Beyond the Pale: A fantasy anthology (23 page)

~

 
“What did you want out of
life, before I came for you?” he asked her, as they shared a bottle of
wine—she really wasn’t much of a drinker—and ate some canned baba
ganoush. They were sitting on his bed. He was wearing a pair of black
draw-string pajama bottoms and a gray T-shirt. She had on an oversized T-shirt
and leggings. Not very glamorous, but in a way, that was better.

“Batteries,” she said. “Endless quantities of them.”

He smiled crookedly. “I’m older than you. I was laying plans for my
adult life. We were really rich.”

“Did you, um, have a girl friend?”

“I always had a girl friend.” He wagged his eyebrows and sipped from
their bottle. “I was going to follow in my father’s footsteps, be rich, then
save the rainforest.”

“I think you added that last part to make yourself sound more noble.”
She thought about the voice in the castle telling her that he was a liar. Maybe
it had lied.

He handed her the bottle and she cradled it in her lap. “I wanted my
mom not to die. And I wanted to meet my father.” Her voice dropped. “And I
wanted to be safe.”

“I think you need your own bottle of wine,” he drawled. “Because you
got nothing on the list.”

“Are you saying I’m not safe with you?” she asked. She meant to tease
him, but her voice shook.

He blew the air out of his cheeks. She wanted to take it back, but she
decided to let it hang there, and see how he responded.

“I think,” he said, “that we should go to sleep.”

~

But she was too afraid to sleep. She went to her own room and lay down,
but she felt too vulnerable that way. She paced, wondering if Alex was awake.

From her window, she could see the castle, and she made a face at it,
like a little kid. She never wanted to go in there again. But her purse was in
there. Her clothes. Everything. She hoped Jordan remembered to take good care
of her stuff. She had her mom’s jewelry, meager as it was, and some souvenirs
from the days before—report cards, birthday cards, a Barbie doll and her
favorite stuffy, Clown Bear.

Sighing, she leaned her head on the glass. Coolness pressed against her
cheek and then the sky exploded into colors. Blue, pink, purple, shimmering and
flaring; she stared, transfixed, as gray clouds billowed into being. The moon
rose and became the face in the book Alex had shown her. Staring at her.
Whispering to her, in words she didn’t understand. In a rising and falling
voice, like someone reciting a poem. She put her hand on the glass and felt
such a
pull
.

“Alex!” she shouted.

She heard him spring out of his bed and race across the hall. Within
seconds, he was standing beside her.

“I see it,” he cried. “That’s the Pale. I know it. I can feel it.”

“The face is the Pale?” she asked.

He cocked his head. “What face?”

She pointed. It was staring at them both.

No, it wasn’t.

It was staring at Alex.

She looked at him. He was bathed in moonlight, every inch of him. His
skin, his hair, his eyes.

She told him, and he held out his arms. “I don’t see it,” he said. He
gazed back through the window. “Delaney, what if
I’m
the lost thing that
you were supposed to find?”

And she didn’t know why—maybe because he was afraid—but she
put her arms around him. His body was very solid. He was staring out the
window; now he gave her his attention. She raised on her tiptoes and brushed
his lips with hers. Cautiously, he kissed her back. Just the one kiss, chaste,
and then she unloosened her arms.

“Just when it couldn’t get any weirder,” she said, and he chuckled.
Then his smile faded.

“I think we should drive toward those lights. Now,” he said.

~

As soon as they got in car, it began to rain. Wind blew. Alex turned on
the windshield wipers as he drove back through the town, to the castle, then
past it too, as the lights intensified.

Nothing whispered to her.

“Did I mention that you’re very pretty?” he said. “I like your dark
skin.”

The raindrops painted shadowy tattoos on his face, and she wondered if
he had them in other places, too.

“I like your tats.”

“
Danke
,” he said.

The rain came down, and she thought about her mom, and as she often
did, the faceless man who had been her father.

The lights filled the sky; it seemed that if they drove forward any
farther, they would drive into them. Alex stopped the car and she opened her
door.

He came around to her side of the car and laced his fingers through
his. As if on cue, it stopped raining. The earth rumbled beneath her feet.
Shadows billowed against the colors, gauzy and diffuse. They started to
coalesce and thicken, taking on the shapes she had seen in the castle, by the
cages.

“Oh, God,” she whispered, and he took her hand. Squeezed it. She
couldn’t squeeze back. She was too terrified.

The flares of color vanished, and a figure on a massive horse faced
them. It was dressed in ebony chain mail covered with a black chest plate. Its
black helmet was smooth, with no eyeholes and topped with curved antlers that
flared with smoky flames; fastened at the shoulders, a cloak furled behind like
the wake of an obsidian river. In its right chain-mail gauntlet, it held the reins
of the horse. Its left arm was raised, and another hand in a gauntlet rested on
its fist.

The rider beside it was smaller, dressed much like the other, except
that red hair hung over its shoulders. Then it reached up its free hand and
pushed back a face plate. It was the woman in the picture. Meg Zecherle.

Her aunt.

She stared at Dana, sweeping her gaze up and down. “Delaney?” she said
softly. “Dana? Is that you?”

Alex stepped in front of Dana, placing himself between her and Meg.

“Honey, I have so much to tell you,” Meg said, ignoring him. “I was so
glad when your mom found me. I was going to come for you. But then…” She
exhaled. “Then it all happened.”

Tears welled in Dana’s eyes and she opened her mouth, but Meg held up
her hand and turned to the black figure. It inclined its head. Meg seemed to be
listening to it. Then she turned her attention back to Dana.

“I’m sorry, but we’ll have to save that for later. But we will talk. I
promise.”

“Just tell me who my father is,” Dana said.

“He was a good man,” Meg replied. “But, honey, he passed away before
you were born.”

“Oh.” Her voice was tiny. Tears welled, and she knew right then that
that was what she had wanted her life to be like, before. She’d wanted to have
a dad. That would have been her magic.

“I’m sorry,” Alex murmured. She nodded, a tear spilling down her cheek.

“You’re going to have to believe a lot of things that will sound pretty
crazy,” Meg said.

Dana wiped her cheek. “I think you can skip ahead.”

“Okay, but if you need me to slow down, just tell me.”


“We will,” Alex said.

Meg leaned forward in her saddle. “There was a war. A terrible war,
between two magical races. What we might call fairies are known as the fair
folk. And the other side are the goblins.”

Dana pressed her fingertips over her eyes. She could feel herself
tensing, as if bracing herself to hear things she was incapable of handling.
She began to shake. Alex put his arm around her waist and pulled her
protectively against his side. She did the same. She needed someone to hang
onto.

“Hostages were taken on both sides. Infant children, since their code
of war demanded that children could never be harmed.

“Finally, it was over. A truce was declared. They agreed to exchange
hostages. One baby of the fair folk for one goblin, every Midsummer’s Eve,
until there were no more. That way, peace would be kept until both sides were
made whole.

 
“For years, my lord
faithfully brought a captive goblin baby and laid it in the cradle in the
forest,” she said, inclining her head in the direction of the tall, black
figure. “From the other cradle beside it, he would take the fair child left by
his goblin counterpart, and bring it home.”

Her lord
? Dana thought, with a
sudden rush of panic. The stranger who was her aunt called the thing beside her
such an archaic name.

 
“One Midsummer’s Night, the
local nobleman was riding through the forest. From a hiding place, he saw the
exchange. Months later, his wife gave birth to a tiny, sickly girl. The
nobleman remembered the swap, and the next Midsummer Night’s Eve, he replaced
the fair child with his own. What he didn’t know was that his baby carried a
plague.”

“Your… lord… took the plague back with him to the faeries,” Dana
ventured, and Meg nodded.

“The humanness of the child went undetected because it was so sick.
Nearly all the fair folk died, but the goblin babies in their care seemed to be
immune. War threatened to break out again, but the goblins were able to prove
that they had had nothing to do with what had happened. But they used the
plague as leverage. They demanded the immediate release of all their children.
The fair folk couldn’t care for them anyway, and asked the goblins to keep
their own children safe as well, until the plague was gone.”

Dana pictured the cages. “But the humans took the goblin babies
instead.”

“The noble and his lackeys trapped some of them before the goblins
arrived to collect them,” Meg said. “In all the confusion, the count was off,
and neither side realized it.”

“But that happened, when?” Alex said.

“Eight hundred years ago,” Meg replied.

Alex’s arm tightened around Dana.

“But if they were in those cages all that time,” Dana said, “wouldn’t
they grow up?”

“They only age in their own realm. On this plane, they stayed babies.
Miserable. Lonely. Unloved. For centuries.”

“
Scheiss
,” Alex murmured.

“Alex didn’t know,” Dana said quickly, and she knew that to be true.
She knew he was good. And that she was safe with him. “About any of it.”

Meg nodded. “I believe you. I was recruited by the Ritters to guard the
place where we’re standing. The Pale. The border between magic and non-magic
worlds. They said it was flimsy. Things were getting across that shouldn’t.”

She looked over at the figure beside her. “What they were worried about
was the Erl King. They were afraid that he’d find out about the goblins in the
castle dungeon.”

“
The Erl King
? Holy shit, Alex,” Dana blurted.

“
Ja
,” he said, and uttered a string of German.

Meg looked a little confused, but she continued. “The Ritter elders
never told anyone the truth. But I found out. I saw the cages. And I busted
their lie wide open.”

“It was
revenge
?” Alex’s voice shook. “The goblins destroyed the
whole world because of something my family did hundreds of years ago?”

“It was a rescue mission. Fair folk and goblin.
Your
people fought
back,” she said to Alex. “During the battle, some of them found out and joined
our side. But by then, the Pale had fallen. Magic poured into this world and
overwhelmed it.”

For a moment no one spoke. Dana found Alex’s hand and held it.

Meg’s features softened. “Magic made our world sick. The fair folk baby
that was stolen was the first domino. The goblins toppled next. What happened
would have happened eventually. But not for a long time.”

“And the fair folk baby survived,” Alex said.

“And had children. And they had children. And that means…” Meg’s voice
trailed off.

“There is still magic in the world.” Dana looked at her trembling
hands. “As long as we’re here.”

Alex twined his fingers with hers. “But even if we leave, how many will
be left?”

Meg sighed. “We don’t know. We don’t even know how to find them.”

Dana raised her head. The flames on the Erl King’s helmet flickered in
the night wind. A flake of ash fluttered away, and as she thought about all
that he must have lost, too, it began to glow.

She whispered so quietly it seemed as if the wind took her words away,

“I find lost things.”

frost child

~

by Gillian Philip

Editor’s Note: Sithe captain
Griogair MacLorcan is his queen’s fighter of choice, skilled and ruthless at
clearing her glens of the vile Lammyr. When the Lammyr defiantly return,
holding a young Sithe girl captive, Griogair routs them and frees the child.
But the girl Lilith has been a long time with Lammyr, and keeps secrets of her
own. The most vulnerable of creatures can be the most deadly.

This prequel to Gillian Philip’s
acclaimed novel
Firebrand
tells how Seth’s parents Griogair and Lilith
met - and the first deadly consequences.

If I’d had my way, I wouldn’t have been up to my knees in pond-muck
with my eyes full of sweat and my nostrils full of gods-knew-what stench from
below, but if I’d had my way, there wouldn’t have been any need.

I’d told my queen ten years back that Lammyr were nesting in this glen.
It wasn’t like her to be complacent but the dark hollow in the hills was many
miles from her caverns, and besides, she knew they were afraid of me. And her
indifference had infected me, and I’d put off the work, unwilling to argue my
case when there were other tasks to be handled, more congenial quarrels to settle.
She’d left it too long, and so had I, and now the creatures would be all the
harder to prise from their hole.

It was a good day for it: by which I mean it was silent and still and
as grey as death. I should say, it was an appropriate day. As far as approaching
the Lammyr unheard and unseen, it was the worst we could have picked.

~
Griogair
, said Niall Mor MacIain.

I glanced across to where he crouched, silent, at one of the cavern
entrances. It was no more than a slit in the rock, black and dank, the cold breath
of underground seeping from it like marsh gas. The gods knew how deep it was,
or where it led, but Niall’s sword blade was bare and he couldn’t repress half
a smile; he’d been longing for this. He was rash, was Niall, and he loved a
fight, and though I often disapproved, I’d liked him enough to make him my
lieutenant.

And after all, I could understand his attitude. Peace and quiet were
all very well, but we were getting bored, and fat, and lazy, and so were our
fighters. And nobody ever pitied a Lammyr.

~
Quietly, then
, I told him. ~
On three
.

~
Onetwothree
, said Niall, and jumped.

~

There was one advantage to leaving it this long: the Lammyr were every
bit as sluggish as we’d been. The first of them turned on me in the gloom with
a grinning snarl, but I had the advantage of it, and it went down fast. But
they were all over the tunnels, quiet and fast and deadly, slinking into their
holes like angry snakes. And it was hard to know where those tunnels ended, so
we had to dive after them and engage them in the darkness.

I caught the glinting light of yellow eyes to my right; lunged for it.
My blow was glancing and I ended up on the rocky floor, grunting as the air was
knocked out of my lungs. The Lammyr pattered out of reach and I breathed hard
in the silence, listening for its next move.

“They’ll try to run,” murmured Donal behind me, his sword raised. “They
always do.”

“They should have tried already.” I frowned. The Lammyr always had an
escape route; much as they loved death and a battle, they didn’t see the point
of losing fighters unnecessarily. I fully expected them to turn tail, to try
and squirm out of some back entrance when they realised we meant business.

Usually I didn’t care where they went; the idea was to kill enough of
them to encourage the rest to relocate their foul nest. But these had been here
too long, and worse, they’d slunk back after the first time I routed them. Who
knew why? I wasn’t asking; I was here to wipe them out. I didn’t give Lammyr a
second chance. I valued my throat.

I hated this work. I hated being separated from most of my fighters,
with just one man at my back to guard it.

And I hated that my backup wasn’t Leonora.

It wasn’t as if she was handy with a blade; it was only that with
Lammyr, there was no more useful fighting partner than a witch. And while I’d
never intended to fall for anyone as dangerous and capricious as a witch, I
had, and I’d never regretted it.

Ahead of me, wounded, the Lammyr hissed. “Missing your bondmate,
Griogair?”

“No,” I said, annoyed at myself for leaving my block down. Quickly I
shuttered my mind.

It giggled. “Shouldn’t think so loud.”

“Shouldn’t goad me.” I went still, aware that the pinprick light of its
eyes had vanished again. To my left there was a faint rustle, a skittering
slither, and the man behind me gave a yelp of shock and rage. I felt his blood
spatter my arm, and then he was cursing to beat the pain.

“Donal?” I said.

“Fine,” he snarled.

He wasn’t, but he’d have to wait. And I wasn’t about to drop my block
again to ask him properly.

The Lammyr giggled again, but I ducked as a thrown blade sliced the air
above my head, then rolled back. I caught its bony ankle more by chance than
skill, yanked it down hard as it leaped for the unseen ceiling, and snatched
for its wrist before it could reach for another blade.

Gods, it was a strong one. We rolled and struggled in a silent
death-grip, and I couldn’t swing my sword arm, and Donal was evidently out of
action. Dropping my sword, I found the Lammyr’s skinny neck with my hands.

There was mucal blood on its dry papery skin, and I wanted to recoil,
but I only shuddered and crushed its throat. I was used to the touch of Lammyr
blood after all this time, and it wouldn’t burn me, but it wasn’t pleasant. One
of its flailing hands grabbed my own neck, but it was wounded and I wasn’t, and
I had the better angle and the better grip. It died with an exasperated
rattling sigh.

They lived to kill, but when it came to the end, they didn’t mind
dying. That was always the trouble with Lammyr.

I stumbled back off it, wiping my hands, then turned to seek out the
light of Donal’s eyes. They still glinted in the darkness, though dully.

~So how fine
are you really?

~I’d like to
see Grian fairly fast.
His teeth showed in whatever light seeped from the cavern walls.

I gripped his arm and hauled him to his feet. Yes, he needed the
healer; I could tell from the quantity of blood. I didn’t want to follow this
tunnel further anyway. Distant sounds and energetic shouts told me my men were
having better luck than Donal and me, and I wanted to rendezvous with them in
the deeper heart of this nest. The plan had been to drive the Lammyr from the
narrow passageways and into their central quarters. Lammyr, armed and
forewarned and lurking in tunnels, were at their most lethal. Herd them to a
hall for a fair fight, and you always had a chance of fewer casualties.

I was eager to get Donal out of the way. I didn’t think he was mortally
wounded – not that I’m an expert – but the sooner he got to the
healer the happier I’d be, and besides, I wanted to keep an eye on Niall Mor’s
back. If he was overenthusiastic he could easily get himself killed.

I found three of my fighters guarding the entrance I’d used, so I left
Donal with them; then I was running down the cleared passageways in the direction
of the battle-howls.

The remaining Lammyr were backed together in a cavern lower down the
tunnel system where the air was cold and dank, unwarmed by the feeble light of
flames in wall recesses. Each had a blade in its hand but while Niall Mor and his
men circled them warily, the leader watched me enter, licking its dry lips and
half-smiling.

“Crickspleen,” I said. “Been a while.”

“Hello, Griogair.” It tossed its curved blade lightly from bony hand to
bony hand. No hilts for these creatures; it simply bled where the steel caught
its skin, and the colourless drops hissed on the stones at its feet. “Safe
passage, and we’ll stay away?”

“Oh come on, Crickspleen. We had that deal forty years ago, and here
you are again.”

It shrugged, amused. “You were softer forty years ago. Over the Veil,
then. We’ll go to the otherworld.”

I rolled my eyes. “You know that isn’t allowed.”

“Oh, of course. That’s why you’ll never find a Lammyr in the
otherworld.” It smirked.

I bit my lip, eyeing it, while Niall Mor fidgeted beside me.

~Come on,
Griogair. Let’s get it done.

~Don’t be in
such a rush
. “What are you defending?” I asked it abruptly.

It was a wild shot in the dark, but I saw wariness flicker in its eyes.
My hunch was right, then. They hadn’t run because they owned something worth
keeping.

“Nothing,” said Crickspleen at last.

Despite my mind-shield, it knew that I knew it was lying. Its mouth
quirked.

“You’d have my word,” it crooned. “You know my word is binding.”

“I don’t want it. If I let you go again, Kate would have my guts for a
hat.”

“It was worth a try.” It gave a bleakly contented sigh. ‘No deal then.”

It flew at me; an arc of blade-light cut the air, but I hit the cavern
floor, feeling the breath of the blade-edge on my scalp. The speed of the damn
things could still catch me by surprise, but I wasn’t much slower.

I swore as I rolled, dodged, sprang back up. It was nothing but a
moving shadow but I’d fought them before. Anticipating its moves was the trick.
I bent backwards to avoid the next blow, then came at it low and brought my
sword blade with me as I spun.

They look so fragile, so ephemeral. It feels almost wrong as the blade
strikes. You’d think the impact in its flesh would be barely discernible, but
you have to keep control to finish the blow. Like slicing metal wire.

But I had a good blade. Crickspleen toppled in two halves, the rattle
of satisfaction escaping its yellow lips and leaving it lifeless.

The others hadn’t been idle, either Lammyr or Sithe. As I rebalanced
and lifted my sword again, the chaos and carnage around me was in full-throated
roar. I wiped sticky Lammyr-blood from my face and sought another, but we’d had
them outmanoeuvred from the start, and in here they hadn’t the space to use
their speed to full advantage. There was nothing for me to do but finish a few
scraps my fighters had started.

When the last blade had fallen we stood in the silence, alert for a
stirring hand or limb or a sucked breath, hearing nothing but the slow oozing
drip of blood.

I was glad to be able to drop my block and communicate properly. And,
of course, scan the caves.
~Any of us wounded?

Niall Mor raised a questioning eyebrow at a fighter whose blood
streamed from her scalp down the side of her face and neck. She shook her head,
angry but not weakened.

~Nothing
serious.

I narrowed my eyes at the woman, half-blinded by her own blood.
~Dobhran,
go back to Grian. The rest of you, follow me
. I frowned as I peered into
the darkest corners.
~And block again.

“We took them all, Griogair,” said Niall Mor, though he kept his voice
low.

“Maybe. I want to know what else is here. Search the whole warren.”

If anybody grumbled, they kept it behind their own blocks, but they
went to the task without enthusiasm. This was no place for a Sithe, or not for
my Sithe anyway. If someone liked living underground he could go to be the
queen’s bondsman, and even Kate’s lair felt like the sweet open air next to
this place. It was as if the rocks above us were pressing down slowly,
shrinking the spaces between, reluctant to let us leave. I suppressed a shiver.

There were faint lights in the lower tunnels, muted by iron sconces
that were surprisingly beautifully made. The Lammyr could still astonish me.
There were times I could almost like them. But it never got beyond
almost
.

The air was cold and stale, but the rankness that accompanied Lammyr
occupation was mostly absent. There were only the scents of earth and water and
small squirming creatures. I made my way with care, and I kept my blade
unsheathed, and so did Niall Mor at my back.

All the same, I might easily have missed her. She was only a shadow,
small and dark, huddled in the corner of a side room. It was Niall’s intake of
breath that alerted me, since his eyesight was so much sharper than anyone’s.

I went still, watching for movement. The child might have been a
corpse, so stiff was she, but her eyes were wide, unblinking, and lit with the
silver glow of a Sithe. No full-mortal girl, then, brought from the otherworld
on one of their illicit forays, but a captured Sithe child. Their brazenness
was breathtaking, but even this didn’t explain their reluctance to leave.

I stretched out my hand to the child, made a beckoning motion. If
anything, she pressed even closer against the wall.