Silent Hall (26 page)

T
he fairies returned just
before dawn, as the sky was turning from black to deep blue. Seven of them had nets dragging behind their pale horses. Frightened children looked out between the cords with desperate eyes. The captain's net held twins, a boy and a girl, who clung together and did not lift their eyes to the strangers.

“See how we have returned!” the captain gloated, and her skin shone an even brighter white than before. “With you, we have thirteen.”

“We only need eleven,” her lieutenant said nastily.

“Let two of us go then,” Narky suggested. Somehow, he felt an overwhelming need to challenge these beings.

The captain laughed. “Perhaps we will, Godserf, perhaps we will. Shall we play a game for your freedom?”

Her cavalry had come to a stop, and the captured children stared silently at the islanders. All of them were pink and pale, Narky realized. He wondered what they made of him and the others.

“What sort of game?” asked Hunter.

“The game of wounds,” answered the lieutenant with relish.

“No,” said Bandu suddenly. “Riddles first. Play the riddle game.”

The elves stared at her, surprised and annoyed. The captain raised an eyebrow high up her forehead. “You know of the riddle game?” she exhaled. “And you challenge us? Very well. We will win, and you will die.”

“How about if we win?” asked Criton.

“Then you are safe for eleven days,” she said. “Raider Two, you may begin the game.”

The lieutenant bared his teeth at them. “Lovely,” he said. “The Godserfs catch it. The Godserfs do it. The Godserfs are it.”

Damn it, Bandu
, thought Narky,
why did we ever come here? What have you gotten us into?

“How many guesses do we get?” asked Phaedra.

The fairies burst into hideous laughter. “One,” said the captain.

“Can we consult with each other?”

The captain shook her head.

Narky felt his heart sink. “Then how are we supposed to decide who gets to answer the riddle?”

“Whoever answers first,” said the one called Raider Two.

“Give us a minute then,” demanded Phaedra. “We need silence to think.”

Narky tried to think about the riddle too, but it was impossible to concentrate. These horrible beings would happily kill them over a single wrong answer. Kindly Folk indeed.

“I think I have it,” said Phaedra.

“Have what?” asked the captain, twinkling.

“The answer. It's prey, isn't it? ‘Godserfs' is your word for humanity. We catch prey, we pray to the Gods, and to you, we are prey.”

The elves tittered. “So you are,” rumbled Raider Two.

“Our turn now,” said Bandu. “Phaedra, now you say riddle.”

Phaedra looked a bit startled. “Me?” she asked. “Does it have to be me, because I answered theirs? I don't have any good riddles. I only have mysteries.”

“Ask one then,” suggested Criton.

“Well, all right.” Phaedra cleared her throat. “Um, so, the mesh between the worlds. What is it made of?”

“Sky, of course,” answered the captain. “My turn.”

Narky found it hard to keep down his frustration. They would lose this game and die as a consequence, but at least Phaedra would learn more about the universe first!

The elf captain cleared her throat. “It is the dream of civilization,” she began. “A kingdom without it cannot stand long, yet for one of you, it would mean death. What is it?”

Concentrate
, Narky thought to himself. A necessity for civilization, something people wanted, which would nonetheless kill one of them? Which one? Could fairies see the future? Or the past…

Narky's blood ran cold. Oh, Gods. The fairies could read memories, just like Psander! Would his past never truly be behind him? The others looked at each other, clearly unsure of the answer to the fairy's ‘riddle.' Of course they didn't know. It wasn't a riddle at all: it was a trap.

“Well,” said Phaedra. “This would be more of a guess, since I'm not really sure about that last bit, but… I don't know, should I? I have an idea, but if anyone else has a more solid one…”

“You guessed right on the last one,” said Hunter. “I don't think any of us are better at riddles than you are. Go ahead, Phaedra. We trust you.”

Oh Gods, she was going to kill them all!

Phaedra took a deep breath. “All right,” she said. “Well, I think it's–”

“Justice,” said Narky, interrupting her. “The answer is justice.”

Phaedra stared at him, horrified. They all did. Then their eyes shot to the fairy captain, who sat calmly upon her horse, looking utterly composed. She said nothing for a few moments, smiling mildly at the islanders whose lives hung in the balance. She was milking their fear for all it was worth.

“Correct,” she said at last. “It's your turn now.”

His turn? What could Narky say? If the captain could read his memories, surely she could read his present thoughts too! Posing a riddle he knew the answer to would be tantamount to giving up his turn entirely. The fairies held an outrageous advantage over them.

There was only one thing to do: like Phaedra, he would have to ask a question to which he did not know the answer. He felt guilty now about how frustrated he had been with her for trying to satisfy her curiosity. She had done the right thing, after all. And in case the fairies were able to answer him too, he may as well ask a question that really mattered.

He held the captain's gaze defiantly. “Tell me this,” he said. “Is the dragons' God dead?”

“Of course not,” said another of the fairy women. “If He were dead, the sky would crash down once more upon the earth, the worlds would run together like flowing rivers, and all who are living would perish in a flood of pure magic. All this may yet happen, but it has not happened yet.”

“Huh,” said Narky.

“I knew it!” Criton cried, reveling in the news. At least he would be happy, before the fairies killed them.

“We have toyed with them long enough,” the captain declared. “Finish this, Raider Eleven.”

The elf woman who had answered Narky's question nodded her fair head. Her silvery white hair, which grew all the way down to her hips, jingled when she nodded. Eleven tiny silver bells had been woven into it. Was it a sign of her greater importance? Lesser importance? He didn't know. All he knew was that the sound enchanted him, hypnotized him. He wished he could run a hand through her hair… pull her head toward him… kiss her forehead…

“Why do we call you ‘godserfs'?” she asked. Her voice thrilled him.

“Because–” began Criton, but Bandu suddenly elbowed him in the gut and he doubled over, coughing.

“Don't talk!” she shouted. “Narky, Hunter, don't talk!”

Her words confused him. Why did she not want him to speak? He knew the answer – he could see it on the elf's lips. “Because I love you,” he wanted to tell the fair-headed maiden, and why shouldn't he say it? It was the truth.

“So beautiful,” he heard Hunter mumbling to himself. No! He must not speak! If Hunter answered the elf first, she would be his!

“Because I–”

“You do not have the Gods!” screamed Bandu, before Narky could finish. He and Hunter stared at her, dazed.

“They make your sky a wall,” Bandu continued, “and They do not watch you here. They say you are not for them. You call us godserfs because always Gods tell us what to do, but never tell you anything.”

The elf maiden's eyes flashed, and her charm dissolved. She had almost succeeded, Narky realized with sudden horror. If Bandu had not recognized their danger, the elves would have won and the islanders would have been executed right here, in front of these children.

Bandu did not even wait for the elves' angry mutters to die down before confronting them with her own riddle. “When my young comes,” she said, “what name do I give?”

The fairies' anger dissipated in an instant, replaced by malicious glee. “Your riddle breaks our rules,” gloated the captain. “A riddle must have a single answer, but yours does not. Whatever name I say now, you will change your answer accordingly. You have forfeited the game, and your lives are ours.”

“You are wrong,” said Bandu. “I choose already, and never change. But you don't see because I don't see.”

The fairies were clearly just as confused by this answer as Narky was. “What are you saying?” the captain asked. “If you had chosen a name already, we would see it!”

“No,” said Bandu, smiling. Smiling! By now, the first rays of sunlight were peeking over the horizon, revealing her face in all of its glowing triumph.

“When I am little like them,” she said, indicating the captured children, “your kind puts a box in my head. I can't remember what's in. When Gateway opens, I open box and see all remembering about elves. But after I take remembers out, I see riddle game. So I keep the box and put my young's name inside. Only one name inside, but I don't remember it, so you don't see!”

The fairy captain seemed to darken in front of Narky's eyes. “Impossible!” she cried.

“You don't answer the riddle?” confirmed Bandu. “Then we win. If you take away net, I can open the box and show you.”

The captain looked to her followers, who only looked back at her sullenly. Their skin really did seem to be growing darker as the light began to dawn on their world.

“She could be bluffing,” offered Raider Two.

The captain nodded, though she did not look hopeful. “Release her,” she said, with a limp wave of her hand.

Raider Two grimaced and reached for the net that covered Bandu and Criton. It sprang back into his hand.

“Now,” said the captain. “Prove the truth of your words.”

Bandu nodded, and closed her eyes. “I do now.”

For a moment, all was still. Then, suddenly, the captain cried out. “How dare you?” she shrieked. “Your child will be Goodweather? How dare you!”

Once more the net came hurtling down, but this time Bandu and Criton were ready. Bandu jumped one way, Criton the other, and at the same time a burst of flame shot up toward the elves' steeds. The elves pulled hard on their reins to avoid the fire, and their horses trotted obediently sideways without so much as a surprised whinny.

“Run!” Bandu screamed, as the elves drew their sickles.

Criton took a quick, frightened glance back toward the nets and then ran between the horses, breathing flames in all directions. The fairies clearly did not know what to make of his dragon magic. They shielded their faces with their arms as Criton passed them, and cried out when their sleeves caught fire.

“Burn them!” Narky shouted. “Burn the bastards!”

The elves beat helplessly at their clothes, their cries growing ever shriller. Atop their horses, they were in a very poor position to extinguish the flames.

At last the captain raised her burning arms. “Die,” she commanded of the flames. “Choke and suffocate. Our bodies and our air shall not nourish you. Die!”

The flames obeyed her. The other elves followed their captain's lead, and soon the smoke was billowing off their limbs and dispersing in the morning breeze. But Bandu and Criton had already disappeared into the forest.

“Hunt them down!” cried Raider Two, shaking his sickle in the air. “They cannot hide from us!”

He spurred his horse, but the captain raised her hand and the horse did not move. It just stood there, blinking.

“No,” the elf captain told her raiders. “The girl is involved with the Goodweathers. They may be waiting for this opportunity. If we leave our quarry only half protected, the Goodweathers may snatch them away from us.”

“Captain,” purred Raider Eleven, “send me after them. They will come to me.”

“No,” the captain said again. “The fire-breather's mind is closed, and the girl was able to hide secrets from us – she will resist you too. Eleven Godserfs remain to us, though three are old. We will take these and ride for Castle Illweather. Immediately.”

Raider Two grimaced, but he rode over to tug at the net that held the twin boy and girl. “Walk,” he said.

By the light of day, the fairy world's terrain was becoming visible. This was a hilly country, lightly wooded except to Narky's left, where the forest grew thick and deep. The trees here were unfamiliar, with leaves that looked like oversized wolf paws.

“Narky,” Phaedra called softly. “Hunter, look behind us.”

They did as she said, and gasped. The ruins of an enormous tower stood behind them, huge and ominous in the daylight. How, during their stumbles through the mist, had they avoided crashing into any of those waist-high stones, or tripping over the rubble?

“That's where we came from last night,” said Phaedra. “That's the real Gateway.”

“Quiet!” shouted Raider Two. He was a surly one, that tall elf. By now, his fair skin had turned the color of Narky's, and his hair was black as coal. Even the bells in Eleven's hair, Narky noticed, had turned from light silver to blackest iron. The fairies, it came to him, were only called that because nobody had ever seen them during the daytime.

One of the raiders grabbed a hold of his net and began to drag it along the ground. Narky had to run to keep from getting swept up.

“Some Kindly Folk you are,” Narky spat up at the raider. “You're not even Fair Folk half the time. You were no match for Criton and Bandu. Eleven days is plenty of time for them to free us.”

“Silence,” the fairy growled. “The game does not protect you as much as you think.”

“Oh, sure,” Narky laughed meanly. “Threaten us all you want, up on your horses there. You couldn't even catch a pregnant girl.”

“Stop,” commanded the fairy captain, sliding off her horse. For a moment, Narky wasn't sure what was going on. Then she turned back toward him, and began advancing rapidly. With a single motion, she drew her sickle from her side and slashed it through a hole in the shimmering net.