The Nimble Man (A Novel of the Menagerie) (15 page)

Conan Doyle dared a soft smile. "It has been a very
long time. Even such sweet marvels as are to be found in Faerie fade when time
and distance intervene. I confess I was so overwhelmed, simply being back here,
that I did not steel myself for the way in which just breathing the air can
spin one into flights of fancy . . . or memory."

For a moment there seemed to be a twinkle in her eye, but
then Ceridwen's expression hardened, a veil of sadness drawn across her face.

"Yes, well, do not let it happen again. Flights of
fancy can prove very costly, of late. If Morrigan returns, such reckless whimsy
could cost your life."

Conan Doyle stood straighter and nodded once, matching the
severity of his expression to hers. Yet his eyes hid the memories he had, of
Ceridwen coming to him as he neared death, of her bringing him back to Faerie,
showing him the herbs that would return vigor and youth to him, the same herbs
that still kept him young. He had known enough magic by then to cast the
illusion of his own death. Anything else would have horrified and astonished
the world. He could not have continued to live the life he had before and begin
to grow younger, like Oscar Wilde's fancy. And in the end there was nothing he
wanted so much as to disappear into Faerie, to see the world of the Fey through
Ceridwen's eyes.

There were so many things that he wanted to say to her, but
none of them would be appropriate. He had given up his right to say them long
ago. So when Ceridwen turned to continue on, her long linen gown and robe
clinging to her lithe form, he followed.

Though he forced himself to focus, to avoid being swept away
with the magic of the place, the way the air itself seemed to sparkle, he could
not help glancing around several times. Ahead the hill rose up and up and the
House of the King had been carved from its face. Spires of rock shot from the
ground and there were barrows bulging up from the earth. Elegant arched windows
seemed out of place in rocky ledge. Flowers bloomed atop the hill in such
abundance that they seemed to spill down its sides.

Amongst the flowers there were fairies. Not people of
Faerie, like the warriors, scholars and magicians of The Fey, but the little
people, the ferociously beautiful winged creatures he had first met in
Cottingley well over eight decades before. Their colors put the flowers to
shame and they flitted about the House of the King as though it were their own
home. And in essence it was, for Finvarra had extended his protection to all
the races of Faerie who would show their faces to the sun.

Streams flowed down the hill, from trickle to brook to
torrent, and the sound of the water joined with the perfume of the flowers to
lend Conan Doyle a peace he had not known since the last time he had stepped
inside the King's Door.

Surrounding the hill, the House of the King, were seven
clusters of large trees, four to a cluster. In each small copse, the branches
of the trees reached out to one another, twining together with such design that
Conan Doyle could only ever think of them as braided. The braided branches
created a basket in each small copse, sometimes twenty, sometimes thirty,
sometimes forty feet in the air. And in its midst, gripped in the same way that
the head of her staff gripped the sphere of ice, was a dwelling formed of woven
leaves and branches and vines, with flowers sprayed across their roofs.

For nearly ten years they had lived in one of those treetop
homes, called
Kula-keaine
by the Fey. Conan Doyle could still remember
Ceridwen's caresses and the way her violet eyes gave off the slightest glow in
the darkness when only the rustling of leaves and the songs of the night birds
kept them company. As they progressed, Ceridwen resolutely refused to look up
at the
Kula-keaine
where they had made their home, where they shared all
of themselves, heart and soul.

They strode along a western path and up a winding set of
stairs made from thick roots that protruded from the earth to form steps.

"We're not going to see the King?" Conan Doyle
ventured.

Ceridwen did not turn to him when she spoke. "Yes, we
are."

He said no more after that, only followed along beside her
as she led him around to the western edge of the hill, where the water that
came from the bowels of the earth fountained out of a hole in the green and
gentle slope and became a rushing river that ran for several hundred yards
before disappearing into a cavernous hole in the ground.

A black-cloaked figure knelt at the river's edge beside a
pile of cut flowers. He wore a hood to cover his face and the daylight seemed
repelled by him, as though a pool of night gathered around him. One by one,
with a ritual bow of the head, he dropped the flowers in the rushing water and
watched them borne away. Conan Doyle's heart ached to see him, for despite the
black mourning clothes and the gathered shadows, he recognized the figure by
his stature and carriage and the dignity with which he held his head and moved
his hands.

Together Conan Doyle and Ceridwen approached.

"Uncle," the Fey sorceress said.

As though he had not heard, he picked up another flower and
dropped it into the river, repeating the motion of his head and muttering quiet
words. Only after the flower had disappeared into the gullet of that
underground river cavern did he turn. His face was pale and gaunt, but behind a
curtain of his long silver hair were eyes alive with fury and grief.

"We have a visitor," Ceridwen said, and there was
a softness in her tone that both pleased Conan Doyle and pained him as well.

Conan Doyle sank to one knee. "King Finvarra. Time has
passed, but I hope I am still welcome in your Home."

As though floating, the king rose from his spot by the
riverside. He drew back his hood and a fond smile creased his face, yet somehow
without dismissing the sadness there.

"You have come at a difficult time, Arthur. But I am
pleased to see you, nonetheless. There was great disappointment, even
bitterness, in the wake of your departure when last we met, yet you are still
and always will be welcome in my Home. I only wish you had returned at a time
when a celebration would not seem so grotesque."

Still kneeling, Conan Doyle lowered his gaze. "I
understand, My Lord. I could not have hoped for such a welcome for a prodigal. You
shame me."

A small sound came from Ceridwen, but Conan Doyle ignored it
and she said nothing.

"There is no shame in heartbreak, Arthur," King
Finvarra said. "It happens with the best of us. You yearned for the world
of your birth and my niece would not leave hers. Hearts have been torn asunder
by far less. Have you returned under the guidance of your heart?"
Conan
Doyle felt his face flush. He looked up, trying not to see the way that
Ceridwen turned away at the very same moment.

"My heart has been here since the day I left, My Lord. It
has remained among the Fey, in Faerie, and may well be here until I die. But,
no, that is not what brings me. I have come with a warning. And, I confess,
hoping for some help. Dark power is at work in my world. Terrible omens. Unnatural
magic. I don't know what malign intelligence is behind these events, but they
have enlisted one of the night tribes to —"

Finvarra stiffened and glanced at Ceridwen, whose eyes
narrowed. So taken aback was he by their reaction that he stopped speaking and
only studied them expectantly.

The king stared at his niece. "There, perhaps, is our
answer."

"What?" Conan Doyle asked. "What is it? What
answer?"

Ceridwen's gaze was cold. There were many unformed thoughts
and hopes in the back of his mind about his return to Faerie, about Ceridwen
herself, but they were extinguished by that one look. There was only war in her
eyes now.

"One of the night tribes, you said. Which one?"
Ceridwen asked.

"The Corca Duibhne. They have straddled our two worlds
for a very long time, but they have never been more than an annoyance. I've
never seen them so organized, so focused on —"

"You have my sister to thank," Finvarra said, his
gaunt face now cruel and brutal. "For 'tis Morrigan whom the Corca Duibhne
now serve."

Conan Doyle pictured the corpses of the Fey where they lay
in the King's Garden.
One of our own
, Ceridwen had said. But even when
she had explained that it had been her aunt, Morrigan, he had not put the
pieces together.

"But why?" Conan Doyle asked, genuinely mystified.
He searched Finvarra's eyes and then looked to Ceridwen. "If Morrigan
wanted to rule Faerie, what does she want with my world? What is she planning?"

"You presume that her ambitions are so small as to
extend only to ruling in my place," King Finvarra said. "But my
sister has danced in shadows for too long. She knows all the secrets of the
darkness. You can be certain that whatever she has planned it is not nearly so
mundane."

His brows knitted as he turned to Ceridwen. "Arthur has
come for help, and he needs it, no question. You will go with him —"

Ceridwen gripped her elemental staff more tightly and shook
her head. The flame that burned within the ice sphere at its head blazed
brighter and a mist of steam rose from its frozen surface. "Uncle, no!"

A deathly stillness fell over the king. Finvarra stared at
her. "We have lived for eons with the philosophy that what happens beyond
Faerie is not our concern. But we took Arthur into our Home, and he has
requested our aid. Even had he not, we can not allow Morrigan to interfere with
the human world. Faerie must be protected. Ritual must be observed. I cannot
leave, nor can I send an army into the Blight. The veil between worlds might be
forever torn asunder by such an incursion. But you, niece, you shall go as my
emissary."

She lowered her head. "Yes, My Lord King."

Finvarra regarded them both. "It appears the fates have
conspired to break the stalemate the two of you entered into long ago. Let
neither sweetness nor bitterness distract you. If you are not watchful,
Morrigan will end up with both your hearts, and she will feed them to her
wolves."

The king turned his back on them, then and knelt by the
river once more. He raised his hood and in the full light of day the shadows of
grief gathered round him. Falling again into the rhythm of ritual, he dropped
his hand to the array of cut flowers, lifted one and dropped it into the river,
inclining his head as it went along its way. One flower for each of the Fey who
had died at Morrigan's hand.

Dismissed, Conan Doyle turned to Ceridwen. "Shall we
go, then, Lady?" he asked, and he held out his hand for hers.

"It seems I have no choice." She turned away from
him and led the way back along the path toward the King's Gate.

The cleaver wasn't going to do Squire a damn bit of good.

In a fraction of a second a hundred bits of memory and
realization came together in Squire's mind. He stood in the foyer of Conan
Doyle's enormous, elegant home and stared at Morrigan. It had been a very, very
long time since he had seen her last, but even that had not been nearly long
enough. There wasn't a word in any language nasty enough to describe this
bitch. She was sexy as hell if you were into that Goth look, not to mention
chicks with claws instead of ordinary fingernails. But in his entire existence
he had never met anyone who could make him feel so small with just a glance. He
was a hobgoblin, and his kind was small enough as it was. Morrigan might be a
queen of the Fey with all of the cruelty in her heart that her people were capable
of, but she had none of their nobility, none of their honor. She was a sour,
charmless, vicious cunt.

And he had used those precise words to describe her, to her
face, the last time they had met.

Now she stood just inside the door, not far from the portrait
of Conan Doyle's son that hung on the wall, with a pair of sunglasses dangling
from one finger and a smile that could have sliced him open. Her eyes gleamed
red and her nails, teeth, and spiked hair all seemed sharper than he
remembered.

"Oh, yes," Morrigan hissed, running her tongue
across her upper lip. "I remember you, hobgoblin."

Squire felt his knees turn to jelly. He offered a flickering
smile that died instantly. He glanced at the Night People carrying Sanguedolce's
amber sarcophagus like a bunch of ugly fucking pall bearers.

"Crap."

He turned and ran back the way he'd come, cleaver at his
side. Hobgoblins were faster on their feet than most people presumed at first
glance, but that was not saying very much. There was a limit to how swift anyone
could be with legs that short. The veins at his temples pulsed and his boots
shook the floor. Behind him Morrigan released a stream of derisive laughter and
Squire could hear the grunting of the Corca Duibhne as they gave chase. Some of
them were barefoot and their claws clicked and scraped on the wood floor.

"Son of a bitch, son of a bitch, son of a bitch,"
Squire whispered under his breath as he ran, knuckles white where he gripped
the cleaver in his hand.

He was going to have to leave the house. Conan Doyle's
house. The mage's own wards had not held Morrigan out and there was no way that
Squire himself could defend the place. Conan Doyle was going to be more than a
little upset, but somehow Squire had the feeling that paintings and antiques
and even a little breaking-and-entering were the least of Conan Doyle's
concerns at the moment. The big question was going to be what Morrigan was up
to. Squire couldn't answer that question right now. He had other obligations.

The first was to survive.

The second was to do his job.

Barreling into the kitchen he leaped over a dead Corca
Duibhne. There was a grunt of triumph behind him and he felt claws snag the
back of his shirt. Squire spun and buried the cleaver in the creature's chest. It
squealed and dark blood sprayed from the wound. The blade stayed buried in its
flesh as it backpedaled, slapping at the cleaver as though it were a wasp
instead of a cutting tool. For several, precious seconds, it prevented the
others of its kind from reaching him.