Dark Magic (28 page)

“Pursue her? You mean to enter the Twilight Lands?” asked Corbin.

“Exactly.”

Telyn spoke up, frowning. “I don’t know, Brand. You said the Shining Lady came to warn us, to tell us that Oberon was seeking to destroy us. If that’s so, he may march an army of elves out of the mounds, appearing upon the Riverton Common tonight. What will our people do without warning? What will they do without your axe and your strong hand to guide them?”

Brand pursed his lips sourly. It was a dilemma. Should he continue his quest, marching into the Twilight Lands after this girl? If he did so, he moved even farther away from the borders of the Haven. He left his people open to attack. He growled aloud.

In a way, his axe and his role as Champion were a curse, he thought. He could not be everywhere at once. If his people needed him at home, that meant there was no one to go out and fix an injustice somewhere else. And yet, even if he did sit tightly on guard forever, nothing may ever happen back on Stone Island, meaning he’d wasted his time, and no wrongs had been righted.

Lastly, there was the axe itself. It scratched at his mind with each inactive day, urging him to go out and find evil and slay it. In fact, it was very free with its definition of evil, wanting mostly to slay something,
anything
, whenever it could find a hint of guilt. It would trump up any excuse and seek an immediate execution. It was the hardest judge in the Haven.

“What do you think, Tomkin? Do the Dead serve Oberon?”

Tomkin froze and pondered, taking the question seriously for once. “No. They do not. They are as fickle in their own way as the faerie, and work toward their own mysterious ends. They might float amongst the Fae, haunting the same places, but they do not serve us.”

Brand rubbed at his face, uncertain. Finally, he made a decision.

“I will not have it said that I came all this way to be turned away by the idle whispering of a ghost. The Dead may not serve the elves, but why should I trust their motivations? Perhaps they wish Piskin to escape. He has after all, gone to great lengths to steal this girl Mari. For what purpose? There must be one. I suspect she is to be a sacrifice of some kind. The Dead may wish to help him, to aid him in whatever dark plans he might have.”

“So, we will ignore the Lady’s warning?” asked Corbin.

“We will heed her warning, but not in a panic. Tomkin, I want you to strike out for Riverton. You can reach there in a day’s run I’ll wager. If you please, stand guard over my people until I can get back. I’ll wait until dusk, and then travel to the Twilight Lands to seek the maid. She might be right here at this spot, mirrored as it must be in Twilight. If such is the case, it will only cost us nine turns around these stones to reach her. I won’t leave without giving her that last chance.”

“Brand,” said Corbin seriously. “I must ask to take my leave of you then. I’m a Captain of the Haven Militia now, and I feel it is my duty to get back to my post. The council must be warned and the call to arms will go out. There will be a muster. If Oberon marches, he must be met with our best.”

Brand nodded. “Telyn will come with me as my second, then. Farewell cousin.”

They clasped arms, and looked about for Tomkin, but the other had already departed.

Brand shook his head at the behavior of the Wee Folk. One moment, they mocked you, the next they diligently worked on your behalf. They were irritating, but invaluable.

So, after the others left, he and Telyn settled down to lunch and to wait for the day’s end. It was difficult for Brand, who could barely listen to Telyn’s boundless enthusiasm for their wedding plans. He looked forward to the day, certainly, but his mind whirled with heavier thoughts. He did his best to smile and nod and murmur.

“Don’t you even care?” she demanded after one of his platitudes had fallen flat.

He sighed. He had hoped she would not see through him. He should have known better.

“I’m sorry my love, I’m distracted. This venture has taken a strange turn.”

She nodded and patted him. “I understand. But nothing has happened yet! It is only a lovely spring day, and I think we should make the most of any peaceful moment we have. Forget about ghosts and elves for a moment. I think tonight will take care of itself, and we should focus on other, more pleasant things while waiting.”

“You’re right, of course.”

“Then do you want to discuss the colors in detail?”

“Okay.”

She bounced and smiled hugely. “You won’t regret it!” she assured him.

But he already did.

Chapter Ten

The Kindred Bubble

When evening finally fell, Brand stood and stretched. In truth, he had enjoyed a relatively peaceful time with Telyn this fine afternoon. But the stone circle, which had been quaint and entrancing at noon, came to be increasingly sinister as night fell and the trees of the Deepwood seemed to
lean
inward over the clearing, making it smaller.

The blue stones, in fact, shone with a tiny nimbus of eldritch light when darkness finally came. As the last orange gleams of sunlight died and the sky was all a distant pink fire overhead, the shining nimbus that surrounded each blue stone grew. Brand suspected the shine had been there all along, but had been invisible in sunlight. The circling radiance grew into a silver outline that circuited each of the great tumbled stones individually. Brand was reminded of the mushroom circle he’d once found in the Deepwood. He wondered just how many such secret places existed within these ancient woods.

“It’s beautiful,” said Telyn, sighing by his side. As always, she found evidence of the Fae more entrancing than he did. He saw the beauty of it, of course, as well as any man, but it was a wild, dangerous kind of beauty. Unlike a clean waterfall, the beauty of a faerie mound was more like the bubbling crater of a volcano, filled with a lake of lava. Beautiful, but sinister.

Brand took two steps toward the stones, but did not yet begin to walk a path around them. Instead, he watched. It was best to see others make the trip before trying a new path for oneself.

After a dozen minutes had passed, during which the silvery outline of each stone had grown brighter still and the skies had birthed their first stars, something else joined them. A floating ball of fire, amber in color, glimmered slowly. The ball grew from nothing to something in less than a minute. It was the first of the wisps.

Telyn hugged him closely, and he put his arm around her. She could feel her excitement. He recalled that she had not been close to an active Fae mound for a long time. Not since the fateful night they had realized that the Pact was broken and their world had forever changed had she seen a sight such as this one. That night, only last year, seemed like an age ago to him now.

The wisp noticed their scrutiny, after a time. She floated closer to investigate. Brand made ready to grasp the axe, should he feel the need. The entrancing powers of a wisp were as nothing to him now, but still he was wary after he’d felt
real
power, that of the Shining Lady, on the night before. He never wanted to be caught underestimating the power of these creatures.

“Here she comes,” whispered Telyn, hugging him in excitement.

He smiled in spite of his mistrust, and hushed her, lest they scare off the tiny being. Amber in color, with golden eyes, golden hair and a single swath of silver light for clothing, the wisp was exquisitely beautiful. Brand knew that the vast majority of wisps were female, perhaps ten or twenty to one of the males. He thought that on the whole of it, the larger, rare male wisps must have had life pretty well in hand. Of all the Fae, the wisps had never harmed him, and had even helped him upon occasion. He would not go so far as to say he
trusted
them, but they never seemed to be outright evil in their intentions, unlike most of the others.

The wisp floated around the two of them, clearly as curious about them as they were about her. She zeroed in on the bone-white handle of Brand’s axe, where it poked up out of his pack. She buzzed around that spot, peering inside the pack.

Brand waved her away as a man might wave at pestering bee. She backed up, flapping hard, and tinkled sounds at him.

Telyn laughed. “She’s scolding you, Brand.”

And so she was. Brand smiled at the wisp, with half his mouth.

“Don’t touch the axe, little one. Either it will slay you, or I will.”

He had meant it as a warning, not a threat, but she whisked away from them just the same, heading back toward the circle of blue stones.

“Wait, wisp!” he cried after her. His heart ached to see her go. But he need not have worried, for he saw now that a dozen others floated amongst the stones. They were many varied hues. Pinks, mauves, one of sea-green and two of silver.

The amber wisp who had circled them turned and paused in her retreat.

Telyn took a step forward, pushing against Brand’s chest, indicating he should stay back. He got the message. The wisp had run from him. He did not want to frighten her further.

The wisp floated closer, and Telyn took several slow steps to meet her. Brand watched apprehensively as they stood a few feet apart, regarding one another. The tiny face watched Telyn with intense curiosity. He supposed she had not dealt directly with many humans before.

“I would ask something of thee,” said Telyn. “I would ask for news of this place. Has another of our kind passed here recently?”

The wisp drifted in the air uncertainly.

“We mean you no harm. We only wish to find a girl. One who is with child. One who is lost.”

Slowly, the wisp backed away, her golden eyes narrowing.

Telyn took two matching steps forward.

“We know who the father of the wisp is. We know the nasty little Wee One who escorts her. We only want to help her.”

Still, the wisp showed signs of wanting to escape. Brand knew they loved to gossip, and would tell tales all the day long if you were in a spot or a state of mind where you could hear their tiny voices. But this one seemed worried.

Telyn took a single step closer, and the blue shining stones now loomed all around her. The other wisps seemed surprised to have a human amongst the stones. They flittered about, tinkling unintelligible words amongst themselves. Every one of their reflective eyes shone as they watched Telyn.

“Have no fear, we know Puck is the father. We only want to help.”

At the second mentioning of Puck, the wisp’s attitude changed. She lifted her finger and pointed.

Telyn and Brand followed her gesture, but it was too late.

A flashing blade came out from behind one of the blue stones where its owner had been hiding. The blade shone silver-white in the eldritch light.

Telyn gave a cry, and fell forward, grasping one of the stones. She pulled out her own fine dagger, and put her other hand to her back.

“She’ll tell you nothing, little witch,” laughed a familiar little voice. It was that of Piskin, for it was he who had stabbed her in the back.

Brand had his axe out before Piskin had finished the sentence. He charged, roaring, into the stones. He chided himself in wild rage for letting Telyn walk off into the stones by herself. He had trusted the wisps, and they had betrayed him. He would slay them all, and Piskin last, only after he had sheared off his last arm and both his legs and left them in a twisting pile of his own skinny limbs.

“Cover your eyes,” he shouted to Telyn, and she, who was well-versed in his ways of fighting, did so immediately. Brand called for a bolt of light to flash from Ambros, and he delighted to hear the squeaks of dismay among the floating wisps. Their paper thin wings smoked. Their hands rubbed at their eyes. A few of them dropped to the grasses, stricken.

Brand’s mouth was open, he roared or laughed or both. He leapt among them, slashing nothing but air. He stood over Telyn, and grabbed her up with his free arm. She cried out in pain at his touch, but he lifted her as a man might lift a tiny tot. He threw her over his shoulder and whirled.

Holding his axe aloft, he began to rush amongst the stones, slashing at wisps and shadows. Where was Piskin? He had been here a bare moment ago.

He ran out of the stones and looked at their tops, suspecting the manling might be bouncing along their tops as Tomkin had earlier. But there was no one up there.

He cast about, and finally caught a glimpse of the other. He had not fled away into the Deepwood. He had instead begun to circle the stones. He was retreating into the Twilight Lands.

Brand shouldered Telyn, who moaned in response. He felt her blood in his fingers. He breathed hard, trying to think. She was badly injured. If he carried her into the Twilight Lands, if he ran all night with her, she might die untreated.

“You will die by my axe, manling! This I swear to thee!”

There was nothing for a moment, and then came a tiny, mocking laugh that drifted back to his ears. Brand clenched his teeth so hard his entire face would ache for days later, but he cared not. Piskin ran by him, for three circuits. With each circuit, the Wee One grew fainter of aspect, becoming indistinct, ghostly. Brand slashed at him as he passed, but struck nothing. He knew Piskin was no longer in this world.

When Piskin had vanished entirely, Brand put Telyn down, and slashed the blue stones themselves. Sparks flew, and any normal axe would have been broken or horribly chipped. But Ambros was not made of mere steel. He clove two in half, breaking their power so that their silvery nimbus of light died.

Then Telyn moaned at his feet and he struggled to control himself, his rage. The wisps had long since fled. He stood alone, but for his shivering love, who bled upon the moonlit grasses.

He grabbed her up, as gently as he could with one arm, and carried her away into the Deepwood. He kept the axe out. He would march all night, and all day, and into the next night if need be. He would find her a healer, and he would make certain she was safe, and then he would come back to this spot and hunt down Piskin and slay him.

One way or another.

* * *

Oberon had scooped up the minds of the
Merlings, they were as easily caught as swamp-frogs at dusk. Brand had helped a great deal by attacking one of their villages out of spite. The fact that Brand was seeking Piskin at the time he attacked the Merlings was delightful. What a twist of fate! Oberon himself sponsored Piskin, making the sweet irony of Brand’s futile thrashing about all the more amusing.  The fact that Brand and Piskin’s struggles had incidentally improved his growing army was just happy circumstance, but seemed to Oberon a finely demonstrable instance of
justice
, of
rightness
in the world.

The
Merlings had been more than happy to join Oberon’s growing alliance. He smiled still, just thinking about it. A simple people at best, they would serve his purposes very well. He would dash them against his enemies, using them and their tiny disgusting lives as the perfect foil, distracting those who might cause trouble were they free to maneuver and think.

The kobolds, with whom he treated with now, were somewhat more wary. Too bad, Oberon lamented, that Brand hadn’t stomped down here and senselessly slaughtered a few of them as well to make matters easier. The kobolds had the power of simple logic on their side, of course. They asked him straightforward questions. Why would they wish to irritate the Kindred when they had freshly chosen a new queen? Was that not the height of folly?

“Seemingly,” admitted Oberon, making a stroking motion in the air, as if he smoothed the fur of an invisible cat. “But things are more complex. The Kindred are coming to slay you in any case. They will root you out of your dark holes even down here, in depths of the Everdark. They will send clicking machines and creatures of living flame into your tunnels to burn out your spratlings. They will sing while they march, and soon there will be no more elders or ancients among the kobold tribes. You will all be broken flesh and bone. I’ve seen it, in my foretellings.”

The kobold chiefs hunkered around the greenish-blue light of one of their strange firepits, in which they burned stones as other peoples burned wood. The chieftains were huge folk, as kobolds grew each year of their lives and their chiefs were always the largest and oldest among them. For kobolds, this meant they were more than a century in age, and had long ago outgrown the cramped, slimy tunnels of their youth. The chieftains, being the largest of their kind, were bent in a permanently hunched position. They lived scuttling and crawling through their warrens on scarred knees.

The kobolds eyed Oberon with vast distrust. “You must help us. Our enemy is your enemy,” said the wisest of them. He had but one eye and one arm, but there was a red gleam of cunning in that sole remaining eye.

“Aye, and we will!” shouted Oberon, leaping to his feet. The sudden movement caused the huge, wary kobolds to grope for their flint knives and heavy stalactite clubs.

Oberon strutted before the hulking figures, having not a care for their firepit of burning stones or their crude weapons. Their knobby knuckles popped and bulged as they gripped their clubs, but they did not lift them.

“It will be this way: We elves are not close at hand, dwelling as we do in another place. When the Kindred bubble and churn and finally boil over, they will seek the creatures that are easiest to reach, the way lava flows down into tunnels beneath it first, before shooting up shafts to the surface.”

The kobold chieftains relaxed somewhat. Oberon spoke now in terms they comprehended.

“Your people will thus take the brunt of the pain early on,” Oberon continued in a most reasonable voice. It was very hard to argue with his words. Every single syllable sounded self-evident and truthful to a mortal listener. “Kobolds will be exterminated first, almost immediately in fact, as you are very near at hand. So your question should not be
when
will the elves help, but
why
would we help you at all? Why should my people move to your aid? Would we ensure that the Kindred will turn their yellow greedy eyes toward us secondly? It would seem in
our
best interests to wait, and to hope you quench their flame for conquest with your collective bloods.”