This Scepter'd Isle (37 page)

The ride was totally peaceful and Denoriel spent most of his time thinking about Anne. She was not truly beautiful, even by mortal standards, although her face had a most lively and intriguing expression. Her eyes were gorgeous, though, large and lustrous and so dark they looked black, as did her hair, which was also exquisite, hanging to her knees in a shining curtain when it was not demurely covered by a coif, cleverly lighted here and there with a gold chain and a twinkling jewel.

Aside from the small Talent she had, which Denoriel could hardly sense, Denoriel could not for the life of him see why King Henry should be so enamored. True, Anne was very intelligent, very well read, able and willing to discuss religion or politics. She was also not so slavishly subservient as most of the other women that Henry had been interested in, or even the male courtiers that he favored most. She laughed and teased, denied the king any physical satisfaction while assuring him she adored him, and very often scolded—but never about anything she desired for herself. Denoriel would credit her for cleverness; she never asked for anything . . . except for marriage, and even that she said was for the king's good, not her own.

Denoriel sighed and dismissed the thoughts. He was not the only one who wondered at Mistress Anne's grip on the king. He looked around and saw that the woods were familiar; he was quite near the glade that held his Gate. Good. This duty was very nearly finished. The sun was westering, but there was still plenty of light. Another quarter hour's ride would see them safe at Sheriff Hutton.

:Magic! Magic!:
the air spirit reported, landing on his shoulder.
:Across the road. Coming near.:
And then suddenly it uttered a wail of pain and terror and disappeared.

There was no sense in trying to gain control of the air spirit to ask where Harry was. Without urging, Miralys leapt toward the road. Denoriel's sword was drawn, but even before they burst past the brush that lined the road, he saw that Harry was safe, mounted on his sturdy cob. Three of his guardsmen were clustered around him; the other, ably assisted by Dunstan and Ladbroke, was driving off a huge gray-skinned monstrosity.

What hellish thing was this?

Nothing Denoriel recognized. Miralys hesitated and Denoriel swallowed when he saw the toad face—only toads did not have glowing red eyes nor long, yellow fangs that dripped something vilely green protruding from their lipless mouths. Gray skin, harder than boiled leather, Denoriel knew. There were only a few places on that body that a sword could pierce.

Vaguely Denoriel was aware that the guardsmen who rode ahead of and behind Harry were fighting other beasts, driving them away from the wagons filled with supplies and servants. His business was with the one threatening his boy. He watched the long, scaly arms, waiting for one hand or the other to rise in an attempt to seize one of the men attacking it. Miralys would leap forward and he would strike under the arm . . . 

But alarms were thrilling up and down his body! Something was terribly wrong! For all their size, creatures like this were quick and agile. This . . . thing . . . was roaring and waving its arms, striking at the men, but it was not really fighting and it was terribly clumsy . . . and there were cuts on its arms and body where the men's swords had struck it, but there was nothing oozing from the wounds.

He glanced again at where Harry sat, passively waiting to be defended on his cob. A cob? Harry did not ride a cob! Illusion! That was Reeve the men had formed up around. Denoriel realized why Miralys had hesitated. The elvensteed was not afraid of any Unseleighe monsters—no more than sensible caution required—Miralys had stopped because he sensed that what was fighting Harry's men was not a threat and that Harry was not with them.

With a despairing oath, Denoriel turned back into the woods and reached for the air spirit. Now he knew what had happened. When the "monsters" attacked, the horses had been terrified and the cortege had scattered. Harry's gelding, faster and higher spirited than the others and with Harry not strong enough to control it, had carried the boy across the road, away from the apparent threat, and into the woods. In only a few minutes Harry's guards and Dunstan and Ladbroke had mastered their horses and formed up around their charge—only it was Reeve, bespelled to look like Harry.

Rhoslyn . . . 

She might not have retained enough of Harry's mind and spirit to build a second changeling, but his appearance would be branded into her brain. She could cast an illusion good enough to fool even those who knew Harry well.

:Where?: 
 

Denoriel put all the force of his mind and will into that demand. He knew that Rhoslyn and her Unseleighe group had launched some kind of attack on the air spirit and to force it near its enemies might spell its death. He was not ordinarily cruel, but he had to find Harry. He prayed that he was not already too late. Even if the air spirit were wounded and dying, he thought that Aleneil's spell would hold. It would know where Harry was.

:Here:
came faintly back to his mind. He had been right. The air spirit, drawn by the spell that bound it to Harry, had somehow followed. He had a direction and Miralys had it too. The elvensteed seemed to leap from where it was to one of those open, low-brush-filled areas found in any wood. Denoriel knew the steed had passed through the trees, leaping and dodging but at such speed that it seemed one single stride had brought them to their goal.

:Here:
but more faintly, as if the spirit were retreating . . . or dying.

At the center of the open area was a large blackened circle and at one edge was a moldering shed of some kind. Gate! In or behind the shed was a Gate! But Denoriel had no time to try to discover anything about it. The air spirit's call had brought them to the Gate, not to Harry himself; however from the sound of pounding hooves and outcries others were coming. Miralys's speed had outpaced them.

Denoriel's heart leapt with mingled joy and rage. He still had a chance. Harry was not yet taken. He urged Miralys to the northwestern edge of the clearing. Harry was being herded from the south toward the Gate in the shed on the northeast edge. The Sidhe could not touch the boy because of the iron cross he wore, but they planned to drive him through the Gate and deal with him Underhill.

Harry burst out of the trees, still firmly in the saddle, although he had let go of the useless reins. There were about ten following him, only five even vaguely human. His horse was wild-eyed and lathered, ahead of its pursuers only because it was so terrified of them.

At the front was a Sidhe whose ragged hair flowed in the wind. His eyes were mad—huge, his slitted pupils closed so tight that the eyes seemed all one glittering green; his mouth was open, the sharp teeth showing as if he wished to tear at his prey with them. His horse trailed streamers of blood-tinged mucus from its mouth, probably nearly dead but driven on by the Sidhe's will. And in his hand he held a huge crook with which he intended to hook Harry from his horse.

Behind, screaming at the mad Sidhe to stop, their fanged and red-eyed not-horses striving to overtake the ravening Sidhe, were Rhoslyn and Pasgen. Behind them were two more dark Sidhe, beautiful still but with lips twisted into cruel smiles. And ranging them to either side were beasts on other beasts. Denoriel's eyes caught twiglike arms with huge hands finished with shining claws, something with bat-ears and a long, curling tongue mounted on an emaciated pig as big as a cow . . . 

Miralys leapt forward. Two strides put the elvensteed between Harry and the demented Sidhe. Denoriel's sword made a downward stroke with the full strength of his terror and his rage behind it. The Sidhe screamed. Arm and crook flew to one side as Miralys hit the foundering horse with his shoulder and threw the dying creature aside.

An impossible twist, another leap, and Miralys was beside Harry's horse. Somehow since the first warning from the air spirit, Miralys had undone the spell that held his head furniture together and rid himself of it and the reins. Denoriel had both hands free; he held his bloody sword in one hand and with the other tore off his heavy double-lined silk cloak and twisted it around his arm.

Braced for pain, as Miralys slowed to match pace with Harry's tired horse, Denoriel reached over and yanked the boy from his horse onto Miralys. Then the elvensteed seemed to fly across the clearing.

Behind him Denoriel heard Rhoslyn scream with fury. In the same instant, he felt the flickering pain of a near miss with elfshot.

"Hold tight, Harry," Denoriel bellowed, and then lower but still clearly. "My horse's name is Miralys."

With those words, the boy, who had been struggling, threw his arms around Denoriel's neck. The Sidhe gasped with pain, but there was enough clothing between him and the iron so that he was not totally incapacitated. He managed to lift and turn Harry so the boy's back was to him. Harry swung his leg over Miralys and Denoriel drew a sharp breath of relief. The arm with which he clutched the boy—right across the chest where the cross lay—was shielded with layers of insulating silk; Harry's body was between him and the iron cross. For now, but not for long, Denoriel could bear it.

The not-horses had been behind the bespelled mount of the mad Sidhe and had been driven sideways when the poor creature fell and began to convulse in dying or Denoriel would have been overtaken when Miralys slowed to pick up Harry. Now the elvensteed really stretched, but the need to dodge trees and leap brambles prevented Miralys from using his full speed. The not-horses were also fast and powerful. They were virtually on Miralys's heels when the elvensteed found the grove and charged into Denoriel's Gate.

When Miralys and his burden disappeared, Rhoslyn shrieked with rage and despair. She drove Talog forward at the Gate, hoping to enter so close on their heels that she would arrive at their destination with them.

Pasgen shouted a warning and almost simultaneously, because it was clear she would not listen, uncoiled a long black whip. He had brought it to drive FitzRoy's horse if necessary—or to drive FitzRoy himself—through his Gate, but he used it now to snake forward and coil around Rhoslyn's waist.

He almost pulled her from Talog's saddle, and she was so beyond herself that she turned, screaming, hand raised to fling a levin bolt at her brother. But before she could act, the whole grove lit with a terrifying burst of light and energy.

Talog and Torgan were thrown backward and nearly flung to the ground. Their clawed feet won them a purchase no horse could have maintained and they remained erect. Rhoslyn and Pasgen, armored by the nasty tricks Vidal Dhu too often played on his followers in the Hunt, stayed in their saddles.

For a moment they sat in stunned silence, staring at the blackened and flattened brush where the Gate had been. In the distance they could hear the rest of their party following, but only the not-horses could approximate the speed and agility of the elvensteed. The others would be a little while reaching them.

"You killed him!" Rhoslyn spat. "You murdered my boy! I will—"

"No!" Pasgen protested. "The collapse of the Gate was none of my doing. I did meddle with it, but only to wipe out its old terminus at Logres and—"

"You told me you couldn't touch Denoriel's Gate in London!"

"This was different. That London Gate was made for Denoriel, fitted to him. Close as we are in essence, brothers, that Gate knew I was not Denoriel. This one and the one at Pontefract are different. They are good Gates, but designed for general use. It was easy to repattern them. I swear I did the Gates no harm."

"Liar!" Rhoslyn sobbed. "You didn't want me to have the child. How often did you tell me not to scry to watch him. If you didn't prime that Gate for destruction, why did you hold me back from entering?"

Pasgen grimaced. "Because there would hardly have been room for you and Talog as well as Denoriel and Miralys and the boy where I had the Gate set to go. You would have opened my trap because my domain is keyed to you."

"Your domain?" she breathed, and then, breathlessly, "There was a little time. Do you think they could have got through before . . ."

"I don't know," Pasgen said, taking a deep breath. "Let's get back to my Gate and find out. No, we can't. We have to disperse those accursed monsters of yours."

"No need. As soon as they are killed, they will begin to dissolve. There will be nothing to carry back to Sheriff Hutton or to bring others to see. And I doubt if anyone was even hurt. Even if they don't die in the fighting, they will fall apart as they wander in the woods."

"Very clever," Pasgen said.

Rhoslyn shrugged. "Cleverness had nothing to do with it. I wanted to use the least power and expend the least effort. But what are we going to do with the Hunt you brought?"

"I have a leash on them. The Gate will draw them to it and close when the last goes through."

But they did not find Denoriel in the trap Pasgen had set. Both stood staring at the chamber, mockingly set out as a welcoming guest room. There was a handsome sideboard, fitted out with plates and cups. On it stood several covered dishes and three pitchers, holding ale, wine, and milk—all untouched. On the opposite wall was a comfortable settle and two chairs. A beautiful Turkey carpet covered the floor. All that was missing were windows and doors.

There was no smallest sign of disturbance . . . not that Pasgen had expected Denoriel to touch the refreshments provided or to permit the boy to sample them. More telling was the absence of any smell or feel of magic, and if Denoriel had spelled his way out of the trap, he would have had to use powerful magic.

"Then they are dead," Rhoslyn whispered.

"I don't know." Pasgen shook his head. "I have never heard of a Gate collapsing on anyone. It seems to me that anyone within would be thrust out. Of course they might have been killed by that blast of power . . ."

"Would it happen on both sides of the Gate?"

"I don't know," Pasgen repeated. "I will send out some finders, but I have no idea where to tell them to seek, except Logres—and my creatures cannot go there."