Any Man So Daring (20 page)

The enchanted forest, wreathed all in pink mist that obscures the tops of the tall trees and makes the overhanging ivy look like rent lace. Through this landscape, Quicksilver stumbles, looking dazed and scared.

W
hat place was this?

Quicksilver had grown up with legends of the crux and the magic there, but nothing had prepared him for this.

It seemed that while he advanced the pink-mist fog went with him, writhing and twisting about him and the surrounding trees like a living thing.

The woman whom Quicksilver had glimpsed ahead of him had disappeared now, or else it had been a dream, a delusion spun by this place of confusion and shadows.

Oh, this must be what the mortal hell was like, Quicksilver thought, to forever wonder a cold, desolate landscape in search of something he could never find.

In that moment, creature of magic and cold fire that he was, immune both to the terrors of hell and the hope for heaven to which mortals were prey, Quicksilver felt, nonetheless, cold and fearful. His shoulder had stopped bleeding, but it hurt with a steady, burning pain.

For was not his life nearly immortal, was not his nature nearly endless?

What if he wandered here forever, starving and cold but undying, looking for the girl elf that had disappeared into this mist and for the mortal with her?

He almost stopped walking, but the thought that Will, also, was lost in this morass woke him up, like a spray of cold water in his drowsy, discouraged face.

Will was lost in this, and how much more unprepared he was for such trek, for such search through the dark magical forests.

And he was here in search of his son. Childless -- unable, perhaps, to have progeny -- Quicksilver wondered about this paternal love that would bring Will careering in from London to get involved in a magical battle, once more.

Will, who hated magic. Will, to whom all magic was anathema.

Thinking of this, Quicksilver couldn’t help remembering when he’d first met Will, how enthralled and scared both the mortal had been of Silver and her magical might.

And thinking on it, quick upon such thoughts, other, tenderer thoughts came.

Silver was not Quicksilver anymore. Though no part of the king retained the soft gentleness that had once been Silver, nor Silver’s high humor, nor Silver’s contriving ways, yet Quicksilver remembered being Silver.

He remembered Silver’s love for Will.

He tripped on a root the fog had hidden.

From the fog, a high, chilling laughter echoed, the laughter of unnatural children.

He shook his head. A dream. A dream, nothing more. A dream like this fog. An illusion.

If he could not follow the princess, then there was only one thing he must do. He must go the castle that he’d first glimpsed, before the crux — disturbed — had responded with storm and wind and sand. That castle was the center of this place, and in that castle Hamnet Shakespeare would be. At that castle would Will Shakespeare eventually arrive, for one thing that could be said for Will was that he’d never leave his son here.

Well did Quicksilver remember Will’s determination, so many years ago, when his wife and first-born child had been stolen by fairyland.

Through Silver’s softened eyes, through his memory of Silver’s feelings — for Silver had dearly loved this mortal, as dearly as elf ever could love mortal or elf or any other creature — he saw Will as he then had been: a rawboned boy with sparse beard and the eager, voluble features of youth.

Those eyes of his, falcon-yellow and falcon-intent, had burned a path to Lady Silver’s heart, overcoming her natural reluctance at being involved with a mortal, a base creature.

Remembering Silver’s love, in this place of naught and fog, Quicksilver trembled.

Silver had loved Will with immortal passion, with strength and force and magic beyond the reach of any other heart, mortal or immortal.How she’d loved Will. And the love for Will had given her... the love for Will had given him, Quicksilver, the strength and magic to claim the hill. The strength from that love had made Quicksilver king.

At the thought, Quicksilver stopped amid the shading trees, in the pink and green gloom, because, like a man remembering a dream, he remembered loving Will.

It was a thought he’d tried to forget, a memory he’d almost succeeded in erasing.

He’d loved Will. Not just Silver had loved, but himself, also. Or, perhaps, the Silver side of himself had loved Will, but, rooted in the same soul, sharing the same heart, Quicksilver had felt that love just as intensely.

He remembered, as he hadn’t allowed himself to do in years — in three years, at least — the joys of mortal love, the touch of the mortals that Silver — he — had loved.

There was Marlowe, whom Quicksilver had fancied, whom Silver had seduced.

Marlowe had been very young when the magical being had first come across him — seventeen, maybe less, a shy divinity student, with auburn hair and broad, almond-shaped gray eyes.

How shy he’d been and, shyness once conquered, how fiery-bold. How his lust had surged and his love burned, so that its indiscriminate fires scared even Quicksilver, even the daring Silver.

For a moment, here in this land of loneliness, threatened and fearful, with his kingdom at risk, Quicksilver felt as if Marlowe’s lips, soft as youth and warm as passion, had brushed his own.

But Marlowe was dead. Dead of that fairyland love, or of the madness that came with it.

For Silver’s love had stripped Marlowe of the frail religious faith that had stood as protective shell between himself and his fiery nature. And, the shell gone, Marlowe had burned, living a life of danger, of spying, of hidden betrayal and secret intrigue, in the theater, in the secret service, in foreign wars and private vendetta.

And Marlowe’s very nature, his tainted, betrayed goodness, had allowed Marlowe to fall prey to Sylvanus, the once-king of fairyland who had become the dark dog of the Hunter.

From that had Marlowe perished, from that as much as from the dagger that, driven into his eye had punctured his brain and stilled forever its maddening rush.

Quicksilver opened his eyes.

To the distortion of the fog upon the landscape was added a trembling of tears in his eyes.

If he could, if it were up to him, he would uncall that summer of madness in which, unbidden, he’d stripped Marlowe of mortal faith and youthful innocence. If he could uncall that mistake to which his own hot blood had led him, he would.

But nothing could bring a mortal back once his heart had stilled.

And this thought, this sobering thought, brought Quicksilver back to Will, to Will’s involvement in this, which, like Marlowe’s had started with Silver’s intemperate blood, with Quicksilver’s intemperate passions.

Had he not craved Will, in those days when Will was but little more than a boy, little less than a man?

Had he not craved Will and, with that craving, allowed the youth to get far more involved in fairyland than he ever should have?

Had he not, by extension, exposed Will both to his doomed brother’s fury and to Proteus's plans of revenge?

Wasn’t it Quicksilver’s own fault that Proteus was even alive to wreak vengeance and seek to ensnare poor, hapless mortals in his plans?

Did not the fault that Hamlet was here rest as much on the broad and unbending shoulders of the king of fairyland, as on Proteus's narrow, grief-addled shoulders?

Oh, curse Quicksilver and his lusts.

Even now, thinking of Will, he couldn’t help but feel as though the man Will had become — tired-looking, his hair receding — looked as fiery-gentle as the Will of yore had.

Soft, was that lust within the heart of king of fairyland? Did he truly still crave Will’s touch, still long for the creature’s presence, the creature’s notice, the creature’s...love?

The thought broke Quicksilver in two, denuded him.

He saw himself as he wished he’d never seen himself; he saw himself as he was, but didn’t wish to be.

It was as though a ghost had pursued him all these years, the ghost of his lost love, his lost self.

From that ghost he’d run and, to avoid that ghost, to avoid the shameful softness that made him so vulnerable to this mortal, Will, he’d become something he was not.

Like a man who runs headlong into the night and stumbles helplessly, Quicksilver had stumbled into a darkness, where instead of being Silver, or Quicksilver, or anything of what he truly was — that true self so helplessly in thrall to a lowly mortal — Quicksilver had stilled himself and armored himself, and become nothing but a king.

The king of the hill. Nothing else but the king, dread and hollow, himself a dread shell for power, a head to carry the circlet of power upon.

Nothing else. No. Never, and nothing.

He’d been afraid of not being king enough and, in reaction, he’d been a king, a king in fact, but nothing else.

It was, Quicksilver thought, as he seemingly caught the glimpse of a soft green dress ahead of himself, it was as if instead of Quicksilver becoming the king, the king had become Quicksilver.

The spirit of kingship had found Quicksilver willing to be hollowed and emptied, a vessel, an empty thing ready to carry kingship within.

And into that form, kingship had poured itself, till Quicksilver was no more a person, and had no more thoughts or independent power than the crown that he wore upon his brow.

How strange it was now, to look on it, his fourteen years as a king, his ruling presence from the high throne.

Had Quicksilver’s heart ever been in it? Had Quicksilver ever felt anything towards kingship?

No. Quicksilver hadn’t as much been the king as the king had been Quicksilver.

Quicksilver caught another glimpse of the dress vanishing fast, fast, into the thick pink fog, as though the creature wearing it ran ahead of him.

In response he ran also, blindly, seeing trees only just before he ran into them, and tripping upon roots and steadying himself, his eyes fixed on the mirage that, ahead of him, like a reflection upon a hidden mirror, seemed to vanish and reappear and reappear and vanish again, always too far ahead of his reach.

It was like chasing a rainbow, like trying to reach for the tail of tomorrow, yet Quicksilver rushed in pursuit of it.

Too long, too long, he’d done only what was rational. Too long, he’d been king and king alone, authority and voice of the ancient hill. Nothing more.

Now he’d be himself, now he’d reach for what was ahead of him as he should have reached for himself in his years as king.

Who knew? Had rebellion come because Quicksilver had ruled without heart, ruled as a king who knew no human bounds, no, nor elven bounds either, no boundaries or edges to his immense power?

Had rebellion come because he’d been unbending and, unbending, had he been — not harsh, not cruel -- simply empty?

Oh, Vargmar had rebelled because of his ambition, his envy of Quicksilver, his need to be King.

But the ones who’d joined him, the big, the small, the malcontents, the discontented, the disaffected... had they rebelled because they didn’t find in Quicksilver that something to which loyalty and devotion must attach as they’d never attach to simple kingship, to the empty trappings of royalty?

Quicksilver ran, out of breath, weak from loss of blood, from expenditure of magic.

Oh, he had to know. He had to see. Was the rebellion his fault? Had he killed his self, and Silver with it, more than his enemies could ever have? Had he hollowed himself so, to fill himself with kingship and power that he felt not? Could he not find the path back to who he used to be?

Oh, if so let him, let him be, let him become Quicksilver once more. Aye, and Silver too.

On that thought, as though the thought commanded the event, the pink fog lifted.

It lifted like a creature withdrawing, like a bird taking flight. It rose above Quicksilver’s head in one swift swoop, then, taking flight over the tops of trees, headed towards the white castle upon the hill.

Quicksilver found himself in a clearing among the rank, overgrown forest.

It was a pretty clearing, or it would have been in another forest, in a world of less dreary magic. A pretty clearing, encircled by flowers, with a pink and green pond in the middle, the water seeming to change color with the reflection of the landscape above.

That it was not true water but pure magic didn’t change its beauty.

The air, filled with cloying perfumes and floral effluvia, filled Quicksilver’s nostrils and brought to his heart memories of being too young and far too intemperate, ready to pursue his lust -- his love -- anywhere.

The air brought with it a memory of Marlowe’s kisses, the feeling of Will’s innocent embrace.

In this clearing, were it in fairyland, the great dances would be held, in which the creatures of magic would move and sway to the unseen rhythm of the season, to the imperative of their kind.

But this was not fairyland, and something to the perfect landscape, something to the warm, perfumed air gave Quicksilver a terrible feeling of dread and emptiness.

His eyes stung with tears, as if he were near crying upon some great tragedy, some just-discovered loss.

Not knowing whence this feeling came, not knowing what he felt or why, not owning himself, not in possession of his feelings, Quicksilver stumbled towards the pond, whose waters moved and changed and looked like a great egg about to hatch something.

Whether something beautiful or something horrible, Quicksilver could not hazard a guess.

Blindly he stumbled, blindly, thinking to take a closer look at the waters and minding himself all the ancient legends on looking on one’s reflection upon a pond.

For had not Narcissus, looking upon his own lovely face been thus captured and condemned to stare at it, consumed by lethal self-love until he wasted away to nothing?

And had not Hylas, Hercules’s servant, gone to the fountain for water, by the nymphs been seized and pulled in?

Oh, Quicksilver minded himself the danger, but approached the pond, nonetheless, led by some unnamable need, some irresistible imperative.