Scene Thirty Seven
Quicksilver, slung over the back of the brown centaur, jarred and jostled by the pace of the creature, as it trots down the true path.
Quicksilver heard Will call out to him and, opening his eyes, found Will’s gaze trained on him, those odd golden eyes that looked still as in Will’s youth, but now filled with such shock that it made Quicksilver want to laugh despite it all.
You heard me, Will’s mind-voice echoed in Quicksilver’s mind.
Quicksilver smiled, nodded. How odd it felt — Will’s voice in his mind. How far he’d come that Will’s small attention, Will’s agreement to speak to him, even to mind-speak, made him so grateful that his eyes tingled with tears.
Oh, Silver had loved this mortal desperately.
But then, why did Quicksilver still feel this gentle enchantment towards the mortal with the falcon eyes, the receding hair, the fear of all things magical?
Marlowe says you must accept Silver, or you’ll both die, Will said.
Marlowe? Quicksilver thought, raising his eyebrows in surprise. What did Will mean?
He didn’t know if Will heard his thought, or just read his expression.
Will’s golden eyes became intent, fixed, and Will’s mind-voice, hesitant and unpracticed, whispered in Quicksilver’s thoughts, Marlowe’s ghost. I’ve been seeing him for days now. He says he gave me his poetry and, with such a bequest or the good thereof, came his inability to go on towards heaven or hell. Now he wants to save us that he might be freed and join his son in heaven.
Will frowned, and his eyes showed doubt of what he, himself, said. At least, he thought, that’s what he claims, but, faith, I believe that he still loves...you.
Quicksilver laughed at this, for here was the wonder.
In her life, Silver had loved no one but Will. In his life, even Quicksilver’s love for his wife paled in comparison to this affection he’d caught from Silver like a catching sickness. And yet, Will spoke of love for either aspect of Quicksilver as a strange thing, incomprehensible, to be pondered and thought of and not fully believed.
Will--staid, sane Will--could never love an elf, much less a divided elf, and half of it a male.
And Marlowe, whom Silver had used for her pleasure, whom Quicksilver had used for his plaything, had loved Quicksilver so truly that, having died for that love, he still did not consider it enough.
He says, Will said. That unless you can become Silver again, become one with her, you will die. This seems to pain him.
“Die,” Quicksilver whispered. “Die? What can I do but die?” For Proteus will kill me today. He will kill all of us.
Lifting his head at an awkward angle, he saw the white castle at the center of the crux moving ever closer as the centaurs trotted towards it.
Its white, tall towers defied even the best elf architecture.
Quicksilver had heard the conversation between Proteus and the centaurs yesterday. He knew what would happen when they got there, when they joined Proteus and Miranda there.
Proteus would use Miranda to protect himself from the vengeance of the hill and with one murder rid himself of all rival claimants to the throne of fairyland. And there was nothing Quicksilver could do to stop him.
After a night of writhing and trying to think his way out of this cunning trap, Quicksilver had found that perfect despair that was like calm at the eye of a storm.
Miranda was powerful enough, faith, to shield Proteus from the results of killing a king of the hill. Though chances were she would die from it.
And if not... if not, Proteus intended to kill her, that he could reign alone.
Oh, the poor besotted girl. Quicksilver pitied her most heartily, for he knew what it was like to love in vain. But he knew not what he could do about it. Not while he was wrapped in this net that suppressed all his magical powers.
He watched the centaurs talk to each other, even as they galloped on the smooth road, ignoring the captives on their backs.
He thought they would not ignore Silver thus, and felt a momentary relief that Silver had not fallen to their crude mercies, for hot-blooded centaurs always craved human or elf female flesh.
But on the heels of that very relief, a contrary thought crept. For Silver would get them to remove the net. Quicksilver would wager on it.
Centaurs had ever had an eye for elven beauty. If only Quicksilver could change into Silver—perhaps confuse the centaurs with the change...did they know he could change? He hadn’t changed in the last ten years, never in public...perhaps he could convince them that Quicksilver had escaped and left a beautiful girl elf in his place.
Then, perhaps, the centaurs would be stupid enough to free Silver. Oh, they would free her only to rape her, or so the legends said, although they all spoke of inebriated centaurs and these were sober.
But if they freed Silver, Quicksilver’s magic would be enough to oppose them.
Oh, if only Quicksilver could change into Silver....
He reached inside him for the memories of Silver, for Silver’s warm affections, and tried to shape her from the effluvium she’d left behind.