it. On the other side, along the border of the forest, stood a half circle of silk pavilions, richly colored, and lit from the inside with charcoal braziers. By the banks of the stream there was a bonfire, and around it a small crowd of elves of all colors, eladrin and other fey, and nearby a small orchestra of a dozen human musicians, Ffolk slaves playing a tune Lukas recognized. It was a reel composed by Cymon the False, but tarted up in this performance with timbrels and bells. Better would have been a simpler arrangement of woodwinds and strings, played to a faster tempo. Better would have been a little joy. Instead, as often with the fey, you got a kind of brittle, frantic, melancholy gaiety lords and ladies, dressed in silks and velvets, capered on the grass, their faces hidden behind leather masks fringed in ostrich feathers. Painted and bejeweled, spotted and discolored, with witchlike noses and leering mouths, these masks concealed or else at least attempted to conceal the dancers endless beauty and eternal health, boring and tragic even to themselves.
This was not the first time it had occurred to Lukas to thank the gods for his mortality. Lady Amaranth was behind him, and she touched his sleeve. He paused to take her hand, but she didn t want anything like that. Instead she pushed past him, murmuring excitedly, for she had seen a gray-haired man in a golden mask and a long velvet cloak, untied and open down the front. He stood near the fire. Turning, he reached out his hands then came toward them while the handmaidens of Lolth spun out into the field, chattering and singing.
Lukas guessed this was Prince Araithe, the son of Lady Ordalf, whom he had last seen in Caer Corwell. He was of medium height, and his cloak, when it flapped open, revealed a silver doublet, plum-colored hose, and a silver, tasseled codpiece, a style both ugly and pathetic, in Lukas s opinion. Lukas was not disposed to like Araithe anyway, but was surprised by the violence of his own reaction as the man approached. Araithe lifted his mask with a right hand that also seemed fashioned entirely of gold, with the elegant, contrived fingers of a clockwork mannequin.
Is it really you? he asked. When the priestesses told me of their dream, I thought it was too much to ask.
And Lady Amaranth, because of her vulnerability and the blindness of her need, never hesitated. Lukas watched the two of them come together as if partners in a different dance, to a different rhythm.
I ve prayed for this, said Prince Araithe, his voice soft and pretty. A long time there are too few of us to keep apart. Whatever reason you had for leaving us all is forgiven now.
He put his arm around her shoulders. The price you have paid, the hardships you have endured, let us not speak of them. Or if we must, imagine them as a test to bring you to this place. Your mother and father are dead now. But I am guardian of this tower, and I will be everything to you mother, father, brother, sister, nephew, uncle, and more besides. There are too few of us to make distinctions, and we will be together for a long time. Everything I have is yours, and I will share it with you equally, for the sake of our shared blood. The world is vast, but we will find shelter
She laid her cheek against his breast. Lukas stayed near enough to listen to the prince s murmurings, and now he caught his eye above her hair. Araithe s golden fingers made a little gesture of dismissal. But Lukas persevered until a crease of anger marred the perfection of the prince s forehead, and he moved away from the girl s embrace. Make yourself useful, he said. Bring my lady something to drink.
Hogsheads of wine were open on the turf, and Amaka came toward them, a goblet in each hand. She herself had had enough to drink, Lukas decided, judging from the unsteadiness of her little dance, the way the wine slopped from the crystal cups, the delirious sparkle in her eye.
Lukas put up his palm to forestall her. Sir, he said, your mother promised me three hundred thalers to bring your aunt to Gwynneth Island. In addition, she was keeping a friend of mine in Caer Corwell as her guest, in security
The prince interrupted him. My mother promised you more gold than she had, and paid you more than you are worth. I encourage you to drink a glass of wine then take your leave of us in safety, with your friends. He glanced at Gaspar-shen. As for the person you speak of, I m afraid I have bad news. She endeavored to escape from my mother s hospitality, and was killed in the attempt, not by any force of ours, but by a treacherous lycanthrope, a pig from Moray Island.
He was not clever, Lukas decided, this prince who lived for thousands of years. Time had robbed him of that. Lady Amaranth stiffened, and with her forefinger she touched the climbing rose tattoo under her jaw. She looked toward Lukas and he turned away, wanting to let her think about the possibility of spending eternity in this place, with its bad music and bad company and wine that, he guessed, would have been eighth rate even if it hadn t been poisoned or full of magic the fey were no good at ephemera, which was after all what most of civilization was. He waved to her without looking, as if he were washing his hands of the whole business job well done cut his losses Suka was dead; he doubted that. This lump of leShay shit wasn t capable of telling the truth. If he said she was alive and well, then Lukas might worry. He affected a frown, as if he were afraid the prince might possibly rescind his offer of safe conduct and, nodding to Gaspar-shen, he went in search of the wolf-girl, whom he found squatting near the border of the trees, head in her hands. He went down on one knee beside her.
Tell me, he said.
And so she told him about Bishtek Dlardrageth strange to call him that. The Dlardrageth had mixed their elf blood with demons out of the Abyss millennia before. More recently, in Spellplague times, Sarya Dlardrageth had gotten loose from prison and had fought some stupid war. From her defeat, Lukas guessed, his friend s father had escaped and hid himself, had tried to cleanse his son of all demonic traces, and had failed.
These thoughts went through him in a moment. They occupied one part of his attention, while with the other he listened to the druid; how she had fought in Malar s temple below Scourtop, where the Savage had gone to help his friends she gave him that much credit, though he had failed, of course; they had both failed, and Malar had been hauled out of the pit, and Chauntea s priestess and the boy were dead.
Lukas didn t look at her. He stared out toward the bonfire where the elves danced, dark elves, mostly. Two others drew his attention, one a tiny, emaciated, gossamer-boned fey, scarcely taller than a gnome, but with enormous feathered wings that rose over his head, his jeweled cap. His face was scrunched up like a monkey s as he admired the dancers.
He was one of the avariel, the winged elves from the mountain peaks above Cambrent Gap. The other stood apart, a drow captain in black steel half armor, out of place among the revelers, his white hair fastened down his back. And he was staring at Lukas with a dyspeptic, fierce expression, a hand on his sword hilt. Lukas dropped his eyes and listened to Eleuthra Davos tell him about the king s tomb, and the loregem that had opened the pool among the beech trees and brought them here to safety.
The king s gold, she said, maybe had begun to heal him where he d been maimed. I felt the spines that had broken through the skin along his vertebrae, and his shoulder blades blossoming where his father had torn away his wings. I was afraid of him. Gods help me. I didn t know how long it would take to feel his dragon s tail curl around me. Oh, but he has broken my heart.
The drow soldier, a warlock or a swordmage, Lukas guessed, was still looking at them from across the clearing, his lips twisted in an expression Lukas couldn t read nothing good, though. Contempt, anger, whatever. As Lukas watched, the dark elf spat at the ground between his boots.
I heard what you said to him, Lukas told the druid. It didn t sound to me like heartbreak.
He found himself mimicking the drow, pulling his lips back, spitting. He watched Gaspar-shen take a crystal goblet from one of Lolth s handmaidens. He sniffed at it, a pensive expression on his face. He wouldn t drink it. His interest in food and drink was abstract, metaphorical.
The half moon rose above them, breaking through the curtain of the trees. By its light Lukas saw the tower of the citadel as if conjured into being, a stone spire that appeared and disappeared according to the pattern of the mythal that protected it. Some of the dancers stopped what they were doing and applauded the sight with more politeness than enthusiasm, Lukas thought. He watched Prince Araithe, one arm around Amaranth s waist, gesture modestly toward the tower as if claiming credit for a magic trick. Lukas despised him.
I didn t hear much love in what you said to him.
What do you know about it? said the druid girl.
Good point, Lukas conceded. He could not but remember Marikke and the boy, whom he had found in Caer Callidyrr mired in courthouse bureaucracy, impoverished and without hope. He had taken them in, telling himself he would protect them, at which task he had failed, and the Savage had failed also.
Where will you go now?
Back, Eleuthra said. King Derid will need eyes in Moray now the Beastlord has returned.
