The Master (26 page)

“You make it sound like the magic is . . .” Nick hunted for a word.

“Sentient? Yes. It is. It is the spirit side of the Goddess, and far from aimless. And for the magic to survive, it needs beings in which to repose. It can't live on in just the earth and trees and rivers. It needs for us to carry it and respond to its will. And it does whatever it can to ensure both its survival and our own.”

“But . . . ? ” Nick asked, hearing the death fey's hesitation.

“But I think, in the end, Its survival comes first.” Jack sighed. “Understand, there is something about you and Zee together that is important to our continued existence. So the magic has mated you and brought you here for a reason. And thus, yours is a union more final than any made in any human church—especially now that you have come to Cadalach. I hope you can live with this, because I don't know if walking away is an option. Thomas tried, and it nearly killed Cyra.”

“I can live with it,” Nick answered, and thought he meant it. He could not imagine a life now that didn't contain Zee. Or the children. He just wasn't as certain about himself and Zee having children of their own. He would need to do a lot of research into genetics and talk to Zayn and Bysshe. And to Zee, too. How did she feel about all this? If she had been raised by goblins, did she have fears of humans? Of feys? Hansel and Gretel had certainly, at first been afraid of his story of the elf, Santa Claus. It was strange to think that Zee might at some level find his humanity to be alien, repulsive or frightening.

“Good, I'm glad you feel this way.” Jack smiled suddenly. “It simplifies things tremendously. You know, the magic has never been wrong. As a matchmaker, It has no peer. And you will need Zee's help in the years to come, particularly if you return to the human world. Our feyness overcomes our human nature. I'm not saying we lose our compassion, or what you would call our ‘humanity,' but our long life adds new perspectives—and responsibilities. Our burden is often a heavy one, as you will see. A helpmate is critical.”

Nick nodded slowly. He'd been given the answers he wanted but was unsure if he was any happier knowing the facts. It sounded like Jack was saying, for the fey, there was no free will when it came to love. Nick thought of literature's fated lovers and didn't draw any comfort: Romeo and Juliet, Anthony and Cleopatra, Tristan and Isolde—they'd all come to bad ends.

But not Jack and Io
, his ghost said,
not any of the others here. Maybe modern romance is different
.

Nick nodded to himself. There was yet some reason to be hopeful.

Thomas met Nick outside the door to Nick's bedchamber. Again, Nick was prevented from seeking sleep.

“Do you have a minute?” the man asked. “I'm feeling a little guilty for bringing up something that . . . well, that you may not be ready to understand. After all, you haven't had much time to accept who you are. Trying to understand strangeness in another is probably asking a bit much.”

“I have to admit I'm feeling a bit odd,” Nick said, leaning against the wall. He smiled as amiably as he could. “But all these questions are ones for which I need answers. Who's to say when is the right time or place?”

Thomas nodded sagely. “If it makes you feel any better, we're pretty normal here right now. Believe it or not, there are things far odder that used to inhabit this shian.”

“Really?” Nick couldn't imagine. He was tired, but his mind was still functioning enough to want to know more.

“Yes,” Thomas said. “Giants. These caves were once theirs. Have you ever wondered why there are all these desert ghost towns around—Indians disappearing first, then miners?” he asked. “Humans say it's because the crops failed, or the mines played out, and the people just up and left. But that isn't it at all. Anytime they could get away with it, giants wiped out the human populations and took over their mines and cornfields. Then they died out, leaving massive stockpiles of precious metals and gems. The goblins swooped down on as much as they could but soon discovered the difficulty we face: Giants' gold can't be moved. One can possess it, but it can never be spent.”

“How frustrating,” Nick said, trying to imagine the fiendish torment this could inspire. “Have you thought of any way to break the . . . what? Spell?”

“Not yet, but I'm still thinking. Come along,” Thomas said, beginning to smile. “I'll show you a lost, buried, enchanted treasure. Well, actually, since I've found it, it isn't lost—and it's hardly buried anymore. But it is certainly an enchanted treasure, and well worth seeing.”

“Okay,” Nick agreed, pushing upright and following to what looked like a blank wall in a cavernous room. “It's over here?”

“In a manner of speaking. We found another branch of the old road that ended here. It will take us directly to another shian that was an elf stronghold. Cyra goes there a lot.”

Thomas passed a hand over the wall and murmured something, and Nick could suddenly see that there was a small break in the stone. It must have been a very clever overlapping of joints, because until a moment before he hadn't been able to detect anything.

“Stay close,” Thomas said. “This path isn't any scarier than the last you took, but it travels a little faster. It can be a shade disorienting.”

“So, what do you think?” Thomas asked a short while later.

They had passed several small chambers studded with luminescent gemstones, and finally stopped at one stocked with massive bricks of gold. All of the chambers were lit by small flames of blue and orange, which bled out of the cracked walls. There were also, in the hearts of those flames, shadows that looked like tiny, dancing reptilian creatures with massive teeth and claws. Nick looked about for the shadows' owners, but there was no sign, and the fiery shades danced on untethered to bodies.

“The fire? It's not . . . magical?” Nick reached out for the flame but hesitated. It felt plenty real to him.

“Natural gas and something else. Certain creatures—like the fire imps—love it. They're everywhere down here. Frankly, I didn't know if you would see them—not everyone does without eye ointment. Of course, your ancestors hunted them, so it makes sense that you would notice.”

“We ate those?” Nick asked, appalled as he imagined the indigestion from consuming a reptilian fire lizard.

Thomas laughed. “No. The imps weren't killed; the pixies just used their shedding scales to make pixie dust. Notice how their skins make them nearly invisible, as well as impervious to heat.”

“Pixie dust? Please say you're kidding.”

“I'm not, and don't look so dismayed. It's not the stuff in
Peter Pan
.” Thomas shook his head, half in sorrow and half in amusement at this literary misinformation. “Pixie dust can't make anyone fly. It's used to leave a trail that enchanted humans can follow, even through fire or extreme cold or dark. Forests can be dark on moonless nights, and that's the usual time for leading humans astray.”

“Oh.” As was often the case, Nick didn't know what to say.

Thomas went on gesturing to the tunnels around them. “The giants' system of labyrinths was very clever. They didn't go deep into the mountain where we live, but everywhere they dwelled is filled with this fire. We haven't been able to extinguish it, either. It may be part of the spell that's been laid on their treasure.” Thomas stepped into the room, and gestured. “Pick up the gold, if you like. You can handle it; you just can't take it from the chamber.”

Nick moved closer, not touching anything. He'd heard too many stories about cursed treasure to want to risk much. He didn't even want to look. Instead, he peered into the darkest corner of the room, where a huge dark lump huddled on the floor, trying to decide what he was truly seeing and if it was just more odd shadows. Finally, with a shiver of distaste, he decided that what he saw was real; he was looking at a pair of sandals that were made for feet three times larger than any he had ever seen on a human.

The sandals were made of fur, were the color of old hair that has been buried in iron-rich ground and were laced up with a dried leather tie that twisted itself like a molted snake skin. One sandal's thin tongue stuck straight up in the air like . . . well, like a tongue—but one that had dried out years before and would speak no more. Nick was certain that the soles were made of some sort of bone— rafts of leg bones lashed together to form a base that had been half-ground away—and he tried not to speculate about the skin donor's identity. Yet he had seen enough human corpses to know his body parts, and the leg bones were definitely human.

“Fee fi, fo, fum,”
he muttered. “Only these guys didn't grind all the bones to make their bread. I'll never feel the same way about fairy tales, you know,” he told Thomas. “Unless you tell me I'm hallucinating.”

The dark-haired man followed Nick's line of sight. “No,” he said. “That's exactly what you're thinking they are. You just have to remember that, to a giant, a human is just an animal—and a dangerous one at that.” Thomas didn't mention whether the giants also used bones for their cooking, and Nick didn't ask.

A moment later, Thomas said, “You have to admit, this is weirder than any of us. It makes me feel reassuringly normal.”

Nick nodded a reply, not happy but accepting.

He was learning another lesson. He'd always known that just because beings shared the traits of being bipedal, having opposable thumbs and a spoken language, that didn't mean they were going to get along. It was never true with humans. But he had never guessed this carried over into other breeds of sentient being. Fairy tales were just that— metaphors, not real. And yet, here the stories were: proven, and very, very real. And so the world was far less peaceful than he had ever suspected.

“What happened to them?” He couldn't hide his distaste. “The giants, I mean.”

“Cheer up, Nick. The sun got them,” Thomas replied. His face was suddenly remote. “As far as we know, they're all dead now—along with all pure-blooded feys and vampires. Human DNA triumphs again. And with a little luck, maybe it'll survive the next age, too.”

Nick knew Thomas was regretting that the fey hadn't been so lucky.

“So, feys aren't immortal. For instance, Abrial's not undying, right? Just very long-lived?” Nick asked suddenly, trying to clarify what he knew.

“We are all both mortal and immortal. Our bodies die eventually, but our souls live on. Some bodies don't die for a really, really long time. Jack tells us to worry about the laws of eternity as opposed to the laws of time.”

Nick would have asked further, but there was a slight disturbance outside. Thomas frowned, then laughed ruefully.

“Speaking of living for a long, long time—guess who's here?” he said.

“Uh . . .” Nick smelled burning petroleum. “How did he find us?”

“More to the point—
why
did he find us?”

“Thomas, one would think you weren't happy to see me,” a deep voice complained. A small, billowing flame accompanied the dragon's words.

“My emotions are always mixed,” Thomas said. “And my question stands: Why did you come to get us?”

“I didn't actually come to get you,” the dragon answered. His snout appeared in the doorway, but it didn't enter the chamber, though there was just enough room to accommodate its body. “I left to see if Cyra wanted a ride back home, but she has already left the healing pool. So instead I've come— very generously, I might add—to offer the same to you two. After all, you missed out on the pony rides.” There was a chuckle in the beast's voice.

“Thanks, but no thanks,” Thomas said. “These tunnels are tight, and I don't need a cracked skull.”

Nick made no protest to this high-handed assumption that he didn't want to be carried; he didn't want to ride on the dragon, either—and not because he feared a cracked head, though that danger was probably reason enough. All he could think of was the gingerbread man getting a ride from the fox and ending up in its gullet.

“Well, then . . .” the dragon answered, its fiery eyes now appearing in the opening. He was studying some fire imps intently.

“Don't let us keep you,” Thomas said.

“I shall just walk with you a ways.” The dragon sniffed loudly. “What a smelly hole. Those giants were filthy creatures. But please, move as slow as you like. I'm in no hurry, and I can hold my nose.”

“We're done,” Nick said quickly. “I need a nap. I haven't slept in days.”

“Okay. Let's head back,” Thomas agreed, and the dragon obligingly backed out of the doorway.

Thomas and Nick walked side by side back toward the tunnel from which they had arrived, with the dragon a pace behind. Nick wished it was the other way about, but that would hardly have been a practical way to carry on a conversation. There was also the matter of avoiding the beast's massive, thrashing tail.

“I like northern goblins best,” the dragon said suddenly.

Nick looked back, surprised by the choice of topic, but was curious as ever.

“There are differences?” he asked. “Aren't they all the same species?”

“Oh, there are differences,” the dragon said. “Zayn claims the northern goblins have higher levels of glucose in their tissues—something about warding off frostbite. It makes them especially tasty. Sadly, the northern hordes rarely send emissaries south anymore, so they are a rare treat these days.”

Thomas rolled his eyes and didn't comment. Nick nodded, not wanting the dragon to see his own consternation.

He's a dragon, Nick said to himself. He eats goblins. They're his food. Get over it.

But calling them food didn't make Nick feel any less uncomfortable. Probably because he knew that, as far as the dragon was concerned, he was potential food, too. And the beast's large mouth was a mere yard away. Behind him. What would happen if Thomas weren't there? Probably nothing.