Ill Met by Moonlight (16 page)

Quicksilver sped forward, trying to appear to walk casually, as if unaware of armored doom striding on either side of him.

It was useless, of course. Their steps, twice the span of his, left him no space to run. At the last second, Quicksilver felt like doing just that: running, galloping, throwing himself forward, losing himself in the throng of courtiers that he knew must be in there, somewhere. He’d run. He’d hide. He’d vanish. He’d defy his brother’s justice to come and find him.

Only he couldn’t see the courtiers, at least not as individuals or groups. Tears, sweat and fatigue blurred Quicksilver’s vision, allowing him nothing but the impression of an amorphous, moving mass ahead. And the distance between him and that chattering mass seemed as endless, as unlikely to be crossed on mere tired legs and sore feet as the depth of the ocean, the span of the Earth.

The diamond-clad hands grasped Quicksilver’s arms. The diamond that covered each finger was a thin sheet, cunningly hinged and worked by the brownies of the underworld, faithful servants of the king of elves, all.

The king of elves.

Unable to run, the pressure of the guards’ hands on his arms tight enough to cut off his circulation, Quicksilver looked up and blinked, and blinked again, wishing he could wipe the sweat from his eyes.

On the throne sat his brother, powerful, mighty Sylvanus, looking down with an expression that tried to reflect pity and horror and showed, all too clearly, triumph.

Quicksilver had expected trouble, but not this much trouble. Not to be arrested as soon as he stepped on the broad marble staircase of his brother’s palace—the palace that
should
have been his.

“How now?” he asked, with a show of bluff, shrugging his shoulders and attempting to shrug his arms away from the iron grip of the guards who, still holding Quicksilver tightly, divested him of both swords and his dagger. “How now, you hold me so? How dare you? I am your prince, sweet Titania’s son, great Oberon’s heir.” As he spoke, he tried to reach into the power of the hill for strength to break away from the clutches of Sylvanus’s guards.

But he found his pathway to the hill power blocked, as though the heavy stone lid of a tomb had dropped over it, an impenetrable barrier against his entrance, like a heavy oaken door braced with iron.

The power of the hill, turned away from Quicksilver, flowed to the guards, Sylvanus’s mastiffs, and his slaves. Quicksilver turned his head to look first at one guard, then at the other. Both of them remained anonymous, their faces hidden behind black crystal shields that left age, identity, even gender to be guessed at. Sylvanus had outfitted his subordinates as though for combat against a full horde, obviously not trusting them even to resist the only weapons Quicksilver had left: his power of seduction, his slippery speech, and his honeyed tongue.

Nothing for it, Quicksilver thought, nothing for it but to face the traitor and to face him in front of the full court. At least now Quicksilver had nothing to lose. He would be able to talk to Sylvanus and fling in his face the name of traitor. All the dark deeds Sylvanus had committed in secret, in the dark of night, would now be shouted from the rooftops.

A great weight that Quicksilver hadn’t been aware of was lifted from his shoulders. Despite the grip on his arms, the heavy tread of his captors on either side of him, despite his being half-dragged in a most undignified way and his blood-smeared, dirt-caked clothes, Quicksilver felt freer than he had in years.

Conscious of a small smile tugging the corners of his lips upward, he regained his feet and, by almost running, walked by himself, between his guards, more dragging them than being escorted, up the broad red carpet to the throne.

Sylvanus sat on the throne, his features set in as thunderous an expression as the storm outside. Behind him, at one side of the throne stood the three cowards who had fled from the forest when Pyrite had died. To his other side—all pretense obviously being abandoned—stood the nursemaid, looking uncomfortable, overdressed and scared, in a gown spun of the finest red silk and embroidered in glaring white. Her very pale face had settled in an expression that might be either terror or stubbornness, and whose true nature Quicksilver could not guess without knowing the wench.

On either side of the throne, a throng of courtiers jostled and pushed each other so that, despite being calmer now, Quicksilver still couldn’t discern faces or remember the names that went with them.

In front of the throne, the guards stopped, and, with a push of their hands on his shoulders, tried to bring Quicksilver to his knees. But Quicksilver had braced himself and withstood the push and smiled wide and innocently at his brother. “Why, my brother’s majesty, what a pleasure this is, that your affection makes you so anxious to see me that you call me to your presence, hastened by your very own guards.”

Sylvanus’s already thunderous countenance grew stormier, and darker clouds collected upon his brow as he narrowed his eyes and hid his gaze. His lips pressed together very straight, disapproving. “Silence, traitor.” He leaned forward, to glare down at Quicksilver. “Traitor, murderer, slave, who with your very hand killed the best of my vassals, the best of this kingdom.”

“Not by my hand, and not killed him.” Quicksilver grinned at Sylvanus, wanting but daring not to turn his head and check the massed crowd of courtiers for Ariel’s slim figure. Did Ariel know? “Not by my hand, but the hand of the one he sought to kill.” Was Ariel here, and did she know that her dear brother, her last defense in this harsh world, was gone? If here, what did she think, what did she feel toward Quicksilver, who’d been his reported murderer? “The mortal you’d have had him kill has slain him, in self-defense and to preserve his own life.”

“A mortal?” Sylvanus thundered, disbelief in his scornful roar. “Would you have us believe, then, jesting brother, that a mortal slew Pyrite, Duke of the Air Kingdoms, Commander of the Army of the North?”

A small scream sounded, at Pyrite’s name and, from the corner of his eye, Quicksilver could see a white-clad figure and a commotion of elven ladies all around it. Ariel? Or one of Pyrite’s many lovers?

How many times had Quicksilver mocked Ariel’s affection and run from her embraces? Yet now, flanked by guards and disgraced, hated and despised by all, he wished, he wished with all his might, he could run to her and embrace her and comfort her in her loss. They’d both lost Pyrite, both of them, friend to one and brother to the other. Of the few allies Quicksilver had in this court, one was dead and the other one alienated, perhaps forever.

What dark star had Quicksilver been born under? Under what crosslight had he been whelped, that his destiny must always run thus, contrariwise to his intent?

He thought of Pyrite’s parting words, his dying curse, and felt a shudder travel up his spine, piling dread upon his angry words. Cold sweat formed and ran down Quicksilver’s back, and he shivered with a dark premonition. “A mortal, aye, a mortal, my brother, and well armed, armed even with a dagger spelled to slay the sovereign of Fairyland.” The idea of saying this had come out of nowhere, or rather, had formed of the powers of that odd dagger and its being so near—within reach of Sylvanus’s plotting. Only, the mortal who had first used it, used it to kill Titania and Oberon, in truth couldn’t be Will’s father. Had he been the murderer, then Will would be an orphan. No. The old man wouldn’t have struck the blow. But he had, perhaps, procured the weapon, or perhaps found it in some field after the murderer had been annihilated. That, if nothing else, would explain the man’s fear, his odd confabulations. If Will’s father had seen a mortal put to death by an elf, and knew not why that had happened, surely he was afraid of suffering the like fate. Yes, that would be it. But the executioner of that other mortal must have been Sylvanus alone, and it must have been quickly done, before the hill felt it and sensed the need to punish the crime by murdering the human.

Oh, it was possible, possible, though passing rare, for an elf to be killed by a human, and for the human to escape ill fate. But no human could murder the sovereigns of elvenkind and remain unscathed.

Quicksilver woke to reality, called by the silence that greeted his words. In truth, it was not so much silence as an odd sound, a sound of withheld breath all around. The skittering, flying fairies cast a paler light as they heard what, no doubt, all of them regarded as a threat.

“The mortal you sent to have slain, and who has killed Pyrite, has gone free, since it wasn’t royal blood that he spilled. But what of that other murderer, brother, the one who did your dark deed for you? What has become of him?” Quicksilver went on. The momentary distraction of the guard on his right allowed him to use that hand to brush at his doublet and compose the diamond at his throat. Immediately the guard regained a firm hold on his wrist. Quicksilver turned his seemingly innocent and curious eyes toward his brother as he asked, “And, bye the bye, does that fair lady by your side know that you ordered her husband to be killed?”

From the sound of harsh breathing, the gasp of the mortal, her face gone slack, her half-open mouth, Quicksilver guessed she hadn’t known, and breath came more easily to his chest.

Sylvanus opened his mouth and then closed it, and shot a half-timid look over his shoulder at the nursemaid, who stared at Quicksilver, her eyes very bright, whether with tears or anger, Quicksilver could not tell.

What a clod Sylvanus was, what a fool. Had he not anticipated this would happen if he interrogated Quicksilver in public? Had he thought, then, that Quicksilver’s mouth was stopped for good? And what had he thought would hold it shut? The fear of what, when Quicksilver already stood accused of treason?

“I had my reasons,” Sylvanus said, to Nan, and then turned back to Quicksilver. “My reasons you well know, knave, serpent, slave, and know them for good ones. None I can explain to this assembly, but good enough.”

“Aye, good enough. Good enough, I warrant, for you, my brother. You’d kill the mortal because your bed is too large and too cold,” Quicksilver said.

A repressed collective titter from the ladies’ side of the room, the sound of coughing that hid male chuckling, rewarded Quicksilver.

He felt almost like himself, charming and facile, but he knew that feeling for a false hope. No matter how much he embarrassed Sylvanus, he would not walk from this assembly free, nor even alive.

Sylvanus’s voice shook with fury, as he next spoke. “A wit you have, my brother, and a murderous wit. I did not without reason swat at the mortal fly that buzzes on the edge of my kingdom, but even if I had, what of it? What does it signify? How does it compare to the murder of your friend, your best friend whom you did slay or at least connive at slaying, for no mortal can acquire such power to do harm to fairy without help.”

“Aye, and whose help—” Quicksilver began. He could go no farther.

This time, Sylvanus had been prepared. He stretched his hand, the power of the hill coming with it, striking Quicksilver on the mouth like a punch.

Quicksilver’s head rocked on his shoulders, rattling his brain. He bit his tongue and tasted blood. Swallowing, he tried to speak, tried to find words, but could not. Not in time.

“You’re banished, serpent, from the hill. I’ll nurture you no more, nor shall you be known as prince of this Kingdom,” Sylvanus said.

And like that, even the small power that Quicksilver had been using, couldn’t help using, to connect himself to hill and kin, was pulled.

The pain blinded him. Had Sylvanus pulled Quicksilver’s beating heart out of his chest and held it, trembling before his living eyes, it could not have hurt more.

The voice Quicksilver hadn’t been able to find now scratched out of his throat, in a loud, formless scream of pain that inflicted yet more pain as it broke through.

For a moment there was no other feeling, but that torturous pain that worked its way to each and every one of Quicksilver’s pores, that stopped his heart and blurred his sight and brought his very brain to a screaming halt.

Little by little, sensations intruded through the crimson tide of pain. Quicksilver realized he’d fouled himself, but had little thought to spare even for such humiliation. The pain remained with him, more subdued but still there.

The scorching iron of torment had been withdrawn but in its place remained a constant and omnipresent sting, the protest of his body not used to subsisting without the power of the hill and scarcely knowing how to draw breath without it.

Like a puppet, whose strings are cut, he felt his arms and legs, his very flesh, go slack, and he sagged within the grip of Sylvanus’s guards, and found voice for no more than a mewl, when it should have been a roar. “You can’t banish me,” he said, his words small and timid, losing themselves in the expanse of the great salon and maybe not reaching any ears at all, not even those of the nearest row of courtiers. And even that voice cost him so much effort, so much insane strength that he sweated just with pronouncing the words. “You can’t banish me. By elven law and our parents’ will, by the power of all that’s sacred and that prevents a murderer from profiting from his vile act, you cannot inherit, and I am the king. The king of elves.”

He might as well have proclaimed himself the king of humans, the lord of the world, or the ruler of fools. It was all the same. Sylvanus had ceased paying heed to him and looked over his shoulder, talking urgently to the nursemaid, who glowered at him and whose voice, sharp and inquisitive, could be heard in an asking tone, though her words could not be discerned, or not by Quicksilver.

Quicksilver, attempting to collect to him the meager power that was his and his alone, tried to stand on his own feet, but couldn’t touch the ground with firmness, because he was being dragged, very fast, along the red carpet, by the two crystal-masked guards. His slack and powerless legs could not support his hurting body.

In this way the guards carried him to the outer stairway of the palace, and there pushed him down the steps.

He fell, as he couldn’t help falling, unable to regain his footing. He hit the marble edges hard, on the way down, catching now leg, now arm, now head, now back, until, sore as though beaten by a thousand foes, he found himself in a kneeling heap at the foot of the steps and realized, with cringing shame, that he’d torn his suit in the precipitous descent.