All Night Awake (46 page)

Quicksilver must put an end to this madness now.

Afraid of Quicksilver’s fatal lack of decision, Ariel reached for his hand, touched it, thinking only to encourage him to speak, hoping that her gesture would be interpreted as a wife’s affection, nothing more.

She reached for Quicksilver’s ring-covered fingers, where they sat on the arm of his throne, long and immobile and far too burdened with gold and glittering jewels.

Just before touching them, she thought how waxy they looked, how pale. Touching them, she found them rigid, cold.

A word caught in her throat, the thought, the disastrous thought that her lord had died, died on the throne while listening to the delegation, while --

Like the jolt of a thunderbolt, something -- a fire a flash -- shot from Quicksilver’s hand to her own.

Ariel tried to let go, tried to stand, but could not. In her mind, like images revealed by a sudden flash of lightning upon a dark, dark night, she saw Sylvanus -- her husband’s brother, who’d reigned in faerieland for ten years before his crimes had led to his deposition. She saw him first as king of faerieland, as he had been, fair of face, dark of hair and beard, an elf proper and perfect in every part.

The traitor thought flashed through her mind that for all his crimes, for the proven fact that he had committed parricide to inherit the throne, Sylvanus had made a better king than Quicksilver, a stronger one, who brooked no disorder, allowed no confusion amid the various races of faerieland.

Ariel fought the thought too late.

Something like Sylvanus’ own laughter answered that half-formed feeling, and then the image of Sylvanus as Ariel had last seen him, came out of the darkness -- rank and gross, a creature of the night, and blood, and suffering.

Sylvanus had made a pact with the dark Hunter, to obtain from the Hunter power to kill Titania and Oberon, his parents, sovereigns of faerieland, that he might inherit the throne. But his crimes had come back upon his head.

Imprisoned by that creature of ancient times and uncertain origins -- and in Ariel’s mind flashed the image of the Hunter, a gigantic man, astride a gigantic horse, galloping through the storm clouds -- Sylvanus had been turned into a creature half dog, half wolf, a creature of primeval fur and heavy jaws, with eyes the color of blood and lethal, sharp teeth. As such Sylvanus had been taken by the Hunter, to serve the Hunter throughout eternity.

But Sylvanus’s laughter echoed in Ariel’s mind once more, and now she saw the wolf, bare teeth, bared fangs, running free. The Hunter’s pack pursued him, but could not subdue him.

The other images were more confused, as if they were wishes rather than reality. They came to her mind superimposing -- the image of the young man, Will Shakespeare, who had rescued his wife, Nan, from faerieland ten years ago, and then other images, darker, more disturbing, each one piling horror on horror, till Ariel’s own mind collapsed, like a building beneath the weight of centuries uncounted.

Darkness and cold closed in and Ariel felt herself fall as though down an endless well.

She heard the sound of hooves. The Centaurs? The sound of elven feet, shuffling with quick grace, echoed. Hands, many hands reached her, touched her, lifted her.

“Milady?”

Was that Quicksilver’s voice? Was he, then, not dead?

Relief -- or regret? -- flooded Ariel and she cursed herself she could not tell which.

Ariel tried to open her eyes but they did no more than flutter, allowing some light, and snatches of images -- velvet, jewels, fine ladies, one hairy centaur tail -- into her fevered brain, diluting the horrible images that she felt must have come, could only have come, from Sylvanus.

“Milady Ariel?”

Yes, it was Quicksilver’s voice. Her heart calming, she sighed, and willed her feelings to be relief that Quicksilver was alive and well.

She loved him, did she not?

It was her love that made her impatient with his softness and smarting at his submission.

Quicksilver’s hand held hers, clenched upon it. “How cold she is, my lady,” he said, as if from a long distance off. “Moves breath there, between those marble lips? Give her space, give her space,” he commanded.

And, as bodies moved away and fresh air rushed in, Ariel was gently deposited on a cold surface. The floor?

She laid her hands flat upon it, feeling the cool, hard smoothness of marble tiles. The floor.

From this coolness, she drew strength, pulling to her the cold gentleness of the earth, the truth of what was solid and strong and didn’t shift beneath the fingers or change, like the images in her mind or like her mutable lord’s changeable nature.

She felt Quicksilver’s hand, too, strong, hot, almost fevered, grasping hers with bone-crushing strength.

Did her lord then, truly, have strength? Why hide it, then? Why hide it?

She wanted to ask just that, but could not command her lips.

Her mind clear, maybe too clear, ran through thoughts and feelings like knife through air.

Quicksilver was a dual creature, unusual even for an elf. Though his true form was male and to it he always returned, he could assume at will -- and sometimes even when he didn’t will it, didn’t wish it, and fought against it in vain -- the form of a dark lady.

In Ariel’s state, between sleep and wakening, between the land of the living and the shadowy realm of her own thoughts and visions, Ariel thought that Quicksilver’s weakness proceeded from that unsoundness in his being, that separation of him into two creatures who strived -- sometimes together, often against each other.

“Milady, stay with me,” Quicksilver said, his hand gripping hers with hard, feverish despair.

Holding onto that warmth, onto the coolness of the floor beneath her, Ariel fumbled her way towards life.

Walking like a blind woman who follows a rope stretched between her origin and her destination, she groped in her mind towards the lit salon, the murmur of so many voices, the hand that held hers and through which she could feel the too-fast beat of Quicksilver’s own heart.

She’d loved Quicksilver all her life, ever since they’d been mewling babes in the care of twin nursemaids. He might have proven a weak king and an uncertain ruler, but she could not desert him now.

No, this weakness of his must, perforce, be passing folly. She must change him, mold him, make him stronger from her own strength.

On that thought she opened her eyes and saw Quicksilver looking down on her, his normally white face gone the waxy pallor of old candles; his moss-green eyes looking darker, as if a shadow had interposed between them and the world.

Beneath the silk ruffle around Quicksilver’s neck, his neck quivered with hasty swallowing. She could smell his fear, sharp upon her nostrils.

All that fear because she was ill? She stared at Quicksilver, her eyes wide, and saw his lips tremble and attempt a smile.

“Oh, you are well,” he said. “You come back to us.” Tears of relief trembled in his eyes, and yet he looked still scared, still pale. He squeezed her hand in both of his.

He did not ask her what had happened, what had made her convulse and lose her senses. Had he, perhaps, before her undergone the same hell, the same assault?

Ariel remembered his wax-pale hands, cold to the touch and rigid like the hand of the dead.

It was upon touching him that those visions had come to her, like an attack upon her unprotected mind. And what of him? What had he suffered?

Ariel was the seer of this palace, born upon summer solstice night and thus endowed with vision of past and future and all the veiled ages. She had visions as other elves breathed. But Quicksilver? Why would he have visions?

Ariel drew herself to sitting with an effort, and found Quicksilver’s arms wrapped around her, supporting her, with a tenderness he hardly ever displayed to her in public.

His warm arms surrounded her and he spoke, soothingly to the courtiers who crowded around and demanded the cause of this illness, and its cure.

“Milady is a seer,” he said. “Of late have her visions been mild and controlled. But it is not always so, and when her visions come upon her, she does, perchance, fall. It means nothing. She will be well.”

His arm around her waist pulled her up; his other arm held hers and supported her. “Come, milady, let us retire. Come.”

And, leaving the chattering courtiers, the anxious delegations behind, Ariel felt herself led by her lord down the spacious corridors of their palace, to a thick oak door that opened and pivoted noiselessly inward at Quicksilver’s touch, to reveal the royal chamber -- not hers, but his own, such his confusion.

Though their chambers were next to each other, communicating with each other through a door, it had been long since Ariel had come into Quicksilver’s. He visited her in hers, sometimes, but even that of late only rarely.

Perhaps her disapproval kept him away? She looked at him, her earnest love and her earnest wish that he would prove worthy of it attempting to make themselves understood in her gaze.

He led her to his magnificent bed, a high, dark bed, curtained in dark green velvet. Around the room, male appointments -- Quicksilver’s as yet untried golden armor, heavy armchairs, massive wooden trunks.

Only a portrait on the wall that, now looked at this way showed Quicksilver in his male aspect, now looked at another way the magical canvas showed a beautiful lady with black hair and silver-colored eyes, hinted at Quicksilver’s other aspect, as the dark lady.

Ariel looked away from the portrait, which she’d never liked to see so plainly displayed, but which she had no right to ask be removed. It had been given to Quicksilver by his mother, Titania, on Quicksilver’s twentieth birthday.

Quicksilver drew back the curtains of his bed, with a hasty touch, and laid Ariel down upon the cool, smooth comfort of his green coverlets. “There milady. And now that we’re alone, tell me, was it the three women in the glade? And did they tell of doom and of... Sylvanus?”

Ariel stared. “Three women?” The chamber was silent, all courtiers, all servants having been left behind by Quicksilver’s for once masterful countenance. “Of what do you speak?”

He shook his head, impatient, and narrowed his eyes doubtfully. Despite his tenderness to her, Ariel could see that something fought within Quicksilver, some consuming dread attempted to surface.

“At least,” he said, averting his eyes, as if scrutiny of her had bothered him. “They were no more women than the Hunter is a man, creatures probably of the same vintage, all of them older than even our race. They stood in a forest glade and spun and measured thread of which they talked as it were the very fate and life of each man. Each man and elf.”

“The Fates,” Ariel said, as her brain and mouth, together, drew this conclusion. She drew deep breath and wished Quicksilver would look at her. “No. I dreamed not of them, but of Sylvanus, yes. I saw.... I saw him free of the Hunter and the Hunter’s dogs and searching for a human who will give him asylum.

"Should he get that, then will he grow in power and malice, till he overtakes the Hunter himself....”

The images in her mind, the confused images that she’d seen before but not fully understood now came tumbling -- images of a human world devoid of faerie, where iron ruled and iron shaped life, where enchantment had vanished and only brute force ruled, where strange fire come from still skies could sear millions in a moment’s rage. “He will destroy faerie and rule over human kind,” she said. “But I’m not sure of all the steps he means to take to accomplish it. Save he needs a human who will let him bide with him.”

“In the heart of man,” Quicksilver said. “The ....
Fates
said that the battle would be fought in the heart of man. But which man? Surely not just any man. Surely my brother can’t touch and seduce any human....” Thus speaking Quicksilver seemed to look inward, to fall into a reverie. “But a human who’s been touched by faerie, now. He’d be already unsound, already susceptible, already less than sure of the solidity of Earth underneath his feet. He’d be a man between worlds, belonging fully to neither.”

In rushing jealousy, Ariel divined of whom Quicksilver spoke. Will Shakespeare, whom Quicksilver -- in his female aspect -- had once loved well. That episode, Quicksilver’s remorse at it, at the chaos he’d introduced in the life of the beleaguered human, formed the other part of Quicksilver’s debilitating indecision.

Forever was Quicksilver afraid that his feelings would lead him astray and that he should cause ruin without meaning.

For that reason did he give way when he shouldn’t, to centaurs’ demands, to elves’ protests, to fairies’ clamor. Because of that did he withhold judgment in centaurs' squabbles, in elves’ brawling, in dishonorable dealing, in love strife.

And at the root of it all, and in Ariel’s mind too, was Will Shakespeare.

“Your brother tempted him,” she said, speaking still as out of a dream. Again she saw the images of Will very clearly and she knew how he was tied to this knot. “Your Will. He tempted him and he intimidated him, and he attempted to get Will to give him asylum. I saw that in my dream.”

Quicksilver shook himself, as if awakening. His hand went to his sword. For a moment the foolish courage of ten years ago shone in his eyes. “And did Will give in?” he asked. “Give Sylvanus asylum?”

Despite Quicksilver’s bravado, the smell of fear from him was now sharper, edged with a bitter edge of unreasoning terror.

Even though he stood by the bed, and she lay in it, more than an arm’s length away, Ariel could swear she heard each one of his fast heartbeats. Oh, could her husband not master himself?

She looked away from him. The other trouble with Quicksilver, the other reason he was not the king that he should be was that his old love festered yet within his heart.

How his interest quickened at mention of the human. How his breath came faster and how color touched even his ghastly, blanched cheeks. No wonder he cared not for realm or wife or court. None of those were to him what this human was: the breath of life, the lightning of desire, the heart’s blood that quickened all real interest.