Silver Hollow (62 page)
It would be nice to report she lived happily ever after till the end of her days. But such cheap, cop-out one-liners belong to other uncomplicated fairy tales.
Not even a week after the smoke had cleared and winter was whistling through the trees taunting with its blankets of snow, Amie realized she still had a choice to make.
Morcant told her, n
ow that she was a Queen
,
she could never stray very far from her home. Her life was bound to Wenderdowne and its tenants now, to the cares of all the peoples in the Hollow depending on her. She took Morcant’s advice seriously, especially after learning Henry had stayed so long with her because there was more between them than a simple denial of attraction.
So she set up shop in her father’s old study and begun the tedious process of rebuilding. The forests were graciously free of gremlins, the harvest coming in at record rates thanks to Amie’s inherited gifts and the people settling in nicely for the long winter.
With their grieving barely begun she was determined to spend the winter binding her odd crew into a family.
Her mother told her otherwise. For the first time in a century the elusive Dameri Hawkeye and her father, the human King Arthur, made their way to the great house. Arthur might have been a senile old coot, halfway living in his youthful glory days and half in the
present, but he remembered his little magpie fully now. Apparently she had spent much of her time riding on his shoulders and climbing trees in the orchard. During their walk through Periwinkle’s garden he promised to teach Amie the art of the sword during her next visit to Xcalibure. He was delighted to make the acquaintance of the gnome and her faerie friend Puck, both of whom she was relieved to find unscratched from the whole
golem
affair.
She was unprepared when Dameri later pulled her aside and literally handed her the awful truth. Dameri had been an active messenger between the two worlds ever since Amie was lost to her. Just because matters had been smoothed over in Silver Hollow did not mean the ripple effects of the attack were not affecting the Vale. There was a vast and unexplored realm she was protecting that the house had been guarding for time immemorial. Many claimed those who lived in the border lands had grown decadent and listless. Maybe t
hey were right? After all, the E
xiled had managed to gather enough of a force to almost break through one of the seven gates to the Vale. If the Emerald Eyes had not been keeping watch more than a few would have been lost.
The letter she brought to Amie was plain enough. Trouble was brewing inside the Vale. No one new but the messengers had ventured past its borders in a thousand years and the evil trapped within was lashing out. The Council of Ten Sovereigns requested her attendance
at
their next meeting, without delay
,
to help them resolve this unnamed issue. And according to Dameri, ignoring a Council summons was like signing your own death sentence.
…
This
was
how Amie found herself standing at the end of a vaguely familiar garden pathway, wearing travel gear and banked by her closest friends. Worrying her lip with another quick tug of her teeth, she recognized the gate she had only noticed in passing before. She had always assumed it led to some abandoned garden, but never would have guessed this was the infamous gate to the Vale.
Dearg shifted on his leather
-
booted feet, wrapping his arm more securely around her waist and digging her side into the blade strapped to his thigh. “You don’t have to do this now, if you’re not ready.”
She smiled warmly up at him. “After everything we just went through, babe, I think I’ve learned you’re never really ready.”
Behind them, Slaine, in his human guise again, smiled cannily at them and said, “You are the Key, Jessamiene. Ye were born for this, lassie.”
Amie hoped he was right. She hoped Slaine, Underhill and Alastair could manage the estate in her absence.
Reluctantly she allowed Dearg to lead her closer to the gate. It hummed, glowed all around its solid wooden edges as if the border was the only thin
g
keeping the sun blocked. It shone silvery as moonlight over the endlessly carved patterns, reworking the ring’s ancient symbol over and again. She shivered with anticipation, gripped Dearg’s hand tighter and felt as if nothing else existed, just she and the
Freargde
and the Vale’s gate.
“Are you ready?” he said, his voice echoing along with the whispers of a forgotten song. The music was coming from behind that door.
She nodded and felt the tickle of his ancient power prodding her own into action. Instantly she
knew
where to insert the key in the centerpiece of
the wo
od. She often wondered if Emrys had planted it on her small-town
Texas street, knowing she would one day stand here like this. The gate would only ever open by this key, by
her hand, until her inheritance passed to the next generation.
The door opened with a fresh breeze, falling into the gated world and carrying luscious scents and colors so full she couldn’t breathe. Blinking, Amie struggled to see past the bright white light.
Dearg’s lips were at her ear. “When you came to us you saw things as you wanted to see them. Because we wanted you to have the chance to dream we were hesitant to wake you. And you’re still dreaming. There is a world grander beyond your wildest imaginings beyond the gate. Now you must waken, love. Open your eyes.”
Amie hesitated, shuddered as her vision faded in and out. In place of normal images she saw colors rather than light and shadow, objects illuminated from the inside out. “What will happen?”
Dearg’s smile was pain
-
filled and broken, his mask gone forever from her gaze. “Everything if you wish it. Just open your eyes
,
Jessamiene…your
real
eyes…”
She breathed in the remnant of desecration around them, felt their pain and renewed hope
,
and awakened.
…
Richard clutched the motionless form of his love even closer, eyes
boiling with rage. “Kindness?
You named us as spies to the Emperor! We’ve been running for our lives ever since! How can you still name us your friends?”
Rupert towered over them both, ominous, spittle coating his words. “She never loved you! Have you not realized yet your precious
Mary
is the Lady Desdemona? That she lured you to her, making you all believe she wanted to betray her own countrymen, when she has been my wife these two
-
and
-
ten years!”
Richard trembled, shook as a beast roared inside of him. His voice sounded with the distant cannon yet overpowered it
.
“LIES!”
‘Bah!’ Lord Rupert spat
.
‘Lies indeed! You only wish to believe she cared for you! It is all a game, my friend. Desdemona could care less for you than she could I! She is nothing but a backstabbing whore for the highest bidder. Were it not for me she would have turned you in long ago!” Triumph gleamed in Rupert’s red eyes.
Were it not for
Mary
’s defenseless form in his arms Richard would have already cut the dastardly villain in two.
Lord Rupert swayed on his feet and Richard saw then he would not last the night. Perhaps he was only out for blood, after all? Staggering, he struggled to stand with Mary’s dead weight in his arms. Yet his gift filled him even then, giving him the strength he needed for this one last task. Wings sprouted from his back, golden like the sun.
Rupert laughed triumphantly as his own pair of black leather
-
skinned wings curved menacingly over them both. Their swords clashed, heavenly steel against steel
,
and even in his weakened state, Rupert was clearly stronger now.
Mary stirred in the crook of his arm, whispering in her true French accent, “Richard?”
Rupert snarled and Richard fought even harder, knowing now who was dearest to her heart.
Yet just before
he could end it, before the crippling blow,
a
shot rang clearly out
over the field. Man’s war had spilled over into their affairs again, this time with tragic consequences.
Mary screamed, fully aware as Richard simultaneously sliced off Rupert’s head and fell to the earth. She crawled weakly over him and the gaping hole where his heart had been. Her tears blurred with his as she kissed him goodbye and whispered, “Now and forever, my love.”
…
Later, the Lady Desdemona
,
under the guise of an English seamstress named Mary Taylor, was bequeathed a vast and rich estate. The village surrounding Lord Richard, Baronet, whispered rumors of the mistress who had inherited their master’s estate. Some even thought it curious she preferred to spend her days within the Abbey and not south in her London hometown.
The daughter she gave birth to would one day be known as the kindest of all their mistresses.
And the servants of Netherby Abbey still tell tale of the ghost of their master
who
found peace with his beloved in death when it had been stolen away in life.
And they lived.
A Not-Quite-
Complete
Basic
Guide
A
Acornip
-
favored nut gro
wn by gnomes only of the Hollow;
Hobgoblins have not the patience
to crack them.
B
Bamboozled
-
confusing, most outrageous
Belletine
-
An
honorary
H
ouse of the Borderland and
one of
the five great families
left
.
Bildgedragon
-
legendary striped dragon
;
A tale
told to fri
ghten hobgoblin children to obedience. It is a
ctually a hobgoblin nickname for true dragons, though i
t is unknown if any still exist.
Bilge Scum
-
comparing one to the filthy underbelly of a ship
Blackguarded
- scoundrel
Blushsheckled
- An ailment attributed to the after effects of honing one’s inner nixy. It can take on the appearance of the pox in more serious cases, especially when left unattended.
Bogwren
-
A
pesky creature that lives in the bogs of the Veil, known for its foul temper and rank stench.
Brimbled
-
Being
concerned primarily with nitpicking foolishly through things, generally applied to brownies
Brimbling
-
A
kin to brimbled, concerning a multitudinous bundle
.
Bristle
-
A type of pesky thorn that thrives within the Hollow. Can refer to a state of mind.
Bristlethorn
-
A
particularly tough thorn that grows in wild gardens
.
Brambling
-
r
ushing through with much noise and little grace
Bushwickle
-
an
annoying shrub tha
t grows near flobbergidit homes
C
Chuckling
-
A
n individual afflicted with the compulsion to “chuck” things out windows and into walls. First made popular by Chuck Wenderdowne, the Mad.
Crunch-munchies
- sweets
D
Dishwakling
-
T
he act of performing necessary tasks, such as dishwashing,
however
tedious and time consuming.
Dickleweeds
- A
weed that refused to be removed from a garden once it’s taken root. Generally the first sign of a flobbergidit’s nest
taking root
.
Dumplekins
-
Adorable offspring of the buck-toothed rabbits that thrive within the Vale.