Dream Magic (14 page)

His men at arms, however, were not so easily dissuaded from their tasks. They did not
draw their blades but instead pulled iron-headed truncheons from their saddles.

“The council has sent us, milord,” one reminded Corbin. “We are to arrest them now.”

Corbin nodded. “Time is of the essence in these matters. If there is a fresh cancer, it must be cut out this very day, this very hour. Slet, if you value your life and your skull, fall to your knees now and let us bind you. And you sir, please do the same.”

Slet nodded and did as he was ordered. Puck however, still standing at his side, did nothing.

The three men dismounted and walked forward cautiously. As the officer, Corbin hung back and read aloud a writ he had ready for such circumstances. He explained matters to what he believed were two men about to be placed under arrest.

The man who approached Slet did so circuitously, with clinking chains in his hands. The other man had his truncheon out and walked toward Puck with his hands upraised.

“Kneel now!” he shouted, then rushed in, truncheon raised.

The small metal ball at the
end of the truncheon glinted in the sun as it rose and fell—but it never struck its target.

Puck had stepped to one side and produced his blade, which he’d had ready under his cloak. He flicked it upward and the meaty guardsman made a choking sound.

It was the guardsman that fell to his knees then. The blade protruded from his back, staining the blue cloak dark with fresh blood. Puck withdrew it and stepped around the fallen man.

But there was some fight in
him yet. Making ghastly sounds as he knelt in the grass, the man smashed the truncheon into Puck’s side. A rib or two crackled dryly.

All this time, Slet had not mo
ved from his spot on the grass where he knelt. The man who was supposed to arrest him thus forgot about him. The guardsman struggled with his blade, calling out hoarsely. When he had it out, he charged at Puck.

A huge arm shot
up from the open grave as he passed it. His ankle caught was in an iron grip and he went sprawling. Then Morcant’s other hand came up from the hole and grabbed him, hauling him down. He screamed and howled in the earth.

Puck
then slashed the first man’s head from his shoulders. He fell dead on the grass. Puck then moved wordlessly forward to block Corbin from his master.

Co
rbin stood for a shocked moment. He’d dropped the scroll he’d been reading and now had his sword out. His sides heaved and eyes were wide. Slet stood up, seeing that matters had gone his way.

“I’m sorry, Corbin,” he said. “I bear you no ill will. Take your horse and report
back to Brand if you want to stay alive to see another day. I will go on my way, and I won’t bother the Haven again.”

Horrible
noises were now rising from the open grave. Unseen, a grisly death was obviously taking place. There were sounds of breaking bones, desperate grunts and then a high-pitched keening that cut short after several seconds.

Corbin swallowed. He gestured at the figure who stood between Slet and he.

“Who are
you
, man?” he demanded.

The figured spoke, surprising everyone. “Do you not recognize my blade, River Boy?” asked Puck.

Corbin looked at the sword, and his eyes froze there. “Puck? By the River, man…you now serve the Black?” he asked.

“I must.”

Nodding and backing away toward the horses, Corbin left Slet surrounded by the Dead.

“Please
man,” he called to Slet as he mounted. “For the sake of your clan and all your folk, leave the Haven forever!”

“I will, if I am able
!”

* * *

While Slet dealt with the Dead in his own way, Oberon was faced with his own freshly killed villagers.

He, Lord of the Elves, was not happy this day. He’d been away when his half-breed son Myrrdin had broken free of his prison and ravaged the village where he’d been imprisoned. Three score souls had been lost, and others were scattered in the forest, still hiding in fear.

What astounded Oberon most was the idea that his fool son had managed to get free, take control of a tree and become one with it after being planted in the ground for a decade. It didn’t seem like the same do-gooder he’d dealt with for centuries.

The guardians he’d set near the place had, for the most part, been killed. But the sole survivor told him there had been a woman, a stranger he assumed was some type of Faerie. She’d spoken to them, brought them gifts, and expressed curiosity about the tree growing over Myrrdin’s prison. She was nowhere to be found now, but Oberon was anxious to talk to this mysterious woman of the woods.

Viewing the destruction and carnage, he reflected upon the oddities of his own family relationships. Often, it seemed that when family bonds spanned extreme lengths of time, they became twisted in nature. At first, a parent was always inordinately fond of any offspring he sired. This was as true for an elf sire as it was for a doting human father.

But as the long years rolled on, that initial glow inevitably faded for an elf. Such was the way it had been with Myrrdin. He’d slowly become Oberon’s enemy, and such a devoted one that they’d been on the opposite sides of several armed conflicts. It still confounded Oberon that the fruits of his own seed could be so rebellious, even long after Myrrdin’s human mother had died and moldered away. Myrrdin wasn’t a
true
immortal, of course. But his life span was measured in centuries, rather than decades. He was old now, but apparently he still had life left in him.

Oberon walked among the crushed mushroom hamlets and broken bodies of elves. He’d grieved briefly upon seeing the scene—something he rarely did. But at the same time he felt this sorrow, he felt exultation. If Myrrdin had truly done this all by himself, perhaps he had
changed
. Only a callous, angry being could perform deeds like these. Perhaps Myrrdin was now worthy of the mantle of being an elf lord’s eldest living son. One could only hope.

While poking around in the wreckage, Oberon was surprised to meet a woman dressed in white. He eyed her with suspicion, while in turn she gave him a pleasant smile.

“Who are you and what have you to do with this?” he demanded of her.

“I’m Morgana,” she said
, “and although I like to think I’m a strong woman, I certainly can’t steer a living tree through a village.”

He turned to look at the destruction, and she came to stand quietly beside him.

“My son did this,” he said with a sweep of his arm.

“You must be angry.”

“Yes.”

“And yet proud.”

He turned to look at her. “How well you understand me. Are you one of my kind?”

Morgana smiled oddly. “In a manner of speaking, yes.”

He was not sure what she meant by that, so he did not ask. Lords rarely liked to confess their ignorance, especially to relative strangers.

“What will you do?” she asked him.

“I will gather my hosts, and I will hunt him down, of course.”

“Of course,” she murmured.

He looked at her in sudden consternation. “You approve, don’t you? You want to see me do this thing?”

She spread her fine white hands wide. “It is not for me to say. I only see the logic in your decision. There really is no other option—but for one.”

“What are you saying, witch of the forests?”

“Perhaps you could—ah,
redirect
his energies.”

Oberon smiled crookedly. He launched himself into the air, landed on a ruptured mushroom and squatted there, staring down at her. He produced a set of small pipes
, and he did play while she watched from below, smiling up at him.

“You’re a strange one,” she said after he’d finished his lively tune. “Are you honestly trying to seduce me with your piping? Now, in the midst of carnage?”

Oberon lowered his pipes in disappointment, for that was exactly what he’d been trying to do. But after a moment, he cocked his head and smiled anew.

“Would you rather a funeral dirge?” he asked, waving with his hand at the d
estruction that surrounded them and the dead elves that lay here and there amongst the ruins. “It is not our way to moan and wail in the face of loss. It has never been our way to grieve for more than a few hours at the most.”

He pointed to a fine white limb streaked with dried blood streaks running the length of it. The arm lay at Morgana’s feet.

“Lift the leaf that has covered her face.”

Morgana did as he bid. She uncovered the face of an elf-child, a small girl with azure hair and staring, empty eyes. There were many such tragic poses amongst the crushed homes. Fortunately, when elves passed on
in the Great Erm, they did not rot and stink as they might in another place. For there was no rot here that could chisel the flesh of an immortal. The perfect corpses simply waited until a predator came to scavenge upon their flesh.

Morgana replaced the leaf gently, covering the girl’s face.

“She was a lovely child,” she said. “I grieve for her, and for you, at her passing.”

Oberon shifted on his perch. “That is exactly my point. You look, you grieve, you move on. None but the mad can grieve forever. We elves simply get over it faster.”

“I see,” said Morgana, “but what is the purpose of attempting seduction now?”

“Why, isn’t it obvious? What’s the point of prolonged grief? It does nothing to solve the problem.
We’ve lost souls. We must be renewed. Mating, birth—these are the only things that makes sense at such a moment.”

Morgana nodded thoughtfully, turning her head this way and that.

“Very well,” she said.

Oberon, who had been just about to lift his pipes to his lips again, paused. “What’s that? You’re interested in my entreaty?”

“Yes. But I warn you, my womb will not bear your young.”

Oberon smiled. It was a slightly predatory thing, a smile born of ages full of both joy and malice in equal measures.

“Be not so sure, milady,” he said, waving a thin finger at her. “For none have ravaged you like the eldest of all elves can, of that I’m certain.”

She laughed then, and he joined in her laughter. H
e soon came down from his perch and began piping again, this time creating a sprightly dancing tune. She stood stalk-still for a time before finally allowing herself to be moved. Oberon was amazed at her self-control. He’d courted thousands of females, and never had one been so aloof in the face of his charms.

But when she finally did let herself move, swaying her hips, kicking high and stepping around him even as he did her, he found she was quite graceful for a woman of her grandeur. He’d worried that she would perhaps be a stiff, boring companion—but he could see now his fears were unfounded.

He did wonder, as he danced with her, how she had been able to shrug off his earlier advances so easily. It intrigued him. She was a mystery, and had been so since the moment he’d met her wandering his forest. Even at this moment, which he believed to be of his own making, he had to wonder
who
had seduced
whom
in the end?

Together, they drank nectar and laughed with muted voices. After an hour of gentle touches, they did embrace and dance closely for a time before making love. When at last they did the deed, lying atop the broken crown of a mushroom hamlet, there were no living witnesses to the act.

The only beings surrounding them were cold, dead elves.

Chapter Seven

The Dead in the Water

While watching
Corbin gallop away back to Riverton, Slet had no doubt he would return with reinforcements. He’d sound the alarm, telling everyone a second Storm of the Dead had quite possibly begun. At that point, things would move beyond the control of two men and their honor. The council and the populace in general would insist that Slet be driven away and preferably slain.

He could not blame them for this. Too many families had lost loved ones
the last time necromancy had been practiced on this very hilltop. They could not bear to see it begin again and would react with swift, terrible attacks.

Uncertain as to what to do—other than to flee—Slet paused to
look at the two open graves. One had once held his troll-child, the other still held the lifeless body of his wife.

As if driven there, he woodenly walked to the rim of the second grave. He could
still see her flaxen hair, as bright a yellow as it had been in life. It seemed that the old tales were true: dirt would not cling to the hair of a true elf. Even in death, her locks were like spun gold.

Slet stared down into that grave as if fascinated.

“We must go, Master,” Puck said at his side.

Slet could not tear his eyes from the wisps of his wife’s hair. Just seeing them brought back a thousand joyous memories. His every day and night with her had been a pleasure.

“Puck,” he said thickly, “you wield a blade today as well as you did in life. Do you also have the same wisdom you possessed when you still drew breath?”

“
I doubt it, lord. I’m but a shadow of my former life. A wavering reflection seen in a muddy pond.”

“Well, I
will ask your advice anyway, as I know not who else to turn to. Should I raise my lady-love? Shall I make my elf-wife walk again? I think you should have a say, as she is also your sister.”

Puck
turned his hollow eyes toward him, and Slet glanced at the Dead-thing. Those eyes…they were not normal. They seemed not to focus on Slet directly but rather upon something
within
Slet. It was a disconcerting thing to see, as if this dead version of Puck could gaze right through his flesh and into the bones inside.

“
That depends upon what you seek, Master.”

“I—I yearn for her companionship,” Slet said. “The touch of her hand in mine. The sweet sound of her voice and her laugh.”

“Her mind would not be as strong as mine, for she was much, much younger than I when she died. You could clothe her fully in flesh again—but it would be the cold flesh of the Dead.”

“Could she speak
at all?”

“Perhaps. But her mind would be that of an animal at best.”

Slet thought about that, and his shoulders sagged in disappointment. She would not be his wife returned to him. She would be a ghoul, a thing of nightmares: a cold-skinned creature he could not bear to touch.

“We must go, milord,” said Puck, gazing fixedly downslope. “The townspeople gather. W
hen next they come, we cannot hope to defeat them all.”

“I don’t want to defeat them. I want to escape them—to be left alone. Let’s flee and hope for the best.”

A pale, cold hand touched his elbow. Puck gestured for him to wait.

“
We’d best create a distraction, and do it quickly,” the dead elf said.

Slet frowned in incomprehension. “A distraction? How?”

Puck nodded to the yawning iron gates that led down into the Drake Crypt.

Suddenly, Slet understood what the other was suggesting. He recoiled in horror and curled his upper lip.

“You want me to create an army of the Dead? I told Corbin I would do no such thing. Besides, it will pain me greatly.”

Puck extended a long finger in the direction of the troll infant, which still clung to
Slet’s side beneath his cloak.

“Would it not pain you more,
Master, to see him die again?”

Slet set his lips in a firm line and nodded. Without another word, he turned and reentered Drake Crypt. His cries of agony and anguish escaped his clamped shut mouth from time to time as he caused the Dead to rise one by one. He ordered them all to protect the Crypt from intruders,
and then hurried off into the trees with Puck at his side. He left Morcant in charge of one last platoon of Dead things. He hoped the giant of a man still had some fight left in him.

* * *

When Brand at last reached the shoulders of Snowdon, he was worn and tired. He’d slept in the saddle and ridden hard for three long days. His horse was spent, and he was down to walking now. He could not understand how the boy Trev had outrun him so far for so long. Half-elf or not, he should not have been able to keep up such a killing pace.

Brand
didn’t give up despite the grueling slog into the mountains. When he reached the walls, he’d left his roan behind. The horse was an excellent animal, but it had lost a shoe a dozen leagues back, and the unevenness of its footing had made it lame long before Brand reached the great stone gates. When he stood on the doorstop of Snowdon and entered the red furnace known as the Earthlight, Brand was almost limping himself.

The Kindred at the entrance gathered around to hail him and clap him on the back. They
promised to follow the road back and find his horse for him and they clucked over his description of its sad state, then cast worried glances at Brand himself.

“Milord,” as
ked the Captain of the Guard, “your arrival is no indication of impending doom, is it? I mean—were you chased here by something—unpleasant?”

Brand shook his head wearily. “No
, Captain. It is I who am doing the chasing this time. And I’m in an unpleasant mood to be sure.”

The Kindred gave him quiet looks of concern and muttered among themselves, but asked no more questions. Brand insisted on seeing Gudrin straight-away, so they provided him with a goat cart and a
driver for the long, winding path down to the floor of the cavern.

It was dark by the time he reached the dry, rocky plain that surrounded the Citadel. In the West
, the three louvers of the Great Vent stood nearly shut. They still allowed in three red gleaming lines of light between them—the equivalent to starlight here beneath the surface.

Brand
marched onward resolutely. He found the Citadel and talked his way past the guards posted there. This was easily done, as they’d been forewarned of his after-hours visit and were prepared for his arrival.

He was ushered to the same chamber in which Gudrin had talked with Trev the day before. Brand frowned upon seeing the elderly
Queen. It seemed to him that she was even more ancient than usual today. Perhaps, after half a millennium, her time was drawing near at long last.

“Gudrin? Do I find you in good health?”

“As good as can be expected, Lord Rabing. To what do I owe the honor of your visit?”

“I follow another. A youngster from the River Haven.”

“Trev?”

“He’s been here then?”

“Yes.”

There was a pause in the conversation as Brand was shown a stone chair to sit in and given a granite mug of piping hot tea. He sipped the brew carefully, winced in pain, then forced a smile.

“Excellent, just as I remember it.”

Gudrin chuc
kled. “For an Axeman, you’re a polite fellow. Brand, before I tell you about Trev, I must ask: why are you so interested in the lad?”

Brand frowned. “I’m not entirely sure. But I know that Old Hob is doing everything he can to stop him in his quest.
That alone was enough to make me want to get involved. Now that I
am
involved, I mean to figure out what’s going on.”

“
Fair enough. Trev told me about Old Hob’s attempts to stop him. Were you aware Trev was attacked by an assassin?”

“What?”

At length, Gudrin related Trev’s tale of a simulacrum stalking him on the Starbreak Fells. Brand was discomfited by this. Old Hob was up to his worst tricks in this game, it seemed.

“But I find this puzzling,” Brand said. “
Why would Hob banter with the boy, fly him almost up to Snowdon itself, and then put an assassin on his tail a few hours later?”

Gudrin gulped her tea loudly. The steam rising up from her face made Brand wince. He reminded himself the woman could not be burned—it was a side effect of bearing Pyros.

She raised a stubby finger and waggled it in the air.

“
That’s precisely what I’ve been pondering. I think the answer is clear enough: events didn’t go as Hob had planned. He first went to you, hoping you would waylay the boy and convince him to change his course. When that failed, he talked to Trev directly. When the boy wagered with him and won, Hob was forced to transport him closer to his goal rather than farther from it. After that, I imagine Hob lost patience and put an assassin on his trail.”

“Hmm,” said Brand, nodding. “A logical series of steps when viewed that way. He clearly wanted to deflect Trev from his course at all costs, but tried to do it as subtly as possible at first. When that failed, he’s moved on to more and more direct methods.”

“Exactly. The follow-up question, however, is the one I’m puzzling over now.”

“What’s that?”

“Why does he care so much in the first place? To build a simulacrum of another being is no small task, Brand. It takes a long period of preparation and effort. Hob is very determined, of that we can be certain.”

“It fa
lls to us then to decide if we’re on the side of Trev and his witch, or Hob. An unpleasant choice. I’ve come out here to get to the bottom of the whole thing.”

“Fair enough, and well-timed.
You’ll be glad to hear I’ve summoned another to aid you on this quest.”

Brand looked around at her in surprise. “Another? Who?”

A high-pitched voice sounded from the single window. Through that aperture bounded a familiar manling. It was Tomkin, and he stood on the table between the two larger folk a moment later, after taking two more bounds.

“Tomkin!” Brand cried in a moment of joy. “It’s been too long, friend.”

“Agreed,” Tomkin said, eyes twinkling in the gleaming red light like two chips of black glass. “I’m happy to see you’ve joined the party, river-boy. Gudrin assured me that you would.”

Brand looked from one of them to the other. “The party? Where are we going and what is our quest?”

“Why, that should be obvious, even to a lumbering lout from Rabing Isle! Firstly, we must find Trev and learn what this is about. Along the way, we may be required to stop Hob from killing the boy. Lastly, we must find this witch of the woods and learn what she is up to.”

Brand nodded.
He felt better now that he was amongst powerful friends. Between the three of them, there were few things they could not accomplish. Tomkin was the leader of the Wee Folk, a silly but numerous people. Brand possessed a small army and a castle. Gudrin was a Queen in her own right, and ruled all the Earthlight.

More important than any of these accolades, however, was the simple fact that they all possessed one of the Jewels of Power. Few beings in the history of Cymru could withstand the combined onslaught of the Blue, the Orange and the Amber.

Brand smiled. “Let’s do it. Now tell me, what has become of Trev? How stands his mysterious quest?”

“
I was hoping you could tell me,” Gudrin said.

Brand’s smile faded and he blinked in surprise. “I’m in your realm, am I not?”

“You are. But Trev is no longer here. It was partly my fault, I think. I didn’t take the matter seriously enough. I told the watch to follow him and keep records of his activities. There was barely time to write a few lines in that log before he was taken into the confidence of a Kindred Warrior who left his post at the Gates to travel to Darrowton. After meeting up with Trev, the two vanished the yesterday morning.”

“Vanished?” Tomkin asked. “Did they pass
out through the Gates again?”

“No.”

“Well, that can only mean one thing…”

“Yes, naturally. They have gone not up to the surface, but down into the caverns beneath this one. I’m afraid, Brand, there can be no other answer. Trev has been guided down into the Everdark itself.”

“But…whatever for?”

Gudrin squirmed a bit on her stone chair. “I might have had something to do with that. I suggested certain individuals that might have the knowledge Trev seeks with such zeal.”

“Creatures? In the Everdark?” Brand thought hard and fast. He did not like where his thoughts led him. “There are only three types of beings I can think of who might know much of anything about the Jewels and who dwell down there. The kobolds, the gnomes and the dragons.”

“
Agreed,” interjected Tomkin, “and I think we can safely cross off the kobolds. The gnomes don’t get out much. They don’t possess ancient wisdom concerning anything other than their own odd city.”