Conan Doyle dared a soft smile. 'It has been a very long time. Even such sweet marvels as are to be found in Faerie fade when time and distance intervene. I confess I was so overwhelmed, simply being back here, that I did not steel myself for the way in which just breathing the air can spin one into flights of fancy… or memory.'
For a moment there seemed to be a twinkle in her eye, but then Ceridwen's expression hardened, a veil of sadness drawn across her face.
'Yes, well, do not let it happen again. Flights of fancy can prove very costly, of late. If Morrigan returns, such reckless whimsy could cost your life.'
Conan Doyle stood straighter and nodded once, matching the severity of his expression to hers. Yet his eyes hid the memories he had, of Ceridwen coming to him as he neared death, of her bringing him back to Faerie, showing him the herbs that would return vigor and youth to him, the same herbs that still kept him young. He had known enough magic by then to cast the illusion of his own death. Anything else would have horrified and astonished the world. He could not have continued to live the life he had before and begin to grow younger, like Oscar Wilde's fancy. And in the end there was nothing he wanted so much as to disappear into Faerie, to see the world of the Fey through Ceridwen's eyes.
There were so many things that he wanted to say to her, but none of them would be appropriate. He had given up his right to say them long ago. So when Ceridwen turned to continue on, her long linen gown and robe clinging to her lithe form, he followed.
Though he forced himself to focus, to avoid being swept away with the magic of the place, the way the air itself seemed to sparkle, he could not help glancing around several times. Ahead the hill rose up and up and the House of the King had been carved from its face. Spires of rock shot from the ground and there were barrows bulging up from the earth. Elegant arched windows seemed out of place in rocky ledge. Flowers bloomed atop the hill in such abundance that they seemed to spill down its sides.
Amongst the flowers there were fairies. Not people of Faerie, like the warriors, scholars and magicians of The Fey, but the little people, the ferociously beautiful winged creatures he had first met in Cottingley well over eight decades before. Their colors put the flowers to shame and they flitted about the House of the King as though it were their own home. And in essence it was, for Finvarra had extended his protection to all the races of Faerie who would show their faces to the sun.
Streams flowed down the hill, from trickle to brook to torrent, and the sound of the water joined with the perfume of the flowers to lend Conan Doyle a peace he had not known since the last time he had stepped inside the King's Door.
Surrounding the hill, the House of the King, were seven clusters of large trees, four to a cluster. In each small copse, the branches of the trees reached out to one another, twining together with such design that Conan Doyle could only ever think of them as braided. The braided branches created a basket in each small copse, sometimes twenty, sometimes thirty, sometimes forty feet in the air. And in its midst, gripped in the same way that the head of her staff gripped the sphere of ice, was a dwelling formed of woven leaves and branches and vines, with flowers sprayed across their roofs.
For nearly ten years they had lived in one of those treetop homes, called Kula-keaine by the Fey. Conan Doyle could still remember Ceridwen's caresses and the way her violet eyes gave off the slightest glow in the darkness when only the rustling of leaves and the songs of the night birds kept them company. As they progressed, Ceridwen resolutely refused to look up at the Kula-keaine where they had made their home, where they shared all of themselves, heart and soul.
They strode along a western path and up a winding set of stairs made from thick roots that protruded from the earth to form steps.
'We're not going to see the King?' Conan Doyle ventured.
Ceridwen did not turn to him when she spoke. 'Yes, we are.'
He said no more after that, only followed along beside her as she led him around to the western edge of the hill, where the water that came from the bowels of the earth fountained out of a hole in the green and gentle slope and became a rushing river that ran for several hundred yards before disappearing into a cavernous hole in the ground.
A black-cloaked figure knelt at the river's edge beside a pile of cut flowers. He wore a hood to cover his face and the daylight seemed repelled by him, as though a pool of night gathered around him. One by one, with a ritual bow of the head, he dropped the flowers in the rushing water and watched them borne away. Conan Doyle's heart ached to see him, for despite the black mourning clothes and the gathered shadows, he recognized the figure by his stature and carriage and the dignity with which he held his head and moved his hands.
Together Conan Doyle and Ceridwen approached.
'Uncle,' the Fey sorceress said.
As though he had not heard, he picked up another flower and dropped it into the river, repeating the motion of his head and muttering quiet words. Only after the flower had disappeared into the gullet of that underground river cavern did he turn. His face was pale and gaunt, but behind a curtain of his long silver hair were eyes alive with fury and grief.
'We have a visitor,' Ceridwen said, and there was a softness in her tone that both pleased Conan Doyle and pained him as well.
Conan Doyle sank to one knee. 'King Finvarra. Time has passed, but I hope I am still welcome in your Home.'
As though floating, the king rose from his spot by the riverside. He drew back his hood and a fond smile creased his face, yet somehow without dismissing the sadness there.
'You have come at a difficult time, Arthur. But I am pleased to see you, nonetheless. There was great disappointment, even bitterness, in the wake of your departure when last we met, yet you are still and always will be welcome in my Home. I only wish you had returned at a time when a celebration would not seem so grotesque.'
Still kneeling, Conan Doyle lowered his gaze. 'I understand, My Lord. I could not have hoped for such a welcome for a prodigal. You shame me.'
A small sound came from Ceridwen, but Conan Doyle ignored it and she said nothing.
'There is no shame in heartbreak, Arthur,' King Finvarra said. 'It happens with the best of us. You yearned for the world of your birth and my niece would not leave hers. Hearts have been torn asunder by far less. Have you returned under the guidance of your heart?'?Conan Doyle felt his face flush. He looked up, trying not to see the way that Ceridwen turned away at the very same moment.
'My heart has been here since the day I left, My Lord. It has remained among the Fey, in Faerie, and may well be here until I die. But, no, that is not what brings me. I have come with a warning. And, I confess, hoping for some help. Dark power is at work in my world. Terrible omens. Unnatural magic. I don't know what malign intelligence is behind these events, but they have enlisted one of the night tribes to — '
Finvarra stiffened and glanced at Ceridwen, whose eyes narrowed. So taken aback was he by their reaction that he stopped speaking and only studied them expectantly.
The king stared at his niece. 'There, perhaps, is our answer.'
'What?' Conan Doyle asked. 'What is it? What answer?'
Ceridwen's gaze was cold. There were many unformed thoughts and hopes in the back of his mind about his return to Faerie, about Ceridwen herself, but they were extinguished by that one look. There was only war in her eyes now.
'One of the night tribes, you said. Which one?' Ceridwen asked.
'The Corca Duibhne. They have straddled our two worlds for a very long time, but they have never been more than an annoyance. I've never seen them so organized, so focused on — '
'You have my sister to thank,' Finvarra said, his gaunt face now cruel and brutal. 'For 'tis Morrigan whom the Corca Duibhne now serve.'
Conan Doyle pictured the corpses of the Fey where they lay in the King's Garden. One of our own, Ceridwen had said. But even when she had explained that it had been her aunt, Morrigan, he had not put the pieces together.
'But why?' Conan Doyle asked, genuinely mystified. He searched Finvarra's eyes and then looked to Ceridwen. 'If Morrigan wanted to rule Faerie, what does she want with my world? What is she planning?'
'You presume that her ambitions are so small as to extend only to ruling in my place,' King Finvarra said. 'But
