“I’m traveling to visit my mother. For the Null Days. She’s almost seventy, and I haven’t seen her for a year. Lord Luklren has given me leave to be away for a fortnight.” He seemed, belatedly, to understand what Nora was really asking. “I have been giving Lord Aruendiel a report on the Faitoren. They have been very quiet. No problems to report. Not even a sheep missing.”
“Oh. Well, that’s a relief.” Nora looked down at the cloak she had not paused to remove, the snowy boots that were beginning to leave wet spots on the floor of Aruendiel’s study. “I’m sorry to disturb you,” she added, speaking mostly to Aruendiel. “I thought there might be some trouble with the Faitoren.”
“A pretty lady like yourself should not distress herself about such things,” Dorneng said gallantly.
Nora blinked at him, making a point of not smiling. Aruendiel looked as though he found Dorneng’s comment almost as annoying as she did. “Mistress Nora has more reason than most to be concerned about Faitoren malfeasance,” he said.
“Oh, yes, I know about that,” Dorneng said. “So unfortunate.” He frowned a little.
Nora waited for the inevitable: Dorneng would now stare discreetly at the ring on her left hand. He had no doubt heard about the ring from Aruendiel or Hirizjahkinis, and everyone did stare at it, eventually, when the subject of the Faitoren arose—herself included, although in her case it was more of a lingering case of denial, the mad hope that someday she would look and find the ring gone. She had noticed Aruendiel looking at it askance just the other day, after she’d asked a question about Faitoren candles during a lesson on fire illusions.
Dorneng’s large light-brown eyes remained innocently fixed on Nora’s. “What a blessing your ordeal is over,” he said.
Dorneng paid no particular attention to the ring that evening, either, even though the Faitoren provided the main topic of conversation. He was curious about what exactly had transpired during Hirgus Ext and Hirizjahkinis’s time in the Faitoren kingdom; the letter he’d received from Hirgus afterward was lengthy but not particularly informative.
Briefly, in a clinical tone, Aruendiel recounted the enchantments to which Ilissa had subjected her visitors. Perhaps out of loyalty to Hirizjahkinis, he restrained himself to calling the mission a foolhardy venture and a breathtaking example of how even an experienced magician could fall prey to Faitoren beguilement.
Dorneng listened closely, his round shoulders slightly hunched. When Aruendiel finally paused, he fiddled with his goblet for a moment. “I did think, when they set out from Lord Luklren’s castle on the way to the Faitoren lands, that they were taking a great risk. But Lady Hirizjahkinis seemed very confident—”
“She is always confident,” Aruendiel said. “Sometimes with good reason.”
“I am sorry that I didn’t go with them,” Dorneng said.
“It would have done them no good. Ilissa would have enchanted you as well.”
For a fraction of a second, Dorneng looked inclined to disagree. Then he seemed to recollect himself, and his heavy-lipped mouth tied itself into a rather shy smile. “But it would have been an opportunity to observe Faitoren magic at close hand. That’s what I regret missing. To be honest,” he added, “I was hoping to see more of the Faitoren when I took this position with Lord Luklren. To learn more about their magic, which is unique, as you know, and not well understood. But I’ve only encountered them on a handful of occasions.”
“You would not have learned much about Faitoren magic while you were enslaved by it,” Aruendiel told him.
Dorneng reached into the collar slit of his large, rather baggy tunic. He had brought out his Semr court finery for this dinner with Aruendiel, Nora thought, watching him fumble under the port-colored brocade, embroidered with black beads that winked in the candlelight. He brought forth a small glass bottle, half-filled with what looked to Nora like crumpled plastic wrap. When he shook it, a few rainbow flecks glittered in the dry folds inside.
“This is the only piece of Faitoren magic I’ve been able to study closely,” Dorneng said, with the same hesitant smile.
Aruendiel took the bottle from him, holding it with the tips of his fingers. “Where did this come from?”
Unexpectedly, Dorneng nodded at Nora. “From her. It was the Faitoren queen’s silencing spell. Lady Hirizjahkinis gave it to me, after she embodied the spell and removed it.”
Interested, Nora leaned forward to scrutinize the bottle’s contents. “It was alive then. Something like an insect.”
“It lived three weeks and five days,” Dorneng said with a touch of pride. “That was with no sustenance. I did try to reintroduce it to another subject, but it would not attach itself. One of Lord Luklren’s servants—it was in lieu of a flogging.” Nora frowned, and Dorneng looked slightly flustered. He went on, addressing Aruendiel: “I’ve been trying to re-create the spell—the effects of the spell—with the creature’s remains. So far I’ve had no success—”
“Nor will you,” Aruendiel said, putting the bottle down disdainfully. “You might as well expect a dead horse to carry you. A Faitoren spell has a kind of life because it is part of the Faitoren who created it. Eventually, the link grows weak and the spell dies. But that can take a very long time. If that silencing spell had remained in place, attached to its intended victim, Mistress Nora would have been mute far longer than three weeks and five days.”
Dorneng nodded, his brow furrowed. “Who
“They came from my world,” Nora said, although the question had clearly been intended for Aruendiel. “Through the same gateway that I used. But after they came here, they couldn’t go back, because in my world an iron fence had been built around the gateway. They were trapped.”
Dorneng looked to Aruendiel as though for confirmation. “That is true,” Aruendiel said. “Although I don’t believe the Faitoren originated in Mistress Nora’s world. They are a mongrel race, as anyone who has seen a Faitoren in its natural condition can attest. They show traces of parentage from half a dozen different worlds.
“I have heard them talk—in the days when we still had dealings with them—” Aruendiel seemed to be measuring his words carefully; Nora had the clear sense that he was recalling, reluctantly, some long-ago pillow talk with Ilissa. “They used to talk sometimes of a homeland that they had left, or were driven from. You could never get a clear story out of them, exactly what happened.
“And what the Faitoren looked like then, I don’t know. But they were magical creatures from the beginning. Then, in the course of their travels, they intermarried with other races to increase their numbers—as they have tried to do here, so many times, with human women.” Aruendiel’s gaze veered toward Nora but went past her, fixing itself on the chimney instead.
“Can the Faitoren breed among themselves?” Dorneng asked.
“I doubt it. Not now. Otherwise, they would not go to such lengths to acquire brides for their princeling.” Aruendiel’s eyes narrowed as he contemplated the chimney stones.
“So they’re actually dying off, as a people?” Nora asked uncertainly. She had not considered the Faitoren in this light. “Or can they die?”
“They are very long-lived, but not immortal.”
“So that’s why they want to escape so badly,” Nora said. “They want children.” Like the child Raclin tried to have with me, she thought, and for the first time, she considered the lost baby with neither regret nor anger. They used me, but not because Raclin and Ilissa either liked or hated me. It was just a survival strategy for them.
With a twist of his torso, Dorneng shifted in his chair. “I wonder—would it be so dangerous to allow some freedom to the Faitoren? To allow them
“The best reason to study Faitoren magic,” Aruendiel said, and here he glared briefly at Dorneng, “is to defend against it.”
The subject of the ring did not arise until the following morning, and then it was Nora who brought it up.
Breakfast was over, but a gusty north wind had delayed Dorneng’s departure. Aruendiel went up to his workroom to moderate the weather. He invited Dorneng to accompany him, but Dorneng said—with a wide smile showing crooked teeth, another reminder that this world contained no orthodontists—that it would be inexcusable to leave a lady alone and that he would be pleased to remain downstairs to keep Mistress Nora company.
