A Strange and Ancient Name (6 page)

“Oh, Li. You know I trust you.”

“Well?”

Hauberin shook his head. “You were never meant to bear the weight of—of flesh-and-blood emotions.”

“Don’t patronize me. Do you think wind-children have no emotions?”

“Not normal wind—ae, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that.”

He could have struck himself at the shadow that passed over his friend’s face. “It’s true,” the being said levelly. “It wasn’t till I . . . became flesh-and-blood myself that I could fully understand certain things. Fear. And hate.”

“Li, I—”

“And love, and friendship. Those two you taught me. Come now, what troubles you?”

Hauberin stared into the earnest golden gaze, then glanced quickly away. “Serein,” he admitted.

“Serein! But it’s been nearly . . . Surely you don’t still regret his death?”

“Yes. No. Ach, wait. Li, the man
was
part of my life. Even if I did hate him for most of it. I can’t that easily forget him, or that he’s dead, or that mine was the hand that . . .” But Hauberin couldn’t finish that. “No, Li. I’m not a hypocrite. If I hadn’t . . . if he hadn’t died, he would have killed me.”

“Then why let a dead traitor—oh, don’t look at me like that, that’s exactly what he was. Why let a traitor haunt your thoughts?” The glowing eyes narrowed warily. “Unless he really is haunting you . . . ?”

Serein’s mockery, his certainty:
“You’re not rid of me.”

Hauberin forced a laugh. “Credit me with enough skill to banish a ghost.” He took a deep breath. “Serein cursed me.”

“What!
And you just stand here? By what Powers did he—ae, what Names did he—”

“None. I had more sense than to let him finish.”

Alliar blinked. “Why, then, whatever curse he began can have no hold on you!”

“So the rules of such things would have it.”

“But?”

Hauberin sighed. “But, as I told you, I’ve been sleeping poorly of late.”

“I don’t understand. Surely there are aids for those who can’t sleep? Potions? Or . . . some willing lady, Aydris or—or Charailis?”

The prince snorted. “You saw her trying to seduce me during the Second Triad celebration, didn’t you?”

“I . . . uh . . . assumed that’s what she was trying to do,” the sexless being said uncertainly. “But you didn’t seem to want to—”

“And you don’t know why. Oh my dear Li, the woman despises me. The only reason she wanted to bed me was to snare my will.”

Alliar’s eyes widened. “You mean, flesh-pleasures are that dangerous?”

Hauberin bit back a laugh. “Not usually. In her case, however . . . With Serein dead, she’s virtually next in line for the crown—unless, of course, Ereledan murders her. If she could control me and take the throne, why, how long do you think she would leave me alive?”

Alliar shuddered. “But I wasn’t thinking of politics,” the being said plaintively. “All I meant . . . I thought gendered folk found relaxation in that odd act of—”

“Oh, we do.” He grinned. “But it would hardly be polite to use someone as a living sleeping-potion, would it?”

The being let out a long sigh of frustration.
“Will
you stop playing games? If the difficulty isn’t simple lack of sleep, what in the name of all the Winds is it?”

Hauberin winced. Unable to meet his friend’s fierce stare, he turned away, leaning on the balustrade, looking blankly out into space. “Dreams,” he said softly. “But then, you don’t dream, do you?”

“Not as you do.”

“You can’t possibly know the power our unconscious minds can hold over us.” He glanced at Alliar. “Do you want to hear the exact words of Serein’s curse? That I ‘know not peace, not sleep,’ till I learn my mother’s father’s name.”

“Now, that’s an odd thing!”

“Isn’t it? I didn’t take it seriously, of course, not at first, particularly since I knew no Binding Names had been invoked. But since then . . .” Hauberin paused. “It began so slowly, with the slightest troubling of my dreams.” He glanced at Alliar again. “All dreaming beings have such things from time to time. And I . . . was more disturbed by Serein’s death than I admitted even to you; I told myself it was natural for my sleep to be uneasy for a time after . . . that.”

The prince felt himself starting to shiver, and snatched at his cloak, wrapping it tightly about himself, struggling for composure. “But with each night of the moon’s waning, I’ve been falling deeper and deeper into nightmare. Now, at Moon Dark, I—I can’t sleep, I dare not sleep—oh, Alliar, how do I rid myself of a curse that all the rules flatly state can’t exist?”

“You
have
tried magic?”

“Everything from the slightest little charm for sweet sleep all the way up to the Spell of Ryellan Banishment.”

Alliar raised a startled brow. “And even
that
didn’t work?”

“Other than alarming half the court sages, who were wondering just what their prince was trying to do, no. And if such a powerful spell failed, it . . . seems to imply something very unhappy.”

“Eh?”

The prince hesitated a long while. Alliar, with all the alien patience of a spirit, did not push him. And at last Hauberin said painfully, “I am a half-blood, after all. Not fully of my father’s kind, nor of my mother’s. Not quite looking or acting like either.”

Even as he said that, Hauberin wished he could have taken it back; Alliar, after all, resembled no one in all the Realms. But the being only shrugged. “So? That just makes you—ah, what did I hear a lady call you?—intriguingly exotic?”

“You’re missing my point, Li. Powers, not only don’t I know my mother’s father’s name, I don’t even know
what
he was! What if the mixture of races brought out some . . . instability, some slowly surfacing . . . weakness of mind—”

“How dare you!” Alliar’s form blurred and shifted with the force of the being’s sudden indignation. “How dare you belittle yourself?”

“Ai-yi, hold to one form! You’re making me dizzy.”

The being grudgingly solidified, golden hair a wild aureole about the fine-boned head, eyes still fierce. “I just will not hear you talk about yourself that way. The boy who slew my . . . master, who freed me from horror: that boy had no ‘weakness of mind,’ and neither, by all the Winds, does the man he’s become!”

Even Alliar had to stop for breath by that point, and Hauberin, half-astonished, half-touched by his friend’s vehemence, began warily, “But the curse—”

“Damn the curse!” Alliar stopped again, panting, wild golden mane gradually settling sleekly back into place. So. Enough. It’s the lack of sleep talking, not you.”

“Probably.”

“Certainly. Come, let me hear the plot of your dream.”

The prince gave the ghost of a chuckle. “Yes, Mother.”

“What?”

“Nothing.” He was deliberately keeping his voice light. “You do understand that such things can’t possibly sound so terrifying in the telling as they are in the dreaming. But, if you must have it: I’m walking down a smooth-walled, featureless corridor, dark, but not so dark I can’t see where I’m going. What I can’t see is the corridor’s far end, but the air is so close and chill that I very much want to turn and run. But I can’t run. Some terrible compulsion drives me on and on, even though I’m becoming almost sick with horror, even though I know there’s something waiting, even though I know that when I see the truth, I will—die.”

Hauberin broke off with a gasp, shaking. “It’s all right,” Alliar murmured, putting a gentle hand on his arm. “You’re not alone now.”

“No. Of course not.” After a moment, the prince continued softly, “Each time I sleep, I find myself further down that dark corridor. And lately I’ve been hearing a voice in the dream. All it says is a toneless, ‘Grandson, welcome.’ But there’s something behind the words that’s so very unbearable that I find myself screaming like a child, ‘I will not look! I will not look!’ And with that, of course,” Hauberin finished wearily, “I wake myself up.” He glanced at Alliar. “It sounds foolish now, doesn’t it?”

“No,” the being murmured. “If, as I’ve heard, dreams seem quite real to the dreamer, then it doesn’t sound foolish at all. But why have you been trying to solve this all by yourself? Did you never think of finding help?”

“Li, please. That’s the last thing I want to do.”

“But—”

“I did consult with Sharailan privately, pretending I spoke of some hypothetical case I’d come across in my studies. I think he believed me; our Sharailan has outlived any deviousness he might once have had. And he seemed genuinely intrigued by the problem. But for all his musings over past magics, he couldn’t come up with a solution. I didn’t dare press him, or go to anyone else. By that point, I couldn’t keep up the pretense long enough or convincingly enough for that. And if anyone should begin to suspect the truth . . . No, Li,” he added before the being could interrupt, “I’m not being overly cautious. Remember that time three years back, when I fell so feverishly ill from drinking
seralis,
because no one had remembered that the wine was poisonous to humans and might harm me, too?”

Alliar shuddered. “Of course.”

“Remember the whispers? ‘Sickly half-blood,’ ‘unfit to rule’—I wasn’t so ill I didn’t overhear them. Remember how many loyal vassals were ready to forget their loyalty? How many would-be rebels I had to put down—all the time worrying that I was bringing the land into civil war—to prove that human blood or no, I was still their prince? Li, I don’t want to go through that again.”

“Oh, but surely things are different now. Your people love you.”

Hauberin grinned fiercely. “Don’t be naïve. Some do, some don’t. Most are merely . . . politic. As long as their prince keeps the land peaceful and prosperous and lets them live their own lives, they don’t really care who sits the throne—as long as he can wield sufficient strength. I’ve worn the crown for only six years, a mere eyeblink of Faerie time, nowhere near long enough for everyone to be totally trusting of me.”

“Ah.”

“The slightest sign of human failings from me, and off they’d go again. With Charailis and Ereledan, doubtless, in the lead.”

Alliar sighed. “What complicated lives you solid folk lead! But I agree: You really can’t go to anyone for help. Except to me, of course.” The being paused, head cocked to one side, considering. “Now, here’s a thought . . . Thanks to your mother, you know some spells foreign to this Realm. Suppose Serein had learned some, too.”

“I doubt it. Can you see him ever sullying his hands with human magic?”

“Ah well, we can hardly prove it now. It would have made such a lovely answer, though: none of your Faerie magic working against his curse because that curse wasn’t formed of Faerie Power.”

Hauberin stared at the being. If the curse was real, if Alliar was right, and it was formed of alien Power . . . Without the Name and shape of that magic, he would never, ever, be able to lift the curse . . .

The being could hardly have missed the sudden bleakness in his eyes. “There’s still one very simple solution, my friend,” Alliar said, “and I suppose only weariness has kept you from seeing it. Since you need your grandsire’s name, send someone into your mother’s Realm to learn it! Then whether Serein’s curse really is fueled by some outside Power, or whether you’ve—forgive me—fallen victim to the simpler power of suggestion, we’ve drawn the fangs of his malice.”

Plain enough. Sensible enough. And Hauberin
had
already thought of it, and flinched from the idea. Now he turned away, biting his lip, feeling Alliar’s gaze piercing him like two golden darts. “Li, I . . .

“What is it?” The being moved to face him, but Hauberin angrily turned away again. “Why, you’re afraid!”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“Oh, really? Then why won’t you look at me? You’re terrified of the very thought of learning that name.”

He wanted to shout,
No! How should I be afraid?
But not even a half-human Faerie prince could lie. At bay, furious at his weakness, and at his friend for exposing it, Hauberin whirled with a savage, “You go too far!”

A responding flash of anger crossed Alliar’s face. “Pray forgive me.” The formal words were laced with mockery. The sleek form shifted, quick as thought. A lithe elf-girl, golden-maned, knelt in supplication at Hauberin’s feet. After a moment, the prince murmured, “Prettily done, Li. Come, get up. I apologize. Ach, Li, please,” the prince added wearily when the being didn’t move, “I’m not up to feuding right now.”

A bright golden eye glanced up at him. “No. I can see that.”

Alliar straightened, blurring. Hauberin waited till the malleable being had shifted back to sexlessness before confessing quietly, “I shouldn’t have shouted at you. And . . . you’re right. I
am
afraid.”

“Of what?” Alliar had apparently let anger flow away with the change of shape. “Of whom your grandsire might have been?”

“Of
what
he might have been. All I know for certain is that he wasn’t—isn’t?—human.”

“What of it?
I’m
not human. Your
father
wasn’t human.”

“Don’t be clever. You know that’s not what I meant. Of course there’s other than human, better than human. There’s also . . . worse. I . . . never told anyone this, but I used to have nightmares about that. I used to lie awake, ashamed to call my mother, afraid to call my father, wondering: what if my grandfather turned out to be something—something—Damn! I thought I had conquered that fear long ago.” Hauberin took a deep breath. “Look you, I really don’t want to learn the truth. But I don’t want to die from lack of sleep, either.”

“Why are you so sure the answer is something terrible?” Alliar asked gently. “I never met your mother, but from all I’ve heard she was too good of soul—as is her son, I might add—for her father to ever have been anything Evil.”

Touched, Hauberin murmured, “Thank you, Li.”

The being shrugged, embarrassed. “So, now. I suppose the next question is who you’re going to send into your mother’s Realm. The answer is obvious enough: me.”

“No!” Hauberin had a sudden sharp image of Alliar in human lands, making some fatal blunder in all innocence, of human fear and hatred, of the stake and the flames . . . “Thank you, but you don’t know enough about being human to pass as one.”