Oberon's Dreams (10 page)

Corin frowned. “I see no one.”

“Good!” She grabbed his hand and dragged him off the plaza into a dark, close alley between two of the towering mansions. Corin gawked. At the very edge of opulence, this dismal alley looked too much like the rough streets where he’d grown up. It was no place for Aemilia’s silk slippers or gem-strewn hair. She paid no mind to the muck but strode purposely ahead to a rough plank door set in a dirty wall. She knocked three times, then crossed her arms over her chest and stood with toe tapping until the door cracked open. A voice within called, “Who’s there?”

“It’s me,” Aemilia said smoothly. “And I’ve brought…a problem.”

“You always do,” the other answered, but the door swung open and the man standing sentry beckoned them urgently. “Get in here, then. Quick. Before you’re seen.”

“I know the risk as well as you,” Aemilia hissed, but she wasted no time dragging Corin in behind her.

The sentry slammed the door behind them. The rasp of the solid bolt rang loudly in the tiny anteroom, a closet scarcely three paces square lit only by the seep of light around uneven doorframes. Corin reached immediately for the handle of the opposite door, anxious to escape this confined space, but the sentry interposed himself and slapped the pirate’s hand aside.

“Who is this you’ve brought us, Aemilia?”

She ignored the question, but she made no move to force into the inner room. Instead, she answered with a quiet calm, “Who else is here?”

“Dale and Kaleoth, Tian and Kris and Maredon. Umm…”

“Delaen?”

“Oh! Yeah, she’s here.”

“Good. Jeff should be here soon, unless I miss my guess. Call them down to council.”

“Do we have enough—”

“I don’t care about a quorum, Julian. This is bigger than our rules. This man is out of time.”

For the first time, the sentry turned to Corin and looked him up and down. Julian was a portly fellow, tall and broad and deep, with a thick brown beard and merry cheeks beneath suspicious eyes.

“Out of time? It’s not our role to thwart Ephitel’s justice.”

“You misunderstand me,” Aemilia said. “We need to see
Delaen
.” She laid a heavy emphasis upon the name of the druids’ expert in time travel, and Julian gasped in sudden understanding.

He turned to Corin again, eyes wide. “From what time?”

“This is no conversation for dark thresholds,” Aemilia snapped. “Call them all to council, and bring Delaen to me.”

At last the sentry stepped aside. He shoved the door wide and bustled through, leaving enough room for Corin to breathe freely for the first time since they’d entered. The open door bathed Aemilia in the twisting copper torchlight from the room beyond.

Smoke washed into the room, too—hearth smoke and pipe smoke intermingled—and with it the aromas of a much-turned stew and stale beer. Raucous voices and the clatter from the other room spoke just as plainly, proclaiming this place to Corin with a deep familiarity.

“A shady tavern?” he asked. “I thought you were Oberon’s chosen people! I thought we were going to your council hall, but you brought me to a bolt-hole.”

She gave him a measuring look, up and down. “Forgive me. I expected you would find the setting comfortably familiar.”

“Familiarity is not my concern. You’re hiding. There is a fear in the air that does not much match the little you’ve told me of these people.”

She rolled her eyes. “You didn’t see how Ephitel treated me, then?”

“I thought he hated
you
. Are all your people outcast?”

“Not outcast. Not in the public eyes. But very much endangered. I knew this before you ever spoke forbidden lore, even if Jeff can’t see it. Ephitel believes we are a threat.”

“But you said Oberon—”

“Oberon wears the crown, but Ephitel holds the sword and aims the bow. And we believe he hopes to wear the crown as well.”

“I have made fine friends in this strange place. You are enemies of Ephitel.”

“And you as well,” she said.

“Hardly enemies. Where I come from, he is a distant and terrible figure with far better ways to spend his time. He does not know my name.”

“And yet the way you recognized his secret police, the way you moved within the crowd…you seem comfortable enough defying authority. Why are you so angry that we must do the same?”

Corin shook his head. “It isn’t anger. It’s disappointment. I’d hoped you would be powerful enough to help me.”

“Hold to that hope. We are likely your best chance within this place. You would do well to submit yourself to our guidance—”

“
Your
guidance? Ephitel has taken an interest in me, and you suggest some other slinking rats might somehow aid me.”

“Hidden things are not powerless things, and rats are known to hold their own against superior foes.”

Corin sighed. “For that alone you think I should help you?”

“No.” She turned her back on him and headed to the common room. “I think you should pray that
we
help you.”

He watched her go and wished he had convinced her to let him go with Jeff. That one would not have been afraid to talk. That one would have told him what he needed to know, and right now, what he needed to know was how to get home. He had no wish at all to get tangled up in the affairs of this strange city, when he had pressing affairs of his own in the desert south of Jepta.

He frowned into the smoky light of the common room. Perhaps these druids were his only hope, but they made dangerous accomplices. He licked his lips, thinking.

What manner of fool would he have to be, to stand in defiance of a god? He
knew
what Ephitel was to become. He knew the sort of men Ephitel favored, and the lord protector would surely have such followers in this place as well—men like Ethan Blake and the vicious Ippolito Vestossi. Corin had survived this long by hiding from such men, not by standing up against them.

He nodded once and turned away, fumbling for the bolt on the outer door. He would disappear among the natives, let Ephitel forget about him, then find his way back to Jeff once things were settled. But just as his hand found the latch, an old woman’s voice stopped him. “You are not much welcome here.”

She sounded kind, but not strong. Without turning, Corin hazarded a guess. “Delaen?”

She chuckled. “And I am meant to be the wise one.”

“I’ve no wish to stretch my welcome thin,” Corin said, sliding the bolt on the door.

“Do not misunderstand me,” she said. “We’ve no ill will toward you, but you bode bad things for a world we’ve learned to love. Oberon suggested we watch out for you.”

“He knew that I would come here?”

“Not…as such. But if what I’ve heard is true, you defy the rules of this place. Yet somehow Oberon seemed to believe it would come to pass.”

“That clarifies some things Aemilia let slip.”

Delaen considered him in silence for a moment. “You do not seem much rattled by your situation. Did Aemilia truly answer all your questions? Or was it Jeff?”

“She would not speak, and she would not let him speak. As for me…I’m never much rattled by my situation.”

“You have no questions, then?”

Corin’s head buzzed with them, but he hadn’t half as much information as he would need to guess which ones were relevant. He settled for bravado instead.

“Just one. Who are all these lovely lords and ladies?”

“Ha! That is an interesting question, indeed. But I will give you answers before I ask my own. It is only fair. So know this: the people of Gesoelig are the kinfolk of its founder and the maker of this world, King Oberon. You might know them as fae or fairies or perhaps as elves—”

“Elves and fairies,” Corin said, shaking his head. “I am in a storybook.”

“Not…not in any real sense, no. Yet still you do not seem shaken.”

He gave a shrug. “I’m a pirate and a wanderer. I spend all my time in unknown waters, and I usually come out richer for it.”

“Fascinating. You may be just the man we need.”

Corin turned to her, irritated. “What purpose could you have for me?”

“We need your aid against Ephitel.”

“Of course! You are at war with him, after all. And here I am trapped in a fairy tale. So what does that make me? Am I to be another Aeraculanon, bound by prophecy to kill a god?”

“You against a god? I have no reason to believe you could win.”

“Then what am I to do? Why am I here?”

“Perhaps to warn us what will come.”

Corin shook his head. “I can tell you less than nothing. My world does not remember this place. I searched for it for years before I even learned Oberon’s name.”

“That is a warning in itself,” Delaen said. “And perhaps
that
is why you’re here. To take a memory away. To remember us to your people.”

“This is a favor I would gladly give,” Corin said, stepping closer to her. “Send me home.”

“I’m sorry, but there is nothing in all the druid lore that could accomplish that.”

“Then why did Aemilia bring me here?”

“To hand you off to me, I think. She is not a woman afraid of a challenge, but you are…well, outside her scope.”

“She wanted to call a council.”

“Yes. She would. But there will be little benefit for you in that exchange. They will all want to see you—a man outside time—but none of them can aid you.”

“Then what am I to do? How can I take a memory away if no one has the power to send me back?”

She smiled at him, showing strangely perfect teeth for a woman so old. “I never said there’s no one. Go to the one who brought you here. He can make it happen.”

“Ethan Blake? He’s still back there. Likely halfway to my ship by now, with…” The thought crept up on him, but now it laid him low. His throat constricted, and his stomach sank. “…with Iryana in his power.” Those words came out a whisper.

Delaen took two steps closer and rested a hand on Corin’s shoulder. “I do not mean Ethan Blake. I mean Oberon. He brought you here, whatever his reason, and if you will aid me in one simple task, he can send you home.”

“I have no part in your troubles here.” Corin’s voice sounded far away, even to his own ears.

“But you have troubles of your own. Who is this Ethan Blake?”

“A man I underestimated.”

She nodded. “A traitor?”

“Aye. After Ephitel’s own heart.”

“And who is Iryana?”

For a moment, Corin couldn’t answer. He cleared his throat and shook his head. “A girl. A slave I bought at market. I had a use for her.”

“And Blake stole her away? Blake put her life in danger?”

“Worse.”

“Then you are wrong in every way. This world—every leaf, every life, every last decision—this world is built from Oberon’s dreams. He made this place and brought us here, and his dreams are bright and good.”

“I have my daydreams, too, but the world I know—the world outside this city—I could not call it bright and good.”

Delaen stepped closer, eyes wide and flashing with passion. “And I would prefer not to see this world become the one you know. If Oberon loses his dominion, if Ephitel and his cronies seize control of this world, it will become a dark and wretched thing.”

Corin sighed. “I cannot fight Ephitel.”

“Of course,” she said. “No more than I could. But your needs and mine are in perfect alignment.”

“How so?”

“The only way you can get home is by the magic of the king.”

“Oberon?”

“Indeed. You must go to him and plead your case, and he will send you home.”

Corin nodded. “And your need?”

“I need you to tell the king what you have learned. Tell him Ephitel becomes a threat.”

“You can tell him that,” Corin said. “Aemilia has evidence—”

“Alas, we can’t. He will no longer listen to his druids, but you…you will capture his attention. Before you leave, do this one thing for me. Warn him that a dark rebellion’s brewing. Warn him that Ephitel is fielding an army.”

Corin licked his lips, searching for the catch. He couldn’t find one. “That’s all you ask? You want me to give him your report before I go?”

“That’s all. And pray he listens.”

Corin took her frail hand in both of his and looked into her eyes. “In that case, you have my word. Although I’m not very good at praying.”

She offered him a friendly smile. “Then go.”

“Go? Now? But isn’t there a council?”

She hesitated, then shook her head. “No. This is no time for council. Aemilia tells me that you drew Ephitel’s attention. Already rumors run thick in the streets that Aemilia has angered him, and he asks for information concerning you.”

“But if he’s moving now, there’s hardly time. Come with me—”

“He moves against the druids, not against the city. Everything we know is that he’s hoarded certificates for rations, but it will take him time to make use of such things, to build an army out of writs of provender. We still have weeks or months, but Oberon must act
before
that army’s raised.”