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Scene Forty Six



The same room, still full of centaurs, but now even more full, with Quicksilver and Ariel added and everyone stepping away from Kit’s corpse, knitting themselves with the wall. Malachite tries to hide behind one the centaurs, who isn’t having any of it.



Ariel held onto Quicksilver’s arm, her heart swelling with gratitude, with new-found hope, newly discovered love.

Immediately upon coming back into the world of mortals, she felt the power of faerie land flow into her. She felt warmer, stronger.

The centaur caught in the door backed up, step by step, then in the hallway turned and ran away. Hylas reared, then turned.

Looking at Quicksilver, Ariel realized why. Quicksilver positively glowed with magical power and exuded a bright strength she’d never seen in him before.

“The centaurs,” she said.

Quicksilver shook his head. “Yes, I must assemble an army and discipline Centuria. These few, poor fools aren’t worth much.” Yet he put out his hand, and something like a bright light flowed from his fingers.

A brayed scream of indignation pierced the silence.

Hylas disappeared. The echo of hoof beats died in the hall. A woman cried softly from within the house.

“You....” Ariel said, realizing that Quicksilver had annihilated the centaurs with an energy burst, more energy than any king of faerieland should be able to expend. “You....”

He shook his head. He looked grave. “I killed them, yes. I had to. They’d been tainted by my brother’s evil power. As has this one.” He looked towards Malachite, who’d been slinking towards the door.

Skeres and Poley, obviously confused and shocked, barred his way. Frizer still stood, over Kit Marlowe’s body, morosely examining the blood-sprayed sleeve of his white shirt, as if not sure where the blood had come from.

Quicksilver gestured with his hand, and the mortals in the room -- Skeres, Poley, Frizer, and Will -- all froze in their positions, immobilized, static. Time stopped for them.

“You, Malachite, whom I’ve loved like a brother -- you, foul traitor, what caused your so-vile treason?”

Malachite turned. White as tallow, shaking as the leaf that trembles in the wind, he turned and stared at Quicksilver. “Brother?” he asked, his voice low and trembling. “Brother? When have I been brother to you? I, who’ve been your slave, the attender of your wardrobe, the servant of your whims, the commander of your armies only so far as you would have me go, like a leashed dog, but never allowed to amass glory or honor for myself, lest it should shake the weak foundation of your reign?

“Brother?” He shook his head, his green eyes fixed with fear but also with an almost fanatical outrage. “How can you call me so when from my crib was I stolen, a mewling infant, and led to the strange world of faerie where I could never fit and never live? Where I would ever be inferior and looked down upon, ignored and despised and ordered about? And you, oh might king of elves, didn’t even notice my plight?”

Ariel looked at Quicksilver. In other days, would these words have destroyed him. In other days would he be cringing from the accusations.

Instead he frowned, a strong king seeking to understand a subject’s complaint. “Had my mother not requested you, had you not been stolen from your crib, as you say, would you be dead. As you were stolen, were you dying, your people too poor even to feed you.”

“Yet they were my people, and in stealing me, you stole my true estate,” Malachite yelled, his hands in fists, his eyes blazing.

“Ah, proud creature, treacherous servant. The truth is, you would wear my crown,” Quicksilver said. He put his hand to Ariel and squeezed Ariel’s hands in his own. “And despoiled my people in revenge for an imaginary wrong done to you. Speak like a subject, proud ambitious Malachite. Resign your chair, and where I stand kneel you, whilst I propose the selfsame fate to you, which traitor, you would have had me answer to.” Quicksilver drew himself up, and Ariel felt power gather to him, the power of the hill, of that still-loyal hill, that Malachite had not succeeded in severing from its rightful sovereign. “Let your words condemn you, and thus go you back to the world of men from when you came, and all those who in your heart followed your cause, may they go with you.”

Quicksilver waved his hand. As if forty years had accumulated instantly to Malachite’s youthful figure, he bent, and his hair whitened, and his proud features became lined and pruned.

In a breath, a wizened old man stood before them, a man of sixty, Malachite’s age. Even his green eyes looked faded, with which he gave Quicksilver a look of pure hatred.

But Quicksilver’s eyes showed only grief, as he waved the oldster away, and, putting power behind the order, commanded, “Go you now from here and forget all you’ve ever known about faerieland. Finish your days as you’d have me finish mine, powerless and lost in the world of mortals.”

Unable to resist the compulsion, but still regarding Quicksilver with hatred, Malachite shuffled backwards towards the door and through it.

Once he was out of sight, the sound of his shuffling lost in the corridor outside, Quicksilver waved his hand again. The mortals in the world came to life once more, looking confused.

“Milord?” Ariel said, wishing to comfort her king, but not sure how to do it. “Was it needed?”

Quicksilver swallowed and nodded and sighed. “Yes, it was needed. Malachite was too corrupted by the dark power to save as an elf. And all my fault. I should have seen his resentment. I should have known.... I should have seen. Alas, I did not. From now on, I’ll be an attentive, awakened king.” He squeezed her arm again and she understood that he could truly do this now, now that he had her love.

Ariel wanted to cry and to beg his forgiveness for her many wrongs to him, in the past. But what she did was take his long, pale hands in hers, and rub them distractedly, to warm them.

She took his hand to her lips and kissed it, and in that moment noticed that Quicksilver was looking towards Kit’s corpse on the stained wooden floor. “And yet,” he said. “I loved him well.” There was no doubt he spoke of Kit, and yet it might have been an epitaph for Malachite as well.

Ariel said, “I know,” amazed to find herself curiously devoid of jealousy.

“And yet,” Quicksilver said. “He was flawed so that....”

He sighed again, and looked around. “All are punished. All. All of you will think you did what you came to do and bear the guilt of this dismal death that you intended for him. Save you, Will, who will hence and to your bed in London, and forget this dismal scene and this dark ending, except maybe as a dream, dimly remembered. And all of you mortals, all, will forget that Will was ever even here. You’ll not remember his look, nor his face, nor that he had anything to do here.”

He waved his hand in the air and Will vanished.

Then, holding Ariel’s hand, Quicksilver looked towards Kit and said, “Thus cracks a noble heart. Good night, sweet prince and flights of angels sing you to thy rest.” He turned to Ariel and blinked tears from his moss-green eyes. “The play is done, milady, let’s resume the golden coil of our unending lives.”

With that, Ariel felt the scene waver around her.

She was in the faerie palace, safe within the immemorial woods of Arden. Around her, the court buzzed like an ant hill disturbed.

And Quicksilver, with powerful voice, was explained to all everything that had happened.

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Framed