Scene Thirty One
Quicksilver, lying on the ground, is covered in the magical net that steals his powers. Proteus stands nearby, and a terrified Caliban, a few feet off, covers his lipless mouth with his trembling paws.
Quicksilver hurt. His chest hurt where Hylas had kicked him, and his shoulder, where the wound from Proteus's blade still smarted and where the cruel hooves had brought forth blood anew.
Something about the crux made Quicksilver less than invulnerable and slower to heal. Or perhaps something about his separation from Silver, Quicksilver thought.
And, thinking it, he felt the now familiar pain of the separation.
Hylas laughed, an easy laugh. He stood beside Quicksilver and laughed at Quicksilver’s helplessness or perhaps at his look of pain. He trotted in place, giving his movement the look of a victory dance.
“Now is the king of fairyland brought low,” he said and laughed again.
Aching, bleeding, his face in the dirt, breathing in the bracken scent of moldy leaf and old moss, his power sapped by the cruel net, Quicksilver found voice to whisper. What he whispered surprised himself.
“Why do you hate me?” he asked.
His voice, raspy and pained, barely rose above the rustling of wind upon the trees.
But it was heard by all and hung upon the cool air of the crux and upon Quicksilver’s mind.
For it was a mad question. Rebellious centaurs had always hated the elven kings.
There was nothing to know.
Hylas stopped his dance and was silent a moment. Then, in a voice that rose aggressively, he said, “Why do I hate you? Oh, I hate you as I hate death and pain and all elves. Your infant race — like the race of men — clambered upon our ancient, ordered world and took it from us.
“With your ideas of a proper life, of right government, you sullied our nation-states. You destroyed our loves, our rhymes, our heroic wars, our hunting bands, our academies.
“You took the meadows where we ran free and fenced them in parcels so small there was scarcely space to get up to a trot. Our forests you turned into plowed fields, where the hoof can catch and the ankle break. In our sacred glades you built haughty palaces, from which we — half-animal, you said — were excluded.” He spat in Quicksilver’s face.
His spit, warm and smelling of wine, landed on Quicksilver’s eyelid, making Quicksilver’s eye smart.
“All this we withstood, in patient calm, till humanity invented wine. Tasting it unlocked our rage and our hurt. Then, over a private brawl and minor damage — such as humans do daily to each other — did the Lapithae almost destroy our race.
“And when the sad remnants of that race asked for asylum and help in your land, were we told we had to surrender all our power and magic to the king of elves.
“In return we got nothing, not even that magic that all other subjects of the hill can access. Rather we were kept at bay and kept down, feared and despised at once.”
Hylas pawed at the ground with irate hoof. “For the lack of healing magic, our young foals die. Because we lack the use of our own magic, let alone the magic of the hill, we’re unable to catch animals in the depopulated woods and amid the houses of mankind. Our people starve, O king, while you dance in your palace.
“Again and again have our people rebelled and tried to improve their lot and have use, at least, of their own magic. Time and again, elves have killed our best stallions on the field of battle — and given us nothing.”
Hylas stopped talking.
For a while, only the sound of wind on the trees, the sound of the centaurs’ breathing — all three of them, in unison — broke the perfect silence of the crux.
“And you ask why I hate you?” Hylas said.
“But I have not done this myself,” Quicksilver said. “I’ve only reigned for fourteen years. How can you accuse me of centuries of injustice?”
“You knew of it,” Hylas said. “You perpetuated the injustice, and so all the injustice is yours.”
“But Proteus would be no better king than I,” Quicksilver said.
Hylas laughed. “Did I say we want Proteus for our king?” Turning half away from Quicksilver, Hylas grinned at Caliban. “You, beast, serve me true, or you shall be our meal. Watch this king while we go hunting. Something in this land must be edible, and I’ve seen some deer over yonder.”
Together, the centaurs galloped out of the clearing.
Caliban lowered his hands, slowly, and looked at Quicksilver -- an unreadable look.
Lying on the ground, cold, empty of magic and trembling in fear, Quicksilver boiled with rage that he’d been unable to express. Why was he blamed for the evils of all his race? How could he defend himself from such, all-encompassing charges?
As soon as he judged safe — hooves sounded nowhere, and the voices of the centaurs had receded in the distance, he spoke, “Caliban, remove the net from me.”
Quicksilver must go rescue Miranda. He must go back to the hill and surround himself with those who didn’t accuse him of crimes he could not ever mend.
Caliban looked at him. His eyes were dark and reflected nothing. If eyes were the mirror of the soul, then Caliban’s soul remained unreflected.
Perhaps he had no soul.
Caliban shook his head. “I can’t,” he said. “I’ll not risk my life for your sake.”
“Remove the net,” Quicksilver said. “And then I’ll be able to do magic and I’ll set it all to rights. And then, when we return to fairyland shall I make you a courtier, one of my honored ministers.
“Your cave in the mountains shall be transformed by my might and magic to a palace, and your mother shall be honored above all mothers in elvenland.”
Now did Caliban stare harder at Quicksilver. He squinted, his eyes narrowing, without showing any more expression than before.
“He’s told me the truth,” Caliban said. “Hylas has. When they caught me again, they said I must help them, and they told me the truth. Trolls fought on his side in the great elven war. And your side killed countless trolls.
“Hylas told me how, once, you and your servants blocked the entrance of a cave with burning branches, and there suffocated a whole clan of trolls, male and female, infants and children.”
His eyes looked, if possible, more opaque and more expressionless. “That might have been my clan.”
Quicksilver swallowed. What he’d been afraid the monster would find out, the monster had indeed found out.
Lying on the ground, staring at the creature’s great, gnarled feet, with their huge, hard claws like horns, Quicksilver wondered what would happen if Caliban kicked him.
He could imagine the claws rending him, tearing into him. He remembered the feel of troll claws, of troll teeth, of the immense strength of trolls holding him pinned while they gnawed on his shoulder.
Had Malachite not come then, Quicksilver would have been dead. Dead and eaten by trolls.
But how could Quicksilver explain this to the creature who, in many ways, whether he believed it or not, was as innocent as the little fairy princess?
“It was a war,” he said and, to himself, his voice sounded tinny and false. “When the gods cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war, what can elf or man -- or troll— do, but fight and do his duty till his duty is done and victory or defeat reaped from the bitter harvest of fighting?”
Caliban shook his head. “That might have been my clan,” he said. “And man and elf can think. So can troll.”
“And yet,” Quicksilver said. “I could still make it all better. I could give you honors, riches. I could protect your mistress, whom you prize.” Quicksilver strained against the threads of the net, fine as spiderweb, that seemed to cut into him and freeze him to the heart.
Caliban glared at him, out of the corner of his black eyes. “Even you, O king, cannot restore life to the dead, nor can you undo your injustice with honors.” He grinned at Quicksilver, showing his sharp fangs, his yellowed teeth. A smell of putrefaction floated from his breath. “The net remains, till the centaurs come back. And till they finish their job and kill you. And you’ll kill no more trolls, O king of elves.”