This Scepter'd Isle (41 page)

Still, the thing was mortal-made, not elven kenned; Denoriel remembered how Gilfaethwy insisted on mortal-world artifacts untouched by elven influence. Perhaps the saddle would be worth something to someone. Denoriel ran back to the Gate to retrieve it and heaved it over Miralys's croup, where linen bands suddenly appeared to fasten it.

He mounted, grasped Harry's hands and pulled him up. The boy had scarcely swung his leg over Miralys when they were plunged into an icy darkness that gave way almost instantaneously to the gorgeous, other-worldly garden outside the palace of Llachar Lle. Miralys carefully trod the narrow path that skirted a quiet pond surrounded by moonflowers and nightlillies. The long, silver leaves of Underhill's willows trailed over them, a welcoming caress.

Beyond the pond the path widened and then debouched onto a close-cropped lawn. Harry gaped upward at the shining, unveined, white marble walls of the palace, rising two stories to a battlemented wall above the huge bronze doors. To either side of the central building were slender round towers, showing many wide windows above the second floor. Pennons flapped from each tower.

Denoriel also stared upward. Oberon and Titania? Here? Why? Did the king and queen know he had been involved in the destruction of a Gate? Or were they here to chastise him because he had apparently abducted a mortal boy of great importance? And he had allowed Harry to see and understand far too much of Underhill.

"Those towers," Harry said with an odd note of disapproval in his voice instead of the wonder Denoriel had expected, "a cannon would take them down in an hour. Even a trenchbut . . ."

"We don't have cannon Underhill," Denoriel said, but a cold chill ran up his back.

It was true that the Unseleighe were unlikely to assault a palace, but if those of the mortal world were sufficiently frightened or angered . . . or driven by greed . . . 

The mortals had mages. A human mage, particularly one not too particular about how he gathered his power, could open a portal into Underhill, could bring in those terrible brass cannon, could turn Llachar Lle to rubble, to less than rubble, in an hour.

He shook off the horrifying vision and gestured for Harry to dismount and follow him.

The mortals had a saying:
Sufficient unto the day are the troubles thereof.
And if the presence of the High King and his Queen was anything to go by, he had troubles enough for now.

FitzRoy had some initial nervousness about sleeping alone in a room—he had never been without a nurse or, now, his valet Shandy Dunstan on a truckle bed by his side. Denoriel solved the problem by pointing out that there were many servants listening for his smallest wish, and proving it by telling Harry to ask for anything he wanted . . . within reason.

"What's not within reason?" the boy asked at once.

"Twenty naked dancing girls," Denoriel replied and then blushed. The bed brought only one thing to his mind.

FitzRoy blinked. "What would I want with
twenty
?"

Blushing harder, Denoriel said, "You're a naughty boy! What would you want with one?"

The boy tried to swagger; the effect was enough to make Denoriel suppress a grin. "Don't know, but I'd like to find out."

Denoriel laughed. "Not tonight. You're too sleepy. Take it from someone who does know. Being too tired takes the fun out of it. No. Ask for a glass of water or more cider or a sweet."

He then went out of the room. After a little while, he heard a giggle and, eyes wide, rushed back in. There was, to his relief, no dancing girl, but Harry did have a large glass of water and what looked like marchpane sweets in a golden dish on the table beside the bed. In addition, he was attired in a clean, white nightshirt and a small nightcap.

He sighed sleepily when Denoriel came in and said, "You're right, Lord Denno. Your servants are paying close attention to me. But it is passing strange to have my clothes taken off and a nightshirt put on when I can't see what's doing it."

"As long as it was done right," Denoriel said, coming to the bed. "I'm glad they didn't have any trouble with your cross." He eyed the pouch in which the cross was concealed, but the shield spell over the enshrouding silk seemed strong and solid. Then he bent down and kissed the boy on the forehead. "Do you want me to stay until you fall asleep?"

There was no need to ask. Harry's eyes were already closed and his breathing deepening. Denoriel stood by the bed for a few moments longer, mentally commanded the servants not only to serve but to watch and protect, and left the apartment.

As he crossed the great corridor of Llachar Lle, he felt a Thought brush him—a Thought he knew could rip away all his protections, could seize and rend him soul and body if it desired—and his step hesitated. A moment later the touch was withdrawn. Denoriel breathed again and hurried out. Miralys was waiting, trembling, at the foot of the steps.

When they arrived this time, Denoriel did not even need to speak to whatever guarded the Academicia. Magus Major Gilfaethwy was waiting at a doorway and bellowed at him before he had even dismounted.

"You meddled with my Gates! How dare you! You asked for simple Gates that would take you from one place to another. You tried to cheat me by changing the patterns!"

With a considerable effort, Denoriel got control of his jaw, which had been hanging open in shock. He had no idea that Gilfaethwy could have known of the collapse of the Gate near Sheriff Hutton—or how he could have learned of it so soon.

"I did not meddle apurpose, magus, I swear to you," he said as soon as he was able. "I was fleeing an Unseleighe attack, and the child who was the intended victim of that attack was wearing a cold iron cross, which seems to have disrupted the Gate."

The mage scowled, and Denoriel wondered if he was about to find out what flies tasted like. "That, too, I felt Denoriel Siencyn Macreth Silverhair. But if you had not first meddled with the Gate, it would not have failed so catastrophically, and I would not have nearly been rendered witless and useless."

"I am so very sorry, magus, but I didn't do it!" Denoriel protested, dismounting and approaching the fuming mage. "I swear I didn't. I don't know how, and there wasn't any other place I wanted the Gate to go."

"Liar!" Gilfaethwy roared. "I sensed your aura caught in the patterning. Do you think me such a fool that I do not leave safeguards on my creations? You aren't the only half-baked, untaught, untalented half-wit to try to cheat me! I sensed your aura . . . and the foulness you had hidden beneath your so-young, so-innocent . . ."

The mage's voice faded and Denoriel felt an assessing touch sweep over him. Denoriel had done this and that of which his too-gentle sister disapproved, but he was sure he had never done anything that a fellow Sidhe would consider foul and he raised no shields, except those that already existed on his very inmost being.

Then his mind caught on the idea of an aura very like his but tainted with foulness. Pasgen. Pasgen had meddled with the Gate!

"It was not I," Denoriel insisted. "I have a halfbrother . . ."

"Eh?" He caught the mage quite off-guard with that.

He hurried on. "Surely the tale is known to you! I have an Unseleighe halfbrother . . . We are contending with one another over this child. It is not impossible that he tried to set the Gate so that if I escaped into it, I and the child would be transported to . . . likely to his domain or to his twin sister's."

The mage blinked. "Twin sister?"

"Yes. There are two sets of twins, myself and my sister, and Pasgen and his." The double births were so extraordinary—quite unheard of—he could not believe that the mage had never heard of them.

"Silverhair . . . twins. Aha. Now I remember, of course. Two sets of twins."

Gilfaethwy paused, stared hard at Denoriel, and snapped his fingers. When they had arrived in his overcrowded and even more disordered workroom, he nodded.

"Now I remember." He spoke absently, and Denoriel suspected, mostly to himself, for the words came slowly, as if he was pulling memories out of some corner of his mind that had not been looked into for a very long time. "Yes. Llanelli Ffridd Gwynneth Arian craved children to the point of madness, and had a great magic worked and caught in it your father—not that he knew what she had done because he went innocently from Llanelli to the bed of his current lady . . . ah, yes, your mother . . . and enough of the spell was bound into him that she, too, conceived. And also twins. And then the Unseleighe learned of you, and came to take you. You and your sister, we saved, though at cost. And one set was stolen away by our Unseleighe kin—and Llanelli followed her children into the halls of shadow."

Denoriel made a wordless sound of agreement.

"So you are innocent of playing with my Gates. And your half-brother is a magician of considerable ability." He paused, making chewing motions with his mouth as if he had an sour unripe fruit in it that he had to swallow. "He understands Gates. He made it a little unstable, but likely if the child had not been wearing the cold iron cross, the Gate would have placed you where he wanted you."

"That gives me no great joy, magus," Denoriel said.

Gilfaethwy shrugged.

"Can you take the Gates down and replace them with new Gates?" he asked, urgently.

The mage gave him a withering look. "To what purpose, you idiot? Do you think your brother is not aware of what happened? Do you think he would not repattern any Gate you used?"

"Even the ones in London and at Windsor?" Denoriel persisted. "Can you sense his meddling there also?"

"I cannot even sense the Gates at this distance. Those are Treowth's Gates. He uses a completely different system than I do. If you want those Gates tested, he must do it himself."

Denoriel sighed. He had been told that Treowth had moved to the Bazaar of the Bizarre. There were three great markets Underhill—Elves' Fair, Goblin Market, and the Bazaar of the Bizarre. Denoriel had never been to any of them. He was young enough, still, to enjoy his life filled with music and dancing and making love and the Wild Hunt for excitement and danger. He had not yet needed to seek for toys in the market—any of the markets, where it was said that making a bargain for what you wanted might cost your life or your soul or both.

Elves' Fair catered to those who were so weak in magic that they could not build their own servants. Constructs of every variety were available there, as well as bound monsters, bound elementals, and, very occasionally, mortal slaves. There were no guarantees given with that merchandise. Goblin Market sold mixed wares, toys, spells, devices—mortal, Sidhe, and from the other planes—as well as information, but it was said that you could take nothing away except what you already had and did not want. Bazaar of the Bizarre was what it said . . . except that what was bizarre to elves and the denizens of stranger realms was bizarre indeed.

The question was how to get there. Denoriel drew a deep breath and said, "I know that Magus Treowth is said to be in the Bazaar of the Bizarre. I paid you for Gates, but I do not have them and you say you cannot replace them. Your contract is not fulfilled Magus Gilfaethwy."

"I
can
replace them," Gilfaethwy snarled. "Out of my good heart, I have warned you—"

"That you cannot make me a Gate proof against my halfbrother's meddling," Denoriel snapped back. "Very well, I accept that. Instead, tell me how to get to the Bazaar of the Bizarre and how to find Magus Treowth when I am there."

Again Gilfaethwy seemed to chew on that sour mouthful, but then he shrugged his shoulders. "It is easy enough, only four Gates from Avalon."

"Four Gates?"

"Oberon is not inclined to favor the notion that the Seleighe Sidhe become enamored of 'foreign' toys or uncanny slaves. Thus, he does not make the path to the markets easy." He made a grimace. "The High King is right, too. The Sidhe get lazier and lazier. With a little thought and a little labor they could make anything they can buy at the markets."

"I am not going there for toys," Denoriel pointed out. "The child I am protecting must be returned to his own time and people. The good of the mortal realm of Logres as well as that of Elfhame Logres, and perhaps Elfhame Avalon, rests on him somehow. I
must
have a safe Gate."

The mage heaved a theatrical sigh. "Very well. Very well. The first Gate is from Avalon to the Hall of the Mountain King."

"The Gate from Avalon only takes me to Logres!" he protested

The mage gave him another withering glance. "You
are
an idiot! The Avalon Gate has six termini. Pick the one to the Mountain King's Hall."

"How?" Denoriel roared, his hand going to his sword.

A flash of light flew from Gilfaethwy's index finger. As swiftly Denoriel's shields were up and the light splashed harmlessly on them. Gilfaethwy's eyes opened wide.

"Not such an idiot after all," he said, grudgingly.

"Shields I know," Denoriel said. "My duty is to protect the child. Shields have been necessary."

Gilfaethwy sighed. "Very well. In every Gate there is a power point." He gestured and a small Gate appeared in the air between them. "Look for that." When Denoriel nodded, his brows went up, but he only said, "Feel within for the nodules— "

As Denoriel "reached" within the Gate, the mage waved a frantic hand at him. "Aieee! Do not touch them or think at them. There is only the Void on the other side and no Gate back."

"Sorry," Denoriel said, contritely.

Gilfaethwy paused, and gave him a measuring look. "You are very quick to learn. How is it that you are so disgustingly ignorant of magic?"

"Because I am just what you said, Magus Gilfaethwy . . . an idiot!" Denoriel replied feelingly and sincerely, full of disgust at his own ignorance and hubris. "I thought my skill with a sword could answer any trouble I might find and I refused to learn. Of course I was terribly wrong. I know it now."

"Hmmm." Gilfaethwy eyed him with speculation. "It is not too late."

"I know that, magus," he said earnestly. "And I have sworn that I will learn magic as soon as I have time. But right now what is most important is the safety of the child I guard and his return to his own time and place."