The Treachery of Beautiful Things (20 page)

“I can’t. Even if she’s to be lost to one of them eventually, I can’t. Not like this.”

Wayland nodded slowly. “My ale has wondrous properties, they say. It never runs dry, always leaves you wanting more, and of course, makes you tell the truth, even if you don’t know it yourself. Everything must be paid for, Jack. Mortals don’t understand that, but we do, you and I, all our kind. I fear the price asked of you will be too high. If she’s in search of her brother, aren’t you just a means to an end?”

And what was she to him? A way to gain his freedom? Maybe once. Not anymore. That option was gone. Titania lied, and Oberon had made him promise to give up
everything for this chance to save her. Freedom was a dream now lost. And if he could still reach for it…if the option was still open to him, he’d still turn away. For Jenny. The realization tasted of ashes and regret.

Was that all he was? A means to an end?

For so many people throughout the Realm, yes. Jenny was the least of it. Just the latest and most gentle noose around his neck.

“Probably,” he admitted. “But now she lies in an enchanted sleep, watched over by the forest folk, and her soul is caged in the Nix’s hall, his plaything and trinket. Just waiting for the queen, helpless. She’d hate anyone to think of her as helpless.”

He fished out the remaining two coins, older by far than the first. Pure gold, they didn’t sting him, but they were unnaturally heavy. Each had a hole in the center and the gold bore a red hue, as if bloodstained at their minting. Both surfaces were worn clear, but at the sight of them Wayland froze.

“Where did you get them?” The words came out in a desperate rush. A fierce hunger filled his blazing eyes. The forge became incandescent, illuminating the barrow as if it were full daylight.

“From my Lord Oberon.”

“Alberich’s rings,” the smith breathed, and stretched out a trembling hand. He stopped, a low hiss coming from
between his teeth. “
My
gold. The gold he stole from me. And what price did your king demand? He would never relinquish them lightly. What other bargains have you sworn?”

Jack closed his fingers over the rings. “She’s the May Queen. What choice do I have?”

“You’re a fool,” said Wayland at last. “And a traitor to boot. A self-confessed traitor to yourself, and the folk, and, aye, to her as well. Like as not she’ll curse you before she takes her leave of you, or let you rot in your own coffin. Help her, obey him, accept what’s offered…You can’t keep all these vows.”

Jack remained silent. Wayland heaved in a sigh, his chest like bellows. Then he seized a huge sword from the wall where it was mounted. Runes glistened like water along its length. The counterweight was shaped like a flame.

“This is Mimung, once called Hrunting, the Jester’s sword, the Blade of the Fool. That alone makes it suited to you. With it you may slay any foe, and save your May Queen. It was mine once, then I lost all use for it. I’ll give it to you for the rings, but I fear it will bring you no joy.”

Jack stared at the smith, surprised to find the deal was done. Wayland cradled the red-gold ring-coins in his hand, turning them over and over, marveling at them in the firelight, while Jack took the Jester’s sword. It was fantastically light to hold, perfectly balanced. Radiance rippled in the steel, making the endless folding that had created it appear
like the age rings of a tree. As it sliced through the air, he heard the steel sing, and it brought a grim smile to his face. He’d never held such a weapon before.

“What do the runes say?” he asked.

“Know yourself,”
said Wayland, his gaze fixed on Jack’s rapt expression. “Advice to live by.”

Jack couldn’t take his eyes off it. It was what he’d felt at the doorway, the same feeling, the same warning. Flint and bronze were one thing, but this…Its music sang to him of mighty deeds, of heroes and valor, of Jacks who had transcended what they were, what they were made to be, to become instead legends. It sang old stories and lost stories, and things that never were. Couldn’t be. Dreams, some might call them. Lies with a kinder name.

“’Ware its song,” Wayland’s voice warned. “Mimung, like your elf king and his queen, or indeed like the Nix, has the power to beguile. It is a tool, Jack. You must wield it, not the other way around.”

The words were like a punch to the stomach. The vision shattered, cracking like ice in a thaw, leaving him openmouthed and breathless. The sword murmured on, but its effect lessened now. Jack bowed his head, his face warming with embarrassment, and he nodded, sheathing the sword. It was a dangerous thing, as Puck had warned, dangerous to all of the folk, but perhaps to a Jack most of all. Jacks could dream. It was part of their tragedy.

He strapped it across his back and thanked the smith somberly as he made to go. Wayland, still entranced by the gold rings, gave no answer. Perhaps, Jack thought, he should heed his own advice. Jack slung his long-dry coat on, covering the sword. It wasn’t until he made for the door that the smith straightened up.

“Wait. The runes
Is,
Rad,
and
Ger
greeted you. You heard them, didn’t you? At the door? Man of earth come to the crossing, to the places between, with a need to change…to change everything he is. And it can be done. But only at a great cost.
Is,
” he said with the same sibilant whisper Jack had heard outside. “The ice before spring, the bridge between worlds—this is where you came from. Winter has its mark on you, Jack, and will cling to you.
Rad,
the change, the quest, the need to act—this is where you are now, and the need will drive you. And finally
Ger,
the earth, the harvest, the final reckoning, when all things are tallied and winter starts to reclaim its own, the grave—that’s where you’re headed. From earth you came and to the earth will you return. You have no place in the water. If you go in after her, you won’t come out again. Not as you were.”

Jack frowned. “Is that a prophecy?”

“Yes. And it cannot be turned aside, unless you turn aside. Your bargains and your honor, however, will not allow that, and something more. Something that, being what you are, you cannot understand yet.” Wayland sighed, shook his
head. “I was a king once. Do you know what that means?” Jack didn’t answer, his voice lodged in his throat. The world around them—this world, Wayland’s world of rune magic and fire and iron—shivered as the old king spoke, and Jack could only listen, though all his instincts told him to flee. “Don’t even recall that much of the stories, eh? I was a god and a king, and I lost it all. Through a trick. The kind of trick Alberich, whom you call Oberon, plays so well. The kind he used on you. I know what you are, Jack. Better than you do.”

Fires flared around him, melting the ice inside him, freeing Jack’s voice at last. “And what am I?”

“Now? You’re a Jack. You are a guardian, bound by duty and obedience. He’ll want his price too, as I wanted mine. You aren’t like your Jenny. When she finds out what you are, and what you’ve promised to secure the sword—”

“I know. Puck has already warned me half a hundred times.”

“Pah,” Wayland spat into the fire, which sizzled and spat back. “You place too much trust in that trickster. At least you’ll betray with the best intentions. He’ll do it just for the fun.”

Jack, who had known Puck all his life, withdrew. “He’s my friend.” Perhaps not entirely true, especially in light of recent events, but what did that matter now? He might doubt Puck himself, but that didn’t mean he would listen
to someone else say it. “My thanks, Lord Wayland, and all honor to you, but I must go.”

Wayland narrowed his eyes as Jack turned once more to leave.

“Wait!” His voice held a plaintive undercurrent, yet was still commanding.

Impatience gnawed at Jack’s guts, but Wayland was holding something out to him. He hesitated, feeling the chill that emanated from the small, spiked object in the smith’s hand. Jack’s skin recoiled from it.

“What is it?”

“Your payment exceeded the price. Give it to your Jenny. It’ll make her smile, I promise you.” He produced a piece of soft leather and wrapped it around the dreadful thing. Jack’s revulsion subsided. He took it hesitantly, half expecting the sensation to return when he held it, but there was nothing. The leather protected him from it. He slipped it carefully into his pocket. “Don’t touch it yourself, Jack. Nor allow any of the folk to touch it. Just give it to her. She’ll understand. It may even be of use to her.”

“Why?”

“It will offer her a protection you cannot. It’s made of iron.” Jack winced, thinking of the thing now as a poison vial at his side. “If she really is the May Queen, they’ll all want her—the queen, the fae, your lord and master most of all. If you love her…You
do
love her, don’t you, boy?
I can see that much on your face. Are you prepared to do that, though she be the Wren? You are more than a slave, you know. Or you were once, weren’t you? Before he captured you. Before he created you anew and made you simply one of many. Practiced and practiced until he had it perfect and then turned his arts on you. But now the holly wears the crown. And the May Queen comes. Will you abide her thorns to hear her voice?”

Jack had no answers to give. Every sentence presented another riddle, and yet everything Wayland said was true. He drank the ale as well. They were things to puzzle out perhaps, when he sat in the full sun of the Realm and could turn his face to its touch. When he wasn’t lost in this gray world anymore. Jack pulled the green coat around himself, noticing for the first time that it was patterned chiefly of oak leaves. If Jenny was the May Queen, that marked her as a child of the hawthorn, the May Tree. The two would never mix, or so the forest lore went.

Oak and thorn. Mortal and fae. And the king and queen. Everything stood between them. Everything.

I
n the watery depths, Jenny regained some sense of consciousness, but a consciousness like nothing she had ever known. She was cold, cold to her core, and deep water surrounded her—water and weeds. She tried to turn, but found her body unresponsive. It was like one of those dreams, the kind where she ran from something monstrous only to find that she couldn’t move, that her own body was betraying her. Something from the forest, part of the forest, with burning eyes and leaves, moss and vine. In such dreams, she felt she had lost all power, all control. Like now. Just like now.

Something glinted in front of her. As her vision adjusted, she could make out bars, golden bars, no thicker than a wire, woven close together in a glimmering net. They twisted around her, enclosing her completely. High overhead she could see light moving on the surface, a shifting, chaotic pattern that she longed to escape toward. To fall upward, to float to freedom. But the golden bars held her fast and her world was upside down. She was trapped, what there still
was of her. Her body, whatever insubstantial form she held now, was not her body. That lay somewhere on the shore, abandoned, shaken off like old skin. Or worse, drowned in the river.

A figure surged out of the darkness beneath her. Her abductor was even more impossibly beautiful in the water that was his home. His hair flowed around his face, framing it like a halo, and his body was lithe, graceful as a golden eel. He loomed over her, impossibly large, and then he smiled, baring small fishlike teeth, inserting a finger into her cage to prod at her, as one might to encourage movement in a reluctant pet. She shied back from his chill touch. It seared her skin, like bleach in a cut. But she didn’t have skin, not anymore. The pain felt vivid, even though she knew she had no substance down here. Her disembodied spirit still tried to cry out in pain and fear at the touch of this fae thing. No sound came out. The Nix smiled as if he knew anyway.

He was joined by two others, women so beautiful Jenny wondered if she was looking at the source of all those legends about the mermaids’ beauty. Golden hair undulated around the cage as they leaned close, their long fingertips rippling the water to agitate her. Their smiles lit up their faces, glittering like the lure on a fishing hook.

The Nix took out his harp, strumming his fingers across the strings. Music swelled beneath the water, the vibrations stirring up more ripples, which lashed against her flimsy
form. Each touch shivered through her, burning, both pleasure and pain. She wanted to weep, but there was no weeping in this watery grave. She darted around, desperate to find some escape. But there was nothing, no way out.

The Nix’s sisters interlinked their hands and swam around her cage. Their voices rose in song, buffeting her and cajoling her frantic senses, lulling her until she felt her limited strength draining away. In the final moments before she slept she was reminded of another story of mermaids—that of the sirens who lured men to their death with the beauty of their voices.

Led by Puck, the forest folk had raised a bier for her, layer upon layer of sticks and stones, topped with soft moss, herbs, and grasses. They had decked it with every flower imaginable and Jenny lay upon it, her hands lightly folded on her stomach, her face turned up to the trees overhead, her eyes closed, her skin pale as the cherry blossoms scattered around her face.