Dockalfar (33 page)

“No, Victoria, you don’t understand? Why are you being so stubborn?”

She backed away, holding up a warning hand. “I don’t think I want to talk to you anymore,” he stated. “Go take your bath. You reek.”

She did not flee. She walked, head up and calm down the hall the way she had come. She stopped two sidhe in her passage and asked where Azeral was.

Word finally reached him of her desire for he sent a Bendithy servant to lead her to him.

He was in one of his observatories.

The room sat high in the keep’s structure, at the top of a tower over looking the whole of the northern range. Huge glass windows covered half the wall and most of the ceiling. The evening sky was just beginning to be salted with stars. This room was a library as well as an observatory. The walls on the southern face were lined with shelves containing scrolls and books. Taller rolled parchments sat in corners or on various reading tables. The room was lit with fey glow, casting everything in a bluish aura.

Azeral sat in a high backed chair, looking up into the night sky.

Victoria walked about the perimeter of the room after the bendithy’s hasty departure, looking at the spines of books, at the seals of scrolls. She wondered that she could understand the language but not the writing, for the symbols and signs on the literature were unknown to her.

“I cannot remember your sky.” Azeral broke the silence, hidden from her by the back of the chair. “It has been too long since I sat foot on your world. Is it much like ours?”

She tilted her head to gaze up at the unfolding night sky. The stars were too brilliant and too many. Too frequently a comet or meteor would slice across the brilliant vista with its fiery tale.

“No. Our sky is plain compared to this one.”

“The magic’s gone from it,” he sighed.

She walked around to stand at the edge of the window wall, looking down at the sheer drop of cliff face below. This tower was at the very edge of the keep.

She pressed her hands against the glass, rested her forehead against the cool plate and watched her breath form condensation.

“But where has it gone?” she asked.

“Here?”

There was a moment of hesitation, then. “Some of it. Yes. What your world can no longer contain.”

“Is that why I’m here? To help manage what’s here?”

“Would you like to know?”

She turned and faced him. He was cool perfection in his high backed chair, in his elegant tunic and cape.

“Don’t you think it’s time?”

“You’re not oblivious to all the facts, I think,” he said. “So I won’t bore you with what you obviously do know. You are a channel of magic so you cannot contest its existence, although you once did, I’m sure. Were there a thousand like you in your world this day, using the magic to the fullest of their capacity, we would not be in this situation, I assure you. There would be no excess of magic to leak into this world and foul the purity of our own sources of power. However, because of your human ‘evolution’, magic is no longer utilized in your world. So therefore it is a problem in mine.”

“And you can’t use it yourself?” she asked.

“Correct. Just as you cannot use the magic of this world. You cannot draw from the source of Elkhavah, and I cannot draw from the source of Earth.”

“So you need me to use this magic and relieve the pressure?”

He smiled at her. “I need this. This world needs this. You do understand?”

“So much power. It’s scary how much power. You’re lucky Alex trusts you so completely, I think he’d use his magic any way you wanted him too. If I did the same, you would be very powerful indeed.”

His smile faded as she stared at him.

Very carefully he rose. “Yes, I would be very powerful. I am powerful, do not doubt that. I’m also very old. I’ve learned to control my power over more time than you can possibly imagine. You’re an infant, Victoria and infants with power are dangerous.”

She looked at him, eyes very wide, face empty of emotion. “I’ve met people here just as old and they don’t keep slaves or kidnap innocents. They don’t enjoy torture or force their will on the unwilling. Azeral, I cannot believe that all you want from this is the harmless release of built up power. I don’t think that’s the kind of Lord you are.”

For a long moment he met her innocent stare. He laughed. He laughed with what might have been honest amusement and took her off guard.

“Oh my dear little girl, you are a sharp one aren’t you? So quick to cut to the heart of the matter. You’re right of course. I am not one to act without gain to myself. For one in my position to do so would be indiscreet. There are so many scrambling to power in this world that I would be foolish to pass over a chance to gather a great source of it to my bosom. You and Alex are my sources. My mistake was in losing you to begin with. If you had come here straightaway without the benefit of detour, you would not distrust me now.”

“Yes,” she agreed. “I came here forewarned of your bad habits.”

“Liosalfar are prejudiced,” he snapped. “And don’t pretend they’re perfect, although they like to assume the role.”

“Ashara won’t even speak your name. What did you do to her?”

She snapped off the question that had been bothering her for some time. She was surprised by the response. Azeral’s face turned white. For the briefest of moments there was genuine shock on his features.

Then his eyes narrowed and color came back to his cheeks. Very tightly he stated, “The Seelie Court has forever been at odds with the Unseelie. It is the way of the world.”

Victoria laughed. “You speak as if it’s preordained.”

“It may well be,” he almost whispered that, then shook his head. “Regardless, my use of your earthly magic will have effects that will benefit all. If the magic is used in a way of my choosing, then so be it.”

“Yes, and Alex seems perfectly willing. I think I’ll keep my magic to myself.”

“That my dear, remains to be seen.”

She lifted her chin, feeling a sudden wave of attack through the barrier of her inner shields. His telepathic magic hammered at her defenses, chipping away at her armor and she was helpless to fight back. The most she could do was hope that the shields she had erected before he had cut her off from the source of magic would hold. He wanted inside her head so bad she could feel it through the bond he had forged in his offense. After a while he stopped, eyes blazing, and she fought against dizziness. She forced a smile.

“I’m strong, aren’t I?”

“Amazingly so,” he gritted between clenched teeth. “But you’re also untrained. Raw power does not stand up to finesse.”

He was right. She felt it in the weakness of her knees. He would win eventually. He would break her shields and turn her mind upside down in his efforts to subvert her. He did not want her willing cooperation, he wanted her mind enslaved to him. It was the only way for him to feel safe. Her power was too great for a mere alliance. Meekly she bowed her head.

“I think I’ve found out all I need to know tonight,” she said.

“You may go then,” he inclined his head, giving her his leave before she could even think to ask it. As if she would have. She did not dispute it. Quietly she walked from the observatory.

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The list of people Victoria was afraid to encounter was growing. She stayed in her room most of the day after her talk with Azeral, only venturing out when the boredom became unbearable. The servants would not talk to her. They acted as if she were the most horrible of monsters, to be served quickly and avoided at all costs otherwise. She was frustrated by the lack of communication there, when she felt her own lot was so close to theirs. They were captives of Azeral also. She pitied them and felt just a bit annoyed that they did not realize that she was in the same dilemma.

The sidhe she had no interest in speaking with, for all of their pretty words and flattery was the direct result of Azeral’s orders to subvert her to his cause, or, as was the case with some, a personal curiosity about human pleasures.

She knew lecherous looks when she saw them. She heard enough bendithy screams in the night to know that the sidhe practiced their pleasures when and where they chose with those they considered inferior. She had no desire to become one of the victims.

That left only the rougher servants of the Unseelie court with which to seek companionship. The ogres she was terrified of, and the goblins were loathsome, horrible little creatures. In general the spriggans were not of a social nature, which meant more often than not her only choice for exchange of any type was with one spriggan in particular.

Bashru.

After having to hunt him down on several different occasions, she knew his haunts well enough to locate him should she be in dire need. She was in the process of doing so, early one morning, several days after the encounter with Azeral when she crossed paths with the assassin.

She was under the keep proper, in the hallways outside the mammoth maze of kitchens and storerooms where she knew Bashru and his cronies liked to lurk, stealing tidbits from the cooks when no one was looking. She felt safe down there, despite the smallness of the halls and the darkness of the passage. No self-respecting sidhe sat foot in the layman’s area of the keep, though the bendithy passed her with averted eyes and the goblins glared at her like she was a spy for their sidhe masters.

She saw him at the intersection of a passage leading deeper down into the bowls of the mountain. A one-armed bendithy slave was speaking with him in low, nervous whispers. She thought, for the first time, that his chameleon colors were more than a reflex action of his species, for without his voluminous cloak and in a situation he found no peril in, his colors were almost natural. Dusky-hued skin, hair that was streaked with a dozen shades from blonde to deepest brown, slim and straight in a black tunic and trousers. He did not look like the Ciagenii she had fought against, hated, and traveled under the protection of.

“Dusk,” she called out to him and his head snapped up. Immediately his colors began to shift, hair and skin blending with the background darkness. His tunic was apparently of more normal stuff, for it stayed stubbornly black. She ran forward, knowing he was about to disappear again.

“Dusk, damn you. Stay right there! I swear if I have to get Azeral to make you attend me, I will!!”

He stopped, frozen like some terrified animal, only she knew terror was not an emotion he held. The bendithy scuttled away, doing a fairly good job himself of blending into the background.

Victoria’s adrenaline drained away as she realized that he was doing as she bid. That it was up to her to break the questioning silence that had fallen over the little section of tunnel. She suddenly felt terribly ashamed and guilty. He had every reason to hate her, and she had little to explain her actions.

“I-I just wanted you to know that I’m sorry for what happened. I wasn’t in my right mind… and I regret it.”

He stared at her soundlessly. She twisted a lock of hair, waiting for some response. For him to tell her to go to hell.

Anything.

“I suppose,“ she babbled to break the tension. “I mean, at least I came to my senses and stopped it. So it didn’t turn out all bad, right? And I don’t hate you anymore. I understand that you were only doing what you had to do – with you being what you are and everything. And I’m truly, truly sorry.”

She felt silly. She was jabbering incoherently and he most likely had no intention of ever forgiving her. She wanted to cry.

“I just wanted to make things clear,” she stated, not making them clear at all. “And what I said about Azeral… well, I’d never use him to make you do anything, because what he holds over you is just horrible… and… and… oh never mind.”

She whirled about in utter embarrassment, flaming at the cheeks. She’d said her piece and if he chose not to forgive her then it was his prerogative. She marched all the way back upstairs, all the time cursing her bumbling tongue and her childish attempts at retribution. She had almost had him whipped. Of course he would hold a grudge. If she had been in the same position she would have been furious beyond belief. And if the perpetrator had come up to her and ineptly attempted apology she very well might have slapped him across the face. She was lucky to come away unscathed.

The air lost the cool moist feel of subterranean dankness when one passed above to the above ground levels of the keep. It became lighter and more breathable. The architecture above ground was cleaner and airier. It incorporated height and space, where below ground the passages were narrow and heavy handed, seeming little more than tunnels hewn from stone. She took shelter in the first garden verandah she passed. Plunging out into the cool mid-morning air, she greedily swallowed the fresh smells of forest and dew. She leaned over a stone wall that supported a thick fringe of climbing vines and stared sightlessly down at the waterfall fed lake that nestled at the foot of Azeral’s mountain keep. Late blooming blossoms tainted the air with their rich scent. A butterfly drifted from one bloom to another in a lazy dance of feeding. Its simple beauty bolstered her flagging spirits.

Something touched her shoulder, lifting the hair away from her neck. For one wild moment, as the entirety of her body pimpled with goose bumps, she thought Dusk had followed her to accept her apology. Then common sense cut in with the realization that Dusk would do nothing so open as actually touching her.

She whirled and found herself face to face with a tall, familiar pale-haired male.

Blue-gray eyes locked with her own in amusement over her shock. “Are you quite rested, my dear?”

Deigah asked with an arch of one fine brow. He was impeccable in white and blue, a vision of sidhe masculinity. She told herself not to be afraid. He would sense it and take advantage. But it was hard to keep her heart from hammering in her breast, or to control the tremor in her limbs. He was standing too close, blocking her path of egress. She would have to physically push past him to retreat.

“Very much so,” she answered him with polite stiffness. “Thank you for inquiring.”