Cobweb Empire (35 page)

“Forgive me for waking you,” she replied in
a faint whisper that was leached of strength. “I could not
sleep.”

“Is there something wrong? Something that
pains you?”

“The . . . little boy,” she
said. “André . . . I think of him.”

He watched her eyes—colorless irises,
widened pupils, a welling of waters to mark their fathomless
opacity. There was so much in her eyes, the faint edge of the
universe, with dark starlit expanses on the other side, with no
end. . . .

“I am sorry. That was a truly tragic one—of
all the ones you had to lay to rest. . . .”

She looked away from him, as though
recalling something, and not wanting to bear his gaze.
“I . . . could not give him dreams.
He . . . had wanted to dream. And I took him away
from his mother. He could have spent more time with her, untold
moments more—being. . . . Not living, but simply
being
.”

“Is merely being the same as being alive?”
Beltain spoke gently, still motionless, seated at her side.

“I should have left him
be. . . .”

“Maybe,” he replied. “But maybe you gave him
a rare gift, one that few of us ever dream of possessing—a
choice.”

“But was it his choice, truly? Did he, a
small child hardly able to recognize his self, his existence, the
nature of what he was—did he and
could
he make the right
choice? How much did he really understand of sleep and death and
endings? What have I
done?
He had only asked for
dreams!”

And Percy broke into shuddering weeping,
hiding her contorted face against her sleeve, wiping the side of
her face, her nose, cheeks, all of her, swollen with hopeless
grief.

Beltain had grown so still, he could feel no
motion in his own lungs. And then he forced himself to move, to
reach for her. He took one of her trembling, tear-smeared, clammy
hands, and he held it feather-lightly.

“Come,” he said. “Let me tell you of Queen
Mab. . . .”

And as Percy again turned her receptive face
to him and softly quieted, he pulled back the deep piles of bed
coverings, like a warm silken ocean, and he moved it aside gently.
He placed both hands along her upper arms, his large warm palms
encompassing her smooth resilient softness, and he slowly guided
her backwards into bed, until she rested her head against the
pillows. He held her thus, for a few seconds longer, his hands upon
the sides of her arms, warming her—himself—with the gentle pressure
of steady contact. And then he drew the covers up over her.

“Queen Mab,” he spoke, leaning lightly over
her, his voice entering into a soft cadence, “is the one who brings
the world its dreams. She is a tiny little thing, a fairy that
could fit on the end of a pin, they say—or at least my mother used
to say—and she drives a coach fashioned of grasshopper wings, with
wheel spokes made of spiders’ legs, and other parts of her coach
are gnats and worms and cricket bones and moonbeams. In short, she
is an unspeakable fairy creature, possibly ridiculous, possibly
sublime. When we lie down to sleep . . . she drives
her chariot up your nostril, wagon and all, and then she fills your
head with the stuff of your desire. . . .”

Percy lay watching him in amazement, her
eyes great and liquid in the moonlight. Her cheeks still glistened
with tears, but a peace had come to her features, and she breathed
evenly, without shudders, her chest rising lightly.

“And so,” he continued, “Queen Mab is the
midwife of dreams. She helps each one of us give birth to our own
airy infants, those very reveries that fill the hungry recesses of
the mind. And none other can take that function away from her—not
even you. The little boy who asked for dreams—in that same breath
he called upon
her
, upon Queen Mab and her power.”

“I could not give him
dreams . . .” Percy whispered.

“Of course not!” And Beltain smiled, his
lips curving gently, and his eyes filled with something that was
also light as air and warm . . . yet fey and
vulnerable, and so very peculiar. “But Queen Mab very likely did.
Such is her unearthly power!”

“Do you think it is so, My Lord?”

He placed his fingertips upon the pillow,
near the edges of her hair that fanned around her.

“I know the power that comes from
our . . . desire.”

And as she watched him unblinkingly, he said
in a more steady voice, “The best way to answer your own questions,
Percy, is for you to go to sleep. Sleep, now, and make the decision
to dream by calling upon Queen Mab herself. Ask her anything you
like!”

“Will she come to me?”

“By Heaven and all sweet angels, she will!
But only if you close your eyes. There, your lids must be shut
tight, so as not to allow a peek. . . . But you must
keep your nostrils open—at least one of them, else the fairy might
decide to drive her wagon through your mouth, or worse, one of your
ears!”

Percy chortled and smiled, and her eyelids,
fluttering, had indeed closed.

“Now, start imagining the kind of dream you
would want,” he said. “And I will sit here with you until you
sleep. I promise, I will not leave you until you dream.
. . .”

“How will you
know. . . ?”

“Oh, I will know.” And he adjusted the bed
coverings at her chin, his fingers suddenly making contact with her
smooth shoulder, feeling a pang of warmth followed by a spread of
languor in that one single point on his flesh . . .
pausing just one instant, before moving his hand away.

The moon spilled its endless immortal light
upon them as he sat thus, for long unmarked moments that were also
like the blink of an eye, watching her breathe, watching the peace
descend upon her as she quieted and eased into slumber at last.

Her lips had grown full with relaxation, and
he gazed like a man drunk with the moon, seeing the nimbus of
ethereal light around the edges of her hair, the dark brows that
gave such a strong cast to her face, her lashes resting upon her
cheeks. . . .

At last, when he no longer had a sense of
self left to him, having dissolved entirely into the moonlight, he
was compelled. . . . He leaned forward, his face
over her, closer and closer until only breath was between them. He
stilled again, trembled, drinking her breath. Just beyond him, her
parted lips.

And he lowered his own mouth over hers,
feather-light, pressing lips against lips, in a kiss that was so
soft that he almost did not think it happened.

One pause, just long enough to feel it—as
shock traveled throughout him—a touch that pierced and caused a
resonance throughout all things. . . . The shock
held him suspended, then left him through the pores of his skin,
entering the air beyond, where it fed the now-electric
moonlight. . . .

He drew away. He stood up silently, and
backed away from her sleeping form.

And then he retreated into the night.

P
ercy was sinking
in the many layers of approaching sleep and receding moonlight,
falling lower and softer, lulled into sweetness of peace by the
soothing cadence of the baritone voice. The voice was like ermine
encasing her in safe warmth. . . .

At some point, it too receded, dissolved
into moon silver and an outpouring of steady, perfectly comforting
silence.

And then, just before she fell away
entirely, she felt a touch upon her lips—a strange unfamiliar
pressure.

She knew
him
.

Through all the subtle layers of
unconsciousness—of somnolent dissolution of the self, that came to
claim her just before the instant of submersion into sleep—she
could sense him, pulling her upward out of the morass of jumbled
thoughts and images, into perfect waking
clarity . . . into awareness.

His
lips
were upon hers. Had
been.

And then the moment was gone.

His touch—an impossibility. Such utter sweet
softness!

She felt it bloom forth into her, a current
of expanding wonder, spreading in a languid, honeyed
flow. . . .

Then it was over.

She dared not move, nor respond, nor react,
and held her breath until she could no longer, slowly letting
herself exhale and inhale in tiny shallow movements of her
chest.

At last, when she could not stand it any
more, she opened her eyes.

In the moonglow and silence of the winter
night, there was no one there.

He had gone. . . . Or had he
even been there in the first place? Queen Mab indeed! Had
he
been a dream?

Percy lay with her pulse racing, for an
untold length of time past midnight, her eyes opened wide to the
night.

Eventually she slept.

Chapter
17

I
n the morning,
Percy woke late with the sun in her eyes. She had missed the dawn
by an hour, and now the brightness was overwhelming, and the
reality of where she was came to her, with all the brocade
furnishings and fine chintz curtains and the gold trim around the
boudoir.

The Silver Court shone in the winter morning
sunlight like a fluted sculpture of ice. And as Percy sprang out of
bed, and went looking under the bed for a chamberpot, it occurred
to her suddenly that she had had a very strange dream.

No, it was not the kiss. (Somehow she was
quite certain that
it
, the
kiss
, had been real. And
yet, any further thoughts in that direction were unthinkable, to be
hidden away in a deep little memory trunk within her consciousness
underneath all the mad fancies, to be analyzed and comprehended
later.)

The dream she recalled suddenly, as she was
finishing up her morning ablutions, was that of a very strange
golden figure in the shape of a woman—indeed, a golden goddess,
seated with one leg folded underneath her, and wearing nothing but
a headdress and garlands of jewels. . . .

She was considering the meaning of this
dream, when a maid came in, carrying her pile of laundered
clothing. The servant made a little sound of surprise seeing that
Percy was up and about—unlike the young ladies she was used to
waiting on who all slept past noon—and the curtains had been left
open all night.

“Oh dear, Miss, I am sorry! Would you like
something brought up immediately?”

Before Percy could reply, the interior
dressing room partition was opened and Beltain entered the room,
fully dressed in his own freshly clean clothing, and wearing most
of his armor that had been polished overnight. His head with its
soft waves of hair was bare of helm or coif hood, and his
countenance was absolutely composed as he glanced once at Percy,
still in her nightshirt, and his steady grey-blue eyes seemed cool
and matter-of-fact.

“Good morning. Get dressed, girl,” he said.
“We need to head out as soon as possible. It was good you had the
rest, and so did I, but unless we hurry, we may not be able to
leave at all. Rumor has it, the Silver Court is about to close its
gates, except for limited entry and exit for the military. War has
been announced.”

“What?” Percy said. Even the maid,
pretending not to listen, seemed to pause momentarily.

“Yes, war,” he said, “but it is not what you
think. It has little to do with Letheburg being under siege by the
dead. It is something far more serious—a foreign war with the
Domain. The news is, we are under attack by the enemy at the border
with Balmue. And Morphaea may not be able to hold them.”

Percy took her fresh clothing—her cheeks
flaming with color once again as she had to unravel it, in all its
poor threadbare glory, before the knight—and started dressing
herself. He gave her some privacy by turning his back, and with the
help of the maid she was dressed in half the time.

They were outside the inn within a half
hour, after Beltain generously settled his bill with the
proprietor. Outside, Jack was waiting for them, held by two grooms
and a footman, having weathered a fine night in a warm stall with
regal grooming and premium hay.

Percy was lifted up into the saddle, and she
cleaved to the knight’s chest armor in a mixture of reserve and
newfound intimacy.

The street was busy with carriages and much
foot traffic, and everywhere she looked, gold gleamed underneath
ice and snow, as the splendor of the Court was revealed.

They rode through streets straight as
arrows, directly through the heart of the Silver Court, past the
Imperial Palace and all its adjacent buildings, for they had to
cross the citadel in order to reach the opposite gate, the one that
opened south into the Kingdom of Morphaea.

In-between the many sights and wonders of
the Imperial city, it occurred to Percy that the dead here either
kept out of the way or were very well hidden. Not once did the
sight of a dead man on the street made her pause and engage her
sixth sense. . . .

As they passed yet another tree-lined
boulevard, with snow-laden or bare branches amid upright lampposts,
a small garden park opened to view. A clearing and a fountain
blanketed by snow presented itself, and Percy made a small gasp
because the statue that presided over the fountain was the golden
goddess of her dream.

“Wait! Stop, My Lord, I beg you,
please!”

“What is it?” But he drew the reigns
nevertheless, and Jack stopped, neighing in frustration.

Percy stared. “Who is . . .
she?”

Beltain considered the direction where she
pointed, furrowing his brow.

“I . . . had a very strange
dream last night.”

The instant she spoke it, a flush of color
overpowered him. Heat rose up to flood his neck and jaw and cheeks,
his entire head. It was fortunate she was not looking at him in
that moment.

“I believe,” she continued, “just as you
said, Queen Mab had visited me in my sleep.”