“You have a dragon mate then?” Ilona said, and she smiled, but the smile quickly faded when Nidhug spoke again.
“Nay, but it is my duty to provide for a successor, and so I allowed one fine young male dragon passing through our world to help me in the creation of that egg. He flew off when he learned he had been fucking the great high dragon of Belmair, and I have not seen him since, nor do I ever expect to see him again,” Nidhug said sweetly.
“Later, ladies,” Dillon said in what he hoped passed for a stern and firm voice.
Cirillo simply looked relieved when both his mother and the dragon turned to the king with questioning faces. He quickly produced a bubble about them so they might speak in private. “Shall we begin?” he asked them. “You will need to learn my spell,” he said. “I will speak it to you now. Memorize it carefully.
“It is a fine spell,” Nidhug said.
“A bit simple, perhaps,” Ilona noted, “but it should be effective.”
“Say it back to me,” Cirillo told them, and they did. “Good. Now let us all use the same summoning spell to bring the women into each hall.
“Nidhug,” Dillon said to the dragon, “you will remain in this hall to summon all the young women in this section of the kingdom. Count to three before you call them. Then use the protection spell. Each of us will go to a different dutchy. I will go to Beltran. Cirillo, you go to Belia, and Grandmother, you will go to Beldane. As soon as you have used the protection spell, return the girls, and come back quickly.” He looked at them saying, “Are we ready?”
They nodded, and then turning as one, the faerie trio opened the tunnels to their destinations and raced into the golden light.
“One. Two. Three,” Nidhug said. And then,
And the hall was filled with all females of childbearing years. They looked about them, startled, and then seeing the dragon gasped with a single collective voice. Nidhug immediately spoke the spell.
There was total silence in the hall. “You are safe now from the Yafir, women of Belmair.” Nidhug told them. “Now I will return you to your homes.” She did so with a wave of her paw, and was surprised at how strong her magic had suddenly become. It had to be her contact with Cirillo, she thought. About her the tunnels were opened again, and her three companions dashed back into the hall as the tunnels closed behind them. “I have done my part,” she told them. “The young women in this section of our world are now safe.”
“Alban sends his thanks,” Cirillo told Dillon.
“Tullio would send his, but I couldn’t remain to wait while he nattered on about whether the spell was foolproof, and asked just exactly how I could be certain,” Ilona said. “The man is a pedantic bore, Dillon.”
“And Dreng is relieved, but says he wished the spell had been in effect before he lost his granddaughter,” Dillon told them.
“And now, rude boy, where is that feast you promised us all?” Ilona stepped up to the high board. “Nidhug, my dear, do come and sit next to me. We have so much to chat about,” she told the beautiful dragon. “And the whole evening in which to do so.” She smiled brightly.
“There is the real dragon,” Cirillo murmured low to Dillon as his lover went to seat herself by his parent.
The king of Belmair laughed.
9
WHEN NAPIER IX had pronounced their banishment centuries before, the Yafir had lived in peace with their neighbors, much like them but for the magic they possessed. Told they were to leave Belmair they had made a collective decision to remain. The question was, of course, where they might hide themselves so that they would never be discovered by the Belmairans. Beltran’s forests were deep, but because they took up much of the dutchy, the forests were active with hunters. Beldane’s rolling glens didn’t offer enough hidden nooks, and Belia’s mountains were too cold. The main province itself, while possessing all the traits of the other three, was too populated. There remained but one place that would allow them to be totally hidden from all of Belmair.
The Yafir had made their new home beneath the seas of Belmair. The land entry into this new world of theirs could be found, if one had known to look for it, in an isolated beach cave on the far side of Belia where the coast was too rough-hewn for settlement and therefore deserted. Using their magic, the Yafir had created towns sealed within great bubbles anchored to the ocean floor. Self-contained, they no longer had any need for the surface world of Belmair above them, except in the matter of females. The sunlight filtered dimly into their new settlements. The sea creatures grew used to them, and their homes were deep enough to ride out the storms.
In the beginning they had taken the one hundred women of childbearing years that Napier IX had refused to give them. The women had come from each of the provinces, including the main one itself. Some of the women had conceived life immediately. Those who had not were then given to other Yafir males until they, too, were with child. Now and again, when a woman could not conceive, she was restored back to her own world. Those women, however, returned without memories that extended beyond the time they were taken. And to punish them for having proved useless to the Yafir, they were returned as old women. The women who were kept by the Yafir were spoiled beyond all mortal women, and lavished with riches each time they bore a child. Those who birthed daughters were the most fortunate, for the matings between Yafir and mortal seemed to produce more males than females. The anomaly only created the need for more and more women.
Cinnia had been in her apothecary grinding lavender into powder to be mixed into soap. Her pestle scraped against the sides of the stone mortar as she worked. The lovely fragrance of the flower rose up to assail her nostrils. It was late in the day, and the sun was low on the horizon. She was hungry, and the scent of the lavender, which was a sleeping aid, was making her drowsy. It was then she sensed she was not alone. Turning about, she saw the Yafir, Ahura Mazda, observing her.
“What do you want?” Cinnia asked him. Her eyes were heavy. She struggled to keep them open even as she realized he was casting a spell upon her.
“Stop!” she cried, her own mind desperately seeking a spell to stop him.
“I marked you for my own at your birth, Cinnia,” Ahura Mazda said. “You cannot resist me, for your magic is sweet and simple. Mine is fierce and strong. It is time now for you to come with me.” He reached out to take her hand in his.
Cinnia shrank from him. “Leave me be, Yafir! I have a husband, and you are my enemy! Begone!” She flung her pestle at him.
“You have a fiery spirit, Cinnia,” Ahura Mazda told her, laughing.
“I shall enjoy taming you, and make no mistake about it, tame you I will! But I will not break your great spirit. Now, come!” Stepping forward, he grasped her by her small hand.
His touch rendered her weak, but Cinnia struggled nonetheless to get free of him.
And then she felt as if her entire body was melting away. She had no feeling but for the hand holding hers tightly. She felt herself fading away, her eyes closed despite her desperate attempts to keep them open, and then all was darkness. The cat who kept Cinnia company in her apothecary watched astonished as his mistress and her companion disappeared in a puff of scarlet smoke. The fur went up on his feline back. He yowled, frightened, and then he ran out of the room past Britto, who stared openmouthed.
When Cinnia once more opened her eyes, she found herself lying upon a bed draped with sea-green silks. Confused, she struggled to remember what had happened to her. After several long and frightening minutes, her memory returned. She had been stolen by the Yafir lord, Ahura Mazda. What was it he had said?
