Dream Magic (25 page)

“You’ll go to Oberon, and ask your questions. It was what you were wanting to do anyway, wasn’t it?”

“Yes…”

“Very well then. The perfect cover. You’ll march right into your grandfather’s camp with purpose. You will make no mention of me, Ivor or the dragon. Instead, you will press for answers about the Dark Jewels. As an aside, let me assure you, if he doesn’t know where they all are, then no one does.”

“Very well. But why do you want me to do this thing?”

“Because you will be serving two purposes with your visit. First, you will satisfy your curiosity, and that of the witch in the wood who seems to have some kind of hold over you. At the same time, you’ll play the spy. You’ll learn of Oberon’s plans. Does he intend to seek me? Does he know where I am, and what I’m doing out here in the Great Erm? I want you to ask your questions and return with the answers to me. Then I’ll release your pet and all will be well between us.”

Trev rubbed his chin thoughtfully. He looked down at the
dragon then back up at his uncle.

“I’ll do it,” he said at last.

Myrrdin chuckled, and his branches shook with his mirth. He set Trev down on the forest floor, where the half-elf straightened his clothes and rubbed at a dozen scratches and bruises.

“Be off with you then. Head east until you find a great river, then follow it south. There on the banks you’ll find an elven village
populated by their Dead. Hopefully, Oberon is there.”

“You don’t even know? How am I to complete this quest?”

“That’s your problem. You have a week to return. After that, I’ll grow sick of this dragon and crush her for spite. Already, I’m offended by the smell of woodsmoke.”

Trev nodded, and turned away. At a surprisingly fast pace, he sprinted off into the trees.

Myrrdin looked after him curiously. He wondered if the boy would actually succeed. At least he was fleet of foot. If he hadn’t known better, he would have thought he was a true elf, not a half-breed mutt.

Chapter Twelve

Trev’s True Nature

Slet wandered through the Deepwood
and into the Haven Wood. He felt as if he walked in a dream. All night he marched, and although he was not so tireless as Puck the Dead-thing, the power of the Black kept him moving.

He knew he should not wield it so cavalierly. Bad things had come to Brand when he’d
wielded Ambros with abandon. Brand had almost lost his mind and his soul to the Axe. Necron was different. He didn’t feel that it would take over his mind—not exactly. Nor did it exhort him to battle or bravery.

Instead, he felt that it was leeching away his life. Already, the world looked less colorful. More of it was the gray of a night sky, the umber of
deep shadows and the inky black of water seen at night.

This must be how the world
s look to the Dead
, he thought.
Colorless, quiet, and cold.

He shook himself and put the Black away, tucking it into his belt. Immediately, he felt fatigue. He called out to Puck to get the other to halt.

“Puck, I’m exhausted. Dawn must be near, and I no longer hear any signs of pursuit. Where are we?”

“It is only a few paces farther,
Master,” Puck said.

“Farther? To where? Where are you leading us?”

Puck stood stock-still for a moment. When at last he spoke, he sounded vague and slightly confused.

“I’m leading us? I am not the leader here.”

“Fine, just tell me where we are.”

“Near Hamlet, I believe.”

“That far?” asked Slet in concern. “No wonder I’m so tired. We’ve marched for leagues! Hamlet you say…wait, isn’t that where your home used to lie?”

Puck
said nothing. Slet noticed the Dead elf was gazing ahead, toward distant lights beyond the trees.

“That’s a cottage over there,” Slet said, standing with Puck and following his gaze. “That’s where you’re taking us, isn’t it? Is that your old home, Puck?”

“I…I’m sorry, Master. I did not mean to lead anywhere. You are the only leader here.”

“
Apparently, that is not so. It’s not your fault, and I’m not displeased. I suppose it’s only natural for a man to walk toward home after a long time in the dark.”

Puck made no answer, and Slet frowned thoughtfully. “I don’t think I should leave the cover of the trees, Puck. I don’t think I should go out there. And I’m certain no one who lives in that cottage would want to see the troll riding on your shoulders!”

“You’re right, of course.”

“But you do
want
to go there, don’t you?”

Puck turned his dead eyes toward his master.

“I don’t want anything, other than to obey you.”

Slet smiled and shook his head. “I don’t believe that. You have too much o
f your old mind left. And that’s not a bad thing. I need a companion who can think, who can reason and help intelligently. I’m not admonishing you. In fact, if it weren’t for you, I would be dead right now and my child would have suffered yet more violence.”

Puck turned back
and stood gazing at the cottage in the woods again. Slet could see the windows were reflecting the first red rays of dawn.

“Go to them, Puck, if you would. I’ll wait here. Perhaps you can say goodbye. It is the only way I can think of to reward you.”

“I will do as you have commanded, Master,” said Puck. He began walking toward the cottage at the edge of the woods.

Slet looked after Puck,
wondering if he’d done a good thing or performed an act of evil. After all, he’d been reunited with his troll child, but it still breathed. Perhaps those living in that cottage would rather Puck stay in a quiet grave.

He sighed and sat down with his back against a thick rowan tree trunk to wait. In his arms, the troll curled up and slept. Soon, Slet nodded off and joined
the troll in exhausted slumber.

* * *

Mari hadn’t set the beacon alight for a thousand long nights. She did it just before dawn today, not to guide home her husband, but to guide home her errant son.

The act of lighting the beacon b
rought back a flood of memories. She could not help but be reminded of her lost husband and to think of Puck as he once was. She felt sorrowful, and she mourned the losses of her life.

She often reflected upon the oddities of fate. When she’d first taken Puck as a husband, she’
d been frightened of growing too old to interest him. She’d believed as she aged, and he did not, his wanderings would grow longer and longer until he never came back to her at all. In the end, the tragic way their relationship ended wasn’t so simple. Instead of leaving her in her dotage, he’d gone and gotten himself killed.

Now here she was, worrying about her own son exactly as she had her husband before him. Such was the fate of a woman who took a mate among the Fae, she thought. She had no one to blame but herself. She’d loved and lived and now she was stuck with the aftermath. Her only hope was that Trev would find
his way home to her one more time, as he and his father had done a hundred times before.

Waiting for Trev was e
ven worse than waiting for Puck had been, because she now knew that terrible things could happen during his travels. Before she’d lost Puck, she’d felt certain in her heart he would always return. Now, she knew differently. She knew Trev could die as well.

The long night had passed
, and no one had come. In the early light of a fresh new dawn, she rose from bed and put a pot on the stove to boil. The day looked like any other to her, if a trifle cooler than usual.

Her first hint that something was amiss came when the singing birds outside grew still. They stopped singing all at once, as if something had shushed them all.

She frowned and looked toward the window. Had a cat wandered into the yard and frightened them all? She didn’t think it was likely. She didn’t own a cat herself, and the nearest neighbor was a good half-mile’s walk up the lane. What’s more, in her experience, birds tended to scold predators when they appeared suddenly, chirping and squawking from the safety of the treetops.

She stood up from the chair near the stove and set aside the tea she’d been sipping. It was too early for a proper breakfast, so she’d been letting herself awaken slowly before
another long day of springtime chores began.

The birds
remained silent. She realized how odd that was as she stood there gazing out the window—in the spring mornings they usually made a great deal of noise with their calls.

She could only hear the winds as she listened. They sighed in the tree
tops and tousled the unmown grass outside. For some reason, the air had grown colder. There was a distinct chill to it, and she wondered if a storm might be brewing in the north. She pulled a shawl from the back of her rocker and wrapped it around herself.

Mari thought she heard a sound. It wasn’t a loud sound—but it wasn’t one of the natural noises she heard every day about her place. She decided to investigate.

As she walked to the door, she found she was moving very slowly.
There’s someone out in the yard
, she thought. She knew it then, as certainly as anyone could know such a thing without seeing it. She knew her yard so well after living here most of her life that she didn’t have to see a man to know he was there.

“Who is it?” she asked aloud. In her own ears, her voice was tremulous. She cleared her throat and asked again with more force this time. She wasn’t an old spinster yet, she thought, straightening her spine and facing the door.

No one answered.

Mari
frowned, gazing at the door and feeling a tickle of dread. Could it be Trev had returned? Or worse—infinitely worse—could it be someone from the militia come to tell her they’d found his corpse?

That idea gripped her. She could well envision the scenario. A representative would be sent to inform her, it had happened to enough of her friends for her to know the procedure. A constable would come, perhaps even an officer like Corbin himself. He would compose himself and knock on the door to deliver the news.

Could it be that this poor man, given the task at hand, had lost his voice? That he was standing out there on the porch, building up the courage to deliver the bad news?

Then she had another thought, almost as horrible.
What if it
was
Trev? What if he had come home wounded and collapsed in the yard? What if he had not answered her because he had spent himself coming home and was now beyond speech?

That thought
seemed all too believable to her, and the grim idea of her standing here, doing nothing, while her son bled out in the vegetable garden caused her to move with speed.

She took two quick steps to the door and flung it open.
The door flew wide—but there was no one standing on the porch.

Mari
walked out quickly, crying Trev’s name. The wind outside had an edge to it, and she pulled the shawl tight around her shoulders. She looked wildly about the garden, toward the shed, and then farther out to the edge of the Haven Wood.

But there was nothing, and no one. She heaved a sigh at last and
headed back to her cottage.

I’m
turning into a fool,
she thought. She had never wanted to be an aging woman who imagined things. She was only glad no one had been nearby to witness her foolishness.

She stepped into the house, pushed the door shut, and turned around.

There, in her rocking chair, sat her long-dead husband.

Puck had
laid his bare sword across his knees, but she did not take this as a threatening gesture. He’d done that a thousand times in life. His legs flexed rhythmically, causing the rocking chair to rock. Her first thought was that he’d always loved that chair, and now he was back, as if returning from one of his long stays abroad.

“Puck?” she whispered, as if in a dream.

“Yes, love.”

“You’ve come back to me.”

“No, love.”

Mari paused, mouth open. Now, as she looked at him more fully, the truth struck home. His flesh hung from his face
like gray putty. His eyes stared with burning intensity, and they did not blink. There was dust and debris in his unkempt hair, and his clothing was encrusted in grime.

Neither spoke as she took in these facts. Her mind was slow to come to the truth, but at last it could not be denied.

“You are still Dead, love?” she asked.

He nodded slowly. Still, he rocked. His head turned and he gazed out into the garden. It was such a natural gesture for him. She felt tears spring to her eyes.

“Why have you come back to haunt me, my husband?” she asked.

“I…I did not wish to disturb you. But I was near, and I felt…a longing.”

Mari was in shock, but the initial cold calm was leaving her now. She still felt as if she dreamed, but she was beginning to adapt to the situation, to wrap her thoughts around it and to force herself to think.

When one lives in Cymru,
one must come to accept that nightmares can and do come to life with regularity. This was another one of the many unfortunate moments in her life. Mari had had more than her share of them. Besides meeting and falling in love with this elf when he was still alive, she’d dealt with the most foul wielders of the Jewels of Power, such as Piskin and his evil blood-magic. She’d met the King of the Dead, traveled to the Twilight Lands and even fought with a troll and a witch personally.

Her past had left her stronger than most. She
was no screaming weakling. Her mother had been tough, and Mari knew that she was tougher still.

Moving as naturally as possible, she walked to the stove, where she had hung her ward. It was a stone ward with a hole worn through naturally by the restless waters of the Berrywine. Such wards were
helpful against the Fae, and she hoped they might work to stop a Dead one. She took the ward down and put the thong over her head. Then she took a deep breath, and spoke to the thing on the rocking chair.

“Tell me what you’ve come to say,” she said. “I
would hear it. Is our son dead, Puck? Has he joined you in the earth’s embrace?”

Puck, who’d been gazing out the window with vacant eyes, turned slowly to face her. “I don’t know,” he said.

“Why then? Why would you rise and walk again? What could have…” she stopped, taking in a sharp breath. “It was me, wasn’t it? I tormented you with my beacons at night, calling for you. I’m so sorry, Puck. I didn’t mean to disturb your rest. I didn’t think the magic was so powerful as that.”

Puck
stared at her thoughtfully. At last, he shook his head. He went back to gazing out at the garden.

“You may have influenced me to come here, with my
master’s leave. But you did not cause me to rise. And you did not disturb my rest. That was done by another.”