Dhiammara

12 City of the Flying Horse

From the air, it looked to be no more than a hill. D’arvan, hanging facedown across the horse’s withers, his hands bound tightly behind him with what felt like thin strands of flexible metal, tried to turn his head and blot his watering eyes against his shoulder in order to see better. It wasn’t easy. The Phaerie steeds were moving so fast through the thin, cold air that the Mage’s long, flaxen hair kept blowing in his eyes, and he’d been plagued by streaming eyes and a running nose for the entire journey, which had lasted through the night and into morning. D’arvan blinked again and squinted down toward the craggy, tree-covered eminence. Surely this pinnacle of rock in the middle of nowhere couldn’t be their destination?

Apparently, it could. One by one, the steeds of the Phaerie peeled off from their phalanx and began to spiral down toward the steep, forested slopes of the summit. As D’arvan’s captor began to descend, the Mage’s eyes and mind seemed to blur for a nauseating instant- With a dizzying lurch, the scene below him snapped into its true perspective in the clear, cold northern light.—The hill was far, far bigger than he had thought—and every one of those trees, though given the outward appearance of a woodland giant by Phaerie magic, was a soaring tower.

The Forest Lord and his subjects had clearly done their best to make this city a true reproduction of their magical citadel Between the Worlds. Using their powers to transform nature, they had created a beautiful, functional—and living—home which extended high into the air via the groves of tower-trees.—D’arvan guessed it must also continue deep into the ground beneath the hill itself, for he could see many balconies and windows embellishing the ledges and sheer rock faces. The wooded glades were blooming gardens with bowers, streams, and fountains, and waterfalls cascaded down the hillside like drifts of pure white lace.

Behind the hill a range of towering mountains marched along the skyline. When the Mage saw streaks of snow on their peaks and the blue-shadowed walls of icy canyons he was horrified to discover how far north he had been brought. Closer to his destination, the scattered peaks dwindled into a less rugged range with lower crests. The nearest stretched long arms out toward the Phaerie city, enfolding its eminence within a broad green glen whose sides were cloaked in the darker green of forest. As the Phaerie steed continued its curving descent around the side of the hill, D’arvan could look into the valley, where a long and shimmering stretch of water lay, with cultivated farmland round its shores, and plentiful herds of cattle and sheep to graze the sheltered fields.—It was impossible not to be awed by the sight of this magnificent new kingdom that Hellorin had carved out of the lonely northern wilderness. While the Phaerie were exiled from the world, it had been easy to forget just how powerful, capricious, and dangerous the Forest Lord had really been. Now, as he saw the scope of his father’s vast accomplishments spread out below him, D’arvan’s heart beat a little faster with apprehension. They had not exactly parted friends, yet to have found him so quickly after his return through time, Hellorin must have maintained a constant vigil throughout all the years of D’arvan’s absence. And now that he had captured him, what fate had the Forest Lord in store for his wayward son?

The Phaerie steeds landed on a plateau far up on the eastern side of the hill.—D’arvan was hauled down from the horse’s back and surrounded by a group of Hellorin’s warriors. He just had time to hear Maya cursing at the top of her voice before he was dragged away. He caught confused glimpses of trees, smooth lawns dotted with flowers, and paved and graveled paths that wound uphill amid the glades. Curious Phaerie faces, with their large, deep eyes and sharp-boned features, watched curiously as he was hurried along in the relentless grip of his guards, until at last he was pushed through a pair of large double doors that pierced the hillside, and into the gloomy corridor beyond.

“Take your bloody hands off me, you outlandish bastards!” Maya snarled.—Neither her protests nor her struggles were any use—her abductors simply manhandled her more cruelly. Realizing that this was the time for circumspection, not fighting, Maya let herself go limp as she was borne away.

“But when I finally get my hands free to hold a sword again, Hellorin will be finding himself a few subjects short,” she vowed to herself grimly.—Her captors took her in a different direction from D’arvan, away round the side of the hill, always heading downward. Maya, though she was being jarred and jounced along, noticed that the trees grew thinner as they came to the northern face. The slopes became rougher and more desolate here, with stiff bracken and spiky gorse obscuring the winding trails. Great boulders patched with yellow lichen and shaggy green moss thrust through the thin soil like bones through the skin of a crow-picked corpse.

At the bottom of the hill on the northern side, the rock face was honeycombed with tunnels, each one closed off at its entrance by a barred iron gate and guarded by Phaerie bearing tall spears tipped with long blades that glittered with the same sharp, cold, merciless light that sparked from their eyes. Brief words in the incomprehensible Phaerie language passed between Maya’s abductors and the guards; then she was passed like some inanimate package from one group to the other. Her new captors plunged into one of the dark openings, and Maya lost sight of the daylight as she was carried inside.

The tunnel was damp, its earthen sides and roof shored up with rough planks.—Straggling roots protruded like reaching fingers through the cracks between them. The damp wooden boards were crawling with a skin of slimy mold whose greenish phosphorescence was the only light. The air was heavily tainted with the odors of wet soil and decaying leaf-matter, and cold with the bone-deep chill of the grave. The voices of the Phaerie, who had been talking softly among themselves in their own, strange, sibilant tongue, sounded flat and dead, hushed by the all-absorbing clay that surrounded them like a suffocating shroud. Maya, her body still numb with cold from the interminable journey through the thin, cold heights, her limbs held fast in the viselike grip of her Phaerie guards, felt as though the walls and roof were closing in on her.—It was as though her captors were trying to bury her alive. She fought hard against the panic that was threatening to rise within her. It seemed that the best way to overcome her overwhelming sense of dismay and dread was to close her eyes and blot out her surroundings by trying to think of some way out of this impossible situation.

After a time the almost soundless whisper of soft-shod Phaerie feet on the moist earthen floor of the tunnel changed to the scuff of leather against stone, and the alien voices were sharpened by a ringing echo. At the same time the grip of her abductors shifted, her head was suddenly lower than her feet, and the jouncing became far more pronounced than before.

Maya’s eyes snapped open. The walls of the tunnel had turned from earth to rough-hewn rock, and she was being carried headfirst down an uneven stone staircase that was lit at intervals by crystal globes that glowed with a warm, dancing, green-gold light like sunlight seen through trees. At the bottom of the staircase was a pair of tall gates with bars of twisted iron that blocked the passage from floor to roof. These were watched by another pair of guards, one of them a Phaerie woman. Again, uncomprehended words passed between the new captors and the old, and Maya was lowered to the ground and held upright as the female Phaerie ran expert hands over her body and limbs—just as though she were a horse at market.

The warrior, humiliated and incensed, drew back her head to spit in the woman’s face—and was brought up short by the cold, pitiless iron of the alien creature’s stare, which turned her blood to pure ice in her veins. The Phaerie lifted a warning hand, and Maya swallowed the mouthful of saliva hastily.—The woman hit her anyway—left, right, once on either side of her face—and Maya’s head exploded in pain as the touch of the Phaerie left behind a trail of freezing fire that seemed to eat like acid into the tortured bone of her skull. She was still screaming when they tore the clothes from her body and fastened a slender chain of some ice-cold metal around her neck. Then they opened the tall iron gates and thrust her through them, to fall down a short flight of half a dozen steps and roll to a standstill, naked, breathless and bruised, on the dusty cavern floor below.

“My dear—are you all right?”

Maya, her vision blurred with tears of pain, couldn’t see who was speaking, but at least the voice sounded female, briskly kind—and human. “Of course I’m bloody not,” she muttered thickly, for she had bitten right through her lip.—Nonetheless, she groped for the hand that reached out to help her, and used it to lever herself to her knees, where she spat out a mouthful of dust and blood. Knuckling the salty moisture from her eyes, she looked up to see a tall, bony woman of middle years stooping over her, wearing nothing but a thin gold chain around her neck and a frown of concern.

Rubbing gingerly at the side of her face, that still throbbed with the ebbing remnants of that deadly, aching chill, Maya blinked up at the woman. “Who in Chathak’s name are you?”

The frown went through an infinitesimal shift from concern to disapproval.

“I’m Licia,” the woman replied. She withdrew her proffered hand and with a brusque, embarrassed gesture smoothed her silver-shot brown hair, which was scraped back from her face into the severest of knots. “The lacemaker from Nexis,” she added, as though that explained everything.

Maya rubbed harder at her aching head, sure she was missing the significance of all this. She looked beyond the woman to see that she was in a gigantic cavern, lit by further clusters of the golden globes that starred the roof and walls. The ground sloped downhill from the level area at the bottom of the stairs where she knelt, and below her the warrior could see a cluster of small stone shelters built around the edges of a shimmering dark mere. What in the name of all the Gods was this place?

Still confused, she turned back to Licia. “Well, if you’re from Nexis, what in perdition are you doing here?” she demanded.

“Good gracious, where have you been for the past five years?” The woman sounded shocked. “How can you possibly not know what has been happening?”

The air of the cavern was dry and comfortably warm, yet Maya shivered, wishing desperately that she had something to cover her nakedness. She felt oddly and unpleasantly vulnerable like this, and somehow that made it hard to give her whole attention to what the woman was saying. The Phaerie’s blow seemed to have scattered her wits far more than an equivalent clout from a human being would have done. And deep in her heart, a small, cold core of fear was beginning to expand like a germinating seed.

She glared at the woman. “What sort of a stupid thing is that to say? Quite obviously I don’t have a bloody clue what’s going on....” All at once, she realized that she would gain absolutely nothing from antagonizing this woman, who, from her stony expression, didn’t look as though she suffered fools gladly, either. Maya bit off her angry words. “I apologize,” she sighed. “I might be sore, confused, and downright scared, but there’s no need to take it out on you.” She held out her hand. “My name is Maya, and I’m a warrior. And you’re right—I’ve been away from Nexis for several years.”

Licia’s stern expression softened. “You poor thing—of course you’re afraid, and you’re bound to be confused. These abductions didn’t come easy to any of us—it’s always a dreadful shock at first. You come back with me to my shelter, and I’ll get you something warm to drink.” She reached out with a surprisingly strong grip and helped the warrior to her feet.

“And please—could you spare me something to wear?” Maya asked her hopefully.

“Any old rag ...”

“I’m afraid not.” Licia shook her head regretfully. “When the work gangs go outside the Phaerie allow them clothing, but it’s taken away from them again when they return. In the caverns they keep us naked. Like animals.” She spat out the words as though the taste of them disgusted her. “It all helps to wear down our hope and spirit—to tame us, as the Phaerie put it.”

Shock coursed through Maya, as she stopped dead in her tracks. Suddenly she understood. “You mean the Phaerie are using humans as slaves?” She remembered Hellorin, D’arvan’s father, and his wry, half-amused kindness toward her. Did he know she was here? Had he ordered it? Surely he wouldn’t do this to his own son’s lover? Then she remembered the long months he had condemned her to spend as that double-damned unicorn, unable even to communicate with the one she loved—and suddenly, she wasn’t so certain. When it came down to it, she was only a mere, despised human, and Hellorin was capable of anything—anything at all. And if he would do this to her, what would he do to D’arvan, his delinquent son? A shiver of dread coursed through her.

Licia tugged at her elbow, urging her forward between the rows of rough shelters. There was not another soul in sight. “Of course they use us as slaves—those bastards.” The epithet, spoken with such venom, was startling, coming as it did from a woman who looked so old-maidish and prim. “What did you expect—they brought us here because they like our company?” An ugly scowl settled across the lacemaker’s heavy brows. “Although they like the company of some well enough,” she added bitterly. “There’s many a young lass has bought herself out of here by joining the enemy and mothering Phaerie offspring—for some reason the immortal blood always seems to run true.” She sighed. “There are some days down here in the dark, when I would sell my soul for fresh air and a glimpse of sunlight, I can hardly blame them. Other times, I would stick a knife through their treacherous hearts as soon as blink—but there, I was too damn old and barren to be asked, so maybe I’m only jealous.”

“What do the others do—the folk down here?” Maya asked, in some trepidation.—Licia shrugged. “Some wait on the Phaerie as servants, cooking and cleaning, fetching and carrying and the like. Some folk labor at building and carving new living quarters under the hill, and some work in the fields and barns, tending the crops and herds. After all,” she added nastily, “it would be far too much to expect the great and powerful Phaerie to plough or hoe or shovel cow shit. They wouldn’t sully their skinny white hands. We others—the skilled artisans,” she added proudly, “we make whatever our masters need, and our only reward is the food in our bellies and the continuing absence of pain.”

The woman, her head lifted high and proud, strode along with great dignity despite her nakedness, and Maya had to stretch her legs to keep up with her.—As she walked, some soldier’s instinct told her she was being watched, and gradually she became aware of stealthy movement within the gloom of some of the stone shelters—the pale shadow of a face or hand round the edge of a doorway, the flash of an eye in a window embrasure as a head ducked quickly beneath the sill. All too soon, this furtive spying on her began to turn from irritating to unnerving. “Licia . . . ?” she asked uneasily, not wanting to betray her disquiet.

“Don’t worry,” the lacemaker shrugged. “They’re nervous of strangers, that’s all. We have a rule that only one of us comes out to greet a newcomer—usually, incomers are either terrified or dangerous. We’ve found from experience that it’s wisest to give new captives a little while to settle in. You’ll meet the others later, when the work gangs return from the fields, and we can introduce you to everyone, all together.”

Soon they reached a low, doorless, windowless stone dwelling, indistinguishable from the rest, near the shore of the lake. Licia ushered the warrior inside, into a single room with nothing but a thick layer of some thick, soft, fibrous stuff on the floor. Nevertheless, the hovel was spotlessly clean and brightly lit with more of the glowing golden globes, which burned, this time, with a clear and steady light instead of the usual irritating flicker.

Maya reached up a curious hand to the Phaerie lamps, which hung from the ceiling like clusters of some alien fruit. Her fingers were bathed in a deep and steady warmth, like summer sunlight. “Why are these different?” she asked Licia.

The lacemaker snorted. “Those wicked buggers keep the big cavern lights flickering like that all the time, so none of us can think straight—you’d be surprised how it gets to you after a while. But they can’t do that in here because of the lace. I need a clear, bright, steady light for that kind of fine work, or I’d go blind—and what worries the Phaerie more, the lace turns into a mess of tangles.” Her face twisted in a humorless smile. “I’m the best lacemaker in Nexis—or I was.”

With a wave of her hand she indicated a plain wooden table at one end of the room, on which there lay a thick pad of cloth, a cluster of delicate, spindle-shaped lace bobbins, each topped with a colored bead, and spools of shimmering, rainbow-hued thread that looked finer than spider silk. “My work is in tremendous demand among the Phaerie,” she told Maya with no modesty at all. “Even the males, including Lord Hellorin, are very conscious of their finery. So that gets me the occasional favor. And at least I get a table and a stool for working. Most folk have to make do with squatting on the floor like dumb beasts in a byre.”

She reached out and hooked a long-legged stool from beneath the table. “Here, girl—sit down. You look a bit shaky, which is no surprise. Put it in the corner, so you can rest your back against the wall.” She reached deep into a shadowy niche hollowed into the thick stone of the wall, and produced a roughly made pottery cup. “Here—” She handed Maya an apple and a hard heel of some kind of bread, “We won’t be fed again until evening, when the workers come back from outside, but I usually keep a little something back for emergencies. You’ll feel better for some food inside you, and I’ll go and fetch you some water. You take your ease awhile—I won’t insult you by saying don’t fret, but you can put it off till later. Worry’s like yeast—if you go on feeding it, it’ll keep indefinitely. I’ll be back before you know it.”

Left alone, Maya sat down gratefully as instructed, feeling too weary, beaten, and betrayed even to wonder or care where the lacemaker had gone—although the warrior had a strong suspicion that Licia had used the fetching of water as an excuse to go and report to her fellow-slaves. Though her stomach was aching with hunger, Maya left the food untasted on the table. She knew she should be thinking of ways to find D’arvan, she ought to be planning some sort of escape, but she was tired, so very tired....

“There—I told you I wouldn’t be long.”

“What?” Maya’s eyes flew open. She jerked upright, just saving herself from falling off the stool.

Licia held out the crude cup and Maya, who would have sold her soul just then for a mug of taillin laced with strong spirits, sipped, and made a face. It was water, plain and simple, but harsh with minerals and warm—about the temperature of a comfortable bath. The lacemaker, watching her, raised a sardonic brow. “You’ll have to excuse us, but the wine consignment doesn’t seem to have arrived yet.”

“Is this all they give you to drink?” Maya asked in dismay.

“Not at all—you can have it cold, if you’d prefer.”

“Seven bloody demons! Licia—do the Phaerie treat you cruelly?” Judging from the cold-blooded severity of the blow she had received from the Phaerie woman, Maya suspected she already knew the answer.

“What do you think?” Licia’s pale blue eyes were smoldering with bitter rage.

“We’re less than insects to them. We artisans are lucky at least—they appreciate our skills and take better care of us—but the lives of the common laborers have absolutely no value to them at all. If they injure or kill a few Mortals, so what? There’ll always be plenty more.”

Maya was appalled. Somehow, she had never suspected her lover’s people to be like this! Suddenly the Magefolk insistence on banishing the Phaerie made a great deal of sense. “Has no one tried to escape?” she asked.

The lacemaker shrugged. “You think they haven’t dealt with that little problem? What do you think these are for? Decoration?” She fingered the slender chain around her neck. “They do say this metal is a mixture of true gold and Phaerie blood, and it contains part of their magic. It may not look like much, but believe me, it’s absolutely unbreakable. There’s no way to get it off—and folk have died trying. And these chains don’t just mark us as slaves, as property. They also keep us here. The Phaerie have set fields of magic all around the boundaries of their realm, and if anyone should try to pass through them wearing one of these, the chain will turn white-hot and literally burn their head off their shoulders.”

Maya was too aghast to speak. Involuntarily, her hand went to her throat, as if to persuade herself that her captors had not placed the hideous device around her neck. The chill of the metal seemed to eat into her fingers, and her heart brimmed over with dread. “These—they don’t come off?” she whispered.

“Not ever?”

Licia shook her head. “I’m sorry, my dear. In all the years the Phaerie have been keeping Mortal slaves, not one of those chains has ever been removed. We don’t think they can.” She scowled. “Even the accursed Magefolk were better than this lot,” she burst out angrily. “At least under their rule we were free to go our ways—until they all got themselves killed, that is, and let the Phaerie run amok.”

For a moment, a faint, flickering spark of hope flared up in Maya’s heart. Ah, she thought, but the Magefolk were not all killed. She could only pray that D’arvan possessed enough strength and power to force his arrogant father to see that Mortals should not be enslaved. “We’re more than brute animals,” she whispered to herself. “We’re not put here just to serve them.” She was enough of a realist, however, to know perfectly well that right and wrong had little influence on the world. Again, she touched the chain around her neck. Slave, it said. Base and lowly animal. In the end, it all came down to a question of might. The Phaerie have the power to enslave the Mortals, Maya thought, and there’s nothing we can do to stop them. The fate of our race is entirely dependent on their mercy, and our only hope is that somehow they can be persuaded to spare us.

The tall tower was the crowning point of Hellorin’s palace, and as such it was also the only place in the Phaerie city from which both sides of the Forest Lord’s domain could be seen. D’arvan looked down from the southern window across the city, the symbol of Phaerie wealth and luxury, the tangible evidence of their supremacy and power. The northern window, looking up the deep green glen toward the mountains, showed a very different scene:

Hellorin’s quarries and mines half-concealed among the heavily wooded slopes, and his farmlands, all tilled and planted, burgeoning along the valley bottom.—The symbols, all of them of human slavery.

Peering through the northern window with the longsight that was his father’s legacy, D’arvan watched the captive Mortals, laboring like so many swarming ants while the Phaerie took their ease, or hunted in the surrounding woodland, or sailed in little boats upon the tarn. A faint sense of guilt writhed within him like a tiny serpent as he realized that before the Cataclysm, the Magefolk, his own people, had enslaved the Mortals in exactly the same way—and that even in his own time, most of the Mages had felt that this should still be the natural order of things.

Neither his mother’s race nor that of his father were blameless, and D’arvan’s heart was scalded with rage and shame that such iniquity could exist. Damn the Phaerie! Hellorin had already snuffed out the humanity of the Xandim like a candle, without a single qualm. Now he had subjugated yet another race in an equally callous fashion. And what had he done with Maya?

D’arvan shook and rattled the locked door, hammering on it with his fists for what seemed like the hundredth time. “Answer me, damn you—is anybody there?—How dare you lock me up like this—don’t you know who I am? Let me out of here, you slug-witted bastards! You fetch my father here—right now!”

A plague on all the bloody Phaerie! For all his protests, it was patently clear to D’arvan that he had been locked up here on Hellorin’s orders, and left in this luxurious chamber at the top of the highest tower in his father’s palace, to cool his heels until the Forest Lord was good and ready to deal with him. It was a power ploy on Hellorin’s part, to establish his dominance from the start. Well, if the idea was to humiliate D’arvan and make him feel helpless, it was beginning to work.

“I won’t let it,” D’arvan muttered savagely. “I won’t let him get to me like this!” He knew what Maya would have done, as clearly as if her voice had whispered it in his ear. The best way to keep up his courage was to fight back with anger. Scoring the mossy carpet with his boot heels, he paced the many-windowed room, stoking his rage like a great red blaze, kicking at chairs and tables in passing for want of a better target for his rage, and heaping muttered maledictions on his father’s head.

“Have a care for the furnishings—some day, they may be yours.”

D’arvan swung round to see Hellorin standing in the doorway, an obnoxious smirk on his face. “You!” he snarled, snatching up the first thing that came to hand.

The Forest Lord stepped easily to one side and the flung chair smashed to splinters on the edge of the door frame.

The Forest Lord’s smile of welcome froze as he saw the expression of scowling fury on the face of his long-lost son.

“You vile, unspeakable monster! Have you no conscience?” D’arvan spat. “Those are people out there—your laborers, your beasts of burden. People who had lives and families, dreams and plans. And what about the Xandim? Poor bastards—you’ve even gone so far as to strip them of their humanity forever!—How can you live with that?”

There was a cold, bleak, implacable look in D’arvan’s eye that somehow reminded the Phaerie Lord of that dratted Mage-woman, the last time he had crossed swords with her. Don’t you dare get in my way, it said.

Hellorin swallowed the cordial greeting that had leapt to his lips, and thought rapidly. His estrangement from Eilin had taught him to deal more carefully and considerately with the Magefolk than had been his wont—and D’arvan was half-Mage, after all. He had no wish to lose D’arvan as he had lost Eilin—but Mage blood or no, he was the heir to the Forest Lord’s realm, and must be made to recognize and understand his responsibilities to the Phaerie. Nonetheless, Hellorin was determined to begin in a conciliatory manner. Only if D’arvan should prove difficult would there be any need to deal with him harshly. “Will you at least have the courtesy to listen to what I have to say before you start throwing the furniture?” he asked in a mild and pleasant voice.

The young Mage’s expression darkened further. “Give me Maya back—then I might consider listening to you,” he retorted.

The Forest Lord shook his head. “Not yet, my son. First we will talk, and then, if the outcome is favorable, I will release your little Mortal to you.”

“And if it isn’t favorable?” D’arvan asked softly. His lips thinned into an obdurate line. “No, that’s not good enough. I want her here, with me. I want to be sure she’s safe, away from your damned tricks. Until you bring me Maya, I will not exchange another word with you.” He deliberately turned his back on his father and stared out of the northern window at the Mortal slaves who labored in the valley far below.

A plague on this impudent whelp and his pigheaded Mage-folk pride! Hellorin’s anger was nearing boiling point. He clenched his fists at his sides and breathed deeply, fighting back the rage. “So you will not talk—but you have no other choice than to listen. D’arvan, there is no need for this animosity between us. You are my son, and for the love I bore your mother, you are also my heir. Your true home is here, with us, your people. You could have great power here, and wield considerable authority among the Phaerie. All would defer to you. Would you let a handful of mere Mortals come between you and your own father? Your own true and splendid destiny? Mortals! Dull-witted, short-lived creatures with no magic—they are little more than animals. They were put here to serve us. It is their fate, their reason for existence.”

All the while that Hellorin had been speaking, D’arvan had not moved a muscle.—Now he turned, very slowly, and there was iron and granite in his face, and a look in his eyes that made the Forest Lord’s blood run cold. “And supposing I say that you are a foul, depraved despot, and that I am no son of yours,” he hissed in a thin, tight voice that was wound up with rage to its breaking point. “What if I tell you that I abhor and despise you, and I would hang myself, or drink poison, or put a dagger through my heart, rather than take any part in your revolting schemes?” D’arvan met him with an unblinking stare, and their gazes locked and clashed like two deadly swords. “I wish it could have been otherwise. But I can not and will not condone this slavery.”

The Forest Lord was struck to the heart by D’arvan’s words. His bitter disappointment crystallized into a twisted, misshapen core within him, cold as ice and hard as iron. So this craven-hearted, whining puppy had the temerity to repudiate his own father? Hellorin scowled. You’ve just made a grave mistake, my son, he thought grimly. I gave you some latitude, I tried to appeal to you, to persuade you—but now it’s time you were brought to heel.—Shrugging off his human guise like an unwanted cloak, he stood revealed before his son in the full might and majesty of the foremost Phaerie Lord, resplendent and terrifying, with the raw, wild elemental power of the Old Magic pulsing from him like the fierce energy of an exploding star. He had the hollow satisfaction of seeing D’arvan blanch, and take a furtive backward step.

Hellorin flung back his head and roared with laughter. “Spineless, witless young fool! How could I ever have fathered you? So you’d hang yourself, or drink poison, or put a dagger through your heart, would you?” His voice lifted in cruel mockery of D’arvan’s empty threats. “I wonder, my fine son, do you think that Maya would feel the same?”

“What?” the young Mage shouted. “Damn you, you can’t...”

“Can I not?” Hellorin’s voice was like a knife blade dragged along bone. All his original good intentions had vanished. If D’arvan wanted to join him, that was well and good—but if not, he must be broken, and taught his place. “Maya is my possession now, my plaything,” he told his son in a soft, insinuating voice. “I can dispose of her as I please—not to mention those two strayed Xandim that you so kindly brought me.”

He shrugged, feigning indifference. “As for you, you are free to leave at any time. Of course, since you abhor the use of the Xandim you will have to walk, but I daresay your lofty ideals will sustain you over the endless miles of empty wilderness.”

“No,” D’arvan shouted. “I am not leaving here without Maya!”

Hellorin fixed him with a flinty stare. “Be assured, you will not be leaving with her. You gave up all your rights to her when you repudiated your father and your heritage.” He licked his lips. “Perhaps, since I have no heirs now, I will take your little swordmaid for myself. What sons she will breed me, eh?”

Before he had time to register what was happening, a fireball was hurtling toward his face. Gasping with shock, he threw up his will to form a shield—only just in time. Close enough to singe his skin, the balefire spattered against the barrier and dissipated in an incandescent starburst.—Droplets of liquid flame burned a pattern of small, dark holes in the moss-green carpet.

Hellorin, recovering quickly, threw back his head and laughed. “Well done, my boy! I am glad to see that my cub has teeth after all.”

D’arvan leaned back weakly against the wall, gasping for breath, his face chalk-white.

Hellorin’s lips curled in a feral smile. “I would wager, however,” he added in conversational tones, “that you couldn’t do it again—not for some time, at any rate. You are an Earth-Mage, D’arvan—to hurl fire in such a profligate fashion demands too much of you.”

He approached the reeling D’arvan, and looked deep into the eyes of his son.

“Enough of this nonsense. I have given you every chance to cooperate as a dutiful son should, yet you have met me with nought but insolence and defiance. Now, let me tell you what will happen. The days of the Magefolk are over—the Phaerie will rule their lands in their stead. Now that my city has been built, I fully intend to subjugate Nexis once and for all, and bring the Nexians under my sovereignty. I was merely awaiting your return, for it seemed fitting that I should present your native city to you as a gift.”

“What?” D’arvan choked. “But that’s preposterous!”

“Why so?” Hellorin shrugged. “Someone must rule those hapless Mortals, and even I cannot be in two places at once. So, my son, it comes down to a plain choice for you. You can accept my offer and take up the rule of Nexis for me—for in that way, and that way only, will you see the Mortals treated as you would have them treated. Also, you will have your she-wolf Maya for your queen—and breed me some grand-children, eh?”

“And what if I refuse?” D’arvan said slowly. “What will you do to me then?”

“To you? Absolutely nothing. As I said before, you will be free to leave this place, to go your own ways. But you will no longer be my son, and someone else will rule over Nexis and oversee my Mortal slaves. Also, I will keep Maya for myself.”

He paused. “Decide, my son. Already you overstrain my patience. I will not ask you twice.”

D’arvan dropped his face into his hands, and let his shoulders slump in defeat. “Very well, my father,” he whispered. “I’ll do what you ask of me.”

Then he straightened his back and looked unflinchingly into his father’s eyes.

“There will, however, be certain conditions.”