Dockalfar (55 page)

“Where, pray tell, might you have been?” The lord of the Unseelie court’s voice echoed throughout the garden hall.

Every eye was drawn to him. Every conversation paused, every action stalled as the sidhe became aware that something new had entered the night’s diversion.

Ethiea walked up behind the assassin.

“He was sealed in one of the upper chambers, my lord.”

Azeral’s eyes flickered to her, then back to his Ciagenii. “Captured?” His tone held mock disbelief.

The assassin’s eyes lifted momentarily to his, then lowered. “Yes.”

“Is the girl dead?”

The whole of the court held their breaths. Azeral did.

“No. I have failed you.”

Silence. The goblet at Azeral’s finger tips shattered, spraying wine and glass across his silks and Neferia’s dress. She gasped and shifted back, looking at her lord with wide eyes. The assassin did not flinch.

“You – failed – me?” He rose, shaking off bits of glass and towered over Dusk. He grabbed a handful of the assassin’s cloak and hauled him to his feet. “You failed me?!! You entered this court and did not kill the human girl!?”

The assassin was passive in his grip.

Lashes covered eyes. In frustrated rage Azeral closed a magical fist over the soul he possessed with every intent of rendering pain that was beyond physical.

And he felt the secret. Suspicion welled within him. Suspicion and gnawing doubt.

His Ciagenii had never lied to him. And yet there was something desperate hidden that only the contact with the soul had revealed. He thrust Dusk away and fixed him with his coldest gaze.

“What do you hide from me, Ciagenii? What have you done that you fear my knowledge of?”

The assassin took a trembling breath.

Azeral could see it the moment Dusk contemplated the lie. He saw the emotion flicker within the shielded eyes. Felt the fear through the soul he held prisoner.

“What have you done?” he roared.

Dusk did flinch then. Finally lifted his head and stared Azeral directly in the eye.

“I could not kill the girl.”

“You could not – ? You would not! Has she bewitched you then? Or do you merely wish to engage my wrath?”

“Neither. I am Ciagenii no longer.” It came out barely a whisper. Azeral had to lean forward to hear it. When the words registered, at first he doubted he had heard them correctly. He scrutinized Dusk’s face and slowly a black rage descended over his own.

“By the earth and the fire that burns within her.” His words came out a sibilant hiss. Hateful, boiling power rose within him. “You slept with the bitch. You slept with her!” This last came out a scream.

The power followed. It erupted out of him in a scathing blow of pure force that shook the hall. The floor blackened and crumbled where Dusk stood, melting and boiling under his feet. Nimbly the assassin leapt to the side, unscathed by the lash of power that left a hole some ten feet in diameter in the place he had stood. Azeral screamed in frustration, and leapt the pit, falling upon his assassin with the ferocity of a frenzied animal.

Dusk went down, refusing to do more than block the worst of the blows.

Nervously, excitedly, the court gathered as close as they dared. Slanted, almond eyes glittered with a hunger for violence.

“Traitor,” Azeral raged. There was blood on his hands. Dusk was bleeding from the nose and mouth. A gash from Azeral’s rings traveled from hairline to temple. His eyes had gone dark and somewhat glazed. Azeral spat at him, then smashed the back of his hand across his cheek. Dusk closed his eyes and lay still.

Sputtering with a rage that he could not quite control, the lord of the Unseelie court sprang off Dusk and dashed to the nearest flagon of wine. Sidhe scattered out of his path. He was back on Dusk in a moment, grasping a handful of hair and jerking the night sidhe’s head back.

“Do you think immunity to magic will protect you from me? So easy to give up the one skill. Easy enough to rid you of the other.”

He forced wine into Dusk’s mouth.

The assassin sputtered and choked but did not fight against his master. Azeral was not satisfied until the flagon was empty, although a good deal of it had spilled down Dusk’s cheeks and puddled the floor under his head.

Azeral tossed the flagon away and crouched over Dusk, who half curled on his side, closing his eyes against the ring of glowering faces that leered down on him. He stared down at the bloodied, half hidden face. The most valuable weapon he had owned. He had given up riches beyond belief for this piece of wretched flesh that lay trembling on the floor at his feet. Useless. Useless to him now.

Sacrificed for some imbecilic notion that he had no patience to discover now. He had no patience to do more than slam his boot into unresisting flesh and pull back before in a fit of uncontrollable rage he destroyed Dusk completely. Not so hasty a demise as that. He took one deep breath and stepped back, surveying the avid interest in the faces of his court.

He waved one arm, a grandiose gesture. “Your entertainment for this night.” He could stay there not one moment more. He stalked from the chamber. They watched him go, then one by one turned their attention back to the victim he had given them.

Neferia paused in following her lord to give them a word of advice. “He’ll want him later. Keep him alive.”

They grinned at each other with bludgeoning glee. For too long this particular morsel had been denied them.

Both by the value Azeral placed on him and the fear they each had held for the death-dealing abilities of a Ciagenii.

Those reasons had been negated. And the court was oh so willing to make up for lost time.

~~~

The crashing of underbrush spoke boldly of the ogre patrol that blundered through the wood. The night was well progressed and the groups of enemy searchers too many for comfort. Ashara and her small party crouched in the brush, using nothing more than the merest of illusions to keep themselves from ogre discovery. It was all they needed for ogre intellect. They spent more effort in shielding themselves from magical discovery from afar.

When the ogres had passed, the sidhe rose and continued on their way. They were afoot and all of them tired to the point of weakness. They had held the shields as long as possible before giving way to Azeral’s concerted attack. The wards had fallen first, then the magic shields. The backlash had pounded all of them, even though they had distanced themselves from just such a thing. If even a portion of the great hunt found them now, they would be hard pressed to defend themselves. But there was no time for rest.

No time to heal weary muscles and let sleep clear aching minds. They had to catch up with the rest of their folk before they reached the Vale of Vohar and found that path blocked. Ashara and her strongest needed to be there to open the wards and let her people pass or they might find themselves trapped against an invisible shield on one side, with the great hunt down their throats on the other. And even that depended on whether she could open the wards at all without Neira’sha’s guidance.

~~~

Alex flew high and far, but he could not quite cross the boundaries needed to find Azeral and his cohorts. The distance was too great and the field of tournament too unfamiliar. All his far flung senses could register was a dim clamor of something very far away. And even that he could not be certain belonged to the conflict he sought out.

He had driven himself to exhaustion each night since the Host had departed to track their progress. To spy on the intentions of the Unseelie court. To no avail. He had discerned, those first few nights when he had been free to let his mind’s eyes roam, that it was no fault on his part that obscured the Great Hunt and their forces, but a shield of sorts conjured by the Unseelies to protect their progress from any prying eyes.

It was only later, when they were too far gone to find, shield or no shield, that the frustration began to gnaw at him.

Leanan’s words ate at him the most. For her prediction that Azeral engaged this crusade for the sole purpose of killing Victoria only served to strengthen his own instincts about the subject. He needed to know what was transpiring on that distant front.

It was the night before Azeral made his sudden, lone appearance in the mountainous keep that Alex decided to sway Leanan to his cause. She lay beside him in the overly soft pillows of her bed, her wealth of hair snaking over both their bodies. She complained of the boredom she’d had to endure, the last days without the presence of the court. There was so little to entertain one when all of one’s friends were off campaigning. He listened and sympathized. And it occurred to him that the solution to both their dilemmas was a prompt and direct passage to the place where Azeral and his court presently resided. It was only a matter of convincing Leanan, who made it perfectly clear that she held no interest in campaigning, that joining the Wild Hunt would solve all her woes.

“Do you think they’ve taken the Seelies yet?” he asked with as much curious ignorance in his voice as he could muster.

“It’s been nigh a seven day span,” she said. “I would expect it to be so.”

“You’ve heard no word?”

She frowned. He could just see her lips twitch downwards. “Nay,” she admitted.

“Hmmm. I would think Azeral would let you know what was happening?”

“What need has he for courtesy towards me?” Leanan’s tone held the indignation of one wrongfully treated.

Very gently Alex urged the notion of the court having a grand, spectacular time with no thought whatsoever to those left behind.

“I suppose they’ll have a great victory celebration once they’ve taken the Seelie court.”

“One supposes,” she sulked.

“The Seelie court must be very rich. Do you think there will be many spoils? I mean riches, treasure, things like that.”

“If one treasure’s trees and the like.”

“What will he do with the Liosalfar?”

Leanan sniffed. “Torment them. But that is hoping too much. Azeral has always held a soft spot towards certain of their alignment.”

Alex lifted a brow. “Soft spot? Azeral? That surprises me.”

“Not I,” she muttered. “But I still imagine there will be great sport with the light sidhe.”

“Hmmm. That would be entertaining.

Too bad we have to stay here.” And he stroked her hair and pulled her closer, intending to say no more. It was quite clear enough that the seed had been planted, watered and cultivated. He did not even have to spy on her thoughts to see her mind furiously considering the possibilities. It showed on her face, in her narrowed eyes and the way her teeth pulled on her lower lip.

~~~

The servant’s apprehensive whispering was the first hint that something within the great keep was amiss. Alex padded down the cool stone halls, shivering with chill from a winter he had been told was weeks early in its arrival. Leanan’s presence he avoided, her mood being foul indeed as result of his prodding and careful urging. She sulked with the others of her kind who remained at the keep, comparing woes, concocting various dark entertainments to amuse themselves while the majority of he court flourished at war.

The group of bendithy mamau females clustered together in the shadowy intersection of two passages were hardly aware of his approach, him in a colorless tunic and plain pants and so unsidhe-like in statue. Their heads were bent together and their hands clutched aprons or baskets of laundry.

He might have ignored their chatter altogether had not Azeral’s name come up.

He paused in his passage and leaned against the chill stone wall to listen.

“An’ the portal he opened was right in the center of main hall,” one haggard, dull haired servant whispered. “The great lord himself stepped out, pretty as you please, but with such a look to his face that I like to fainted dead away right then and there.”

“What did he do, Mitelia?” Another gasped in shocked curiosity.

“He looked fit to kill, he did. But spared not a glance for those of us working in the hall. Just took himself off towards the upper levels. Mark me words things have not gone well for the court, if the master himself looks to be in so black a mood. I’ve never seen such a look on him. An’ I tell you, me girls, pray to the elements that he calls you not to serve him this night, for there’ll be no leaving afterwards. Not for the living.”

Silence swallowed them for a moment as that truth sank in. Fear was heavy on their faces. Alex moved out from the shadows of the wall. Shock passed the servants faces as they recognized him for what he was. Their pale coloring turned gray.

“When did he come?” he asked bluntly, directing the question to the one who had claimed to see Azeral’s arrival.

She stared at him open-mouthed, speechless. His eagerness was too great.

Like the most casually, selfish of sidhe he took the information from the woman’s mind. It was simplicity itself with her mind ajumble with surprise and fear. It barely registered to Alex the indignity of the invasion. But he had what he needed.

Azeral had opened his spatial door less than two hours ago.

Alex swept past the bendithy, anticipation blinding him to rational thought. All he could see was the burning need to find out what had become of Victoria. He took the stairs at a run, brushed past startled servants and the few sidhe that roamed that part of the keep. He headed for the highest reaches of the keep where Azeral kept his own chambers. He reached the great double doors leading to the master’s private chambers and pounded unceremoniously on the wood.

No response. He thought of opening them anyway, but even in his excitement, he pushed that notion aside. There was only so much trespass that Azeral might allow before retaliation was due.

He stood for a moment outside the ornate doors, thinking of another place the lord of the keep might be in such a mood as the serving women claimed. His tower study.

The highest point in the keep. The most strenuous climb. Alex took it without thought. Breath only slightly harsh when he had reached that uppermost level. The magic helped even there, with physical stamina. Using it in such a trivial manner had become very much second nature. He burst into the semidarkness of the great chamber. Only the pale glow of moonlight through the impressive stretch of glass-paned window illuminated the room. It was still as death. No movement, no life.