Authors: Elaine Cunningham
“What did you say to old Ferris to get him to turn me loose?”
Matteo managed a faint smile. “Wouldn’t you rather know what we’re hunting?”
Themo listened intently, nodding and offering an occasional suggestion. His spirits were high as the three jordaini rode out, following the Crinti trail deeper into the hills, expecting ambush with every bush and cave they passed. Trail sign was plentiful, but never once did they see their prey.
“Not much sport to this,” Themo complained after a few hours.
Matteo and Iago exchanged glances. “Perhaps his sword is sharper than his mind,” the small jordain said sarcastically.
“During my time with Procopio Septus, I often joined the wizard in games of war,” Matteo began, deftly cutting off Themo’s indignant response. “He had a wondrous table, a raised map shaped much like this wild land. With it were hundreds of tiny figures that moved and fought. He commanded them to enact battles so we could observe the field from above, as a god might, and better understand how the battle played out. Sometimes we would play the same battle again and again with variations to learn what worked and what did not.”
A wistful smile crossed the big man’s face. “That would be worth seeing!”
“It was enlightening, certainly. One strategy concerned an airborne wizard-one of the deadliest of foes. We jordaini know to increase chances of success by keeping the wizards on the ground. So do the Crinti. They generally keep to the caves or the deep woods. But this path is not sheltered, and it leads to increasingly open ground. This is not typical Crinti behavior.”
“None of us are wizards,” reasoned Themo.
“True enough, but strategies that prove successful are not abandoned lightly. The Crinti would not take such a path without a purpose.” Matteo paused and looked toward the western sky. Only a crimson rim was visible above the hills. “Because this is the Nath, we have additional concerns.”
Like the voice of an actor taking a cue, the wail of a dark fairy rose from the hills. “The Crinti fear the Unseelie folk, yet they are leading us deeper and deeper into haunted lands.”
Iago shot a furtive glance toward the sound. “Maybe the shadow amazons are like quail, pretending to have a wounded wing and luring danger away from the nest.”
“Or perhaps the Crinti are not leading us away from something but toward it.”
“An ambush, most likely,” Themo muttered, studying his surroundings with new interest.
Matteo considered this a logical assumption. The Crinti trail led through a winding, narrow pass, past small dark caves and tumbled piles of rock. They emerged from the passage unscathed into a large clearing-and the strangest place he had ever beheld.
“By lord and lady,” he whispered. He slid down from his horse.
Large, conical mounds rose from the ground, covered with green moss. Some of the hills barely rose to Matteo’s shoulder, but most were at least twice the height of a man.
The air seemed different in the clearing. Just beyond the pass, the sky had held the brilliant clear sapphire common to a summer sunset, and the few small clouds that clung to the mountaintops were gold and crimson and purple. Here all was gray mist and land-bound clouds. Much of the Nath was either scrubby forest or barren waste, but here the ground and the hills were covered with lush, light green moss, such as might be found only in the deepest forest. Matteo had the uncanny feeling that the rugged pass had led them not into a sheltered clearing but into another world.
“Never have I seen so enchanted a place,” he murmured in awe.
“Enchanted!” Themo sent him a sour look. “You’ve been spending too much time around wizards.”
The big man’s face was unnaturally pale, and he shifted his weight from one foot to another, looking fully as spooked as the skittish horses.
Iago placed a hand on his shoulder. “That’s what I told him, Themo.” He sent Matteo an apologetic look, his eyes cutting quickly to Themo and back. Matteo, understanding, gave a slight nod. Themo was fond of gossip, and a diversion was definitely in order. “Did you know that Matteo spends every spare hour with the girl who called the laraken?”
This bit of scandal completely engaged Themo’s attention, and some of the ruddy color returned to his face. “Have you gone moon-mad? A wizard’s apprentice? Though I suppose she’s pretty enough,” he reminisced, “especially if you’re partial to big dark eyes.”
Matteo was no longer listening. He walked up to one of the mounds and placed a hand upon it. “Feel this.”
The other jordaini gingerly followed suit. The conical hills hummed with energy-even the magic-resistant jordaini could feel it! The moss-covered rock felt insubstantial, not quite solid.
“The veils are thin here,” Iago said in a troubled voice as he scrubbed his hand on one thigh, as if to remove the disturbing tingle. “That’s why we hear the Unseelie song.”
“Could the fairies come through?” Themo demanded.
“They are said to do so, from time to time, but only one or two manage to emerge. Apparently the passage is difficult, possible only at certain times and places.”
“So there’s no chance of an army of them pouring out of these things?” Theme persisted, nodding toward conical hills.
“Not unless they are summoned,” Matteo soothed him, “and there is little fear of that. Who would do such a thing? Who could?”
Iago’s eyes settled on something, and widened. “Don’t we have a proverb about not asking questions unless you truly want an answer?”
Matteo followed the line of his gaze. Tzigone stood at entrance to the pass. Her blue robe was travel-grimed and kilted up into her belt for ease of movement. Her dark eyes were enormous in a pale and furious face.
“Behind you!” she shouted, pointing.
He turned and was not surprised to see the shadows at the far side of the clearing stir and take shape. The form they took turned his blood to ice.
Thin as wraiths and dark as drow, the dark fairies regarded the intruders with eyes of a strangely glowing black. They were no taller than children. They moved with ethereal grace, darting between the hollow hills so swiftly the eye could not follow them.
Matteo swallowed hard and drew his weapons. As he did so, the creatures disappeared. He heard a faint sound like that of wind, but the impression was gone so quickly that Matteo did not understand the truth of it until he saw the glowing eyes emerge from behind a closer hillock. The Unseelie folk did not move through magic-at least, not as he understood it. They were just that quick.
“Don’t let them out,” Tzigone yelled. “Hold them here in the valley!”
Matteo shot an incredulous look back at her. “Anything else?”
She was already off and running. “Make it up as you go along. I’ll be back as soon as I kill a certain rat-bastard wizard!”
Tzigone’s voice faded, as did the clatter of her boots against the rough stone. The fairies likewise vanished, and in an eyeblink their feral eyes peered out from the edges of a different, closer mound. The Unseelie song began, a chilling, unearthly melody that bounded from mound to mound, everywhere and nowhere.
“Mother of Mystra,” Themo swore softly, the battle light flickering uncertainly in his dark eyes. “How in hell can we fight this?”
Matteo drew his sword and strode toward the nearest hillock. “As best we can.”
Tzigone raced down the passage and launched herself at Dhamari like a human arrow. They went down together, rolling painfully over the rocky ground. He was too surprised to offer much resistance, and she quickly pinned him.
“You tricked me,” she hissed, fisting her hands in his tunic and giving him a furious shake. The movement spilled a length of silver chain from its hiding place beneath his tunic. From it hung a medallion-her mother’s talisman!
Tzigone lunged for it. Her fingers tingled as a familiar magic spilled from the token, the watchful guardian magic she remembered from her earliest days. With a vicious tug, she broke the chain and thrust the talisman-the real talisman-into the cuff of her boot.
For the first time she noticed the cold, malicious light in the wizard’s eyes. “You tricked me,” she said again, this time in wonder as she began to comprehend the scope of Dhamari’s betrayal. “You told me I was casting a spell of warding and banishment, but it was really a summoning! I called those things!”
“An accident,” the wizard protested. “As I told you, this magic is beyond me.”
“So you gave it to a green apprentice!”
A contrite expression washed over his face. “Let me up, and I will give you the scroll for the reversal spell.”
“Well, that was easy,” she said sarcastically, “and probably worth the effort it took.” She gave the wizard another shake. “I know you can cast metal transmutation-I’ve seen you studying the scroll! Change my dagger to iron. Do it!” she shouted when Dhamari hesitated.
The wizard’s lips formed a grim line, but he nodded agreement. Tzigone let him up and showed him the silver knife that Basel had bought for her.
“Iron,” she reminded him. “And by wind and word, you’d better be right behind me to do the same for the jordainis weapons.”
Dhamari glanced over his shoulder. His guards-those who had not already fled back down the pass-formed a solid wall behind him. “You heard her,” the captain said gruffly.
The wizard took the knife and cast the spell. When the task was done, he gazed with dismay at the dull, heavy weapon. “Consider,” he pleaded, “you cannot win against such creatures.”
Tzigone snatched the iron knife from him and raced to Matteo’s aid. As she burst into the clearing, a little cry of dismay escaped her. Her friend was not faring well.
The Unseelie warriors were swift and silent, taxing the jordaini with their speed, toying with them with their wicked little knives. All three men bled from many tiny wounds, but they could not lay a blade on their darting foes. Iron weapons would help, but Tzigone couldn’t hold them off alone. She glanced back over her shoulder. Dhamari Exchelsor swayed uncertainly at the edge of the clearing.
“Metal transmutation!” she shouted. The wizard caught her eye and quickly went into the second casting. When the spell was cast, his eyes rolled back and he slumped to the ground-to Tzigone’s eye, just a little too gracefully.
“Idiot,” Tzigone muttered. Dhamari’s cowardly ploy might excuse him from fighting, but it also kept him from defending himself.
“Get him out of here,” she told the men who’d followed Dhamari to the clearing. Their faces proclaimed that they’d be happy to watch the wizard die where he fell. Tzigone’s gaze swept over them. “Move him, or deal with me.”
She didn’t have time to wonder at the fear that crossed their faces, then the shame. “As you say, lady,” murmured the leader.
Tzigone was already running. She moved directly into the path of one of the dark folk-the largest one she’d seen among them. The creature stopped before her, no more than a breath away, repelled and weakened by the iron she carried.
Tzigone lifted the knife in a gesture of menace, then brought her knee up hard. The fairie’s black eyes blazed with what she hoped was pain.
“Lady,” she repeated derisively. “I don’t think so.”
Her iron knife swept in.
She yanked it free and whirled to take stock of the battlefield. Matteo had tossed aside his now-iron sword-too heavy, she guessed-but he fought with daggers alongside his two friends. They stood in a triangle formation, back to back to back, moving in concert as they faced their peculiar foe. The Unseelie folk were still preternaturally fast, but the iron weapons seemed to sap their strength as surely as the laraken drained magic.
Just as Tzigone began to hope the battle had turned, the big jordain stumbled and fell. The Unseelie song swelled in triumph as the dark fairies rushed in.
She darted forward to take the fallen man’s place. A fairy knife leaped from nowhere to nick her thigh. She lacked at her attacker and met nothing but air. Seeing the futility of solitary battle, she fell into position with Matteo and Iago and dropped into the rhythm of battle.
“Get back, Tzigone,” Matteo panted out as he deflected one darting attack after another. “You’re not trained for this.”
“Who is?”
He darted her a quick, exasperated look. “Just go!”
“I called them,” she responded grimly.
Matteo could not have argued even if he’d wanted to. As the iron weapons slowed the dark fairies’ movements, their numbers became more apparent. Dhamari’s spell of summoning had let more than a score of the fey monsters slip through the veil.
Suddenly the weird music stopped, and the Unseelie attackers drew back. They milled uncertainly about. Tzigone’s heart leaped with sudden hope, but Matteo let out a heartfelt, barnyard epithet.
Her head whipped toward him. “What?”
Matteo backhanded a streak of blood off his forehead. “I’ve seen this formation,” he said, “but not in battle.”
Even as he spoke, the dark fairies began to circle. Their song erupted in a keening, triumphant frenzy. Like small, fey wolves, they closed in for the kill.
A brilliant light poured into the clearing, sending the dark fairies whisking off into sudden, eye-searing flight. Matteo shielded his eyes with one hand and glanced toward the source. His shoulders rose and fell in relief as he recognized Basel Indoulur’s ship. The battle over, he dropped to both knees at Themo’s side.
At first glance it appeared that the big jordain’s wounds were not so bad-spiteful, superficial cuts such as he himself had sustained. The dull, haunted look in his friend’s eyes suggested otherwise.
Crimson silk rustled as Basel dropped to one knee beside him. “How can I help?”
“The Unseelie folk can mark a mortal like a vampire,” Matteo said. “Themo needs to be healed and cleansed, or he may never be more than you see him now. Have you a priest with you?”
The wizard shook his head. “We’ll take him to the nearest temple.” As he spoke, his gaze shifted to the edge of the clearing, when Tzigone stood with her chin tilted stubbornly high, nearly toe to toe with a very irate Iago. The jordain appeared to be railing at Tzigone, blaming her for what happened. For once the girl held her tongue. Matteo, knowing her quirky sense of honor, understood that she already felt the weight of her miscast spell.