A Strange and Ancient Name Read online

  For a time they moved through the steps of the dance in silence, equal in grace for all that Charailis was a good head taller than the prince, on her elegant face a smooth, secret smile.

  “And what might you want of me, my lady?” Hauberin asked softly.

  “My prince?”

  The last swirling chords of the dance had left them—again, by chance or design?—apart from the others, left them standing so close that Hauberin was very much aware of the subtle, not-quite-sweet scent Charailis wore, of the faint woman-scent beneath that. She was beautiful as ever, the clear flood of moonlight seeming by its very coldness to add warmth in contrast to her coolly perfect features, fire to her lovely eyes. Wondering, Hauberin tried to move, whether closer or away, he wasn’t sure, and only then realized that strands of Charailis’ long, pale hair were clinging to him.

  Like spider strands. Jarred back to reality, the prince remembered who and what she was: not so far from the direct royal line she couldn’t desire a crown. With a sudden prickle of distaste, he set about gently disentangling himself. “Why, lady! Are you trying to snare me?”

  Her eyes glinted in the moonlight. “It pleases you to jest, my prince.”

  Hauberin caught the hint of condescension in her voice, and froze. “Come, Charailis, I’m not as naïve as you think me. What do you want of me?”

  “The ceremonies moved me. Seeing you so proud and sure of yourself on your Second Triad—we know each other so little, for all that we are kin.”

  Kin. She was his grandmother’s sister’s child; long Faerie lives made for complicated genealogies.

  “I admit,” Charailis continued quietly, “I am to blame. But then, I was so much the elder, a woman when you were still only a child.” With matter-of-fact Faerie honesty, “I could hardly be expected to care much for a scrawny little boy.” She gave him a sly little sideways glance. “But the past is the past. And you are most certainly no longer a boy. Surely we . . . need not remain so remote.”

  For a moment her hand, smooth and cool, rested on his arm, as though by accident. His body responded with a slight shiver, but Hauberin thought, Transparent, lady, transparent, and said nothing.

  After a moment, Charailis continued: “And now . . . especially now, with the moon so radiant and the night so warm . . . Look. Do you not see how folk are stealing away in secret pairs?” Again her hand brushed his arm, nails lightly grazing his skin, sending a new shiver through Hauberin despite himself. “Shall we not give each other joy tonight, my prince?”

  A flash of purely sensual wondering raced through him. Idiot, Hauberin snapped at himself, you’d be safer bedding a lamia! “No, lady. We shall not.”

  For an instant, the startled Charailis was at a loss. “Why so—so cruel? Surely—”

  “What’s this?” cut in a sharp, hearty voice. “Cornering our good ruler?”

  Hauberin glimpsed bold red robes, a strong-featured, cold face: “My lord Ereledan. Come to see what your rival’s about?”

  “I—What?”

  “I’ll leave the two of you to debate it.” With a cheerful wave of his hand, Hauberin slipped out from between them as they glared at each other, and made his way back towards the center of music and activity.

  “Well now,” an amused voice said in his ear, “I was just about to come in for a rescue.”

  Hauberin grinned at the sleek figure so suddenly at his side. “Thank you, Alliar, but I rescued myself.” He gave the being a second, appreciative glance. “Nicely aped, Li.”

  His friend returned the grin with a sweeping bow. Bound into tangibility Alliar might be, but the being could at least control something of that enforced body’s shape. Just now, the wind spirit was tall and slender, palest gold of skin and hair and huge, glowing eyes, shrouded in a flowing russet cloak. But then Alliar straightened, murmuring, “I do wish you wouldn’t go wandering off without a guard.”

  “What, here? Among my closest subjects? Come now, if I dare not move freely here, I had better surrender the crown.” Hauberin glanced at Alliar. “Or were you referring to the two I just left? No, Li. You should know by now that for all their dark looks and thoughts, they’re no real threat to me. Not yet,” the prince added thoughtfully. “Not while Serein lives to stand between them and any hope of succession.”

  “Odd, having to be grateful to . . . that one.”

  “Speaking of my dear cousin, what has he been doing?”

  “Nothing. Save smiling, and acting disgustingly urbane and apparently unaware of the guard watching him.”

  Alliar sighed. “You should thank the Powers that Ereledan and Charailis hate him as much as they hate each other.”

  “I do.” Perhaps humans could have formed an alliance based on lies. The Faerie folk, who (save for part-human Hauberin) lacked even the concept of falsehood, could not. “Believe me—but what are all these eager looks?”

  “Ach, I nearly forgot. My prince, your presence is most humbly requested to preside over a duel—No, no, nothing serious, just two youngsters trying their strength.”

  Hauberin returned to his chair of state, Alliar curled comfortably at his feet, and acknowledged the cheerful salutes of the duelists: youngsters, indeed, blond and lanky, no longer quite children, not yet adults. The amused prince raised a hand for the duel to begin. It was a standard thing of shape-shifting and will against will, magic a natural thing to a folk with Power in the very air they breathed and the blood in their veins. The youngsters used little more energy than if they’d sported with swords as they slipped with reasonable ease from ferret to dog to wolf and wyvern, while their elders made lighthearted wagers.

  Aha, what was this? One boy was suddenly cringing from the other, shrinking through dog, cat, mouse . . . A trap, the prince realized. He’s setting a trap.

  The other boy didn’t see it. Fanged and furred, he pounced—

  On nothing. Before he could turn, the first youngster had materialized behind him without disguise and tackled him, refusing to let him up till the boy yielded and relaxed back into his rightful form. The duelists, laughing and panting, scrambled to their feet and bowed to their prince to the accompaniment of polite applause from the dispersing audience.

  “The youngsters are clever,” drawled a voice. “What say you, my prince? Shall we show them how a proper duel is fought?”

  Lord Ereledan in all his flamboyant reds, eyes very bright. And what might he be about? Ignoring Alliar’s alarm, Hauberin leaned down to ask sweetly, “To the death, you mean, my lord?”

  “By all the Powers, no!” Ereledan’s shock seemed real enough. “I meant nothing more than sport.”

  Alliar wasn’t quite accepting that. “Be wary,” came the sharp mental warning, and Hauberin glanced at Serein where the man still lounged, seemingly disinterested but with a sudden tense stillness to him.

  “I can’t very well refuse, Li, can I? Keep your own watch on my cousin, yes?”

  Hauberin stepped lightly down from the dais to face the Lord of Llyrh, and the scattered audience quickly regrouped. There would be no wagering this time; it would hardly be politic to bet against their prince. But Hauberin couldn’t help wondering how many were looking to him to fail.

  As challenger, Ereledan had the first move. The strong form shimmered, changed; where man had stood, a great leopard crouched, fiery orange with spots of red. “Beautiful,” Hauberin acknowledged, but made no move of his own. Ereledan was under no obligation to wait. As the audience gasped, the leopard sprang—

  Hauberin wasn’t there. A sleek black hawk slipped easily away, spiraling up and up into the warm night, moonlight spilling from glossy wings, then plunged down again, talons outstretched, hearing the fickle audience gasp again.

  But just before impact, black wings braked fiercely, talons folded. Hauberin rapped Ereledan sharply on the head with a fisted claw, then swooped up again, enjoying the crowd’s ripple of laughter.

  Ereledan wasn’t amused. With a snarl, the leopard reared up into the form of a blood-
red griffin. With a thunder of wings, he was airborne. An astonished Hauberin saw the wild rage blazing in the griffin’s eyes and thought, What’s this? Did you forget this is only sport? Did you mean to forget?

  Ae! That fiercely curved beak had nearly caught him! Whatever game Ereledan was playing, it had suddenly gone far beyond sport. The griffin lunged, and Hauberin nastily sideslipped, not quite in time. A powerful red shoulder crashed into him, sending him tumbling. The prince abandoned hawk form, somersaulting in mid-air, landing on his feet with a jolt, unhurt, breathless and furious, craning his head back to find Ereledan. Ah, the fool was diving at him!

  The crowd going mad about him, pleading with their prince to move, defend himself, do something, Hauberin stood still, timing the griffin’s plummet. The prince scooped up a handful of dust, murmuring quiet Words, feeling the responsive magic tingling in soil and self, waiting . . . Now!

  Hauberin hurled the dust right at Ereledan, then threw himself aside, gasping out the final Word to bring the spell to life. Ereledan went crashing to the ground, sprawled in an ignominious tangle of dust-become-web, helpless as a bird in a fowler’s net.

  Ereledan’s furious struggle stopped abruptly as Hauberin approached. Under the crowd’s roars of laughter, the prince asked quietly, “What were you trying to do, my lord? Were you trying to kill me?”

  Eyes wild with confusion, Ereledan let the griffin-shape fade. “No! I . . .” The man lay in self-contemptuous submission as the web faded back into dust about him, then propped himself up on one elbow. “My prince, I don’t know what happened. Somehow I . . . lost control.” The admission came bitterly from that proud lord. “Believe me,” he added in a voice savage with repressed rage, “if I had meant to kill you, I’d not have been so clumsy about it.”

  “Rise,” Hauberin said shortly. Politic to let the man regain some self-esteem in privacy. “You may leave us.”

  Dourly he acknowledged Ereledan’s bow, wondering, Lost control? Experienced Ereledan?

  And yet, of course, Ereledan couldn’t lie. Besides, it really had been a clumsy attack, almost as though someone else had tried to control—Nonsense. The Faerie folk just weren’t susceptible to possession.

  He was starting to tremble a bit with delayed reaction. Someone was putting a cloak about his shoulders—Alliar, who was handing him a wine-filled crystal goblet. Hauberin sipped gratefully, letting the cool, mellow, golden wine trickle down his stress-parched throat.

  But then the prince found himself glancing over the goblet’s rim at Serein. His cousin met his gaze without flinching, smiling. Hardly knowing why he did it, Hauberin strolled over to the man and murmured: “What of you, cousin? Were you trying to kill me?”

  For the faintest fraction of time, Hauberin was certain Serein was going to admit it. But all the man said was, “Why cousin, what a question!”

  “Answer it.”

  “The answer, dear Hauberin, is that while I might not mourn your death for very long, no, my overwrought little cousin, I was not trying to kill you.”

  With that, reluctantly, Hauberin had to be content.

  II

  BROODINGS

  Alone, Alliar stood upon a narrow balcony of the royal palace, wrapped in night and silence. The hour, the being guessed (though time meant little to a spirit) was very late, closer to morning than night, and very dark. The moon had long since set, the last of the festive torches had been extinguished with the prince’s retiring, and save for a few reluctant stragglers whispering or cuddling together, the darkness no barrier to night-keen Faerie senses, the exhausted royal court slept.

  Alliar never slept, not as the flesh-and-blood folk understood such things. And though normally the being hardly felt the lack, this once a spate of peaceful mindlessness would have been very welcome. Despairing, Alliar looked out at the cool, black velvet sky, unaware of the chill, tormented by the touch of the first sweet breezes of morning.

  Was I ever part of that? Was I ever . . . What? There were no words for what had been; the winds needed no words. After a moment, Alliar continued the thought awkwardly, Was I ever not-self? Not this narrow thing, this “body,” this stupid, solid “I”? Was I ever . . . free?

  The courtiers would have stared to see this. They all considered the wind spirit little more than a pet, a clever oddity that came and went as it would, all too conscious of the thoughts they never quite voiced aloud: How pretty it is, how intelligent it seems, what a shame it can never be our equal.

  Your equal. Alliar remembered storms as mighty as the birth of rage, as primal as Beginning, remembered skies bright and sharp with fire, remembered sweeping down the length of freedom, part of it as no finite little flesh-and-bloodling could ever be, one with the fury, one with the glory—As though I would ever want to shrink to being merely your equal.

  Finite. Alliar glanced down at the solid, undeniably tangible body, the possibly forever-binding shape that imprisoned spirit, and shuddered.

  (That one devastating moment when the trap had first closed fast . . .)

  The being groaned, trying in vain to block the surge of memory.

  (The sorcerer had dragged his captive down from infinity, forcing shape and a single, lonely identity on it, heedless of that captive’s fierce, bewildered terror. Ae, ae, the storm of sensation: sight and sound distorted, shrunken, wrong, the alien new senses of scent and touch, the unbearable horror of being so suddenly bereft and alone, alone . . .)

  Had Alliar a fragile mortal mind, the spirit would surely have gone hopelessly insane then and there. But the sorcerer, the one who named himself Ysilar, had wrought his spell far too well. The new slave had survived. Endured. Served. Learned new lessons in fear and pain and shame—

  No! I will not remember!

  But Hauberin was also a part of that past. Alliar smiled faintly. At least this one memory could be cherished: the young prince, then little more than a boy, so small, so defiant and brave at their first meeting . . .

  ###

  Ysilar, raging, had dragged his magic-stunned slave down here to the deepest cellar in the castle. Even as Alliar groggily roused, it was to the feeling of the sorcerer fastening a chain around one slim golden ankle.

  “What—No, master, please! You can’t leave me down here!”

  But Ysilar was already gone, and Alliar was alone, shut away from the sky amid dark, dead stone . . .

  There was a time of screaming. There was a time of sheer, mindless, claustrophobic terror. But at last, through sheer exhaustion, the being lost the first sharp edge of fear. If one huddled as tightly together as one could, and kept one’s absurdly limited eyes shut, this terrible dark confinement was almost bearable.

  Almost. Though Alliar knew with the last shreds of sanity that there was open space, that the cellar wasn’t that narrow, the terrible cold weight of the castle still seemed to press down and in till it seemed this frail body would be crushed.

  What if it is? Flesh-and-blood folk do something called dying when their bodies are destroyed. Maybe since I am tangible now, I would die, too, and be free.

  Free? Down here? Trapped forever in close, cruel darkness? The being huddled in a tighter ball and rocked miserably back and forth.

  There was a rustle, a scratching. There was a muffled yelp, and something warm and heavy fell over the being. Alliar quickly uncurled, staring, unhindered by darkness, at the dirty, disheveled form of . . . a man? No, not quite a man; he felt too much of flesh-and-blood youth. A boy, then. One of the Faerie kind, like the sorcerer? He seemed small for that, too dark of hair and eyes and filthy, mud-stained face, though the proper feel of Power hung about him.

  The boy scrambled to his feet, straightening clothing and the knife at his belt, staring right back. “Who are you?” he asked in a fierce whisper. ‘His enemy?”

  The jerk of the boy’s head indicated the upper chambers and the sorcerer. The being gave the ghost of a laugh. “His slave.”

  To Alliar’s surprise, the boy frowned and crouched down
again, a small hand gentle on the being’s naked shoulder. “No . . . Not just a slave.” The earnest dark eyes stared anew, full of true Faerie sight. Suddenly the boy sat back on his heels in surprise. “A spirit, a wind spirit! And he d-dares do this to you?”

  “The body, you mean? Or this?” Alliar’s sweep of arm took in the cellar. “He dared. I . . . bit him.”

  The boy fought down a frantic giggle. “You did what?”

  Alliar was astonished to feel a grin forming in response. “I was scared. And angry. There wasn’t anything else I could do; the spell on me keeps me from truly harming him. It was almost worth . . . this to see the look on his face.”

  The boy hastily buried his face in his hands to muffle laughter. “I—I suppose it was!” He took a deep, steadying breath. “Look you, there’s only the one shackle holding you. There’s a hole in the cellar floor, back there in the corner, where the mortar wore out and some stones fell away; that’s how I got in. I think I can get you loose. If I do, can you dissolve and escape through—”

  “No. I cannot lose this solid shape.” Alliar gave it a savage slap. “Nor can I leave this castle while my . . . master lives.”

  “Oh. Well. That sh-should work out all right. Because I’ve come here to kill him.”

  “But—you can’t—He’ll—” Alliar took a deep breath, amazed at this sudden urge to protect a flesh-and-bloodling. But . . . what the boy had shown was called kindness, the being knew that from the pleading of the sorcerer’s poor victims. Kindness. “Boy, whoever, whatever you are, you’re safe enough down here for the moment. There’s no one else in the castle, only you and I and . . . him—”

  “I know. He doesn’t trust anybody.”

  “—so get out of here now, before he comes down to investigate.”

  “No.” The boy straightened proudly, suddenly looking far older than his slight years. “I am Hauberin, son of the ruler of this land and your—your master, Ysilar, is his foe. Ysilar is a cruel, callous man, and I . . . don’t guess he’s really sane anymore, He’s guilty of murder and—worse things, several times over.” The young prince stopped, flustered. “But you would already know all about that, wouldn’t you?”