A Wizard in Chaos

CHAPTER 15

Milesians?” Dirk frowned, turning to Maora.

“Mortals” she explained “who are not of the Fair Folk. Go with the lad; he will lead you to the duke.” She turned away to a tall, handsome man who stepped up to take her hand. She laughed gaily as he swept her off into the dance. Gar followed her with his gaze.

“Regrets?” Dirk jibed.

“Yes, but not about her specifically.” Gar turned back to the youth. “We shall be honored by an audience with His Grace.”

“You are courteous, for Milesians,” the boy said in surprise. “Follow, then.” He turned and went.

“ ‘Milesians,’ ” Dirk mused as they followed “I think there’s an awful lot of Celtic influence here.”

“Not my area of study,” Gar said. “What are the signs?”

“The Irish called their last wave of prehistoric invaders Milesians,” Dirk explained. “The scholars think they were the ancestors of the modern Irish. They drove the earlier invaders, the Tuatha de Danaan, ‘the people of Danu,’ before them, until finally the Old People withdrew into the Hollow Hills in disgust. The medieval Irish referred to them as the Daonine Sidhe.” He pronounced it “Theena Shee.”

“They lived inside the green hills or in a land under the waters.”

“Let’s hope these people see themselves as Daonine Sidhe, then,” Gar said grimly. “Put on your happy face—here’s the duke.”

Their young guide led them up to a high dais, where the oldest of the Fair Folk sat alone, in a gilded, high-backed, intricately carved armchair that gleamed with the look of neither wood nor metal, but of some sort of synthetic. The boy bowed. “My lord duke, here are the Milesians.”

“Bravely done,” the duke said, and waved him away. “Go now to the dancing, Riban.”

“I thank Your Grace.” The boy bowed again, and went.

Dirk gazed after him. “How old is he? Fourteen?”

“Ten,” the duke snapped. “The Fair Folk grow tall from childhood—and you are most lacking in courtesy, Milesian!”

“Oh, sorry.” Dirk turned and bowed. “Thank you for your hospitality, Your Grace.”

“Better,” the duke said, mollified. He turned to Gar, who bowed and said, “You are gracious, Lord Duke.”

“This one, at least, knows manners.” The duke looked him up and down. “I might almost think you were of noble birth.”

“I am the grandson of a count, Your Grace, and the son of a lord.”

“Then you are no man of this world of Durvie!”

“Your insight is excellent,” Gar confirmed. “We have come from off-world.”

“I might have known it, from the things you’ve said! Have you laser rifles of your own, then?”

“Not with us, my lord, but we have both fired them in battle, yes.”

Dirk stared at him in alarm—he was giving too much away.

“How much else have you recognized?” the duke demanded.

Dirk sighed. If the cat was out of the bag, it might as well yowl. “This Hollow Hill is a colonists’ atmosphere dome, the portal into the hill is an airlock that’s no longer used for keeping the breathable air in, and your medallion is a wireless audio pickup that feeds loudspeakers high up on the hill. Its amplifier has a digital reverberation unit, a frequency equalizer, and a basso enhancer.”

The duke sat rigid, his eyes smoldering. At last he said, “You are as knowledgeable as I had feared.” He turned to Gar. “And you? What one of you knows, both must!”

“We have different areas of expertise,” Gar temporized. “For myself, I conjecture that, like those you call Milesians, you’re descended from the original colonists, but your ancestors chose to stay in the domes, rather than go out into the world and farm. Tell me, are all the Hollow Hills inhabited by tribes of Fair Folk?”

“All,” the duke confirmed. “Those whose people abandoned them were taken as homes by those who grew to be too many for one single hill. They scorned the ancestors of the Milesians for being so uncouth as to grub in the ground, and the Milesians scorned them for choosing prison over freedom.” He smiled vindictively. “The more fools they! As they found when the famines came and they had foolishly spawned as many brats as each of them wished! They came against our ancestors in their hordes, trying to batter a way into the hills—but our ancestors had never forgotten the magic of their textbooks and learning programs, and to add to the power of the nuclear generators, had learned how to tap enough geothermal energy, and to harness wind and water with turbines that charged storage batteries, so that they kept the machines working. Our ancestors took up the laser rifles they had learned to repair, and mowed down the Milesians by the hundreds. Oh, some of them died in those wars, but each took a hundred Milesians with him, and another of the Fair Folk rose up in his place!”

“Giving rise to the rumor that you couldn’t be killed.” Dirk suppressed a shudder.

“So your people all still learn how to repair the machines, and operate them?” Gar asked.

“All indeed! Some even become obsessed with such learning, and ferret out new knowledge, inventing new devices!”

“A rather solitary occupation,” Gar noted. “There are some solitary Fair Folk, yes,” the duke agreed, “but there were always leprechauns and their like among the Old People. Most, though, fulfill their assigned hours at the consoles and the repair benches, then pass the rest of their time in cultivating the arts, and in the delights of conversation.” Dirk suspected that “the arts” included martial arts, and that “conversation” covered a lot of flirtation, dalliance, social maneuvering, and jockeying for status, but he was wise enough not to say so. “Now we live in luxury,” the duke went on, “with leisure for learning and revelry, while the descendants of those who yearned for the freedom of the plains and forests must toil and sweat for scraps of bread, and strive against one another in ceaseless combat while we live in harmony.”

“Do you really?” Gar asked, interested. “How do you manage that?”

“We meet to discuss such issues as might cause friction—”

“All of you together?”

“Of course.” The duke frowned. “There are not so many of us that the town square cannot hold us all.”

“And if one of you is angry at another?”

“We hear their arguments at the assembly, and all decide together who is right to what degree, and wherein each should be blamed.”

“A time-consuming but effective way of governing,” Gar said. “However, you have plenty of spare time, don’t you?”

“That is our privilege,” the duke agreed, his voice guarded.

“Bought at the price of being able to roam freely, or to do as you damn well please even if it doesn’t suit the others—but the Milesians have little enough of such freedom, either.”

“Much less, for most of them,” the duke said darkly.

“But you also choose leaders,” Gar pressed. “How did you come to be duke? Simply by living long? Or by birth?”

“By long life and acclamation,” the duke replied. “There are many of my generation still living, but I was the one for whom the most applause rose when the old duke died. As to leading, I preside at the assemblies, and speak for us all in dealings with other hills. That is all.”

“And command if you need to fight the Milesians,” Gar inferred: “I assume, though, that you ride to one another’s hills now and again, probably at each equinox and solstice…”

“And woe to the peasants who cross our paths.” The duke smiled, eyes glowing. “I congratulate you on having discerned how we use the legend of the Wild Hunt, and the solstices and equinoxes as well, to add to our mystical aura.”

Dirk frowned; the duke was being entirely too open.

“I am sure it keeps you safe, and prevents your having to burn down more than a few Milesians,” Gar said diplomatically. “I would further conjecture that the festivals you hold on those occasions center on the exchanging of genes.”

“The festivals are also chances for athletic contests, which inspire our men to strive to perfect themselves in body and in skill at fighting,” the duke said sharply.

“And of course, the winner finds himself more attractive to the women of the neighboring Hill,” Gar interpreted.

The duke’s smile was brittle. “A tactful way of saying that we make no bar to the young, and not so young, who wish to taste and revel in one another’s joys.”

“An excellent safeguard against inbreeding,” Gar agreed. “Still, you must need the occasional influx of genes from completely outside the Fair Folk community; your gene pool can’t be very large.”

“You guess rightly, which is why we tolerate Desiree’s desire to amuse herself with your friend,” the duke said with a hard smile. “In fact, every now and again a Milesian proves so diverting that we allow him to remain among us all his days.”

“Or until you tire of him?” Gar smiled, and recited,

“He has taken a coat of the even cloth, And a pair of shoes of velvet green, And till seven years were past and gone, True Thomas on Earth was never seen.”

“Even so,” the duke said, “and those whom we find diverting, we keep until they start to age and lose their beauty. Those who cease to be diverting, we keep in other ways—those who cease amusing, or learn too much.”

“Learn what?” Gar asked. “That you’re only human, and can be slain like anyone else?” Anger sparked from the duke’s eyes. “Yes, that and more,” he hissed. “But we are not ‘merely human,’ like these Milesians, these clod-poll folk among whom you’ve been wandering!”

“They’re not all clods!” Dirk spoke in anger, the vision of Magda bright before him. “Some are beautiful, some highly skilled, many excellent soldiers! The rigors of their lives have made them hardy and strong, clever and skillful! Some are even as wonderful as any of your Fair Folk!”

“Ridiculous!” the duke snapped. “Are any Milesians as tall as we, as graceful or as handsome?” Dirk frowned. “So you think that your inbreeding has made you superior to the people of the outside world.”

“Not inbreeding—selective breeding! The Hill can support only so many! Each woman may bear only two children during her lifetime, and if one is born dark-haired, ugly, or maimed, we give him to the Milesians!”

Dirk remembered the tall “changeling” in Cort’s platoon. “But only if you can trade it for a good-looking Milesian. So that’s why you continually steal Milesian babies and leave Fair Folk infants in their places—as you say, you need the genes, but you take only the prettiest and the strongest!”

“And have been doing so for four hundred years,” the duke confirmed. “After all that time, surely we have all the best genes, and the Milesians all the worst!”

“Not at all,” Gar said, “for the babies you trade away have all your genes within them, even if they’re recessive. If you gain the strengths of the Milesians, so do they gain yours!”

“What strengths have they that we would wish?” the duke scoffed. His eyes glittered as he looked from Dirk to Gar and back. “Does it not worry you that I am so free to confirm your guesses, so open as to tell you facts you did not know?”

“Well, now that you mention it,” Dirk said, swallowing hard, “yes.”

The duke laughed, gloating. “You fear that we will keep you inside the hill all your lives, for committing the crime of knowing too much—and you fear rightly. We cannot let you walk abroad, to tell the Milesians we are only mortal, as they are, but with more powerful weapons.”

“You’re planning to hold onto us,” Dirk said, his mouth dry. He thought of Magda, and his heart twisted.

“Your friend already wishes to stay.” The duke nodded at a smaller building off to the side of the plaza. “Look where he comes!”

Turning, Dirk and Gar saw Desiree coming out the door, holding the hand of a very besotted Cort. He moved like a sleepwalker, letting her touch guide him, never taking his gaze from her face. She beamed back into his eyes, face radiant with triumph.

Dirk felt his heart sink. “He’s lost to us.”

“And to all the outer world,” the duke agreed. “He is a good fighter and a strong, tall, handsome man, for a Milesian. His genes will protect us against the inbreeding you cite, without introducing too many unpleasant traits.”

“Can he stay as anything but a servant?” Gar asked.

“We do, very rarely, allow a Milesian to marry one of us,” the duke hedged, “as much as any of us marry.”

“Which means that the only vows they exchange are that they love each other right then, at that moment?” Dirk asked.

“Something like that, yes.” The duke seemed disgruntled that Dirk had guessed.

“But no one expects it to last longer than a few years,” Gar suggested.

“None,” the duke agreed. “When they decide their marriage is done, he who has married one Fair Lady may marry another. He need not be a slave all his days.”

“Meaning that you think he or she is a superior enough specimen that you want to spread their genes widely through the pool,” Dirk said dryly.

“And of sufficient interest to help dispel ennui, the perpetual restless boredom that is our bane,” the duke said.

“Will you decide to so honor our friend?” Gar asked.

“Perhaps,” the duke answered. “If a man of such grace and beauty survived long enough in the chaotic world outside, he may be worth keeping as something other than a bondsman-though mind you, even our slaves wish to remain here, where they are safe, and all is laughter and music.”

“But you are definitely keeping him,” Dirk inferred.

The duke watched the couple, brooding, as Desiree dropped Cort’s hand, tossed her head, and turned away. He stared after her, dumbfounded.

The duke smiled. “I see that Desiree has had her fill of him for the time being. She may decide to reclaim him some day. For now, though, dawn is coming, and he is free to go.”

He turned to a side table, filled with fruit and decanters. “Eat and drink! The night has been long, the way longer, and you are surely hungry”

Dirk glanced at the fruit; his mouth watered and his stomach rumbled. But Gar caught his eye and gave the slightest shake of the head. Dirk remembered Cort’s warning not to eat or drink, and ground out, “I thank you, Your Grace, but on a mission such as we follow now, we must eat only journey rations.” He wondered what malice Gar had overheard in the man’s thoughts.

The duke’s face darkened. “I urge you to taste and sip! It is quite pleasant—far more pleasant than it is without.”

“It’s drugged, isn’t it?” Gar asked. “Your ancestors read the old legends, and liked the irony. You feed sedatives to the Milesians you don’t want to keep around, but don’t want to let go, either—the ones who know too much. Then you store them away somehow, for twenty years. When you let them out, the world is a generation older, and though people believe they’ve spent a night in Hollow Hill, they also believe the experience has left them mad, and don’t believe anything they say about you!”

The duke flushed with anger. “You see far too much, far too quickly! I warn you, it will be far more pleasant for you if you eat or drink!”

“I thank you.” Gar inclined his head. “But we must decline the invitation.”

The duke snapped his fingers, and Fair Folk men whirled from the dance and fell on Dirk and Gar, drawing their swords.

The companions leaped back, whipping out their blades, and met the onslaught, parrying frantically. “Try riot to injure them!” Gar called. “Look, I have some idea of good manners!” Dirk called back.

Then a shout split the air, and Cort barreled between two of the tall men. They leaped aside in sheer surprise as he turned, rapier and dagger drawn and whirling. “If you fight my friends, you fight me!”

“Cort, no!” Desiree wailed.

“Game’s over, lady,” Dirk snapped, parrying a blade that ripped his sleeve. Blood welled, but he ignored it and caught another sword on his dagger.

“Spare him!” Desiree cried. “I have more games to play!”

If anything, that made the Fair Men fight harder. They piled on the trio ten to one and bore them down by the weight of sheer numbers. Gar felt his blade cut flesh; a tall man cried out in pain, and Gar felt blades pierce his shoulder, his thigh. Then a blow rocked his head, and he went limp.

He could still see and hear, though everything seemed distant. He felt his body heaved up high, saw Cort and Dirk borne up on the shoulders of tall men, heard Desiree wailing, and saw the floating lights slide by overhead, then the lintel of the palace portal. Its ceiling reeled past, painted in beautiful, ornate designs; then the roof closed in, they passed under a low lintel, his head tilted downward, and they went jolting down and down into gloom.

Then, suddenly, the ride leveled, and the roof rose again. Gar felt control of his limbs returning as the daze faded, leaving a splitting headache. He looked about him and saw a domed ceiling painted a cold blue. The light was cold, too, and glaring white-mercury vapor, at a guess.

Then they lowered his legs, and Gar saw that he stood in an underground chamber filled with clear glass doors. Behind a dozen of those doors stood Milesians, men and women of Cort’s kind, who had come into the Hill by chance or the caprice of a Fair Person, but who now stood frozen and rigid, eyes closed in cryogenic sleep.