Eventually the air spirit Harry had sent after Elidir and Mechain found them, and brought them to Denoriel's apartment. The two elder elves were a bit puzzled at Elizabeth's presence Underhill, and some time was spent explaining where they wanted to go and why . . . and when Harry could get one of them alone informing them more completely . . . about Henry's death and the need to divert Elizabeth until the worst of her grief had passed.
"And you?" Mechain asked him.
Harry paused for a moment, considering his own reaction now that the shock was over. "I am sorry my father is dead," he said. "I loved him when I was a child, but when I grew older, I saw other things. And he was no longer the center point of my life. Denoriel has been more of a father to me . . . or brother, now that I am a man. I do grieve, but it does not wrench my soul as it does Elizabeth's." He sighed. "Perhaps—well, I should not speculate. It is enough that she came to us in tears and in fear."
"Then we surely must divert her," said Mechain with a decisive nod, "and not with games and pleasantries. You are quite right about that, Harry, as you so often are. To deal with the Unformed land is a kind of good work, and will surely occupy all of her mind."
All in all, it was some time before they left. When they came out of Llachar Lle, however, both Mechain and Elidir turned suddenly to look left. Both frowning, each went in a different direction and looked around the portico. They came back shrugging, admitting they had found no one—but that just for a moment, both of them had felt an inimical presence. They looked at Elizabeth, who shook her head.
"In the mortal world I can feel magic and see through illusion, but here . . . I am so flooded with magic . . ." she gestured helplessly. "The very air is full of magic. I didn't notice anything."
Still, all of them anxiously examined Elizabeth, checking her clothing, her hair, everything. They found nothing, and after again looking around the portico and cursorily through the ornamental gardens around the palace, they mounted their elvensteeds and set out for the Gate.
Ignoring the pattern plaque of the Logres Gate, even though there were always two termini kept blank for temporary patterning, Mechain called up an antique plaque of her own and activated it.
"We had so much trouble finding this place and it was so strange," she said as they arrived at the Gate in the Unformed land, "that I made a plaque just tuned to this Gate."
"Hmmm." Elidir looked around and then stepped off the slight rise of the Gate platform. "It looks much better," he said.
The mists did seem to be back to normal, not so dense or dark or angry looking as at their last visit and twisting and flowing without any sign of particular purpose. Mechain followed Elidir. There was no change in the behavior of the mist. Harry stepped down, then Elizabeth, then Denoriel.
Mechain and Elidir turned to look back at the Gate. "Did you feel that?" they asked each other almost simultaneously and then shook their heads.
"Nothing now," Elidir said after standing and listening with his head cocked.
"I agree," Mechain said, "but I could swear that I felt something, like an echo of the Gate closing." She too listened intently and then shook her head. "Whatever it was is gone now and I cannot sense anything wrong with the Gate. Come down, Aleneil, and let me see if it happens again."
However, nothing happened that Elidir or Mechain could detect, which was reasonable enough because Prysor's tag had struck Denoriel rather than Elizabeth and fallen into a fold of his sleeve.
"Elizabeth?" Denoriel asked.
She shook her head. "I didn't feel anything. Just the usual Gate feeling of blackness and falling and then being here. But the mists don't feel funny. Not angry."
She stepped forward and the mists seemed to bow back away from her, not as if they were avoiding her but almost in invitation. Denoriel, to her right, put a hand on her shoulder as if to hold her back and Harry paced forward with her to the left. The rest of the party followed, spreading out
"Be careful, Elizabeth," Denoriel said. "The mist could close in on you if you go much farther forward into it."
"It doesn't matter," Elizabeth said. "I can feel the Gate behind me. And the mist is so pretty. See how it sparkles? Though—" her brow wrinkled "—that is rather strange because there's nothing to make it sparkle . . . no sun, no moon."
She had been walking forward as she spoke, but the mists did not curve around as if to engulf her. They kept their distance and she smiled at them and thanked them as she would have thanked any mortal servant. Then she turned to see where the rest of the party was. Aleneil was not immediately apparent, and she turned farther—and froze.
"Who is that?" she asked, her eyes fixed on the Gate.
Denoriel and Harry whirled around both with hands on their swords. This was tentatively Unseleighe territory, since Pasgen had claimed it for his own, and their presence might well be considered an invasion that called for instant attack.
And the figure who appeared in the Gate was the last person Underhill that they wanted to see.
"What are you doing on Unseleighe land?" Vidal roared, his hands glowing with dark power, his face black with rage.
"It is my fault, sir," Elizabeth said, before either Denoriel or Harry could answer.
Denoriel put his hand out to draw Elizabeth back, but he could not touch her and knew her shield was up. He added another layer but said nothing. Vidal had not drawn a weapon or raised his hand to cast any bolts.
Nonetheless, Elizabeth's warning had come too late. On the flanks of the party, Elidir and Mechain had been angling toward the Dark Prince. Elidir had drawn his sword, but there was a flash of light, and suddenly Mechain's hands were at her throat where one of Vidal's pretty glowing ribbons had fixed itself. Her breathing was not yet impeded, but Vidal could strangle her at will.
"And who are you, worthless mortal?" Vidal said, lip curled in disdain.
"Mortals are not worthless," Elizabeth snapped back, touching her left ear and murmuring, "Minnau ymbil." Then louder, "But it is my fault that we are all here. Some time ago, this place was Seleighe and at that time I—I somehow caused a lion to form, a very hungry lion. Now that the place has moved, I felt a creature so dangerous should be removed, not allowed to prey on . . . on those who did not know of the lion's existence."
Vidal smirked down at her, a superior and exceedingly haughty gaze of one who is certain he is not to be gainsaid. "Lion or no lion, you had no right—"
"Enough, Elizabeth," Denoriel said, interrupting Vidal and stepping in front of her. "You cannot reason with this one. It is Vidal Dhu, and he has been behind all the attacks on you. He does not really care about our being on Unseleighe territory. He only wants to be rid of all of us. Let Mechain go, Vidal. If you harm her, you will not be able to escape us all."
"If you harm Mechain or try that ribbon trick on me, you will die quite horribly," Harry said, drawing his gun. "I assure you I can shoot you before you can strangle her or me."
Vidal laughed, but he was really very annoyed with Elizabeth. The girl had a penchant for fouling his luck. He could hardly believe in his good fortune when no one noticed his arrival. They were all intent on the mists ahead of them and had not seen him. To Vidal every minute they looked away brought closer the time when his servants would flood through the Gate to support him. Then Elizabeth had turned.
Now all he could do was pretend it did not matter and play for more time. He stepped out of the Gate, sneering, "O brave and honorable denizens of the Seleighe Court, you are five to my one. Why should I not try to even the odds? I have done your companion no harm, and will do her no harm if you do me none. It is Denoriel Siencyn Macreth Silverhair whom I owe a grudge. Denoriel, who once unfairly used mortal magic to defeat me. What do you say, Denoriel, will you meet me here, where there is no mortal magic? Will you vie with me in duel arcane and bid your companions to swear not to interfere?"
"Don't, Denno," Harry said, immediately. "He'll cheat. You know he will."
Denoriel gripped Harry's arm fondly and looked back at Elizabeth. She was wide-eyed and a little pale but showed no sign of panic. He swung around to Vidal and smiled slowly. Vidal had been the better magician when they met in Elizabeth's bedchamber over ten years ago, but Denoriel had studied magic quite earnestly for some years now. And furthermore, Vidal had been far more gravely injured in that duel than Denoriel. The odds were good that his mind was still not altogether sound.
He stared back at Vidal, coolly. "I will meet you gladly, Vidal, and ask oath of my companions not to interfere with our battle . . . so long as they are free to defend themselves from any of your servants or companions."
"You see I am alone here, you puppy!" Vidal roared. "Make them swear as I command!"
Mechain made a choking sound. Harry raised his gun, and took a step forward, taking clear aim at Vidal's body where he could hardly miss.
It was enough. Vidal winced as the cold iron directed at him sent a slicing of pain across his chest, even at that distance. The pain eroded the last of his self-restraint, and his temper escaped its bonds, which had been tenuous to begin with.
Vidal jumped off the Gate platform and charged toward Denoriel who backed hurriedly away, thrusting Elizabeth toward Harry, who lowered his gun to put a protective arm around her shoulders. The signal was clear. As long as Vidal concentrated on Denoriel, Harry was bound not to help, and his mortal weapon was out of play.
Denoriel was backing up less because he wished to avoid Vidal than because he wanted to draw Vidal to where he would not readily be able to see the others. That this took Denoriel farther from the Gate, he cared not at all.
Denoriel's and Vidal's rush would have carried them into the mists, but those pulled away also, and neither hid Denoriel nor proved any barrier to the triple stream of arcane darts that flashed toward him. He paid no mind to them and they all struck his shield, flared, and disappeared. Instead, he stared fixedly at Vidal; Vidal took that for fear, and readied his next attack, exaltation surging through his veins.
While Vidal watched the course of his knives, a swift, glinting array of near-invisible ribbons of light flashed toward him, not toward his neck and head, which would have drawn his attention, but toward his feet. The harmless-seeming ribbons slithered past his shield and up to his ankles where they suddenly tightened, entangling his feet, and pulling at him with a sudden jerk, so that he nearly fell. The monstrous creature he was in the midst of evoking howled with pain as it began to dissolve before it had entirely formed. In obedience to the last command Vidal had given it, it thrashed at Denoriel.
The violent slash of magical claws that would have pierced Denoriel's shield, merely slid across it.
Vidal kicked loose the ribbons of force with a curse, bringing his shields down across them to sever them. By the time he had refocused his concentration so that the monster was reforming, a thousand tiny creatures had swarmed over it and were feeding voraciously.
They first attacked its eyes, so that it could not see and then its claws, which blunted, softened, then, as the monster howled in pain and confusion, every possible appendage was blanketed in the swarm, and all it could do was thrash and wail, helplessly. Vidal roared with anger, cursing impotently. Denoriel danced aside and the thing blundered ahead blindly into the mist.
Vidal had rid himself of the ribbons at last, and he readied a volley of levin bolts, but before he could launch them, the earth humped up suddenly under his feet and he staggered again, destroying his aim. A volley of energy, formed into bolts of lightning, flashed by Denoriel and off into the mist.
Before Vidal could correct the flight of the bolts, the humps collapsed into shallow holes, and water filled them, creating a glutinous mud. Vidal slipped, fighting to keep to his feet, as once again he was thrown off balance. The magic he gathered sputtered uselessly in a shower of sparks. He screamed curses with his will behind them instead; he who knew only too well how to set a curse in motion, and Denoriel, who had not thought to guard against something he himself would never use, gasped as a grinding pain caught his gut and nearly doubled him over.
A curse of illness, flung at one of the Sidhe, who were never ill—it caught Denoriel completely off his guard. A straightforward attack, he was prepared for, but not this! Fighting the pain, he sent a cloud of butterflies toward Vidal. Although equally beautiful, they were not as innocent as the butterflies of the World Above. These could bite and sting, and like the little beasts that had swarmed Vidal's monster, they blanketed Vidal.
But their abilities proved useless against Vidal's personal shield. All the butterflies could do was effectively blind Vidal by cocooning his head in their lovely wings. He brushed them away and crushed them, but they swarmed in again and again, giving Denoriel time to use what counterspells he could against Vidal's attack.
But he was no healer, and he had no idea how to successfully counter the curse. His efforts were only minimally successful at easing his pain and the bolts of fire and ice he threw splashed harmlessly into nothing on Vidal's shield. Worse, because Denoriel could not bear to draw on Unseleighe power, his ability to send manifestations against Vidal was weakening. Worse yet, he was facing the Gate and saw that Vidal's trap had been sprung. Three ogres, five boggles, and a clutch of pixies, hags, and phookas leapt off the Gate platform, leaving room for three dark Sidhe. His heart cramped, then went cold as ice.
Denoriel immediately shouted a warning, but the boggles gave their own game away. Instead of quietly sneaking up on Harry and Elizabeth, who were watching the battle between Vidal and Denoriel, one of the boggles leapt off the platform right onto Elidir's back. Elidir had been on his knees working over the ribbon that encircled Mechain's neck and the boggle caught him totally unaware.
Elidir fell flat atop Mechain, who grunted under his weight. But she was an old Sidhe, and had not grown old by being inattentive. She did not permit the fact that Elidir had flattened her to distract her. As the boggle tried to bite through the back of Elidir's neck, she swiftly drew the knife from Elidir's belt and thrust upward, stabbing the creature in the throat. The blow was more furious than aimed, but the knife was broad and well honed and the boggle was dead before it could cry out.
The others paid the first boggle no mind; perhaps they thought that their companion was feeding on the bodies it was lying on. They ran toward Harry and Elizabeth on whom the three ogres were also advancing. But now both Harry and Elizabeth were aware of their presence and their intentions, and neither of them were going to be easy prey.
Harry shot one ogre in the eye, the second in the throat and the third in the chest.
All three continued to advance, though staggering; Harry backed away, unable to decide whether to expend his two final bolts on the four boggles or hope to hold all four off with his sword. Meanwhile, he pushed Elizabeth aside, telling her to run into the mist.
She resisted, moving with him, then pointed and waved her finger. All four boggles tripped over their own feet and fell to the ground. And the ogre Harry had shot in the eye also toppled over. Too stupid, Harry thought a little hysterically, to realize for a while that it was dead. Soon Harry saw that the hysterical thought might be near true; blood was pouring down the chest of the one he had shot in the throat and although it was wavering on its feet, it was not seeking him. Instead, it was circling blindly in place, in a sickly-comic parody of a dancer—
The one he had shot in the chest, however, was picking up speed and still charging toward him with purpose—until its feet stuck firmly to the ground. The momentum of the advance carried the upper body of the creature forward and it fell, driving Harry's bolt right through the body. The ogre did not attempt to rise.
Harry ducked around the fallen ogre, trying to push Elizabeth behind him, and drew his sword as the boggles climbed to their feet. Elizabeth peered around Harry's shoulder and two went down again. The third leapt straight at Harry, screaming, hands extended to grip and claw, teeth bared to bite; all Harry had to do was raise his sword and it spitted itself. The fourth was waving a club, and it took Harry a few minutes to work around the vicious slashes and thrusts to kill the creature.
The two who had twice been tripped were up again, howling with rage. Elizabeth drew breath to invoke gwthio. She was beginning to feel sort of hollow and shaky, but suddenly the tenor of the boggles' cries changed from fury to terror. They began to beat at their bodies as if they were being stung all over. At the edge of the mist, Pasgen appeared, his face white with anger over the invasion of his private experimental domain. He gestured. The boggles broke and fled to the Gate.
Then Pasgen fixed his eyes on the Sidhe who was still standing on the Gate platform, apparently holding the Gate open and gesturing to a gang of goblins. Those suddenly stopped, as if they had run into a wall. Pasgen blinked; he had not done that.
The Sidhe on the platform, who was raising a hand to throw a spell at Elizabeth, drew Pasgen's attention away from the furious goblins. Pasgen gestured; the Sidhe's hand fell limply to his side and then he fell too, crumpling bonelessly to the ground near the platform. Pasgen spoke one sharp word, and the Gate closed.
Elidir and Mechain had regained their feet and their weapons and went back to back. Just in time. In a moment, they were holding off three phookas. At the other side of the gate, Aleneil, a sword of light in her hand, was facing a hissing hag. Another hag lay twitching at her feet. The pixies, shrieking that this was no game and they did not wish to play, had fled back through the Gate just before Pasgen closed it, falling afoul of the goblins and pushing them back.
The phookas attacking Mechain and Elidir were laughing insanely, changing form, and charging the two Sidhe. But Elidir and Mechain were old hands at dealing with malignant magical creatures and were throwing spells, slashing at them with whips of power, lashing them with branches of fiery thorns, so they cried and retreated. If Vidal began to strangle Mechain again, they would be in trouble, but Vidal himself was too busy to remember Mechain.
While Denoriel's butterflies bedeviled Vidal, barely giving the Dark Prince a moment's sighting of his enemy to cast spells, levin bolts, and curses at him, Denoriel had draped his enemy in a sparkling mesh that tightened around him erratically, interfering with his gestures and aborting half his spells. Denoriel had also been working desperately to deepen and widen the mud pit in which Vidal was standing. He had not added any water to the pit, so Vidal was not completely aware that he was almost hip deep in the ground.
The two dark mages who had come with Prysor were aware of Vidal's increasing danger. For some moments they hesitated, glancing at each other. If they did nothing, there was a chance that the Bright Court Sidhe he was battling would best him and they would be rid of him. And then both sighed, almost simultaneously. They would not be rid of him. There was little chance that the Bright Court mage would kill Vidal. And Vidal knew they were there. And he would know that they had done nothing to help him . . . and what he would do to them when he was finally victorious would be unspeakable.
Denoriel's butterflies were almost gone. Three or four still fluttered around Vidal's head but they no longer obscured Vidal's vision enough to protect Denoriel. The bright mesh was melting away. In his own territory Vidal could draw power to replace all that he expended in his attacks on Denoriel. Denoriel had no such resource and his shield was growing very thin. Twice Vidal's knives almost came through and only a desperate effort at blocking the exact place they would have pierced saved him. But the last of the shield was dissolving, and he had no power to restore it.
When the boggles ran for the Gate, Elizabeth had watched them to be sure they would not return. It was then she saw the two mages standing just before it pointing at her Denno. A swift glance showed her that Denno was down on his knees, showed her that the knives Vidal was throwing had nearly touched her Denno. Terror welled up in Elizabeth. Her Denno was already hurt. He would be killed. Rage mingled with the terror and a terrible heat began to build in her body.
There was no spell she could use on Vidal—and she knew she must not interfere in Denno's battle directly. Anyway, Vidal's feet were already useless. Cilgwthio could not affect a man in a hole. But those mages pointing at Denno must be doing something to harm him. She would fix them!
"Cilgwthio, myfi ymbil" she screamed, pointing at the mage to the right.
The push was so violent that the Sidhe's chest caved in and he disappeared completely.
The other mage, seeing what had happened, began to run toward Elizabeth, raising a hand, mouthing some spell.
"Stickfoot, myfi ymbil" she shrieked. "Myfi ymbil! Myfi ymbil!"
The mage stopped dead and began to scream, not spells or curses but plain shrieks of pain and terror. His feet had not merely stuck to the ground momentarily, they had become part of the ground.
But Vidal—Vidal was about to—he was going to—
Stop
Everything stopped. Profound silence. Total stillness.
Elizabeth's mental shield rang like a bell inside her skull. By the Gate, atop an elvensteed black as night, there was a being, male but not a man, so beautiful that despite her fear and anger, despite the desperation of their situation, Elizabeth's still-nascent sexuality yearned toward him.
Who has loosed mortal magic in my realm?
If not for the shield, Elizabeth thought, she would have been knocked unconscious. She shook her head slightly, looked around for help, but Denno and Da were frozen into statues, and so was everyone else.
"Oh, that was me," Elizabeth said in a very small voice, and the dark eyes of the being turned to look quite through her, to pin her in place like an errant bit of lace. "But I am mortal. I don't have any other kind of magic." Then her body straightened, her lips firmed, her jaw jutted forward, her voice strengthened. "And those people . . . well, there's only one of them left . . . they were hurting my Denno! And it wasn't allowed. We all took oath not to interfere with the duel."
King Oberon's expression had slowly been transmuting from enraged and implacable to astonished and uncomprehending, and he was by now looking almost as stunned as those he had rendered immobile.
"Who are you?" he asked in a much more normal tone of voice, without all of those—forces behind it.
Elizabeth had not been bred to court life to no purpose. She recognized authority, even if she could not put a name to it, and she sank into a curtsey right down to the ground.
"I am the Lady Elizabeth, youngest daughter of King Henry . . . oh," her voice caught on a sob. "He . . . he is dead. My father is dead." The eyes raised to Oberon were now swimming with tears."
"I am sorry to hear that," Oberon said.
He was sorry to hear it. Henry's rule had suited him very well and he knew Edward's reign and Mary's would be far more perilous for the magical world. Now he dismounted. The elvensteed nodded gravely, and disappeared off into the mist. He made an idle, absentminded gesture, and a black throne on a dais appeared beneath and behind him. When he was seated, he beckoned Elizabeth closer. She rose and came forward, curtsying again—but then stood straight up, bringing up her chin, determined to face him as one of royal blood.
"I am King Oberon," he said. "What is a mortal princess doing Underhill?"
"It is a very long story, Your Majesty," Elizabeth said, slowly, to gain her time for thought. "I am more than willing to explain, but I am afraid I would bore you or waste your time."
"There are quicker ways to get information than listening to long stories," Oberon said, and reached carelessly into her mind . . . only to bruise himself on the shield. "Tangwystl," Oberon muttered, recognizing her touch at once and thus understanding that Titania was involved.
For a moment red gleamed within the black of his eyes, and Elizabeth sank down into a curtsey again, head bent against her knee, recognizing royal anger when she saw it. Oberon stared down at her. He could, of course, have broken through the shield—it had only stopped him because he did not expect it to be there—but to break the shield might damage the raped mind.
For a moment, irritation with his willful queen almost sealed Elizabeth's fate. Titania deserved to have her pet destroyed . . . but the visions of Elizabeth's reign were more potent. That would be a time for the Sidhe! They would be almost as free of the mortal world as they were of Underhill. And the music, and the poetry, the art and the plays . . . Marlowe, Webster . . . Shakespeare . . .
"Stand up, child," he said with impatience. "You mentioned a duel. Why?"
"Because we—at least my friends of the Bright Court and I—we were in Unseleighe territory. At least, they said it might be Unseleighe territory. But, Your Majesty, we didn't mean any harm. It was the lion. I was afraid it would hurt someone. And Denno and Lady Alana and Elidir and Mechain they all came to help me."
"The lion," Oberon repeated, his lips twitching. "And why was the lion your responsibility?"
Elizabeth looked down and her voice was small again as she said, "Because I asked the mists to make it." She looked up. "But, sire, I had to do something. There were two men who had abducted me. I wanted the lion to frighten them but . . ." Her voice faded again. "But I think it ate them."
Oberon was staring at her this time with intense curiosity. "You asked the mists to make a lion?"
"I didn't know how. Not really. But I had seen Elidir and Mechain create—" Once again, her knowledge of the ways of kings and their courts saved her. She caught the small gesture that indicated King Oberon had heard enough. Elizabeth stopped speaking and waited.
Oberon turned his head slightly. "Elidir and Mechain," he said.
They stood where they had STOPPED. A phooka was shying away from Mechain's sword, and a spell still sparkled on Elidir's fingertips. Oberon pointed—once, twice, thrice; the phookas were gone.
"You are grossly recovered from the last time I had news of you, slipping away into Dreaming," Oberon said, gesturing for Mechain and Elidir to approach.
"We have had work to do, Majesty. Useful work. Intriguing work. Harry," Mechain said, bowing, knowing that the whole story was doubtless unreeling into Oberon's mind, "decided that what now lived in El Dorado and Alhambra was unhealthy. We have cleared much of the surface evil away, but we have no way as yet to reach the Great Evil."
Oberon leaned forward, suddenly intent. "But you intend to do that? You are not afraid it will touch you? You cannot destroy it, you know."
"Yes, we know, Lord Oberon," Elidir said. "But Harry . . . we think the Great Evil is afraid of Harry; there is something in him—his goodness, perhaps?—that it fears. And Harry thinks we can trap it somewhere . . . perhaps the Void. Then—"
"Harry thinks." Oberon stared at Harry, who straightened from the lunge into which he had STOPPED and came forward.
"The little FitzRoy," Oberon said. "You are with us for good now, I see. So you think you can cleanse Alhambra and El Dorado. How quickly you are grown into a man."
"Mortals do age quickly, Great Majesty," Harry said, bowing deeply, and seeming not at all perturbed by Oberon's overwhelming presence. The fighting had disarranged his hair and the blue star burned bright on his forehead. "And yes, if it does not displease you, Lord Oberon, I do wish to make the forbidden cities open again. It seems a small repayment for the shelter that the Bright Court has offered me. As they stand, they are an invitation to the Inquisition to find a foothold Underhill and threaten us."
Oberon laughed. "Mortals! Always thinking ahead."
The laugh emboldened Elizabeth, who had been anxiously waiting for Denoriel to be freed. His face was frozen into an expression of anguish and his body twisted in an effort to avoid a levin bolt.
"Your Majesty," she said, pleading in every inch of her, "please free my Denno."
The black eyes turned to her; the eyes did not smile. "He is my Lord Denoriel, not your Denno."
Elizabeth met Oberon's gaze with more courage than sense but in the golden eyes Oberon saw the delights of an age of furious creation, even new worlds to be discovered. What a queen she would be! But she was very tender of those she loved. Could she be hard enough to her enemies?
So he asked, "And what of the other, Prince Vidal?"
The golden eyes glowed even brighter. "Well, I do not rule here, and I do not know your ways or laws. But if I were in your place, Your Majesty," she said coldly as Denoriel straightened, rose to his feet, and came toward them, a hand pressed to his belly. "I would, I'faith, just make that hole as deep as his sins and as dark as his cold heart, and drop him down it. But I confess to you that I am prejudiced against him. He keeps trying to kill me, you see, and I think it only fair to return the gift."
Now, at a gesture of Oberon's index finger, Vidal rose out of the hole Denoriel had dug for him. The levin bolt hissed in his fingers. He twisted and tried to throw it at Denoriel. It popped in his hand, and he howled. Oberon sighed and set him down a little apart from the others.
Aleneil, who happened to be nearest to him, hurried away to stand near her brother. Her hands followed Denoriel's to his pain, and her lips began to move. Denoriel gritted his teeth. Oberon's index finger twitched, and Denoriel sighed with relief. Oberon wanted neither spells nor a perception of pain to annoy him.
"Hear my words and heed them, for they are final! To kill Lady Elizabeth is forbidden," Oberon said flatly. "Find some other way to gain your ends, Prince Vidal. And do not say that I am unfair. It is equally forbidden to the Bright Court to harm in any way the new little king or the Lady Mary. Two are protected from them while only one is forbidden to you. That, I think is fair enough. I will also overlook the broken oath—"
But Vidal pounced upon that statement with the glee of a lawyer finding a gap in the law. "My followers took no oath. It is Denoriel's friends who did not abide by our agreement. And they came onto my ground. I have every right to defend my territory."
"Unformed land is no one's ground," Oberon said, with a glare that should have warned Vidal that he was venturing into treacherous territory. "Until it is formed it is free to all." He looked away from them, into the depths of the mist, hesitated for a moment, and then nodded. "Still, this place is nearer domains held by Unseleighe than by Seleighe. I cede you the right not to welcome Bright Court Sidhe here, but you called assistance when you had agreed to a duel."
"They were five to my one! Why should I trust them?"
Oberon's eye swept the Bright Court Sidhe. Harry stepped forward. "Sire, we defended ourselves but none of us interfered with the duel."
Oberon lifted an eyebrow. "Well, Prince Vidal? Who beside Denoriel contested with you?"
"No one," Vidal snarled; Oberon would know the truth, it was useless to lie. "But that was only because they were all engaged with my people."
Oberon's eyes rested briefly on Elizabeth, but she was looking at Denoriel; the Sidhe smiled back at her to give comfort, although he was pallid and drained. Insensibly they drew closer together. Oberon was reasonably sure that he had arrived just in time to prevent Elizabeth from killing Vidal, as she had killed the mage whose body was floating in the void when she loosed the magic that drew him to this place. Now that would have been an unpardonable breech of the law. But it had not happened, and he was inclined to let things lie as they were.
"There is no proof either way," Oberon said to Vidal. "Thus, you may go about your business, Vidal Dhu, but do not transgress against the Lady Elizabeth again."
If hate could have killed, Oberon would have dissolved under Vidal's glare, but the King did not even deign to notice, although Vidal did not leave. Oberon looked at Denoriel and crooked a finger. Denoriel came forward and bowed.
"You know the rules about bringing a mortal Underhill." Denoriel winced as Oberon extracted from his already bruised mind the whole tale of how and why Elizabeth was first brought Underhill, and then that of her grief for her father and his desire to let her heal more quickly.
"This is no playground for sad mortals," Oberon snapped. "I think you are far too much engaged with Lady Elizabeth. I think it is time for a new guardian—"
"No." Elizabeth's voice as she interrupted him was firm and hard. "I do not desire any other guardian. I do not need any other guardian. My Denno—"
"He is not your Denno," Oberon growled. "He is mine!"
Elizabeth swallowed hard, but she did not lower her head. Her eyes were yellow flames that still met Oberon's challengingly. "Mine," she said, "or no Sidhe at all in the mortal world ever again!"
Oberon was so outraged that he stood up. Denoriel leapt in front of Elizabeth to take whatever blow might be launched. Oberon's lips parted . . .
And a bolt of white lightning struck between the king and those he was about to punish.
Out of it came Queen Titania, a creature of white flame and white-hot anger, fully a match for Oberon's black fury. So much power burned in and around her that she did not need any weapon. She was not an avenger—she was something more powerful than that.
She was a protector. And woe betide whatever threatened what she protected.
"And she is mine!" Titania said, her voice like the trumpets on a battlefield. "She will not be bent or broken. She will have what will feed her spirit and let her nurture an entire nation into life and light and joy, whether you will or no!"
Oberon's face turned livid with fury. "I will—"
But Titania was quicker. "Begone!" she commanded, making a sweeping gesture so that the trailing sleeves of her gown flared like the wings of an angel, and again her voice rang out with power and glory that could not be withstood. "All here begone to their home places."
Utter blackness, and falling, and this time pain as contending forces seemed to be trying to tear Elizabeth apart. But before she could even try to scream, she was lying on the hearthrug in her own bedchamber.
"Denno," she breathed, as Blanche cried out with surprise and rushed to lift Elizabeth up. She hugged herself with pain and terror, and tears started up in her eyes. "I am going to lose my Denno," she wailed. "What will I do? What will I do? My father is dead and my protector is reft from me."
"My lady, my lady, how did you come to be lying on the rug?" Blanche cried, clutching her shivering mistress in her arms, as she wept and would not be comforted. "I thought . . . I thought Lord Denno and Lady Alana—"
Then she breathed a sigh of relief as Denoriel rushed out of the dressing room. The relief did not last long when she saw the bruises and burns on his face and hands and that his clothing was very nearly in rags. Blanche had no chance to say anything, however, because Elizabeth wrenched herself out of Blanche's arms and flung herself into Denno's, and now she wept as if all the comfort she had lost had suddenly been restored to her, unlooked for.
Whatever had just happened—well, it was beyond the understanding of a simple mortal witch. But one thing a simple mortal witch did understand, and that was that food was generally, if not the answer to all needs, certainly a great comfort in itself.
Blanche shook herself and went to get wine and cakes; both looked as if they could use refreshment.
"Are you all right?" Elizabeth gasped, dashing the tears out of her eyes. "Oh, Denno, I am so sorry. I shouldn't have gone on saying you were mine. But you aren't his. You belong to yourself."
"Yes, but no more than any king's subject. I owe him service and loyalty." He smiled broadly. "But the look on his face . . . There aren't many who dare claim what is my lord's."
"It was so foolish," she said, burying her face in his breast. "If I had had the sense to plead with him, we would not all be in such trouble. If . . ." the Queen was what Elizabeth wanted to say but could not, so she compromised with "If she had not arrived . . ." And then her eyes grew rounder. "Oh, Grace of God, when his face turned that color . . . What will happen? Will they destroy each other?"
Denoriel held her tight; she could feel him chuckling. "Wanting to be with you was not the only reason I arrived here so quickly I did not even wash or change my clothes. There may be some titanic explosions in my home place and I wanted to be well out of the way."
"Will he hurt her?" Elizabeth breathed, not inclined to laugh.
"No, love, he will not. He will rant and rage and doubtless blast some innocent landscape, but he will never harm her."
"Or she him?" Elizabeth asked anxiously. It was very rare in these times for a man not to dominate his wife, but when it happened, sometimes the wife took gross advantage. And she could not bear the thought of two beings so beautiful, and so matchless, ever harming one another. She could not bear the thought of them even being angry with one another—
"No, nor she him," Denoriel said, still smiling. "They love one another, you see, so there will be a great deal of shouting and screaming, but in the end they will come to agreement."
"To take you away from me?" Elizabeth barely whispered.
"Oh, no. I do not think he was ever in earnest about that." He chuckled again. "At least not until you stood there looking him in the eye and saying 'he is mine.'"
"But I thought I would lose you," she whispered, feeling sick at how nearly she had.
"You cannot lose me," Denoriel murmured bending his head so that he spoke into her bright hair. "You cannot ever lose me."
"Even though you are . . . Other? I have always been afraid that you would grow tired of me."
"Whatever I am—" He pulled away enough to look deep into her golden eyes. "I am yours, utterly and completely yours, for now and for every day of your living. It is my duty and my joy. You are the light in my life. And you will be that, now and forever, no matter who would say us nay."