Warlock and Son

7

Magnus rode among the trees, trying to stave off a feeling of guilt. What made it worse was not knowing whether he was feeling guilty about abandoning the people of Wealdbinde to their fate, or about betraying his father-or both.

And, of course, there was the girl, Hester. She certainly was no raving beauty, but was pretty enough, and there was something about her that wouldn't let go of his mind. Had he deserted her, too?

Then he remembered Neil Aginson, and decided that perhaps he had not.

"Women are ever a trial," someone sighed.

Magnus looked up, jolted out of his reverie, and saw the ragpicker ambling down the trail beside Magnus's horse. "What, art thou come again?" Magnus demanded. "Get thee gone!"

"In good time. Twice now have I offered thee invulnerability for thine heart, and twice hast thou refused it-though in both cases, thou shortly thereafter hadst need of it."

"I will not take it," Magnus snapped.

"Be sure." The ragpicker grinned up at him, displaying several missing teeth. " 'Twill cost thee naught to take it, yet may cost thee dearly to tell me nay."

"Then I shall pay the price of obstinacy!" Magnus grated. "Begone, fellow! I've no use for thee!"

"Yet thou hast, or thou wouldst not be so strenuous in thy denial."

"Can I never be rid of thee?" Magnus drew his dagger, and the ragpicker laughed. "Steel cannot harm me, youngling."

"Nay, but this can." Magnus unscrewed the top of the hilt and shook out the little yellow-handled screwdriver with the image of St. Vidicon carved into it. He brandished it toward the ragpicker. "Agent of Chaos, get thee hence!"

"Thou shalt rue this denial!" The ragpicker began to flicker, like an image poorly received on a video screen. "Thou hast the wrong Agency, also . . ."

"Begone!"

And the ragpicker vanished.

Magnus slid the screwdriver back into the handle of the dagger and sheathed it with trembling fingers. He drew a long, shaky breath, telling himself that he was a fool to be so upset by the apparition.

Then he began to believe himself. He could very well be just such a fool, and a coward to boot. He rode on through the woods, his self-doubt deepening and darkening.

Magnus rode out of the woods into a river meadow. A doe saw him coming, looked up in alarm, and whisked away toward the trees, her fawns behind her. Magnus watched them go, mouth twisting in self-disgust. He knew they were only fleeing at the approach of possible danger-but it made him feel as though even the wild animals didn't want to have anything to do with him.

He dismounted, tied his horse and took the bit out of its mouth so that it might graze, and turned away to the river, following its course with his gaze, off toward the western glow where the sun had set. He thought of pitching a proper camp, then dismissed the notion as being too involved. He sat down on the bank beneath a huge old willow, to watch the water flow by, likening it to the stream of his life, wondering how so much of it could have gone by so quickly, and how his personal river had taken a wrong turning at some point. Instead of being his father's strong right hand, he had become an emcumbrance; instead of achieving rank and reputation of his own, he had become only an embarrassment to the Crown; and love seemed to elude him as thoroughly as though it had never known he existed. The only women he attracted were those who wanted to use him in one way or another, to debase him or feed off of him. He knew there were good women in the world, but they seemed to find him unappealing.

At least, he thought they were good. He hadn't come to know any of them well enough to be sure.

He threw himself back on the bank, heaving a sigh. Could he have done better? Or was this just the hand of genetic cards Fate had dealt him? All the titanic power inherited from his parents, all Fess's education and training-all of it came to nothing, less than useless, if he could not harness it to a good purpose.

There must have been a way he could have used those gifts in a more profitable fashion-more profitable for himself, and for all those about him. A huge longing welled up in him, to know, to see if he could have done better with what he had....

And he remembered Albertus, his analogue in the world of Tir Chlis, far and remote in another universe. The two of them were almost exactly alike, so much so that Magnus had been able to borrow Albertus's power when he was himself incapacitated; it was almost as though they were two different poles of the same globe.

Turn the globe. See what the other side was like.

He did. Trying to relax, he closed his eyes and concentrated on his memories of Tir Chlis, a land of silver woods and magic, of monsters out of legend and a faerie race out of folklore-not diminutive, gauzy-winged manikins, but tall, impossibly slender people of amazing powers, whose morality was only barely recognizable, if it existed at all, and who were as likely to be malevolent as beneficent.

Within that world of haunted nights strode Lord Kern, a magician and aristocrat almost identical to Rod Gallowglass, with a wife very much like Magnus's mother, Gwendolynand two sons, Albertus and Vidor, who were virtual duplicates of Magnus and his little brother Gregory. He visualized Albertus's face as he had last seen him, then imagined how it would change as he had grown-into a long, lantern-jawed visage with a prominent nose and deep-set eyes, crowned by a thatch of black hair--

The very image of Magnus himself.

The image began to gain substance; the world about it began to seem real. Magnus reached out in longing, a pulse of pure thought winging to his analogue: How fares it with thee, my co-walker?

There was a feeling of surprise, not unmixed with wariness, but both subsided into delight. There was a quick panorama of battles fought--evil wizards countered by Albertus and his family, maidens alluring but demanding, other maidens devastating in their loveliness but only civil in their greetings and shattering in their disinterest-of massive frustration and feelings of failure.

Magnus felt commiseration surging up in answer-in truth, the fellow was so much like him that they might be one and the same! For a brief instant, their miseries mingled....

Then a sudden, jarring jangle broke the trance, and Albertus was gone. Magnus sat bolt-upright, staring about him at a night suddenly gone silent, hearing the jangling diminish into a silver chiming. His pulse pounded in his ears; he looked about him wildly, and saw that one of the moons rode high over the clearing, its beams streaming down toward him....

And down that beam of silvery light floated a gauzy shape, gaining substance as it touched the ground-a tall, impossibly slender lady on a milk-white steed, which, like herself, was so fine-boned as to be almost attenuated. Her face was as pale as the moonlight, with huge eyes and high cheekbones, and red, red lips. She wore a grass-green gown of silk, framed by a velvet mantle, and she chimed as she rode toward Magnus. It took him a moment to realize that the sound was coming from little golden bells that were tied to the horse's mane.

He realized he was staring. He shook his head, scrambled to his feet, and doffed his hat, bowing. "Greetings, fair lady! To what do I owe this pleasure?"

"To thine own efforts, Warlock's Child," she answered, smiling.

The term rankled. Magnus forced a smile. "Surely I am worthy of the title in mine own right, lady."

"Indeed." She tilted her head to the side, amused. "Thou must needs be so, if thou canst open a pathway betwixt this world and Tir Chlis."

"Open a pathway?" Magnus stared. "Lady, I but sought to commune with my ... friend. . . ."

"Co-walker," she supplied. "Doppelganger. He who is like to thee in all respects, even to his miseries."

Magnus took a long, slow look at the lady, reassessing her-and feeling a chill at the thought of her powers. "Who art thou, lady, who knowest this of me?"

"I am a Queen among the Faerie Folk of Tir Chlis, young warlock," she said, "and I have come to visit thee."

She was easily the most beautiful woman Magnus had ever seen, with a face that would have made the greatest sculptors of the ages ache to carve her likeness; but no marble could be colder or more flawless than that moon-pale complexion, nor could any star glow brighter than her eyes. Her gown was low-cut, revealing an impossibly voluptuous figure with an incredibly small waist. In every way she was dainty, delicate-and hard, so hard. "Lady," Magnus murmured, "I am not worthy of thy regard."

"I believe thou mayest prove so." She reached down to touch his face, and his skin seemed to burn where her fingertips lingered. Suddenly, she was the only thing that mattered in all the universe; home, parents, siblings, king and queen, even God himself, seemed remote and unimportant. In a strange, detached way, he knew he was enchanted, but did not care. "All I wish," he breathed, "is to prove my virtues in thine eyes."

"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 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 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?"

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.

"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.

"Nay," she said. "Say rather, an island in the stream, a way station for a weary traveller-yet one that doth hold the gates to three worlds, for she who doth possess the key."

Magnus shuddered. "I'd liefer not meet the `she' who doth hold the keys to the gate to Hell."

"Yet thou hast," the faerie queen said softly. "Thou hast met her, in several guises-but hast not yet determined to walk through the portal."

"Not thyself!" Magnus cried, appalled.

"Even as thou sayest," she confirmed. "'Tis not myself. Yet neither am I she who might speed thee on the road to Heaven."

Magnus thought that over for a few minutes, then said, "I'd as lief not meet her, as the other."

"Granted," the faerie queen purred. "Thou hast not." They rode into the east, and the day dimmed about them with alarming suddenness-alarming, until Magnus realized that the faerie horse galloped so quickly that its velocity, added to the rotation of the planet, was bringing night on far more quickly than he had expected. He was seized by a sudden sense of deja vu-the feeling that he had been through this event before. He realized its source, of course-for he had come to Tir Chlis once before indeed, though he had been only eight at the time, scurrying along beside his mother and father, guarding his sister and little brother. It was all as he had remembered, as he had seen it then and in his dreams a hundred times since-the velvet sky, the flickering stars, the jeweled grass. It lacked only the silver-learned wood, for they were coming into rolling land, without a tree in sight. The sunset faded, and stars pricked the indigo dome above.

Their image was reflected on the plain below, as dozens of lights appeared.

"What lamps are these?" Magnus asked, awed.

"These are the torches of the elven people," the lady explained, "that do light them in their midnight revels. Wilt thou now join our promenade?"

"Aye, gladly!" Magnus sprang off the horse.

"And gladly shall we dance. But, my wizard, thou must needs hold thy tongue, no matter how strange or wondrous or-aye, dire-the sights that you may see. Thou must needs be mute, responding not to any question, nor to any challenge or gibe, no matter how small, or thou wilt no longer be within my protection, and may be parted from me-and shouldst thou chance to speak any word, thou wilt never come again to thine ain country."

"Small loss," Magnus breathed, his eyes upon her, "when so wondrous fair a being as thou art, is ever near to me." The lady may have blushed; at the least, she turned away, and went on. "Now, when thou dost come to our court, young man, see that thou dost comport thyself as a gracious, well-bred, and learned young man ought."

"I have never claimed to be learned," Magnus murmured. "Naetheless, by the common mortal standard, thou art so. And bow for answer, and smile fairly, for they will question thee, one and all. Yet speak no word, for thou must needs answer none but me."

"Shall I not be judged a rude and churlish fellow, then? And shall they not think the less of thee for having me in thy service?"

"Nay, for they know this game, and there be not a few of them do hope to gain a servitor thereby. Yet an thou dost hold thy tongue, they will by and by come to question me. Then will I give them answer, having proved thy fidelity, and tell them that I got thee at the Eildon tree."

Magnus remembered the large, branching tree with the huge leaves under which he had sat to brood, then to commiserate with Albertus. "I had thought it a common willow, though a great one. What doth that tree signify?"

"There are in every world a few like to it, that do respond to each of their fellows in all other worlds, and thereby serve as gateways and anchors for roads through the Void."

Analogues, Magnus realized-a few trees that had bred from the same ancestors, in the same locations in each universe. But surely there had to be more than a few in each world?

Perhaps not, considering the multiplicity of universes, and the factors of chance in environment and chromosomes, compounding one upon another geometrically with each generation. For a moment, he had a brief notion of the magnitude of the variables, and his brain reeled. It was almost impossible that any one individual would be duplicated in more than a few world-lines, let alone one so distant that its natural principles resembled magic.

But he was just such an individual himself-he, and Albertus.

For a moment, he shrank from the thought that there might be more of them-of him-in other universes, some of which he might not even have been able to imagine. The notion was startling, but intriguing-it tickled at his thoughts as a possible explanation for something he couldn't identify....

But the Faerie Folk were coming out to meet them, dancing to the music of harps-tall, slender men of whipcord and sinew with long swords at their hips, turquoise eyes, wildly blowing hair; women dancing in gowns that glittered in every extravagant shape and form, women like the Queen, impossibly slender, impossibly voluptuous, with billows of fair, almost silver, hair, and huge eyes that glowed as cats' eyes do.

"Why, how is this?" cried one of the men. "What hath our proud lady caught this day?"

"Aye!" said another, hand on his sword hilt. "What art thou, mortal?"

"He is but a thing of no consequence," a third said with a languid wave.

Indignation surged, and Magnus opened his lips to answer. . . .

The whole crowd leaned forward, lips parted, eyes avid. Magnus remembered the Queen's injunction, and bit off the words before they formed.

The Faerie Folk leaned back, mouths tightening with disappointment.

Magnus glanced up at the lady and found her looking down at him with a small smile of amused approval.

"Nay, handsome fellow!" A beautiful woman who looked almost new to life compared to the ageless youthfulness of the others, swayed toward Magnus, eyes half closed. "I do not wonder at thy taking, for thou art truly comely. Wilt thou withhold thy favors from all but one alone? Or wilt thou not bestow thy blessings on others who would welcome thee?" She leaned close, very close, and she was so tall that her lips were only a few inches below his. Almost without willing it, he found his eyes gazing deeply into hers, his head lowering, lips parting....

"Come, thou must give answer," she breathed. "Thou must needs say if thou wouldst have me or no." And she drew back just a little.

Again, the words were on the tip of Magnus's tongue-a gallant reply that, fair though she was, he must needs be loyal to his mistress. But the thought of the Queen made him hesitate, remembering her injunctions; whatever she had bade him do or not do, he would devoutly heed. So he tried to show his apology and regret in his look, giving the lovely lass a sad smile and a shake of the head. She drew back with a hiss, though more of excitment than of anger. She looked up to the Queen. "Nay, Majesty, when thou dost tire of this one, thou must needs let me have him to toy with."

The term "toy" bothered Magnus in some vague way that he couldn't identify.

" 'Tis for him to give of himself, not me," the Queen retorted, and the whole throng burst into laughter. Magnus frowned about at them all, wondering at the nature of the jest.

Laughing, they dispersed, turning away to their pastimes, pausing for a drink while the faery harpers took up their instruments again. Then they began to play, and the dancing resumed.

"Take, my wizard."

Magnus turned away from the dancing and saw the Queen holding down garments for him.

"Take off thy gross and palpable garments," she said, "and don the robes of Faerie."

Magnus took the garments, glancing quickly from side to side, but could see nothing resembling an enclosed space, not even a grove.

"Thou hast no need of a tiring house," she admonished. "Come, take off thy mortal dross; no folk of Faerie fear to be seen in the glory of their naked skin."

His was scarcely glorious, Magnus thought-but he overcame his reluctance with remarkable ease, and stripped off his clothes, though he did feel immensely exposed. The faerie queen's eyes sparkled as she watched him, but she made no comment.

Magnus put on the hose rather quickly, but was somewhat disconcerted to discover they were little more than leggings. He pulled the tunic on, and found it to be more of a coat, of good, dark broadcloth-something less than his own brocade doublet, but cooler, too. He slipped his feet into the shoes-soft and supple soles, a very limber leather, with uppers that were green velvet.

"Thou art right handsome, when comely clad." The Queen reached down a hand to Magnus. "Come, aid me to alight, that I may tread the measure."

Magnus reached up, and she took his hand to steady herself as she dropped, feather-light, to the ground. Then, still holding his hand, she led him away to the ring. Turning about, she led him through the measure. He was about to protest that he did not know her dances, when he found that his shoes were guiding him through the steps, even taking the lead, with a stately deliberation that showed he knew them intimately.

But that stately deliberation became less and less, as the music began to beat faster and faster. Magnus was amazed to find that his feet kept pace with the increase of the tempo, swirling about and about, faster and faster, until only the Queen was clear in his vision, rotating in the center as he capered madly about her, all others only a blur of colors and faces behind her in the moonlight, churning through their own madcap dance, weaving about as he revolved around their queen. And the two of them swung about the musicians in the circle of the ring, faster and faster, Magnus giddy and delighted, feeling the sensations rising through his legs, up past his knees into his thighs, even as his delight in the dance seemed to coalesce, drawing together into an actual physical thrilling in the center of his abdomen, then pushing lower, as the Queen became not only the center of his vision but also the totality of it, her face seeming to be all that he could see, her lips growing more deeply red as they parted with excitement, her eyes seeming to swell, to absorb him....

A shout and a clash, a jarring of discords, and the music fell apart. The Faerie Folk keened in high anger, and the men whirled toward something that had come into their center. Magnus turned with them, shouting in fury, instantly enraged at whatever had stopped the progress of ecstasy, to confront ...

Himself.

Or it might just as well have been himself-tall and gaunt, lantern jawed and muscular, cold steel glittering in his hand in the shape of a long and naked blade, and the faerie men shied away with oaths of anger.

Magnus, though, had no need to fear a steel sword any more than any other weapon, and strode forward to meet the interloper, hand slapping toward his own hilt ...

And finding it gone.

Of course; it was with the clothes he had discarded in favor of the elven garments. For an instant, he felt terribly vulnerable; then anger surged, and he remembered the training in combat his father had drilled him in so long, and so often. He strode toward the sword with only a little fear, glaring at the interloper; yet his spirit quailed oddly at the feeling that he should know this man, this mirror image of himself, whose eyes sparked with his own anger, and whose lips parted to say:

"Thou hast stolen my place."

Magnus stopped, rooted to the spot, galvanized.

"Get thee hence!" the doppelganger snapped. "Is't not enough for thee that thou must needs wear my face and body? Must thou also needs steal my doom?"

Magnus found his voice. "I have stolen naught."

"That hast ta'en my fate! For she who should have ta'en me, took thee instead!"

"But dost thou not see!" cried a voice at his side. Magnus looked down, and was shocked to see Gregory standing by the doppelganger, calling up to him, imploring. "Didst thou not see what a fool she had made of him? Didst thou not see how he capered at her whim, how she dressed him in these foolish rags, how she stripped him of his sword?"

"What matter these?" the doppelganger grated. "She gave him pleasure, she gave him delight! Nay, even more, and greatly more-she gave him forgetfulness, that he might think no more of what he might have been but had not become, that he might go unmindful of the ruin of his life!"

"Thy life is no ruin, and thou hast in no way failed!"

"Failed to win glory, in mine own name? Failed to hew out a place of mine own? Failed to find love? Most surely I have failed in all of these!"

"Thou art Albertus," Magnus whispered. "And this lad is not my brother Gregory, but thy sib Vidor!"

"Even so," the doppelganger grated. "Get thee back to thine own world, find thine own place, and leave me to mine!"

Vidor looked up at Albertus, pleading. "I would not have him harmed-yet I would not see thee in bondage, neither. Canst thou not see what he doth not? Canst thou not see thou shalt be demeaned, a lord's heir debased to the role of a footman? Hast thou no pride?"

Magnus discovered, to his dismay, that he had not. Small wonder that Albertus had none, either.

"Thou shalt not take him from me." The Queen was there, slipping between himself and Albertus, hiding Vidor from his gaze, and her eyes were all that he could see again, her eyes with her face about them. "I have told thee aforetime, 'tis thine own yearning that doth hold thee in my service. Dost thou not still wish it?" She swayed closer, eyes halfclosing. "Nay, if thou hast doubts, thou must needs kiss my mouth-yet if thou wilt partake of the embrace of my lips, thou must not miss my fair body, hips, breasts, and thighsaye, all of me, all shall be given thee, that thou mayest say thou hast lain with a lady of Faerie." Close, so close, and her lips still parted from her words, parting more, closing with his....

A cry of agony, almost despair-then something slammed into him, knocked him rolling. Magnus swung up to his feet with a roar of anger, and saw himself fastened deeply to the faerie queen mouth to mouth, arms coming up about one another, hip pressing to hip, bodies moving to a music that only they could hear ...

...a music that began to sound where others could hear it, as the faerie musicians began their melody, taking their rhythm from the embracing couple before them, and all about, faerie men and women paired up to imitate their actions.

"She careth not," Magnus whispered, his anger turned to bitter despair. "She careth not whose lips she doth press, whose body she doth caress, whether it be his or mine!"

"Mayhap," said a voice at his elbow, and he looked down to discover Gregory-no, Vidor, he remembered. "Yet be mindful, she came a long and twining road to seek thee first."

"Yet doth not care if she doth find him instead," Magnus grated. Then realization swept him; his eyes widened. "Yet she could not, could she? He held aloof; he was beyond her power! Cold Iron protected him, and thy father's spells!"

"More my mother's," Vidor returned. "And he could hold aloof from the Faerie Folk, so long as he knew they would ever welcome him." He looked up at his brother sadly. "Yet when he realized thou wast here in his place, and the Faerie Queen no longer burned to possess him, then was he cast into despair, for the final road that he might take for solace in this world had closed to him."

"And therefore did he batter at the portal, and enter by force, where before he had resisted the temptation of the invitation," Magnus concluded.

Then he whirled toward the gyrating couple, howling, "Yet I wish it too! Where now shall I turn for nepenthe!" Albertus broke off from the kiss, looking up at him with a cold and implacable glare; his voice started as a groan that rose to speech, and Magnus trembled with dread as he heard the words of the old incantation: "What dost thou here, what dost thou here? Seekest thou mine end? Thou art not to be taking my place, my place here in my world; for these, these are mine, and get thee gone, get thee gone to thine own place and time, get thee hence!"

The maelstrom seized Magnus, whipping him about and away with the cry of despair on his lips, the cry that there was no Faerie Queen in his own reality. But the Void swallowed up his words as the power of the young warlock's mind unleashed the tension of the warp in space-time that his mind had twisted, and in its unleashing spun Magnus about and about, stars blurred to streaks, a roaring of white noise in his ears, filling all of creation....

Then it diminished, and the whirling slowed, stopped; the roaring faded away to a hiss of static, and was gone. Dizzy and nauseous, Magnus clung to the surface that had come up beneath him, found his fingers were clenched into grass, saw the streaks coalescing again into lights ...

The lights of the stars of Gramarye.

Trembling, he lifted his hands carefully, most carefully, but found that he still remained on Earth-and relief at his escape welled up in him, but clashed against sorrow at losing the magical kingdom. He lowered his eyes ...

And saw his clothes.

They lay in a heap near him, sword and dagger glinting in the moonlight. Of course; if Albertus had banished him as not belonging to Tir Chlis, his clothes would have been banished, also.

Which meant ...

Looking down, Magnus discovered he was quite naked. Of course; the coat of the even cloth, and the velvet shoes, had remained in their own proper place. Albertus wore them now, without a doubt, and wore them in Magnus's place by the Faerie Queen....

In the balance, he wasn't sure he was glad of it.

But he shivered in the night's chill, and reached out to take up the clothing of this mundane world.

He had pulled on his breeches when he finally realized he was not alone.

Turning about, he saw his little brother sitting there beneath the Eildon tree, eyes closed, legs folded, back ramrod straight.

Suddenly, Magnus understood a great deal. He pulled on his doublet and said softly, "Wake now, Gregory. Ope thine eyes, little brother. I am well; I am come home again."

Eyelids fluttered; the teenager looked up, staring, a little wild-eyed. Then he reached out, touching his brother's arm. "Thou art loosed!"

"Aye." Magnus patted the hand gently. "Thou hast given me rescue, my brother. I am free." In a few years, he might be happy about it. "Thou hast quite ably held ope one end of the road that could bring me back. Yet how didst thou know where I'd gone?"

"I sought with my mind, as I do every night," Gregory answered. Magnus nodded; he had long known that his little brother could not sleep unless he knew where every member of his family was-the legacy, no doubt, of his babyhood abandonment by his parents and siblings, when they had all been kidnapped to Tir Chlis.

"I sought," Gregory explained, "and could not find thee."

"Surely thou hast not kept vigil ever since!"

"It hath not been so long as that," Gregory assured him, gaze drifting. "Nay, and this trance hath restored me even as sleep doth."

"And how didst thou track me?"

"Why, I knew where thou wert yestere'en, so I went to the marge of the stream and touched soil and rock, till I found traces of thee."

Magnus's eyes widened; he had not known Gregory shared his own mixed blessing of psychometry, the ability to "read" the residue of emotions left in inanimate objects. "So thou didst track me by the echoes of my feelings? Eh! Little brother! I would not have had thee share mine agonies so!"

"I could bear it." But the paleness of the youth's face made clear how deeply the experience had shaken him. "Yet I was grieved to find thee so sorely wounded in thine heart, and shocked to find..." He broke off, looking away.

"Shocked to learn that even I, the eldest, might feel I had failed?" Magnus asked softly. "Shocked that even I might feel my life had been to no purpose?" He cast about for something reassuring to say, but could only manage, "All men feel so at some time or another, little brother. Being eldest, and accustomed to command and achievement, doth not make me immune." And, with a shock, he realized that was true.

"I had not known," Gregory muttered.

Magnus nodded. "Big brothers, too, are human, my lad." And some, he reflected, were more human than others. "But how thou couldst perceive thyself as failing, when thou dost succeed in aught thou dost attempt-!"

"I have not suceeded in the finding of love," Magnus reminded him.

"Thou art young yet," Gregory returned, which was quite something, coming from a thirteen-year-old.

"Gramercy; I had feared I was ancient. And I have not succeeded in the world of Faerie, as I doubt not thou hast perceived. Nay, I have made a fool of myself."

"Yet thou didst succeed!" Gregory looked up, surprised. "Didst thou not know? Thou and thy co-walker succeeded, where one alone would not have!"

"Succeeded?" Magnus frowned. "Why, how is this? Succeeded, in bringing him into the Faerie Queen's clutches, when by himself, he would have been able to resist her blandishments?"

"Not forever," Gregory said firmly. "If his despair was a match for thine own, his resolve would have crumbled, and he would have gone to the Queen-aye, and that ere long, too."

Magnus had to admit that Gregory was probably rightbut, then, he usually was.

"Yet by himself," Gregory went on, "he would ne'er ha' been more than a servant. Nay, she would have dandled him after her endlessly, he ever hoping for some sign of favor, ever yearning for the ecstasies she promised-yet would never have attained to them, for the game to her was to see how deeply she could bind him by his own desires, with the least satisfaction."

"Must the Faerie Folk ever be playing games?"

"Aye. What else shall they do with their interminable lives? They have no need to labor, they have no duties to occupy them. What else shall save them from dying of boredom, save games of one sort or another?"

Magnus was amazed all over again, not at how much his brother knew-he was getting used to that-but at the depth of his understanding.

"Yet thou, by thine appearance and imminent departure, won through to her," Gregory explained. "She could see that the force of Albertus's resentment, of his will to banish thee, was stronger than thy desire to stay-so she took the only means she knew, to increase thy desire."

"And his." Magnus stiffened in a moment of insight. "She could not lose thereby, could she? For the action that inflamed my passion, inflamed his also, till it burst the bonds of his reserve and made him abandon all else in his need for her."

"Even so," Gregory agreed. He started to say something else, then caught himself.

"I am a cat's-paw, eh?" Magnus's mouth twisted in a sardonic smile. "Thou dost think that she but made use of me, as a tool to win the other whom she truly wished."

"Nay, not so," Gregory quickly assured him. "She would have been as glad to have thee as him."

"Why, what tolerance!" Magnus said, with a hard laugh. "How gracious, to accept either one! How open-minded of her! Yet I think she would rather have had him, brother, for he was of her world."

"Mayhap." Gregory frowned.

"And so." Magnus pulled on his boots and stood, buckling on his sword belt. "So he hath gone to the elven kind, and is lost. Doubly lost, tenfold lost, for winning the favors of the Queen's body; the ecstasy she brings him will have him ever panting after her for another favor."

"Aye; and she must give them," Gregory said, "or his desire will curdle into hatred, and he'll storm away from her."

"I doubt it not. So she will bed him now and again, ever in time to keep him from turning away, and will hold him all his days--or till she tires of him." He turned a bleak gaze upon his little brother. "How then? How then, when he is cast out of Elfland? Will he not despair, and seek death?"

"She dare not enrage him too greatly," Gegory pointed out, "for he is a mortal who can wield Cold Iron, and a wizard, who doth know the ways in which to wield it most shrewdly 'gainst the elven kind. Nay, if 'tis as much his desire that holds him, as her own, then she must needs quench his yearning when her own doth lapse."

Magnus frowned down at him. "Dost thou know this of thyself?"

"Nay; I had it of Vidor. Such liasons are naught new, in Tir Chlis. They endure seven years-or at the least, 'tis seven years till the one enthralled returns again to mortal kind."

"Time may run at different rates within the Faerie's spells." Magnus nodded. "So he is gone from his enemies for that long. How will the land fare without him?"

"His father, his mother, and Vdor endure," Gregory reminded him. "They may mourn his loss, but will preserve his inheritance."

"If he doth wish to take it up."

"He will," Gregory said, with some certainty. "The Faerie-taken return to waste away, or with greater zest for life-and I think that Albertus is not the kind to pine."

Looking within himself, Magnus had to agree. He would survive out of sheer stubbornness, if nothing else-but he was equally likely to stay alive just out of anger. He nodded. "He will live, and thrive. Thou sayest he will have greater appetite for life?"

"Aye; Faerie will drain him or fill him to bursting, the one or the other. And he will return with knowledge of elven magics, added to his own."

Magnus shuddered at the thought. "He will be a most puissant wizard."

"Aye, in the future-and for now, he is happy. Or if not happy, at least living in delight."

Magnus wondered at his brother's distinction, but decided he didn't want to hear it explained.