Oberon's Dreams (18 page)
The younger jailer was still breathing, though he showed no signs of waking soon. Corin dragged him to the farthest cell and bound him with the shackles he removed from Maurelle’s wrists. Then he locked the door, recovered his lockpicks and other effects from the table in the corner, and turned his attention to the other men.
Avery still leaned against the bars, where he had been when he threw the knife. But he had fallen to his knees, and he was trembling. The fancy gentleman had gone all pale, and he was gibbering beneath his breath.
Corin turned the key in his cell door and approached to lay a hand on his shoulder. “It’s easy to call a man a coward who hesitates to do what you’ve just done,” Corin said.
Avery turned his stricken gaze to Corin. Tears shone in his eyes.
Corin nodded. “Then you do it once, and you think differently. Stick to sleight of hand. Leave the murder to crooks and kings.”
Avery flinched at the word
murder
, but a moment later he drew a shuddering breath and began to pull himself together. Corin left him to that task and went to gather Kellen.
To his surprise, the yeoman was in no such state. Perhaps his face was paler, perhaps his brow a little drawn, but he accepted his sword belt calmly and buckled it around his waist. “Corin, take the lead. You three go in single file. Pretend your wrists are bound. I’ll come along behind like I’m your escort. My uniform should be enough to get us past the other wardens as long as we move quickly.”
He stopped talking when he noticed the surprise on Corin’s face. The yeoman nodded in recognition and said simply, “For the king.”
“For the king,” Corin echoed. He turned to Maurelle and Avery. “Are you ready?”
They nodded, though without much vigor. Gone was the naive thrill that had lit the lady’s eyes. Gone the condescending pride that had stiffened the lord’s spine. Now they both looked apprehensive of the real risks they faced. But neither one broke down. Neither one gave up.
Corin offered them a soldier’s salute, then turned and led them away. He held his breath as they approached the first landing, every muscle tensed, and he jumped when Kellen shouted from below him, “Prisoner transfer! Three to go before the king!”
But the wardens at their stations merely turned away when they saw the yeoman’s uniform. Up and out the prisoners marched, unchallenged even when they left the carriage yard. Someone called a gibe at Kellen, but he went stoically ahead, and somehow, as a brilliant dawn exploded over the strange city, Corin found himself at liberty upon the palace grounds.
They left the cobbled, siegeproof prison yard and emerged into a wider barracks, surrounded on all sides by a high stone wall lined with long, low buildings and spotted with roped-off yards where soldiers trained in combat. Kellen led them on a beeline across the barracks and toward another inner gate in the stone wall. The silver palace climbed high into the sky just beyond that wall.
But when they passed through the arch, they stepped into a luscious garden. Living things were everywhere, bright and beautiful and dancing to a gentle song woven of a thousand pleasant noises. Water rolled and leaves fluttered and singing birds gave voice. It was a park drawn out of dreams.
Corin could scarce enjoy it. His eyes darted, searching ceaselessly for some sign of threat. He sought the palace, too, expecting another carriage yard or some broad, marbled boulevard approaching its high doors. Then, through a gap in the thick green canopy above, he happened to glance up and see the shining gold-and-silver walls directly overhead.
He jerked his gaze back down, expecting to see walls within a pace or two, but there was only the flowered path. On the left, a handful of lords and ladies lounged around a quiet pool fed by a babbling brook. Ahead and to the right, a pair of guards in uniform stood in quiet conversation, but they paid the prisoners no mind.
They left the sentry guards behind, and when Corin judged it safe, he slowed his pace so he could ask Maurelle, “Where is the palace?”
She frowned at him. “Here!” Her gaze drifted, and as it roamed, the anxiety drained from her expression. A wistful ease settled in its place.
Corin risked a glance back at Kellen and hissed, “This is not a palace! This is a bower!”
Kellen shook his head. “This is the court of Oberon. What else would you expect of the king of fairies?”
Slowly, Kellen’s meaning sank in. There was no handiwork of man here. There were no walls or doors, though the glamour of a kingly castle hung over the place. Still, Corin saw the avenues among the elms, the corridors and sitting rooms laid out by hedge and creeping vine. He even saw a banquet hall, where willow branches twisted together overhead, and a single sprawling granite slab made a table for a host of hungry lords.
He walked the halls of Oberon’s living palace and wondered what manner of king he would find upon its throne.
Kellen interrupted Corin’s awe with a curt command. “Take her arm.”
“What?”
“Take Maurelle’s arm. You’re her plaything.”
Corin and Avery responded in perfect time. “
What?
”
Kellen rolled his eyes. “We can drop the act of prisoners now. It’s only making you conspicuous. But Corin should take Maurelle’s arm—”
“
I
will be her escort,” Avery insisted.
“No,” Maurelle answered, just as stern. “We two together would be recognized. The House of Violets is out of favor. But if you do not draw attention…”
“I can hardly hide my face,” Avery said.
“Turn it to Kellen,” Corin suggested, while he offered his arm to Maurelle. “Share a quiet conversation. It makes a good excuse for ducking, and if you look engaged, even those who recognize you are less likely to interrupt.”
Avery stopped, stunned. For a long moment he favored Corin with an appraising gaze, but then he started walking again. “You have a gift, manling. I would fain know where you learned these things.”
From the Nimble Fingers at Aepoli
, Corin thought, but he kept that to himself. He leaned his head toward Maurelle. “Can you lead us to Oberon?”
“In my sleep. In my fairest dreams.” She sighed, content. “It’s just this way.”
Corin let her lead him while he discreetly strained to hear the conversation between Avery and Kellen. He’d feared another trade of jabs that he would have to interrupt, but instead he heard a heartfelt question from Avery.
“What manner of man draws duty in the lowest of the dungeons? That whole floor was empty until we arrived.”
Corin winced at the question, for he could guess the answer.
And Kellen did nothing to soften the blow. “Heroes who deserve a spot of rest. And fools who cannot be trusted anywhere else. Most often, there is one of each.”
They walked ten paces in gloomy silence, until Corin feared he would need to remind them of their ruse. But Kellen spoke again. “A fortnight gone, I was the useless fool.”
“You have not been useless today,” Avery said. “You have given us our freedom. I…I regret the things I said before.”
Kellen grunted. “I require no apology. What I do now, I do for the king. It seems you do as well. That is all I need to know.”
Four more paces passed in silence. Then Maurelle squeaked a tiny, startled, “Oh!” and Corin moved on instinct. He tugged her off the path, slapping Kellen’s chest as he passed. By the sound of it, Avery was the first to understand, driving Kellen after Corin with a rustle and a grunt.
They darted into one of the verdant sitting rooms, a wide, low grotto beneath the canopy, spotted here and there with trees and bushes bearing aromatic fruits. Corin darted from the entryway and down the hedge to peek back out upon the path. Avery joined him right away while the other two hovered nervously behind him.
Through a narrow gap in the interwoven branches, Corin watched Lord Ephitel come storming down the palace corridor. He had a lieutenant at his elbow, and as he stomped along, Ephitel rattled off orders the lieutenant couldn’t hope to keep track of. Ephitel spoke of dwarves and regiments and writs of provender, but between every irritated order, he paused to curse the druids and the king.
Corin grinned at that. The prince would add more names to that list when he learned what had happened in the dungeons, but for now he hadn’t spotted them. Corin watched Ephitel pass their quiet grotto, never slowing, too distracted by his irritation.
“Fortune favors us again,” Corin said. “Now come, let us see the king.”
It was not far from there to Oberon’s throne. The king of Gesoelig held court within a clearing more than a hundred paces end to end. At its heart grew a single oak tree, its trunk reaching at least three stories high before the lowest branches broke away.
The limbs of that mighty oak stretched out over the breadth of the palace, and its peak soared high into the sky. From underneath, Corin saw the strands of gossamer draped all across its boughs, glittering with dew that twisted sunlight and cast the distant image of a man-made palace. From where he stood, the tree alone seemed far more majestic than that illusion of marble and gold.
And at the base of that elder oak, its roots rolled and crowded into a knot above the earth, taller than a man and folded lovingly around a throne carved into the tree itself. On the throne sat something like a man. Corin had expected the friendly, timeworn face he’d seen carved into the cliff. Instead, he saw a monster out of nightmares. Taller even than the elven lords and ladies, the king had the fur-clad legs of a goat. His bare chest boasted a thick mane of red-brown hair. It bristled in his beard as well, and covered his crown in thick curls. Around his brow he wore a wreath of lily blossoms, and from his temples jutted two great antlers.
Courtiers by the hundreds surrounded him, a vast sea of beautiful creatures dressed in all the shades of a flower’s petals. Ripples ran among them, whorls and eddies as they spoke among themselves or paid their tributes to the king, but clearly they were here above all else just to be here. To see and to be seen in such proximity to the king.
The king himself paid them no mind at all. He lounged within his living throne, staring out across the broad expanse beneath the oak tree’s limbs. From half a hundred paces distant, his eyes fixed on the four newly arrived, and he started to his feet.
“What is this?” he boomed, a gleeful anger in his tone. “I see the son of Kellen Strong upon my threshold. And a pair of wilting Violets! And they have brought a manling. Bring them here to me!”
At his words, two hundred courtiers turned at once toward the place where Corin stood. Lords in flowing robes and ladies with flowers in their hair surged forward like an ocean swell. They crashed around the newcomers and raised a frothy babble among themselves, asking senseless questions or conjecturing what might have brought a Kellen and a pair of Violets together.
Corin rode the wave, anxious just to stay afloat, but nothing in his life had prepared him for this. He would scarce have been at home in the court at Aerome—or even at the Vestossis’ supper table—but he liked to think he could have found his way. This, though…this was not a stately gathering of posh buffoons.
It wasn’t even what he’d come to expect of the elves—condescending lords and ladies sullying their dignity to interact with a mere manling. No, these were fairies from the stories of old. They were dreamlike chaos, animal frenzy playing at humanity. They giggled and hissed, they ogled and jeered as they chivied Corin and his three companions toward the throne of Oberon.
Corin cast for a plan. He’d told Kellen to come warn the king, but he had not expected such a crowd. It would be dangerous to denounce Ephitel before this throng. He would need a private audience. But staring at the creature on the throne, Corin wasn’t certain he could handle that.
Strong hands propelled him until at last, a dozen paces from the throne, the courtiers suddenly withdrew. The four companions stood alone, hemmed on one side by hundreds of courtiers and on the other by the beastly Oberon.
The king surged to his hoofed feet, towering twice as tall as a man. His eyes danced, manic, and his words came out wrapped within a giggle. “Kellen, son of Kellen. I was told that you were buried.”
The yeoman fell to his knees and pressed his forehead to the mossy turf. The ring of courtiers snickered, but Kellen paid them no mind. “Your Majesty, I have betrayed my command, but only out of loyalty to you.”
“Ha! Ho! How so?” The king spoke in a lilting chant, but it ended with a snarl. “Your command is mine. I am your lord. You cannot obey by disobedience!”
Corin stepped forward before Kellen could say anything more. “Please, King Oberon, we would have a private audience. It is of matters most severe and delicate.”
“Ooh. That does sound painful. But I’ve never known a private audience. One does require ears to hear.”
For a moment, Corin could only gape. This was wise king Oberon? This was their noble creator? He seemed more like a madman. But this strange beast was Corin’s only way home. If he would not allow a private hearing, let it be a public one.
“I have come to beg your aid,” he said. “Only your magic might send me home.”
“But who are you to speak to me?” Oberon asked, condescending. “Who are you to ask me anything?”
“I am your humble servant,” Corin said. “And I bring you news well worth the boon I ask.”
Oberon frowned. “What news is this?”
“Grim news, Your Majesty. The lord protector betrays your trust. He plots rebellion in dark corners.”
Astonished gasps and murmurs ran like ripples through the crowd, but Corin’s attention was all on Oberon. The king glanced up sharply at Corin’s pronouncement. The dark, animal eyes flashed surprise and fear, but not, Corin realized, at the news. It was at the courtiers’ reaction.
Corin saw perfect understanding in the king’s eyes. Oberon thought as Corin had before: it would have been far better if these tidings were not shared out loud, but anything at all was better than silence.
Still, Corin stepped closer and lowered his voice. “I apologize, Your Majesty, but we could not afford—”
The king cut him off. Oberon tossed his mighty antlers, threw back his head, and brayed a laugh that sawed against the nerves. That silenced the courtiers. They watched the king as he danced a little jig,
clip clip clop
, then Oberon fell exhausted back onto his throne and looked on Corin with those wild eyes again.