Warlock and Son (15 page)

"Not too many virtues, I trust." She gave him a sidelong look through lowered lashes. Magnus reddened. "All virtues that become a man-such shall I prove."

"Thou must needs come with me, then." Her tone became peremptory. "Thou must now run beside mine horse, for thy poor nag of mortal flesh ne'er can go where we shall wander. Thou must needs come with me now, and serve me seven years."

"Only that?" Magnus protested. "Must I leave thee then?"

"That, we shall speak of anon," the lady said. "For now, follow." She turned her horse about and set off.

"As thou wilt," Magnus murmured. He followed, running lightly by her side, unable to take his eyes off her face-and amazed to find that he could keep pace with her horse.

Dimly, he realized that he was running up a moonbeam, that what he was doing was totally impossible-but the moonlight dimmed, and darkness closed all about him, unrelieved even by starlight; he ran only by the glow emanating from the Queen of Elfland herself, through a darkness that made the night seem bright-but he found that he did not mind, did not care at all, so long as he was by her side. She glanced at him once, pleased and amused, then turned her face toward the direction in which they were travelling and sang a low, soft song of a cambric shirt.

Up into the sky they ran, with the moonbeam beneath them, till Gramarye was a small irregular shape on a huge globe behind them. They came into the light of the smaller moon, just as the larger seemed to swing behind them, blocking the planet from their sight. They were in the dark of the moon now; its face was black behind them, its rim etched by scattered light, but they ran on a beam from the smaller moon, ruby beneath them. Then that ruby deepened and thickened, until it seemed to Magnus that he ran through liquid; his legs began to ache, and his steps slowed. His breath came in huge, tearing gasps, and he saw, dimly, that the smaller moon had turned dark too, while the larger had disappeared completely, and with it, the planet wherein lay his home; but the sight bothered him not at all, strangely, and he slogged onward, through a liquid that became thicker and thicker, yet his speed seemed not to slacken.

"Thou wilt never come to Elfland thus," the lady said, and reached down her hand toward him. He caught it, feeling himself unbelievably privileged to be allowed to touch her fingers; but she lifted him up
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behind her as though he weighed no more than a lady's fan, and he swung about onto the horse's rump, gripping its sides with his knees. She pulled his fingers down to her waist, saying, "Hold fast." Magnus did, with both hands, astounded that something that looked so dainty could seem like spring steel beneath velvet, and by the wonder of the curve of her hip beneath the heel of his hand. They rode in total darkness now; the only light was the glow that emanated from the lady herself, and from the sluggish crimson tide below them-but from the darkness all about came a hissing surge that grew into a roar, then retreated to a hiss that grew again and again in a regular rhythm, like the surge and ebb of the tide, but was compounded of white noise.

"Where are we, lady?" Magnus shivered, though he felt no chill.

"We ride between the worlds, young warlock," the Queen returned. "We ride in the Void." Magnus felt his scalp prickle; the eerie sensation spread down his back and into his thighs. But light blossomed ahead, swelling into a vista of trees and grass and a turquoise sky. "Are we come to Tir Chlis, milady?"

"Nay, wizard-knight," she returned, "for so I shall call thee, thou hast yet to be knighted, for I perceive thou dost merit it."

Magnus stared. "Why, how canst thou know?"

"From the tang of Cold Iron about thee, which runs deeper than bone-for here between worlds, it is the essence of a man that shows, not the dross of his skin and visage only."

"Muscle and bone may yet matter, in Tir Chlis." Magnus spoke from vivid memory.

"Aye, yet we are not come there yet." The vista grew wider and wider about them, till the horse's hooves thudded on solid earth. It slowed, nodding its head and blowing through its nostrils, then stopped. Magnus looked up at transparent leaves that seemed to have been carved from slices of emerald, growing from boughs that wore a golden sheen. Fruit hung from that tree, swelling with ripeness, like pears with double tops that turned at angles to one another. Magnus gave a
cry
of joy and swung down from the horse, leaping to catch at one of the fruits.

"Oh, nay, sir wizard!" the lady cried. "Do not touch the fruit of this garden!" Magnus yanked his hand back just short of the fruit, and turned as he dropped back to the earth. "Oh, lady, I implore thee, let me pull some of it down for thee to feed upon! For we have journeyed long, and journeyed far, and thou must needs be a-hungered. Only fruit of such beauty as this could be fit for so fine and fair a lady as thyself!"

"Right gallantly spoke." She smiled, her eyes glowing. "Yet know, Sir Wizard, that he who doth touch that fruit will feel horror touch his heart, and he who doth seek to eat of it will die in torment." Magnus looked up at the fruit sharply, then closely. "Lady, how can this be? For never saw I fruit that looked more marvelous and wholesome than these!"

"They are fair," she returned, "but this little world is but an island in the Void, with many worlds about it-and some are places of torment for souls that seek viciousness, who believe that only by strife and hurting of one another can they thrive. Nay, further-they might swear that only by beating and slaying of
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one another can the worthiest be found."

"'Tis hellish," Magnus breathed.

"Hellish indeed, and corrupt-and corruption doth breed disease. Nay, all the plagues that are in these hellish worlds do light here, and are gathered up by these fruits. 'Tis on this they batten-the energies of misery and agony that arise from millions of tormented souls."

Magnus drew back with a shudder.

"Therefore, seek not to satisfy thine hunger with such fruits as these," she counselled, "and be not concerned for me, for we of the elfin blood know hunger only rarely; for the greater part, we dine for pleasure alone. Yet thou, I see, art sore a-hungered, now that thou hast paused to think of food. Thou mortal folk must ever be gathering substance into thyselves, for thy bodies do spend it most extravagantly." She cupped a hand in her lap; something twinkled there, and gained form. "Yet I have here a loaf of bread." She held up both hands; energy sparkled between them, taking the form of a bottle.

"And here I have a claret wine. Nay, take them from me, that I may descend, and thou mayest dine and rest thyself a while."

He came to her gladly, took the loaf and bottle in his left hand, and held up his right. She clasped it and stepped gracefully down from her mount, who immediately lowered its head and began to graze. The lady drifted over to a tree, folded herself beneath it, and spread her skirts about herbut in such manner as to reveal the outline of hip and thigh. "Come." She reached up toward him. "Sit by me, and dine." Magnus sat gladly, set the bottle down, and took up the loaf-but, on the verge of breaking it, he remembered what he had heard about faerie food, and hesitated.

The lady laughed like the tinkling of the bells in her horse's mane. "Thou dost fear that tasting of the food of Elfland will bind thee to the elven kind, dost thou not? Yet thou art bound to me already by thine own desire and will, and I promise thee, this food will hold thee no longer than they." Heartened by her promise, and not even thinking to question it, Magnus ate. A few bites were enough to satisfy him, and a single draft of the wine. The Queen folded them away, still amused, and patted her knee. "Come, lay down thine head and rest thee, and I will show thee fair visions that shall amaze thee." Nothing loathe, Magnus lay down, breathing in the sweet aroma of her perfume, amazed at his own delight in her presence. "Why, then, show me, fair queen-but they must be sights wondrous indeed, to rival my first view of thee."

"Silver-tongued knave!" She gave him a playful tap on the lips-and he parted them immediately, but too late. "Now behold." She laid one cool hand across his forehead and pointed with the other. The turquoise sky seemed to thicken there, churning in a whorl of smoke that opened like an iris to show a picture of a hard-packed dirt road, little more than a trail, running arrowstraight through a thicket of thorn bushes and briars, clustering so thickly that the road was frequently lost to view.

"See thou yon straitened track?" she asked.

"I see." Magnus was even more impressed with the huge panorama of leaden sky that stretched above the briars, even to the horizon, for the land was as flat as a tabletop. "What gloomy road is that?"
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She gave him a keen look, though he could not have said whether it was of amusement or wariness.

"That is the path of righteousness, young wizard, and few indeed are they who inquire after it. Why, then-wouldst thou live a righteous life?"

Magnus chilled the automatic answer on his tongue and seriously considered the issue, searching his feelings. Then, slowly, he nodded. "Aye, lady. I find it within me to hope that I shall. I do wish it, verily."

"Thou art a most rare man indeed." Her manner seemed frosted suddenly, though Magnus couldn't have said how; he could detect no outward sign. "Rare, and more so, in that thou art a wizard, and might have what thou didst wish of this mortal world."

"'Tis not the mortal world I hunger for," he said quickly, "but thine."

"Yet my folk are not concerned with righteousness, young man, nor with aught but their own needs and amusements." She waved a hand, and the picture shrank in on itself, becoming again a roiled knot of smoke. She gestured, and it widened, opening again like the iris of some giant eye, to show another view. Magnus looked, and saw a wide and glittering road that wound easily up across a gentle rise, then dipped down out of sight, but rose again, twisting through a gently rolling landscape that was filled with flaming flowers under a cerulean sky adorned with clouds like bursts of incense. He even seemed to smell the perfume of the flowers, thick and sweet, and immensely sensual. In spite of its enchanting prospect, he found it oddly repulsive. "What track is this?"

"Yon broad, broad way is the path of wickedness, young wizard, though many think it the road to Heaven. Yet the delights it doth seem to promise are fewer than those it doth bring, and its destiny is the death of all joy." She looked down at him with a smile of odd interest. "Dost thou not find it appealing?"

"It doth tug at me," Magnus admitted, "yet it doth repel me, too. I would be loathe to set foot upon it."

"I should be glad to hear thee say so." But the lady didn't say she was; she only waved a hand, and the picture drew in on itself until it was obscured by the knot of smoke again. Another gesture, and it opened once more, but was filled with haze this time. Magnus peered through the mist, but could only vaguely discern the form of a lake. "What pond is that?"

"Say rather, what form it hath." Her other hand dropped suddenly so that both were now touching his brow, and Magnus found his mind strangely turning. He could not remember how he had come to be here, nor on whose lap his head lay-but he was very glad to have it so. "Look keenly," the lady said.

"Look keenly at the lake, and let thy mind show us its form."

"Why so?" But even as Magnus looked, the haze dispersed, revealing a body of clear blue water, so lucid that he could see even the pebbles at its center, for sunlight filled all the world about it, even the waters themselves, and made the depths luminous. The verge about it was soft green grass, dappled with flowers in many hues.

"Ah," the lady breathed. "Thus did it seem to thine heart, so short a time agone." Her hand moved on his forehead, and suddenly, Magnus remembered following his father into the forest, arguing with him, and going alone to meet the hag in the tower, the lady at the church door, the girl in the cult village, and this Queen of Elfland, as she styled herself. As he remembered, the sky in the picture grew cloudy, the flowers curled up and hid their faces, and the waters took on a dark green hue, no longer clear, hiding something in their depths-and there was a feeling of danger, of something threatening that hid below the surface. "What change is this?" Magnus gasped.

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"The change is in thee," the lady said, "for when first this pond thou didst see, I had cleared the memory of this past week from thy mind; yet now I have restored it-and thine image of the unknown pond hath changed."

Magnus frowned. "Why, how should this be? And what should it signify?" But the lady only waved her hand, and the picture drew in on itself, whirling as a knot of smoke, then blossomed out again, into a bright, fair road strewn with golden sand, bordered by wands adorned with gaily colored pennons, about which twined flowers of every hue and tint. The road wound back and forth over a rolling landscape into a distance that glittered and promised ... what?

There was a beauty to it that was alien somehow, yet immensely beguiling. "What track is that?" Magnus breathed. "That," the lady said, "is the road to fair Elfland, whither thou and I shall ride." Magnus shivered with a sudden thrill and rose to his feet in a single smooth motion. "Why, then, let us ride, milady! How quickly can we come thereto?"

She smiled up at him, amused. "Art thou so keen, then? Nay, if so, thou art bound most truly, and 'tis thyself hast forged the bonds."

"Right willingly," he assured her. "Nay, gladly would I pass all my days in that fair land."

"Come, then," the lady said, "mount up behind me-for my horse is rested, and ready to flee again. She hath need of only a few minutes' respite in a world's air, and will bear us now to Elfland." Magnus came back and mounted behind her. "Is this world like to a stepping stone in the Void, then?" The horse sprang into the picture, and Magnus cried out in alarm, then stared in wonder-for as they passed through the ring of smoke, the enchanted landscape spread out on both sides of him, and the bright pennons pointed the way. Looking behind, he saw the Void through the frame of smoke, closing in about the circle of grass and trees as the worldlet shrank behind. Then the smoke swirled in to hide the view, dissipated, and was gone, leaving only the clear blue sky of Tir Chlis above them. " 'Twas not a stepping stone," he breathed.