, something with the cold fire of iron to it—

  “Go with my blessing,” she cried out as the Fées dragged her away. “Let it be as a blade to defend you, iron to cut through sorcery!”

  Oh, clever woman: she’d given him her belt-knife, safely sheathed so the metal wouldn’t harm him. “Thank you, my dearest,” Hauberin said. “I gladly accept your blessing.”

  In one smooth movement, he’d drawn the little blade and the Fées shrank back in horror at the sight of iron. Hauberin laughed sharply, for once on the right side of the deadly metal, and lunged at the Lady. If he could take her hostage—

  Ae, no. Too many of her people were swarming forward to protect her. Hauberin hesitated, threatening them all with a wave of the knife, seeing them cringe. But one little bit of iron wasn’t going to hold them back for long, and he dared not risk the lives of Alliar and Matilde.

  There was only one road open. As the Fées charged him, Hauberin gave a shout of defiance and plunged into
the corridor of his nightmares.

  Almost at once, he was seized by a swirling dizziness that could only mean the thing wasn’t quite within the human Realm; he was being drawn across to the Powers only knew where, hearing the Lady’s voice as from a great distance, saying yet again: “Forgive us. Your foe has promised us the way home for this service.”

  As the psychic gateway closed, Hauberin shouted back in frantic revenge, “I know the way back to Faerie! If you’d dealt honorably with me, I would have shared it!”

  Had they heard? Hauberin drew back from what was now a blank wall of stone, and turned with slow dread to see the empty expanse of corridor stretching out before him, the far end misty in shadow. The walls were completely blank, with not the slightest slits for air or light, yet the chill, dry air was breathable enough, and the way was lit dimly by what every sense registered as an alien, alien Power.

  The only possible way to go was forward. But for a long time, the prince couldn’t move, caught in the throes of sheer claustrophobic terror, the cumulative weight of all the nights or horror crushing him till he could do nothing but huddle against one cold wall and pray like a terrified child that this was only another dream, that he could awake . . .

  At last, disgusted by his own fear, Hauberin straightened, sheathing the iron blade with not-quite steady hands—he didn’t trust himself not to accidentally jab himself with the thing in the state he was in—and forced himself to start down that blank-walled corridor.

  But the dreams had conditioned him all too well. Terror would not be banished. It clung to him with every step, telling him that now he would surely hear the voice, now he would surely see his death, now—

  Hauberin stopped short, gasping. Ah Powers, he couldn’t go on! How Serein would have laughed to see this, to see his poor little half-blood cousin so terrified he could hardly walk, trembling with fright when nothing had harmed him. How Serein would have taunted him: “Timid little boy. Weak little half-human.”

  But the familiar jeer had lost some of its bite. By now, Hauberin realized, he’d learned it wasn’t so terrible a thing to be human. Oh yes, humans had such piteously short lives, and some of those lives were squalid and cruel indeed. But he’d met some bright, happy souls as well: friendly, honest Aimery; the fisherman who’d pulled Hauberin from drowning without thought of reward; that gentle-eyed monk in the cathedral of St. Denis, a man without much fire, perhaps, but with genuine kindness towards a total stranger in need of help.

  And . . . there was Matilde. All-too-human Matilde, forbidden to him by bars of blood and honor . . .

  Hauberin started resolutely forward, refusing to think of what couldn’t be, trying not to think of what might be waiting. But the dreams’ miasma wrapped him close, tightening his nerves, hampering his breathing. For all his determination, the prince’s steps faltered, then stopped once more. Ah Powers, Serein was right, he was weak, weak.

  Was he? One firm little thread of logic slipped through the despair, making him question, was he weak? What of those years he had ruled? His proud and independent people would never have suffered a half-blooded prince to live, let alone to sit the throne for six years, if they’d thought him weak. They certainly would never have sworn him fealty!

  As even Serein had sworn, submissive as a servant before his “weak” cousin.

  The prince stiffened as though he’d been slapped. Why, then, had he been blaming Serein all these years for something that was his own fault? The man had been genuinely petty and cruel, yes, but no one, as the saying went, could truly be tortured without inner consent. Had he, Hauberin wondered, let his cousin torment him because, secretly, he’d believed Serein, believed himself inferior?

  Not exactly inferior. The prince gave a long, shuddering sigh, remembering long, lonely childhood nights spent lying awake, too frightened to go back to sleep. “Human” and never been the true problem, not even back then, no matter how much Serein’s taunts had hurt. In those empty hours, even though his night-keen sight had told the child-Hauberin nothing lurked in the shadows of his room, the stories of terrible cruel Others had seemed all too real.

  Particularly when he knew that Other blood so terrible his parents never spoke of it ran through his own veins.

  Particularly when he never knew when such blood just might turn him, too, to Other. When the very name or sight of his grandsire might be enough to spark the change—

  Hauberin cried out in sudden fury. What in the name of all the Powers did such old fears matter now? Alliar and Matilde were risking their lives for him while he—he stood agonizing like a fool over What Might or Might Not be!

  Ah, Powers, enough, the prince thought wearily. What happens, happens.

  He was still very much afraid. But, sick with that inner cold though he was, Hauberin strode forward to meet whatever waited. One way or another, there would be an end to this.

  XXVII

  THE UNRAVELING

  Distance was deceptive in that long, narrow, closed world. For a time Hauberin fancied wearily that the corridor had no end that his fate would be to simply walk and walk into death. He was too drained by the burden of fear by this point to really care.

  But the perpetually straight corridor ended without warning in a sharp right angle, beyond which was a large alcove. And there, sprawled upon a pile of cushions, lay . . .

  Ah, Powers, he couldn’t look. Every childhood fear had rushed to the surface, screaming here is the demon, here is the monster you truly are, and he just couldn’t turn his head to look.

  “Grandson?”

  It was so gentle a voice, so full of disbelieving wonder—so totally unlike the horror of his dreams—that all at once the tension sharpened beyond all bearing. With a gasp of surrender, Hauberin turned, and saw: Himself!

  No. The resemblance wasn’t all that strong. This might be himself as he would someday look: the same slight, supple figure, the same olive-dark skin and sleek black hair, something of the same cast of features, but with quiet wisdom and experience in the dark eyes that could only come with age.

  “Who . . . are you . . . ?” Hauberin breathed.

  The slight figure, dressed in a rainbow of bright, silken robes, twisted about to study him, and the prince realized only now that the other was held to the floor by a network of narrow chains. A tender smile crossed the prisoner’s dark, elegant face. “Of course. You couldn’t possibly know me; your own mother never saw me.” He spoke the Faerie tongue with easy fluency, but the faintest hint of an exotic accent colored his words. “Nevertheless, I am your grandfather.”

  “But . . . who . . . what . . .” Hauberin stopped with a shaky laugh, shivering. “You must forgive me. This is . . . you’re not what I expected.”

  “Oh, I can imagine. Come, don’t be frightened. I’m of Faerie, too, a distant branch: the humans call my people peris.”

  Hauberin started. “The desert folk! The folk who prefer human Realms.”

  “Exactly.”

  “But how in the name of all the Powers did you come here?”

  The peri laughed wryly. “Not through my own choosing, certainly. As I slept, invisible and—I thought—undetectable, beneath the palms of my favorite oasis, a force, a Presence, snatched me away before I could defend myself. It left me here as you see me. To . . . ah . . . greet you.” He raised a slim hand as far as the chains would permit, indicating the few cushions and bleak surroundings. “I’d offer you hospitality, but . . .”

  The prince couldn’t stop shaking. “Your name,” he pleaded. “Tell me your name.”

  “In my language, Nasif-i-Khanalat. In yours, Moonflame.”

  And it was true, it was all true, because Hauberin felt the curse shiver and fall away from him, leaving him so suddenly free he staggered back against a wall, fighting to keep from laughing like a fool from the wonderful, unbelievable, incredible relief, from the sudden erasure of all the years of childhood terror.

  Free, oh, Powers, I never thought I’d see this moment, free . . .
<
br />   As Moonflame was not. Giddy with shock, Hauberin bent over his peri grandfather, trying to find a beginning or ending to the chains. “Let me—”

  “Wait.” A flicker of alarm in Moonflame’s eyes made the prince draw back in surprise. “First we should talk.”

  “Talk! When that—Presence could return at any moment?”

  “The Presence has not returned once in all the while I’ve been held here. I doubt things will suddenly change.”

  “How . . . long has it been?”

  Moonflame shrugged in a weary chiming of chains. “I’ve no way of knowing. Peris don’t live off fragrances, silly human tales notwithstanding, but I haven’t even felt hunger or thirst to help me keep track; this . . . place is quite outside time, as you’ve surely sensed. Waiting to see the son of my daughter—the grandson I never knew existed—was the only bright spot in it all.” The peri shook his head. “Ey-ai, I can’t keep calling you just ‘Grandson’!”

  “Uh, no. I am Hauberin, son of Prince Laherin and—and your daughter, his wife, Melusine.”

  “Ah . . .” The peri’s eyes were soft and achingly sad, seeing a time long past. “Melusine. Is that what you named her, my love, my dearest heart? Melusine. It has a sweet, magical sound to it.” His gaze sharpened. “And is she happy, my Melusine?”

  “She—she’s dead,” Hauberin stammered out, more bluntly than he would have liked. “As is my father. But she—oh, my parents loved each other dearly. She was very happy.”

  Moonflame sagged. “Both dead . . . mother and daughter . . .”

  “I’m sorry,” Hauberin said helplessly. “Let me see about these chains, and—”

  “No, not yet.”

  “Don’t you want to be freed “

  “Need you ask?” But the dark gaze wouldn’t meet his own. “But have you no curiosity as to how you came to be as you are?”

  “Of course I do, but—”

  Moonflame was already beginning, “I never thought to owe my life to a human, let alone a ferengi from the West . . .”

  With an impatient sigh, Hauberin settled down to listen. And soon, despite himself, he was engrossed in the intricate oriental tale of a peri trapped by an enemy he’d made among the djinn, “dark and cruel as the storms that sweep across the sands,” of a fair-haired foreign knight, separated from his fellows “during one of the humans’ incomprehensible wars,” Moonflame said with a disparaging wave of a hand, “some crusade or other,” who came to the peri’s aid and slew the djinn with cold iron after a fight worthy of a true hero.