Suddenly Aurilia pushed him away and rushed by him. He drew breath between his teeth, whirling around, clawed hand out to seize her. However he stopped short when he saw her standing quite still and looking down at the scrying bowl he had abandoned when he saw Pasgen and Rhoslyn come out onto the path to confront the Sidhe he had sent to finish the destruction of their house.
Aurilia’s eyes were as wide as they could get and her mouth hung just a little open with mingled pleasure and fear. “I think you have just lost another quarter of your servants,” she said, shivering but licking her lips.
Pasgen watched the burning horde for a moment—the squat, broad rectangles of flame that were the trolls; the wavering, twirling pillars that were the hags and annises; the bouncing, squirming bags that were the bwgwl and boggles; the little flitting convulsions that were the trows—then he smiled.
They were still screaming and writhing when he drew Rhoslyn around them, through the garden, and to the Gate. He pressed a token into her hand. “Go home and then to my house—the token will open it—bring your servants and mine to clean up the mess in this place.”
Rhoslyn could scarcely hear him for the screaming. “Enough, Pasgen,” she cried. “Enough. Finish them.”
He looked at her for a long moment, then said, “Very well. It is their nature. I am sure Vidal was scrying what was happening and I wanted to be sure that he would see what befalls those he sends against us. But he would not care. He might enjoy it.” He turned his back on her and looked at the agony on the path, gestured and said, “Ashes.”
And there was silence, and nothing on the path except ashes. He turned back to face the Gate and started to step up on it. Rhoslyn caught at his arm.
“Where are you going?”
Pasgen frowned. “I think it is time to remove Vidal. He has always annoyed me, but this … insult went too far.”
“No!” Rhoslyn exclaimed, clinging to his arm, which was hard as silver alloy under her hand. “No! I cannot leave you behind. I cannot lose you! But if you kill Vidal, Oberon will order you to rule the Dark Court. No, Pasgen. Please. Do not permit yourself to be bound here forever. At least let me dream that some day I can escape from Dark to Bright.”
He looked back down the path where the faint breeze that murmured through this domain was beginning to sweep the ashes away. The white-hot fury that had scalded him inside began to cool under the chill of his memory of ruling the Dark Court while Vidal was recovering from the injuries dealt him in the battle to seize Elizabeth.
At the time, Pasgen had actually undertaken the role Oberon had given him with some enthusiasm. Neither he nor anyone else had expected Vidal to survive the wound he had received from Harry FitzRoy’s iron bolt. Pasgen assumed he would hold Caer Mordwyn forever.
He had some notion that he would be able to instill order and rationality into Vidal’s servants and creations. He was not then certain what he would do with them when he brought them under his control, but he had some nebulous dreams of a kingdom where those who were feared and hated, despised and unwanted everywhere else, could live in peace and plenty and find companionship among each other.
Pasgen had credited much of the evil in the Unseleighe creatures to Vidal, who had urged them to greater disorder and cruelty, laughing at their killing and maiming of each other and their depredations in the mortal world. Pasgen had soon discovered he was wrong about that. Vidal enjoyed what his creatures were and did, but he was not the main cause of their behavior.
Many were inherently evil and could take no pleasure unless they were causing pain. Nor did they care whether that pain was inflicted on outsiders who scorned them or on their fellow creatures. Many were not intelligent enough to know good from bad, nor was there any way to teach them. Some he could have saved—the mischief makers who did no real harm—but most were beyond anything but destruction.
Because he was stronger than they were and destroyed the very worst of them, Pasgen had gained control. He had stopped the excesses that had enraged Oberon and might have led to human invasion Underhill. However, the moment he was occupied with something else, the creatures violated every rule they had sworn to. Pasgen had learned to despair of ever bringing Vidal’s realm to some permanent kind of order. He knew that he could only stop the worst excesses of Vidal’s creatures by constantly exerting his power over them.
It had been horrible. He had never been so miserable in all his life, not even when Vidal had seized him to teach him the beauties of pain. With Rhoslyn’s help he had escaped Vidal, but there would be no escape from Oberon’s geas once it was set on him.
Hot rage and ice-cold memory struggled in him and came to a compromise of chilly, controllable anger. Pasgen looked down at his sister’s hand, desperately gripping his arm. He brought his own hand up, covered hers, and patted it.
“Clever Rhoslyn to remind me of what it meant to be ruler of Caer Mordwyn. You know I can take Vidal now, that I have no need to fear him.”
“Oh, yes, I know that.” She did not look back at the path where a thin layer of ash was still drifting.
“Then you will not be afraid, although I still must go and deal with Vidal. However, I promise I will not kill him nor even injure him in any serious way.”
“Why? Turn your back on him, Pasgen. Ignore him. He’s lost … I don’t know how many servants. Even Vidal must realize that it is too expensive to attack us.”
“I doubt he cares about that,” Pasgen said, a muscle in his jaw jumping. “And what if Mother had been here when that horde of Vidal’s arrived?”
Rhoslyn’s hand gripped Pasgen’s arm tighter. “We can abandon this place—”
“No, we really cannot.” Pasgen patted Rhoslyn’s hand again. “Not without taking from Mother what has returned a life to her. If we built a new place we would have to forbid her to Heal. If we allowed her to bring patients there, how long would it remain undiscovered?”
A small smile softened Rhoslyn’s tense mouth. Pasgen always tried to pretend he did not care about Llanelli, but he was the one who had realized what this attack might mean to her. Rhoslyn had not given her mother a thought. She sighed.
“I hate when you confront Vidal,” she said, but the remark was no longer either an argument or a plea to stop him. “I am always afraid that you will go too far. Vidal we can outwit or avoid … not Oberon.”
“I know that,” Pasgen assured her with passionate sincerity. “No confrontation. I will simply go and tell Vidal that I and mine are outside of his limits and that I will serve him no longer. Unless—do you want me to say you, too, will no longer serve his purposes?”
“No. As long as he mainly desires me to watch and protect Mary, I want to seem to be his obedient servant.” She frowned. “But if he was scrying the attack on the empty house, he must have seen us together.”
“And seen you make me stop the burning and try to stop me from going to confront him.” He pursed his lips a moment, then smiled. “I know what to say. I will tell him that you are mine and must not be hurt or frightened even though we have quarreled because you wish to remain his servant.”
“Very good! I need to remain with Mary and if he thinks I am no longer obedient to him, he will do something cruel or disgusting to make her dismiss me. She is a good woman. I do not want to add to her troubles a fear that she cannot trust her judgment of people. And I hope I will be able to soften her attitude toward Elizabeth too.”
Pasgen tightened his grip on Rhoslyn’s hand for just a moment, then pulled his hand forcefully from hers as if he were angry. He even pushed her slightly backward, as if to prevent her from following him into the Gate, jumped onto the platform, and activated it.
The last bit of play-acting, in case Vidal was still watching, was wasted. Aurilia’s half-frightened, half-voluptuous remark about the loss of his servants had drawn Vidal’s attention to the scrying bowl. When he saw the whole mass of his creatures aflame, he had bellowed with rage and slammed the bowl from its stand.
Tha
t had caused another argument with Aurilia, who screamed at him for destroying the image. He shouted back that he was not her panderer, to gratify her lower forms of amusement in watching people burn.
“Fool! Fool! I can set afire anyone I want for the fun of seeing someone burn. You destroyed the image and now we do not know what happened. Did the flames go out before they accomplished anything? That would have told us that Pasgen’s power is limited. Did they destroy? Was Rhoslyn adding to Pasgen’s strength? Was she trying to stop him?”
Vidal was too angry to concede the importance of her questions and merely shouted back, and after a few more basically meaningless exchanges she stormed out of his reception chamber. By the time the door slammed behind her, Vidal had spit out most of his spleen. His first fury over Pasgen’s response to his attack was fading into a decided feeling of alarm. Now he, too, regretted destroying his scrying image and the questions Aurilia had raised seemed strongly pertinent.
One thing he was sure of: he would not need to wait long to have those questions answered. If Pasgen had the power to utterly destroy the force he had sent, he would be roaring out of a Gate in Caer Mordwyn very soon. If Rhoslyn had been helping her brother, she would appear with him breathing fire. Vidal began to gather power and build shields.
Power he found in plenty. The anxiety over King Henry’s death and whether war would break out between the Catholic supporters of Mary, who was eldest, and Edward, who was male, had gripped not only the nobles but all of the people. The tense energy of fearful expectation oozed out of all and soaked down Underhill, draining away from the warmth and light of the Seleighe domains to those of the Unseleighe.
With shields, Vidal was less successful. He was so strong that he had seldom bothered with shields, depending on swift and deadly attack to confound any who opposed him. He raised shields by habit and did so now, not even considering that they were ragged things with here and there a rough spot, a crack, a hole, rather than smooth mirrors. But Vidal only thought of them as a minor delaying tactic while he launched blows.
He thought, too, of summoning assistance, but the memory of the pack of creatures burning on the path leading to the empty house made him decide against it. If Pasgen saw a host arrayed against him, he was more likely to try to set fire to the whole mass, as he had done before. Vidal was not really afraid of Pasgen’s fire; the creatures he had burnt were weak nothings and the Dark Sidhe so addled with oleander as to be useless. He was sure his attack would weaken Pasgen’s control and he could quench any flames that reached him.
Perhaps, he thought, reaching mentally to the Gates of his domain, Pasgen would not even reach the palace. If he caught him at a Gate, he could twist …
But then the whole palace rang like a giant bell, and Vidal sensed that the place the clapper struck was right outside his door. He spat an obscenity. He had forgotten that Pasgen was a genius with Gates. That accursed, misborn creature had forced a Gate right into the palace. Why, oh why had he ever thought of seizing those babies? He had brought a serpent into his very house.
Vidal gathered his power, formed it into a bright lance, thick and strong. He did not thrust it through the door, which was protected with warding spells, because he did not wish to weaken its force. And if Pasgen had second thoughts and did not enter so much the better. The quarrel would be more easily settled when Pasgen was less angry. But the door opened. Pasgen did enter, and Vidal launched that lance, feeling a mingling of satisfaction and regret that he would be soon rid of a growing nuisance.
The lance struck—and shattered into a thousand glowing shards, each still so powerful that where they fell drapes and furniture charred or began to smolder. Furious, Vidal sent a shower of knives glowing with the poison that made elf-shot fatal. Most, to Vidal’s rising rage and terror, slid around Pasgen; the few that struck also shattered.
He called into being a shining net in which each knot held a thread that would pierce whatever the net enfolded and grow into the body. Taking its sustenance from the flesh it invaded, it would send out more and more threads until there was nothing in the net but the eater itself. But before Vidal launched the net, he became aware of an odd tugging, a sense of loosening, just as he also realized that Pasgen had not attempted any counterstroke.
They stood staring at each other for a brief tense moment, until Pasgen said, “You no longer have any shield. I have drawn the power into myself.”
And then Vidal shrieked and cast the net because he felt his own power being drained. But though the net fell true, it just lay atop and around Pasgen without touching him. Vidal bellowed curses invoking the Great Evil to swallow Pasgen whole because in a way he knew that he, himself, had given Pasgen this invulnerability. Pasgen had learned shields thoroughly. Before he could do almost any other magic, he had raised and perfected shields to protect himself from Vidal’s torments.
Vidal drew power, but as fast as he drew it, Pasgen drained it. He staggered back and back again, feeling his limbs trembling. He had never been so hollow and empty. He could make no defense; his attempt to raise another weapon made him unable to support himself. He sank into his throne as if into a shelter, though the sense of shelter was illusory and he knew it. But the worst of the draining stopped.
“I have not come to suck you dry, Prince Vidal, despite the insult and offense you have offered me,” Pasgen said quietly. “I know that you are most fit to rule Caer Mordwyn and I wish you to rule it as you have ever done. However, I am insulted and offended. Thus, I hereby renounce all ties, all loyalty to you. I will answer no summons from you nor do you any service.”
“And all protection from me?”
A new painful draw of energy made Vidal gasp. Pasgen’s mouth quivered, and with a mixture of rage and fear Vidal wondered if the young Sidhe had restrained a sneer.
“Yes,” Pasgen said, “I renounce your protection also, but only for myself. My sister, fool that she is, does not agree. She still wishes to be your servant—likely because she is as eager as you are to see Mary come to the throne. But she is still my sister and I warn you—”
Vidal screamed faintly and nearly lost consciousness as a horrible sucking seemed almost to be drawing the blood from his body.
“I warn you that if harm of any kind befalls Rhoslyn, if she is even frightened or threatened, or more damage is done to my property, I will return and not only suck you dry but draw the power from Caer Mordwyn so that the whole domain falls to dust.”
Chapter 19
It was the middle of June before one of the many air spirits that Aleneil had sent in search of Denoriel found him and convinced him to return to Llachar Lle to meet his sister. Part of the reason he was so slow to respond was that Aleneil had not provided any real reason for him to hurry home. Elizabeth was fine, although she was growing irritable over her Denno’s long absence. Life at Chelsea and Hanworth, another of Catherine’s properties farther away from London and mostly out of reach of casual visitors, was pleasant for everyone.
Aleneil could not put her finger on why she felt so uneasy. But with all her heart she wanted Elizabeth to be distracted from her growing liking for Thomas Seymour. To Aleneil, the man was rank and unwholesome, although she could not say why. True, he flirted with Elizabeth, but he flirted in exactly the same way with all the attendant ladies, Catherine’s as well as Elizabeth’s … except her. Aleneil wondered guiltily whether that was why she disliked him so much. Was it merely offended vanity? Underhill Aleneil was beautiful; the mortal Lady Alana had not enough character or expression on her face even to be called plain.
When one of the air spirits finally popped into Elizabeth’s parlor, circled Aleneil’s head and cried into her mind that Denoriel was in his apartment in Llachar Lle, Lady Alana got suddenly to her feet, pressed a hand to her forehead, and pleaded a headache. Elizabeth had almost dropped her embroidery when the air spirit arrived, and her lips parted but before Elizabeth could give or deny leave, Lady Alana withdrew from the group.
All the girls
looked at her in surprise, but Aleneil simply curtsied and backed out of the chamber. She did not even go to her room, but hurried to the sheltered side of the stable where Ystwyth was waiting. Her anxiety that Denoriel would simply leave again when he did not find her waiting for him was such that Ystwyth leapt up into the air and broke the barriers between the worlds.
The elvensteed came to rest at the portico of Llachar Lle, and Aleneil rushed up the stairs and through the corridor to virtually burst into Denoriel’s apartment. He had felt the strong disturbance that Ystwyth’s arrival made in the usually quiet power flow of Elfhame Logres and had gotten to his feet, his hand going to his sword hilt when Aleneil almost leapt through the doorway.
“Don’t you dare leave!” she cried, raising a hand palm out toward him as if to hold him back.
“Leave? I’ve only just arrived. What is wrong? Why are you so breathless?” He looked toward the door, hand tightening on his sword hilt as if he expected her to be pursued.
Aleneil sighed and sank down onto the sofa facing the fireplace. Denoriel had been away so long that the tiny spell which kept the multicolored flames playing over crystal logs had lost power and dissipated.
“Do you realize that it has taken me over two months to get sight or speech of you?” Aleneil was exasperated and did not try to hide it. “Where have you been? What have you been doing?”
He grinned. “Having a wonderful time,” he said, teasing because of her displeasure. Then, more soberly. “I told you I was going with Harry to the abandoned elfhames. He and his friends from Elfhame Elder-Elf had cleared out all the magical curses that those Churchly lunatics put on the cities, but they could not touch the Great Evil that had taken root there.”
“You were fighting the Great Evil?” Aleneil breathed, eyes wide.
“No not that. It summoned—or perhaps just its presence brought—a host of things from the lower planes. We were busy getting rid of them and sealing the doors through which they came. Harry, the eternal optimist, hoped that the Great Evil would retreat with those that escaped us as we sealed the doors, but that did not happen. It is again isolated, and Harry has withdrawn his party partly to avoid tempting it to further action, partly to take time to search out a new route to it. He is as inventive as a—” Denoriel broke into a laugh. “I was about to say he is as inventive as a mortal.”
By Slanderous Tongues Page 30
