Dockalfar (11 page)

The forest path turned into a road paved with stone, muffled hoof beats suddenly turned to clatter. The nighthorses tossed their heads in excitement, no doubt relieved to be returning home. Gates loomed in the dusk before them. Thirty feet tall, and carved from dully gleaming reddish metal. Small hunched figures scurried across the broad road, whites of their eyes flashing as they stared up at the riders. In the darkness, they reminded Alex of the goblins save for some greater length of limb and grace in movement.

They snarled and clutched at the horse’s reins. The ogre bellowed and they shrank.

“Cursed bendithy,” he yelled. “Open the gates, stupid creatures!”

“Zakknr, Zakknr,” they muttered amongst themselves, scurrying away from his wrath. They ran to the gates, and climbed, agile as monkeys, up the rock foundation siding them. Into dark pits they disappeared, while the night horses shied nervously in waiting. The gates creaked and swung inward. Orange light spilled out upon them. Zakknr urged his mount forward, Bashru followed, muttering to himself.

Two ogres not quite Zakknr’s size stood at either gate, eyeing the newcomers sullenly. A dozen of the bendithy scurried about, whispering among themselves.

Gnomes lurked in the shadows of the gate.

The outer courtyard they found themselves in was vast. Columns thicker than red woods made an open hall from the outer gates to the inner and more ornate ones that led to the keep proper. The outer courtyard seemed to run the circuit of the fortress, its walls curving around the taller ones of the inner structure. The ground was covered in smooth black stone. The distance from the inner gate to outer was some three hundred yards. The ogre urged his mount into a bone jarring trot across the distance. The sound of hooves was overpowering.

Zakknr swung down from the saddle when he had reached the inner gate. He cut the thong binding Alex to the saddle and pulled him down. Alex had no time to protest the rude treatment, for Zakknr grabbed his bound hands and pulled him behind him towards the portal. It opened for him without benefit of command or knock.

The light in this hall was nothing so mundane as flame. It glowed from the very walls, casting a soft luminescent aura to the air itself. It was an entrance hall of some splendor, long and colonnaded, with a ceiling so tall that it hazed at its apex.

Balconies were strung like beads midway up and higher still there were walkways like spider webs. There were figures up there, hard to distinguish in the distance.

Alex was too impressed with the sheer size of the hall to pay them much heed. All he could do was stare like a child at his first carnival as Zakknr strode towards the far end of the hall, pulling him in his wake. The spriggan was no longer with them.

There were portals all along the length of the hall, some open, others closed and sealed. Small furtive figures scooted behind the columns, keeping pace with them. The bendithy. There seemed an inordinate amount of the things. Was this a place of bendithy then? It seemed too graceful an undertaking for so secretive a creature. Of course he would attribute it no less to the ogre’s clumsy hands. He could imagine Zakknr’s breed living in nothing more than crude stone caves and being satisfied with the lot.

A portal at the end of the hall melted away and figure strode out, trailed by other figures. Alex stared, caught off guard, stunned at something so bright and beautiful in a land filled with ogres and spriggan and gnomes. The man, and it was male, although man might have been too human a term, was almost as tall as the ogre. He stood half a hand taller than Alex. He was breathtakingly, astonishingly beautiful. Hair like spun sunlight fell over his shoulders in thick, silken curls. Skin like ivory stretched taught over bones finer than any icon of human perfection might hope to achieve.

Lips were full and well formed, nose narrow and straight and eyes…the eyes were just a tad large, thickly lashed and tilting at the corners. They were as deep as ever the sky was. They sparkled with inner life, with wisdom, with amusement.

The brows swept upwards to the temples, which led one’s gaze to the tips of the ears that protruded from the waves of hair. Tall and pointed. Graceful they were, and the final evidence that this was not a human thing.

The man…the being, walked right up and stood before Alex, staring down at him with a quizzical expression on his beautiful face. Alex stared back, owl-eyed, hardly noticing the people behind the one who inspected him. Zakknr had gone down on one knee, his fingers still wrapped around Alex’s hands. With a jerk he pulled Alex down beside him. His knee caps protested the rough treatment with a sharp jolt of pain. He clenched his teeth, refusing to look away from what was very obviously the Master Zakknr had been talking about the whole of the journey. The Master that had sent his minions to kidnap Alex and Victoria from their perfectly sane world.

“Master,” Zakknr’s head was bowed. “The human.”

“So I see.” The voice was smooth and cultured. The kind of voice that seduced by the mere quality of its tone. “Rather bruised and battered,” he commented, leisurely walking a circle about them, stopping in front of Alex again. The Master reached out and grazed his cheek with one white knuckle. Alex flinched away. There was a slight drawing of fine brows. The sky blue eyes turned to Zakknr. “I’m disappointed. I expected better care taken.”

“His own fault, trying to escape. Lost the goblins to gnomes in the Alkeri’na. Had to keep him on a tight leash.”

“Really? And where is my Ciagenii?”

The ogre’s eyes flickered. “Don’t know, Master.”

“He’s after the woman they kidnapped with me,” Alex ground out, feeling very dirty and graceless next to the golden master. And very angry to be talked about as if he were a disobedient dog.

“Woman?”

“She was with him,” Zakknr blurted out, his rumbling voice verging on whiny. “Thought she be a good way of keeping him in line. Lost her.”

One white hand went to the narrow, square chin. A finger tapped the full lips. “I’m displeased, Zakknr,” he finally stated and the ogre cringed. “Leave me!”

Even as the ogre was scrambling away, the master flicked one hand and the bonds about Alex’s wrists fell away in shards, as if they had aged a thousand years. He stared at his hands in shock, started even more as the master put hands on his filthy self and helped him to his feet.

“You’re trembling,” the master observed. He was, helplessly, as numb hands dangled at his sides and the Master and the group of those that followed him moved about Alex. “I assure you, there is nothing to be afraid of. We are not savages here.”

Alex swallowed and stared at the array of perfect faces. “I’m not afraid.” His voice came out cracked and strained. And it lied. “I just want to know why I’m here. What do you want?”

“You’re tired,” the master said, patting his shoulder, laying an arm across it and leading into the keep. The others followed, gliding along like swans. Alex wanted to pull away. The touch was poisonous and luxurious at the same time.

His vision was softening about the edges.

They were silent, other than the master. Only speaking in rustles of silken cloth or the jingle of jewels. The women wore flowing gowns that revealed more than they hid, the men, tunics and robes of the same material. They led him through twisted halls, their hands on his back, on his arms. Soft, feather touches that suggested rather than forced. The sting of blood returning to his hands hurt. They passed others of the beautiful people who stopped what they were about and stared at the entourage. The master took his arm from Alex and put him in the hands of a woman with alabaster skin and a fall of white gold hair.

“Leanan will take care of you. When you’re rested, you and I will talk.”

Alex stared at him helplessly. The woman urged him through a portal.

“But who are you?”

The master paused and turned. “I am Azeral.”

They were High Sidhe, the woman, Leanan said when he asked. He was in a room with her alone. A large airy room with a ceiling like a cathedral, and a great round pool of water in its center.

Shuttered windows closed to the night lined one wall. Open, during the day they would have let in a wealth of sun light. He stood, just inside the doorway, staring blankly at the room. Sheer silks trailed from the ceiling, curtaining off a corner where pillows and swirls of cloth made up a luxurious pallet. The Sidhe woman moved around him, pulling him into the room. She stood of a height with him.

Great soft eyes, every bit as blue as Azeral’s smiled at him, urging him to follow her. He took a step, unsteady.

“What is this place?” he ventured, whispering, fearing she would decline to answer, as everyone seemed to do with him here. She tilted her head and studied him. Her beauty was so alien.

“My father’s keep,” she replied. “The Unseelie Court. I don’t believe anyone’s ever given it a proper name, Alex.”

He blinked at her. “How did you know my name.”

She smiled at him. Her teeth were white and sharp. “It’s what you are. If one looks, it so easy to see a person’s true self. Come.”

He did not understand. He did not move. She moved towards him, her slender hands going to the band of his filthy pajamas. Shocked, he stepped back.

She stood staring at him.

“Yes, you are filthy,” she stated.

“Please cooperate.” She made to move towards him again and he prepared to avoid her. She frowned and suddenly his mind went blank. He ceased to be for what seemed only a handful of heartbeats, and when he came back to himself he was wet and naked and blessedly clean. She was pulling him up from the pool, the water of which was just a tad cloudy now.

There were wet spots on her gown. Her eyes were serious and appraising. He wanted to die, to shrink from her in embarrassment, but his body was not his own at the moment. It followed her whims explicitly. She led him to the array of cushions and pressed him down. It was a wonderfully soft, plush bed. She knelt at the edge of it, watching him as he slowly forced his sluggish hand to grasp an edge of silk coverlet and pull it over his nudity.

“Pretty,” she murmured. “Almost pretty.” She did not touch him now, but his body recalled the ghost of her hands on him during the bath when his mind had been elsewhere. He blushed and willed her away with her alien eyes and upturned lips.

“Sleep,” she suggested. “I’ll come for you later.” She rose gracefully from her knees, lithe, rounded flesh just hidden beneath layers of filmy veils. “Sleep,” she repeated.

He did.

He woke to voices. Soft female voices that chattered nonsense. He blinked and rubbed grit from his eyes. His hand smelled faintly of lavender, his skin felt particularly soft this morning. The bed was wickedly comfortable. He was nestled in a ocean of pillows, silken covers wrapped about him. He felt immaculate and refreshed. A tent of gathered silks and crêpes surrounded his bed. The female voices came from without. There were shapes moving in the room beyond.

He remembered where he was and sat up. The curtains were swept aside from without and Leanan peered in at him.

She was dressed in veils of blue today, her hair done up in elaborate coils. Her gracefully pointed ears boasted an array of dangling ear rings. She was breathtaking. Behind her a troop of small, dark females. Their faces were plain and unattractive next to her. He thought they might have been bendithy, from the furtiveness of their movements. They held an assortment of garments over their arms.

They watched Leanan avidly for her order.

“Are you hungry?” she asked, beckoning him forth. Warily he edged out of the cocoon, silk cover wrapped about his waist. “Would you like to see a bit of the keep?”

He nodded carefully. She put her hands on her hips and scrutinized him.

Blonde hair, blue eyes. Not unlike her own coloring, save his skin was bronzed from months in the pacific under a tropical sun.

“The blue, I think,” she decided, and one of the bendithy women scurried forward offering garments of fine cloth.

She took them and held them out to Alex, smiling. “Do you require assistance?”

He reddened and almost snatched them from her hands, looked around desperately for somewhere private to dress, and finally had to retreat to the dubious shelter of his bed of cushions.

The shirt was full sleeved and laced up the front, snowfall white, and lighter than the finest of silks. The vest that went over it was brocaded blue, with elaborate falls of material ruffling down the front.

Blue pants that fit rather too well, and soft blue boots. He ran a hand through the tangle of his hair and cast about for something else to take up time and prevent him from having to go back out and stand under Leanan’s scrutiny. He rubbed fingers over his jaw and realized that he was smooth shaven. She must have accomplished that also last night, when she had sent his mind into oblivion. It terrified him, that control she flaunted so easily. He had accepted that physically he was outnumbered and overpowered. To be so easily manipulated mentally left him no escape. No options but what they gave him. And even those they were keeping to themselves.

He stepped out from behind the veils after a strengthening breath. The bendithy were gone. Only Leanan remained. She nodded her approval of him and took his arm in her own.

“You’ll break your fast first,” she told him, leading him from the room. “Then we’ll walk about the keep.”

There was no comment he could make. They walked down a spiraling hall and across a bridge that spanned a cavernous chamber. The height was dizzying. Down another hall and into a round chamber with high open windows.

Sunlight streamed into the room, casting reflections on the pool of water at its center. Flowers bloomed in the pool, and the shapes of fish could be seen. A low curving table sat against the far wall, cushions scattered around it. Bendithy scurried about it, pitchers and platters in their hands. A half dozen High Sidhe lounged against the cushions. Every single eye cemented on Alex and Leanan as they entered the room. Their hair ranged from silver to russet brown, with some odder shades in between. Their skin was pale as a whole, and their eyes blue or green with the occasional gray. They were as languid as cats, and as watchful. Alex felt the hairs prick at the back of his neck.