Sons (Book 2) (72 page)

Jimmy climbed the steps on the monument as the last notes hung in the air, timing it perfectly to come to the top as the last note faded.  “Our lord’s name as spoken by his people as best they can was accompanied by his Palace much farther away.  At the same time, the Palace also sang the name of his realm, Gilán, as closely as we can hear them.  Please believe us when we say that the reality of those two words is much more beautiful than we can possibly convey.”

He was laying it on a little thick and I almost objected, but he was right about Gilán.  The Palace could get remarkably close, true, but only so close…

Then he started addressing the faery beyond the perimeters.  “Now they’re going to have a hard time seeing you out there, sort of a double vision going on.  So why don’t we organize into choirs or something.  Get a small group over the line to direct, one per panel.  Don’t worry about that one; I’ll do it as I’ve had a similar experience.  Sound good?”

The Queens were watching him interact with the faery, intrigued.  Jimmy managed to very quickly maneuver nearly a thousand short people into giant-sized pie wedges.  Laughing when his pools of directors began to edge into the thirties and forties, he called out loudly, “I thought y’all were supposed to be the shy faery?  Let’s keep it to less than fifteen on this side of the line, please.  We don’t want to overwhelm them now.”

Regardless of what I’d said, it appeared that everyone was waiting for the Queens and me to start, so rather than make another scene I walked forward to the first panel.

“I presume you heard my opening statements?” I asked them.

“Yes, Daybreak,” the Unseelie said quietly as she eyed the stonework.

“Quite simply and eloquently said,” Seelie added sweetly.  “Will your little ones be singing the song for us as well?”

“Certainly, Lady Summer,” I said gracefully.  “Though I believe you already know the story well.”

“To a point, Lord Daybreak,” Winter said.  “Only to a point.”

“Well, you are certainly welcome to any information you can extract from the monument,” I said.  “And if my people singing the words for you helps, I’m happy to oblige because they’ve offered to do it anyway.”

The wizards were gathering together in clumps of friendly nations and mostly away from us, talking among themselves and with my faery in friendly ways.  The flying fairies and pixies were the most popular, mostly because they were the most gregarious, flitting between groups cheerfully.  We casually paced up to the first panel and Jimmy looked over.

“Well, I assume you can read that.  Would you like them to sing anyway?” Jimmy asked.  I nodded.  He grinned and winked at me.  In a stage whisper over our heads—no mean task for the nearly seven feet tall Queens—he said, “The first ones, guys, and it’s the big-wigs.  Let’s show off some and get a counter-melody going!”  He pointed to two different choir directors and a wild cheer went out all around us that quickly broke down into excited giggles as my fairy got ready.  Suddenly from the far side of the clearing a chant started, then all around us, my people started calling for Kieran.  He wasn’t even in the knowe and they were calling for the “Free Lord” to sing with them.

That definitely got the Queens’ attention.  Another faery lord floating around could mean serious trouble for them.  I was laughing and Jimmy stood with a huge smile on his face, searching through the veil for Kieran.

“He’s over here,” I heard Dad call and we all homed on his voice.  Kieran stood with his back to us, talking with Marty through the wards, perfectly innocent and totally unaware.

“What?” he asked turning and seeing so many eyes on him.  It only took a second for him to hear the faery’s call and came to proper conclusions.  “Me?  But you’re so much better than I am and there’s no such thing as three-part harmony in Fae music.”

“There is now,” Jimmy sputtered, laughing.  “Come on.  They don’t ask much of us, you know, and this is a small thing.”

“All right, all right, I’m coming,” Kieran said, smiling sheepishly as he crossed over into the knowe.  Ethan took his place with Marty though it wasn’t necessary.  Kieran took a place between the two groups of choir “directors” so he could still see the first panel and not block our view.  “Whenever you’re ready, Maestro,” he said, looking up at Jimmy and grinning just as big as he did. 

Jimmy snickered and pointed to the first choir.  They sang one note and held it.  Then Kieran started reciting, never once looking at the monument, instead watching the choirs.  I have to admit, it was quite fascinating, watching them.  The faery moved in a curious ballet as their song turned in time with Kieran’s voice, a deep baritone, magically-altered to vocalize the words the human mouth was incapable of speaking. 

Watching the non-Gilán faery react to the monument was equally fascinating.  The Queens knew the story and still got caught up in the telling, but the emissaries didn’t and were enthralled with all three aspects.  As they passed from one panel to the next, one choir would leave and another join so that there were always two, even around the abomination, though the adjoining choirs did not cross into that segment.  But when Kieran came to that panel, he said simply, still in the faery tongue, “And then there was the Abomination.”  There was no choir in this section, but Kieran stood silent for a full minute before moving on.

“Beautifully done, Free Lord,” Jimmy called and clapped as Kieran finished.  This started a rush of applause through a fairly large contingent of wizards that had followed our progress around the monument as well as quite a few who just sat on the grass and listened.  It created quite a noisy situation.  Talking was difficult, so I went in to hug Kieran.

The elves pulled away from the group and surveyed the land quietly for a few minutes.  I left them alone and let them do whatever they wanted to do, so long as they acted reasonably.  Staying nearby still seemed like a good idea to me.  A few of the “choir directors” answered questions for a number of people around the crafted stone, more often than not in English, though other languages were used.  Mostly everyone had the good taste not to test them with unusual languages.

“You have had a remarkable affect on them,” the Unseelie Princess said as she sidled up beside, taking my left arm.  That meant the Seelie Princess would be coming in  a short second.

“Truly,” agreed the Seelie Princess, right on cue on my right arm.  I glanced back at the other elves to see them watching the faery and the humans interact, content for the moment to ignore me.  The Princes seemed at ease with the wives away and the Queens were equally as unconcerned.  “They do seem to have lost much of their former shyness.”

“Perhaps it’s as simple as someone saying they are worth looking at,” I said, simply.  Winter snickered at me.

“No, dear, I think they genuinely care for him,” Summer purred over my shoulder at her.  “Surely you’ve swept through their villages before.  Have you ever seen them act like this?  Such caterwauling in the open in front of humans and elves?  They have supreme confidence that their Lord is enjoying himself and does not object in the least.  It makes one wonder what exactly you placed in your bindings that makes them feel this way.”

“Can you actually put a love spell on someone, Seth?” my First asked skeptically, coming to stand in front of us.  “Seems to me that would make it all worthless, ya know?  Besides we were both there, we both know that it’s genuine and not part of the geas.  Don’t let them make you question that.”

Cocking my head slightly right and looking askance at Summer, I said quietly, “He’s right, you know.  There’s no question in my mind how they feel about me.  And while I don’t know if they truly
love
me, they respect and care for me deeply, and with time that can change to love.”

“Surely you realize they merely do these things to gain your favor,” Larana said with a sweeping gesture toward the sprites.  “This area won’t feed them come winter by the looks of it and they will need your help then.”

“This area won’t feed them
tonight
,” I said, scoffing at the idea.  There wasn’t anything worth eating for at least ten miles.

“And they’re not from here,” Jimmy added.  “The closest village is probably twenty miles from here.”

“Twenty miles?” Leonette asked as she moved from me to Jimmy, shifting her aspect from elf to human, losing the extra foot in height and gaining a little extra in the bust and hips.  Her dress changed as well, to highlight those changes.  With the coloration of the bodice, if it weren’t for the sequins, she might have been topless.  “That seems quite a distance for such little legs,” she said coyly as she latched on to Jimmy’s arm much more lasciviously than she had mine.

Not to be outdone, Larana, too, changed her aspect to that of a human woman.  Sultrier in her black satin gown, her sexuality wasn’t as obvious as Leonette’s, but it was no less effective.  “Did you have something to do with their presence tonight, young
Sidhe
?  You certainly seem strong enough.”

The Seelie Princess turned her charms more to the coy side, and asked, “Why
did
Daybreak pick you as his First, young
Sidhe
? You appear to be a simple man and then flare brilliantly of your Lord’s power.  Why did he choose you and not one of his own brothers?”

“The reasons for my being are private, Ladies,” Jimmy said tactfully.  “Seth prefers I not talk about it.”

Larana chortled, saying, “So young and so many secrets.”

“No, ma’am, not ‘secret’, ‘private’,” Jimmy corrected her with a smile.  “One suggests it would be difficult to find out while the other suggests it would merely be bad taste to try.”

I choked on the snicker as I turned on my heels and hightailed it, but I only got a couple of steps away before I lost the hold and laughed anyway.  Just for a moment.  Heading for the rest of the elves, it was time to get rid of them so I could enjoy myself.  Both my people were having a good time and though I did feel an odd sort of kinship to the elves, it wasn’t quite enough to call them my people just yet.

“Shall we get to business then?” I asked the Queens as they watched what Leonette called ‘caterwauling.’ “Rather enchanting when they’re uninhibited, aren’t they?”

“Indeed,” remarked the Unseelie Queen, reaching into the folds of her gown and withdrawing an ancient-looking scroll that held an aura of eerie eldritch purple.

“Gordon, Mr. Bishop, Mr. Peraza, would you care to witness us?” I called out into the knowe and the outer perimeter of the field on the Cahill’s manor.

Bishop and Peraza came over fairly quickly, almost arm in arm.  “Yes, Lord Daybreak?  What can we do for you?” Bishop asked politely.  Gordon was just coming into the knowe and was barely within earshot.

“Just witnessing a momentous occasion,” I said, grinning slyly, waiting for Gordon.  “I am about to disappoint the Queens of Faery by signing the Unseelie Accords.”

“And how would that disappoint us, new Lord of Faery?” asked the Unseelie Queen holding the eldritch scroll out to me with lackadaisical concern.

“I believe Seth told you less than an hour ago that there would be problems with signing the Accords, Ladies,” Kieran said as he walked up with Gordon at his side.  “Did you not hear him, or did you not believe him?”

“No, Free Lord,” the Summer Queen sighed, signaling to the scroll I was unrolling and reviewing carefully.  “We heard him, and we brought a more binding document as he felt so unburdened by the translations.”

The translations were true, unbelievably accurate actually, so all I really did was skim the scroll.  It wasn’t until I got to the bottom that I realized exactly how old this particular scroll was—it had only two physical signatories on it. 

Meeting the Queens eyes’, I said to them, “I am honored, Queens of Faery.”

“What is it, Seth?” Bishop asked, stepping forward to look at the scroll.  I quickly held up my hand to stop him as both Queens tensed.

“Please, Mr. Bishop, keep some distance,” I said quietly.  “This is a deeply personal item for her Majesties.  This is the Original, is it not?  From which all the others stem?”

“Yes, Daybreak,” Unseelie said.  “These are the Original agreements that led to peace between the races.”

“A very diplomatic definition, Lady Winter,” Kieran said, smiling.  I wondered if there was an implication there and interestingly, both Daybreak and the Pact answered me with ‘Yes.’  There would come a day when I’d delve into the Pact history held in my head in beautiful detail, but not today.

The Princesses returned to their respective lieges, though maintaining their human demeanors, and Jimmy stepped to my right.  This was expected by them, but Jimmy made no attempt to review the scroll.  Forming a pedestal with a granite veneer using the Stone, I set the scroll in small slots that I set in the surface for that purpose and laid the eldritch parchment out. At the bottom the two imprints of the Queens’ power and personality were indelibly etched.  The oath to create the imprint was written above the imprints in a clear and precise hand and it was
not
either of theirs that wrote it.

“Ready?” I asked them, looking up to verify their answer.  They both smiled vaguely and gestured with mild impatience.  I smiled back and lit the undershirt to full power, surprising them with the strength it showed, but I wanted them to know I wasn’t holding back anything.  Holding my right hand on the Accords, I recited the oath in High Faery with the fullness of Daybreak’s power pushing the oath into reality.