The Elven King (3 page)

He held his palm up as if to touch her through the portal. Then he caught his breath: she seemed to be watching the gate. Could she see him? It was rare, but not unheard-of, for a mortal to have fairie sight…

The woman’s eyes widened. She said something, though Aranion couldn’t hear it – and, without a geis to make her words intelligible, he wouldn’t have understood her anyway.

Barely thinking what he did, Aranion smiled, keeping his hands open to show he meant no harm. Maybe he could convince her to cross to him?

Even as he thought it, he knew the idea was unconscionably cruel. What did he have to offer her but an ugly death? And that was without even considering what her disappearance would mean to the people she’d leave behind. He had nothing at all to offer her, beyond a dream…

Perhaps a pair of dreams, because as she came closer, he recognized something in the angles of her face -- the child he’d seen at his adulthood rite. Aranion stared, shocked. It should have been impossible -- he had no connection with her. This was why only priests had leave to toy around with the gates that connected worlds! The magic was much too large for him. Too dangerous.

And yet…

At that very moment, the woman turned away.

Maybe she had rejected him, Aranion thought, feeling his heart sink. Or maybe she had never really seen him at all…

But then he realized she had turned because another of the mortal chariots had pulled up beside her house.

It was a large, ugly shell of glittering black and silver with big, bulbous wheels. A metal grill on the front looked like the lower teeth of a wild boar. A pair of glowing eyes sat on either side of the teeth.

No animal was visibly pulling it, so it must have had some magic propelling it inside –clearly, mortals had advanced greatly since Aranion’s childhood lessons, he thought.

The vehicle was driven without respect. It avoided the hard-packed earth clearly meant for its use, and instead drove straight up onto the grass.

The woman took a step back. The chariot’s doors opened, and a man stepped out. He was short and burly, with loose clothing that did little to hide the thick muscles of his arms and neck.

The man shouted something at the woman. Aranion wished he could hear it… although, from the mortal’s expression and the fact that the woman was inching backwards toward the gate, it was clear enough that it was some kind of threat.

Heart beating rapidly, Aranion reached for the bow on his back, and nocked an arrow.

It was clear that the other mortal had none of the Sight. All his attention was focused on the woman. His face was getting darker with rage as walked towards her, shouting.

The woman shouted back, waving her hands in front of her. The man, when he was close enough, reached out and grabbed her by the wrist.

The woman opened her mouth to scream. The man shoved a metal implement up against her chest, and whispered something. She stood in frozen terror.

Aranion’s eyed were riveted on the pair. He didn’t have a clean shot. And now, as he watched the man began leading the woman towards the angry chariot.

‘Gods, forgive me,’ Aranion prayed. He was about to violate the most series rule he had ever broken in his life.

He moved forward, and stepped through the gate.

He was on the other side, a world with a suddenly different-feeling air, different smells and different moonlit shadows. Night was falling here – only his excellent elven vision made the figures in the drama as clear to him as if it had been day.

The short, burly man was still pushing the women before him toward the chariot.

Aranion shouted, “Unhand her.”

The man stopped, turning his head and staring at Aranion in obvious confusion. Of course, he couldn’t understand Aranion’s words. But surprise must have loosened his grip, because the woman managed to pull back.

With a fierce movement of her leg, she kneed the man firmly in his manly treasures.

He grunted, and the woman pulled herself away. She came running – right toward Aranion. The man followed, pointing his metal stick at Aranion.

Aranion now had a clear shot. He let his arrow fly.

It landed cleanly in the man’s throat.

The woman stared at her felled attacker, who had made a dreadful noise, flailed, then fallen to the ground. Then she looked at Aranion. Her entire body was shaking in terror.

Aranion lowered his bow.

“I have to get the arrow,” he said in a tone as low and comforting as he could. She wouldn’t understand his words, but hopefully she would understand from his voice, and the fact that he had lowered his weapon, that he had no intention of hurting her.

Moving his hand slowly, he pointed at the arrow. The woman hugged herself, breathing rapidly through her teeth.

He took a step toward the dead mortal. It wouldn’t do for other mortals to come into possession of an Elven-made arrow. He knelt beside the body. Its warm blood was still spilling slowly into the grass.

Aranion grabbed at the base of the arrow and with a twist, pulled.

Thankfully, he managed to get it free on the first try.

Above, the moon was full. It spilled cold light onto the tableau. Did the moon of this world have a spirit dreaming inside, as the moon of Underhill…? Aranion shook his head. This was hardly the time for abstract philosophies.

A scream disturbed Aranion from his thoughts. He snapped his head up, startled.

It wasn’t the woman. She was standing behind him. Turning towards the noise, he saw a young mortal girl backing away. She held something in her hand, touching it with her finger, and said something.

The woman ran to his side. Putting her hand on his shoulder, she pointed toward the gate. Obviously, he was in some trouble for killing the other mortal.

Aranion had no concept of how justice worked in the mortal world, but he couldn’t allow himself to be captured here. Once they realized his true nature, they would surely shackle him in cold iron -- and that would slowly kill the magic in him, leaving him a soulless monster that only lived to cause pain.

No, he had already done too much damage. Aranion stood up swiftly.

First, he had to erase all evidence of his crime. He reached through the gate for some connection to his magic, and pointed toward the fleeing mortal girl. Light arced from his hand towards her.

He didn’t have the time to be subtle, so instead he simply ripped the entire day from the girl’s mind. She dropped to the ground, unconscious.

Now for the body. The fastest thing would be to bring it through the gate. The man was bulky, but Aranion would be strong enough. He needed to get it moved before the girl’s earlier screams alerted other mortals.

Squatting beside the body, he reached his arms around the mortal’s chest. The sick iron smell of mortal blood cloyed in the back of his throat as he started to drag the body backward.

To Aranion’s utter shock, the woman walked around the body to the back and took up the legs.

Together, they dragged the body through the gate.

Sade still was holding out hope that this was an insane lucid dream. Lucid nightmare. At least, that would be more believable than the idea that a drop-dead gorgeous figment of her childhood imagination had somehow walked out of a hole in the air and shot her crazy ex with an arrow.

Maybe that was what had prompted Sade to help him with the body. Dreams had their own logic, after all. You just had to roll with it.

Still, she really preferred the fun sex dream she’d had the night before to this madness.

Well, she’d have to wake up eventually. Either that or the shock would wear off, and she’d totally fall apart.

But first things first…

Right now, Sade was standing in a thick, glowing forest holding onto Michael’s ankles. Her rescuer had lowered the upper half of Michael’s body to the ground, so Sade did the same.

In the phosphorescent light, looking at Michael’s slack face, the bloody hole in his throat where his life-blood had spilled out, Sade wasn’t sure what to feel. She had loved him once. But that had been long ago. Long before he’d put a knife to her stomach, and told her he’d spill her guts if she screamed.

If this man -- the figment of her childhood memory, or whatever he was -- hadn’t been there, what would Michael have done?

Sade thought she was going to be ill. She took a step back from the body.

The man said something.

Sade shook her head. She had to pull herself together -- be polite; it was the least she could do – but it was unnerving not to understand him.

Sade took a breath, and lifted her head to meet the man’s gaze. At least he had the grace to look uncomfortable, too.

Sade pointed to her chest. “Sade,” she said. “I’m Sade."

The man repeated her name. His voice was liquid silk caressing her ears.

He had certainly filled out since she was a child. Still thin, yes, but now his thinness had substance, all whipcord muscle over bone. Now the sharpness of his features seemed dangerous instead of odd. And, like the fool Sade was, the danger drew her in, made her want him to touch her with power and control, as the moonlight in her dream. Had that been his magic? He
had
to be magic of some kind, looking the way he did, like a dream straight off the screen of an epic fantasy movie.

He even had pointed ears. What would it be like to touch them?

The thought of it warmed her face.

She glanced down at Michael’s corpse, and felt ashamed. This was hardly the time.

The man pointed to himself. “Aranion,” he said clearly.

“Aranion.” Sade smiled. “Thank you, Aranion. For your help.”

Aranion cocked his head. Wisps of hair escaped the tie he’d pulled it back with, to fall in moonlight strands about his face.

He sighed, muttered something, and then said “Sade,” and pointed behind her.

Sade turned. Behind her…

Behind her, it was as if she were staring through a soapy pool into her backyard. Blue and red lights flashed from the street, and two police officers were walking over her lawn.

Sade was shocked. She could only have been here a few minutes, after all!

She shook her head. “I can’t,” she said.

There was no way she planned simply to step out of thin air in front of a bunch of cops. If there was one thing that years of watching TV crime dramas had taught her, it was that cops thought in straight lines. She glanced down at her T-shirt. The hem of it even had a smear of his blood.

Lacking a believable alternative explanation, once the cops matched the blood to Michael’s… well, she’d be their number one suspect.

Best to wait it out.

There was a rustle, and Sade looked up to see Aranion walking towards her. He stopped and knelt in front of her.

He placed his fingers under her chin, and looked into her eyes, as though searching for something. His gaze was a deep blue-grey that reminded Sade of the sky just before a storm. She felt as if she had known those eyes forever.

The area just below her field of vision brightened. She glanced down, and saw that his hand was glowing.

Sade’s heart thudded. When he’d done this before, just a few minutes ago, he’d knocked Maria, her neighbor, flat! --

Sade tried to pull away, but he grabbed her shoulder and held it with a firm grip that belied his size. Even if he hadn’t put a hand on her, Sade suspected his gaze would have held her fast.

Run. She had to run. Get away. Just because he’d rescued her didn’t make him safe!

His entire body was glowing now -- and she realized that it wasn’t just him, the glow surrounded both of them. She was warm, hot, and there was a voice in her mind. It whispered just outside the edges of her consciousness, and although she couldn’t understand its words it wanted something. The voice multiplied into a chorus, a cacophony of whispers all speaking in different tongues, all frantically overlapping, until Sade was sure she’d gone completely insane…

“Stop!” Sade screamed.

Around her, the tiny sounds of the forest that she hadn’t even noticed all ceased, and all she could hear was her own panicked breathing.

“Sade?” he said, his voice rich and concerned. “Are you okay?”

It took Sade a moment to realize that he was speaking English. She stared at him, shocked. “What did you do to me?”

“I’m sorry,” he said -- Aranion, she told herself: his name was Aranion. “I had to put a
geis
on us both, so that we could understand each other. I wasn’t even sure it would work with a mortal -- but it was clear that you were agitated and didn’t understand what I was trying to tell you.”

She could understand, now, what he was saying, but the liquid silk of his voice was just as enticing. Sade thought she would be content to lie in his arms and listen to him speak forever…

As if that mattered in the slightest right now.

“It was…weird,” she said cautiously.

“Yes,” Aranion said, looking at her intensely – curiously, she told herself. “The spell took hold of you very strongly. It must be something of your mortal magic. The geis should have felt like a tickle over your mind -- nothing more.”

“Well, it was more like a whole football field full of people stuffed inside a closet shouting and banging cymbals.”

“What’s a football field?” Aranion asked curiously.

Sade shook her head. “Don’t worry about it.”

She sighed. “Listen,” she said. “I think it would be better if I lie low here with you for a day or two, at least until the police have left my house.”

“The police? Are those the ones with the metal chariots that flash red and blue?”

“Yeah, that’s them,” she said grimly.” “And even though Michael’s body is gone, his truck is still in my driveway, and there’s enough blood on the grass that they’re going to know something’s up. Not to mention what’s going to happen when Linette wakes up.”

If
Linette woke up… The sudden thought struck her with horror. What had Sade gotten herself into when she followed this man into another world? “You didn’t kill her – Linette, the girl from next door… did you?”