Pasgen had, as he said he would, gone back to Otstargi's house after he left Rhoslyn. He was there, seemingly idle and relaxed by the parlor fire, to witness Albertus' return after it was certain that all of his men had been killed without accomplishing their purpose.
Totally distraught, Albertus poured out the details of the disaster to Pasgen. Only the child who had opened the door for the men and fled had survived, crouching outside the house in the alley and watching. The child had seen Cropper carry out one corpse, had seen the arrival of the watch and the sheriff, had seen the removal of the other five bodies. Worse than the failure, the child had escaped before Albertus could seize him and might describe the fiasco to others, making it impossible for Albertus to hire more men.
"I do not think it matters. You cannot hope to play the same game again," Pasgen said mildly, as if he had no interest in the subject. "It will be impossible to get anyone else into that house. They will watch closely for intruders and likely they will hire extra guards."
"What can I do?" Albertus' voice trembled. "You know my lady can . . . ah . . . be harsh to those who fail her."
Pasgen shrugged indifferently. "I have no idea of what happened in the house and you say the men did get inside. The best I can do for you is to tell Lady Aurilia that your plan worked but that together Aleneil and Denoriel were too strong even though you sent six men against them. I will make as good a case for you as I can."
Not that Pasgen had any intention of going anywhere near Aurilia. But since she did not know an attempt had been made and had failed, she might not yet be impatient for results. Pasgen could only hope that Albertus had made sufficient of that blue potion Aurilia was forever sipping so that she did not call the healer back Underhill.
Albertus had thanked Pasgen fulsomely for his help and took heart, saying that he realized he would have to pick off Aleneil and Denoriel separately. Pasgen listened with an approving expression. Why not? Both Aleneil and Denoriel were Underhill now where Albertus could not touch them and did not plan to return to the mortal world for some time.
Aleneil would be safe even when she did return. She would be in Elizabeth's household where no one Albertus could hire could penetrate. As for Denoriel, Pasgen would give another warning but Denoriel could take care of himself. For now, whatever his plans, Albertus had been rendered impotent.
In due course, Pasgen Gated Underhill to seem to be going to report to Aurilia. As soon as he arrived, he felt the pull of that cursed Unformed land. At first he resisted, idling in his own domain, making sure that the force field around the red mist was sound and strong, that the container of iron filings was well shielded but ready to hand. Pasgen looked at it and sighed. He knew he should empty the iron into the red mist, but he still could not bring himself to do it. He spent time, too, with the wisp of partly responsive mist. Sometimes he thought it was learning, sometimes not.
His resistance did not last very long. In the back of his mind, even as he examined the doings of the mist that used to fascinate him, was the urge to return. His curiosity about the red-haired and gold-haired dolls was eating him alive. Had they dissipated? Had they become more real? Had the mist made more figures?
After a brief struggle with himself, which he pacified by vowing he would not, as he had promised Rhoslyn, leave the Gate, he yielded. When he stepped into his most private Gate, in a warded chamber of his own house, the pattern of the sentient Unformed land leapt into his mind . . . and he was there before he could suppress it. He had barely had time to look around, had not had time to send out a testing tendril into the mist, when the Gate thrummed and a second Sidhe appeared, a levin bolt already burning in her hand.
"What do you here?" she cried, raising the hand in which the levin bolt glared.
Pasgen backed a step, calling up his shields, although he knew it was useless. If she loosed that bolt this close, it would burn through even his shields. "I am Pasgen," he gasped. "I was the one who gave warning about this land."
Slowly the levin bolt began to fade, not dispersed but drawn back into the Sidhe. Despite the lingering threat, Pasgen wondered how she had done that, wondered if it might possibly be through some forgotten magic. That she was very old was immediately apparent. Her hair was white spun mist, so thin, so short that it floated, barely held back from her face by a plain leather thong; her eyes were the palest green Pasgen had ever seen, the color of shallow seawater above white sand. But those eyes were sparkling bright, her expression was alert and interested, and that levin bolt had nothing of weakness or uncertainty about it.
"Ah," the tenseness that told Pasgen she was still on guard decreased and she nodded. "You look like . . . who?"
Pasgen's moue of distaste was more habit than expressive of real feeling now. "Denoriel," he said. "We are half brothers."
The old Sidhe nodded satisfaction. "He spoke of you when he warned the Elders about this domain. I am Gaenor. Once I was a great maker. I know mist. I have been set the task of watching here. When I felt the Gate in use, I was concerned."
Pasgen grimaced. "As I was when I felt you coming. Watching, are you? What have you found here?"
Her face took on a thoughtful expression. "Mostly a feeling . . ."
"A calling? A drawing? I will confess the place draws me. You should have been warned against that. I told Denoriel, I am sure."
But as he spoke, Pasgen found himself looking out into the mist rather than at Gaenor's face. Was that a flash of gold near a ruddy spot? He almost stepped off the Gate platform, but Gaenor had a grip on his arm and drew him back.
"Did you see that?" he asked urgently. "Is that red hair near golden? Have you ever seen the . . . the . . . I do not know what to call them."
"The mist's creatures?" Gaenor's voice was calm. "Not clearly."
"Do you not think it . . . strange? That we can talk about the makings of a mist?" He uttered an uneasy laugh.
She smiled slightly. "When you are as old as I, you will find very few things strange. I come here often and watch. I send no thoughts out into the mist . . . ah . . . you did and there is an answer . . ."
It did seem that the mist was thicker and more curling, that it was coming closer to the Gate platform, that behind the roiling mass were two more substantial clots, one topped in red, the other in gold.
Pasgen shuddered. No mist in any Unformed domain had ever invaded a Gate as far as Pasgen knew, but here— Pasgen took a deep breath, racking his brains for some way to set up a force field that would hold back the mist. But the Gate might disrupt any field he tried or, worse yet, the field might damage the Gate, stranding them—
"Rest!" The voice was command, but honeyed with good will. The mist billowed uncertainly. "You have done enough. No aid is called for here. Rest."
Only, the hand that gripped Pasgen's arm was trembling, the desperation in the hold in total variance to the calm of the voice and the blankness of the mind.
"Rest," Gaenor repeated. "I am called elsewhere but I will come again soon to be with you."
On the last word, they dropped into blackness and emerged in the unadorned Gate on the peaceful, perfect lawn of Elfhame Elder-Elf. Gaenor stepped off the platform, her hand still tight on Pasgen's arm and turned her nearly colorless eyes on him.
"The mist knows you. It was coming to you."
Wordless, Pasgen nodded.
"You must not go to that Unformed land again."
"It was not threatening me," Pasgen said. "I felt no anger, no evil at all."
"That is not to the point," Gaenor snapped. "If I felt any evil in it, I would have gone to Oberon. But innocence and ignorance can cause evil. I have never known any mist to approach a Gate and I made in many Unformed lands. The mists are always drawn back at least enough for someone to step off the platform. Do you know what would happen if the mist entered a Gate?"
"No," Pasgen admitted. "Do you?"
"It is not something I want to find out." Gaenor's mouth twisted wryly. "What if it were possible for the mist to pour through a Gate? What would happen to the domains we have built if they were covered in chaos mist?"
"I have no idea," Pasgen said, his eyes brightening with speculation. "But I could—"
"No you could not!" Gaenor exclaimed. "Not with any of the mist from that land." She took him by one of his long ears and shook him. "Child, your mind is too strong. You are not a maker, but you . . . you spew thoughts of such power that it is possible they become almost like made things."
"Gentle Mother," Pasgen breathed, in a pacifying tone he had rarely used with anyone. "I was studying that Unformed land because it had been used by many makers and because I had heard that a mortal child, Talented but mortal, had 'asked' the mist to make a lion and the creature was made. That was before I ever came there, I am sure of that. Surely it is not I that has caused this thing!"
Gaenor released his ear and shook her head, frowning and uneasy. "If it made the lion for this mortal child, it was already able to take from the child's mind what 'lion' was. But you said there were other creatures that no one asked for and you had been 'studying' the mist. Did it learn from you to think? to desire?"
"I do not know," Pasgen replied, slowly, and after much thought. "I have been studying Chaos Lands for . . . for a long time. I think I had better go to all those I remember, all those I have been in more than once, and see if they are different."
The ancient elf nodded. "A good thought, child. I hope you find nothing amiss, but whatever draws you, you must resist. You must not go to that land again."
Her alarm actually truncated his own longing to return. "No. No, I will not."
The anxiety Gaenor had caused Pasgen to feel about his investigations had the good effect of almost eliminating the pull on him of that strange place. From Elfhame Elder-Elf he Gated home, not directly, of course, but eventually. He ate and rested and then got out his notes about the many Chaos Lands he had visited and also the empty and sometimes partly formed domains. The empty places, finished or unfinished, always made him sad because they told so clear a tale of the diminishing population of Sidhe.
Then he set out to retrace the steps he had taken when he began to study the mist in the Chaos Lands. He went first to those places he visited most frequently, where he could somehow draw power from the mist into himself. To his relief he found nothing at all strange in those places. They were Unformed lands, nothing more. He stood quietly in each place, open and waiting, but he felt only the formless, undirected, silent hum of power and the usual, faint movement of the mist, which was only strange because there was no breeze to move it.
Somewhat calmed by the lack of any feeling in the places from which he had drawn power most often, he then traveled systematically to each Unformed land he had ever touched. In two he did find something like the almost self-willed mist he had captured to study, and he formed force fields around the new wisps and removed them to his workroom lest they grow and contaminate the whole domain. Then he returned to those places and sought for more or for any sensation of loss.
Pasgen was very thorough in his examinations. He did not hurry. He was essentially unaware of the passing of mortal days, then weeks. Twice he went to Elfhame Elder-Elf and spoke to Gaenor, but she had nothing to tell him. She thought she might have glimpsed the two mist-made constructs, but if she had, it was no more than a glimpse. They did not approach her, and neither did the mist create anything new for her.
As his anxiety ebbed and he became even more aware of the shades of difference in the mists of each Unformed land, Pasgen shook off the feeling of being drawn. He was deep in his attempt to discover why there were differences in the mists when the lindys he never failed to wear convulsed and then leapt madly against the restraint that held it to his clothing.
Cursing himself for nearly forgetting his sister, Pasgen ran for the Gate and actually entered the pattern of the empty house rather than going first to one of the markets.
There was no guard on the Gate. Pasgen did not look for the remains of the construct that was set to guard it. He knew it had to have been destroyed. He ran full tilt for the house itself, pulling up shields and forming levin bolts as he ran. At least the lindys was quieting and still telling him that Rhoslyn was here at the empty house.
He stopped in the doorway, staring, appalled, the power of the levin bolts trickling away. He was too late to fight. The house was silent; there was no battle now, but the entire entrance hall was a shambles. Pieces of goblin lay leaking on the floor and splatters and gobbets of their green-gray flesh and blood stained the walls.
An ogre's arm twitched near the door to the parlor; the head was not far away. But under the huge torso was the crushed body of one of Rhoslyn's girls, her head twisted right around to stare over her back.
"Mother," Pasgen breathed and rushed toward the back of the house and the passage to Llanelli's wing.
Once inside the passage, he heard a sound, a woman sobbing, but he could go no faster. He kept slipping and tripping over the goblin parts that covered the floor. There must have been a hundred of them, he thought, as he staggered through the open door to the reception room of the healer's suite.
There, unhurt, Rhoslyn sat amid the carnage, holding a blue ribbon in her hand and weeping.
"Mother?" Pasgen cried. "Where is mother?"
"Safe," Rhoslyn sighed. "At the Elves' Faire. We had a meal together and then I came here to leave a message for you and saw . . ." She shivered. "I sent an air spirit to tell her to stay there." She held up the ribbon and tears ran down her face. "It was all I could find. They tore my girl to pieces."
"Not before she tore a lot of them to pieces," Pasgen said. Then, very quietly, he asked, "Who did this? Why?"
"I don't know." Rhoslyn took the hand Pasgen held out to her and got to her feet. "But it must be Vidal. No one else could have sent such an army of goblins, and there were ogres too."
"But Vidal is in Scotland," Pasgen said. "Dealing with the Scots is like herding cats. No sooner do they agree to something than a new cause of insult arises among those who were allies, and all the parties change sides again. He is so busy making sure that no party grows strong enough to force an agreement with the English, that he left mortal affairs in England in Aurilia's hands and she—"
"That was over two months ago, Pasgen," Rhoslyn pointed out.
"Oh."
He drew Rhoslyn closer and guided her to the front door entrance to the separate wing. He had to force the outer door open. Another ogre lay there, its head hanging sideways by a flap of skin in the back, its bowels laid open so that the guts hung out. Two of Pasgen's hulking guards also lay destroyed; one with a crushed head, the other with its chest caved in, the ogre's foot still embedded.
Rhoslyn sighed. "I will have to ask leave of Lady Mary again. It will take me weeks to make more guards and girls."
Pasgen walked out into the garden, the force fields that sealed off the path opening for him and Rhoslyn. When the house was hidden by the shrubbery, he "called" a bench and sat down beside her.
"How did you happen to come here today?" he asked.
"I always have dinner with Mother on Tuesday," Rhoslyn replied, looking surprised. "Soon as Mary's household is asleep, I lock my chamber door and Gate to the Elves' Faire to meet Mother. Usually I just Gate back to Essex, but Mother was beginning to worry about you because she has not seen you in so long, so I came here to leave a message for you."
"You always have dinner with Mother on Tuesday," Pasgen repeated. "So anyone could have known—"
He stopped as both of them became aware that the Gate had been activated. Both stood up. The Gate was used again. Together they rushed out into the path, which they found clogged with Vidal's creatures, giggling and growling. There were only a few goblins but there were at least a dozen bwgwl, two black annises, four trolls, a mass of boggles, a flurry of hags, and a host of trows.
At the head of the clot of evil was a Dark Sidhe, who glanced at the house and giggled to himself. Rhoslyn recognized him as the nearly disminded oleander eater, who was often left to "greet" and infuriate those who came to speak to Vidal.
"With Prince Vidal's compliments," the Sidhe said when he noticed them. "The prince finds that you do not respond to his summons left with servants at this house." He giggled again. "He told me to make sure you would obey any future order he sent." He pouted. "Your guards were too effective so we did not finish. Now stand aside."
He gestured at the horde behind him and they began to run, hop, glide, slither forward. Rhoslyn gasped and raised her hands, blue fire limning her fingers. Before she could act, Pasgen had drawn power from everywhere. The force fields that shielded the garden collapsed, Rhoslyn felt cold and empty and the light died from her hands, the horde shrieked and wailed as their life-force was drawn. Pasgen pointed.
"Stay," he said. The whole group froze in place. And then he said, "Burn!"
That was when the screaming started.
Vidal Dhu spat an ugly oath when Pasgen and Rhoslyn appeared on the path in front of the creatures he had allowed that drugged fool to take with him. Vidal had not expected anyone to be in the house but the helpless constructs that took and relayed messages.
He had sent two ogres and an army of goblins to kill as cruelly as they could all the servants except one, who would be left with his message, and then to ruin the garden, tear down what they could of the house, and cover what they could not destroy with urine and feces. He had not expected that there would be fighting constructs in the house. Rhoslyn's girls and guards had cost him almost a quarter of his court. That had added fuel to the rage that unexpected events had set afire.
When Vidal had returned to England he had been in high good humor, having convinced both Scottish parties to agree on one thing. Both now had the same absolute determination to "save" their princess from the degradation of being married to the English king. He was even mildly pleased by Aurilia's plan to have Denoriel and Aleneil killed. He doubted that such a plan would be successful, but it could in no way be traced back to Underhill. And if it should work, that cursed girl Elizabeth would be left bereft and unprotected, easy prey to a most unsuitable marriage with Thomas Seymour.
Such a marriage would call for a public and immediate removal of Elizabeth from the line of succession. The Protector—he had heard in Scotland about Somerset being elevated from head of the Council to Protector—was not likely to permit his brother to have so much influence on the government or to be in line to rule as a queen's consort.
A silly girl would not think of that. She would be easy prey, easily convinced that she needed Seymour when she had lost those so dear to her. She would be desperate for love, for comfort—and Thomas Seymour would provide it.
Grinning, Vidal explained . . . and his whole beautiful plan collapsed around him because Aurilia laughed and told him Seymour was already married, and not to one easy to put aside. His wife was the dowager queen, Catherine.
He slapped her face and called her a liar. All trace of languid relaxation disappeared as Aurilia shrieked and leapt to her feet, mouth agape to bite, hands extended with elongated nails ready to claw. Vidal launched another blow but she caught it and jumped at him. Her weight, considerably more than one would expect from her seemingly slender body, drove him backward. She caught at him, overbalanced; they fell to the floor snapping and snatching.
Aurilia's claws caught in Vidal's trews and she ripped them open. Her gown had not been much more than a few wisps to start out with and was now barely shreds. Vidal heaved and rolled, bringing Aurilia beneath him. She snapped at his face. He put a hand under her chin and slammed her mouth closed right on her tongue. As she howled, muted by the hand that gagged her, he heaved up and thrust down.
It should have been impossible for him to impale her, but the violence and pain had the same effect on her as on him. She curved her lower body up toward him, her legs going around his hips; heaving up as he thrust down. Now it was his turn to howl, as he missed his target and was crushed against her pelvic bone. However his next thrust went home.
Twice. Thrice. Scoring each other with nails and teeth. Sucking, soothed, by the faintly metallic taste of blood. On the fourth thrust Vidal found completion. He ground himself against Aurilia until the last spasm passed and then pushed her aside.
"You stupid fool," he snarled, curling around and levering himself to his feet. "You cretin! You brain damaged half-wit, wasting your time trying to kill one of the strongest fighters in the Seleighe domain with a few mortal bullies. Why did you not prevent Seymour from marrying?"
"Do not call me brain-damaged," Aurilia howled, virtually springing to her feet. "You are the idiot, the cretin! Did you tell me a word of this? Yes, you said Elizabeth must be disgraced and it would be easier if Denoriel and Aleneil were dead, but not a word did you say about Seymour."
"I did!" Vidal bellowed.
"You did not!" Aurilia screamed.
They exchanged the useless accusations several times but their rage was fading and finally, only glaring, not threatening, Vidal asked, "Do you even know where Elizabeth is?"
"Fool! Fool!" Aurilia snarled over her shoulder as she moved to the table that held her blue potion. "If you had only told me that you meant Seymour for Elizabeth, to be rid of her by disgrace! When I knew Seymour was courting the queen, I paid no more attention to him. Why should I think his marriage to Elizabeth would disgrace her? He was the Protector's brother! I assumed the Protector would approve his marriage to bring more power into his hands." Aurilia lifted the glass and swallowed the contents, then shrugged. "She is right there in the palace with them."
The last sentence made no sense to Vidal for a moment; then he asked, "Elizabeth is living with Catherine and Seymour?" The voice in which that question was posed was thoughtful and calm, Vidal's expression interested rather than furious.
"Yes, she is." Aurilia had also calmed; she returned the glass to the table without trying to drain the last drops.
Vidal smiled. "Ahhhh. Perhaps it is just as well that you did not interfere in Seymour's marriage. Had he married Elizabeth and the disapproval of the Council of that marriage removed her from the succession, well, marriage to someone only slightly unsuitable is not such a dishonor. If there were need, she could be restored to her place as an heir. But if Elizabeth were to take Seymour as a lover . . . Oh yes, a married man, married no less to her stepmother . . . If that was discovered . . ." Vidal's smile broadened. "No, they could not restore a whore to the succession."
He approached Aurilia and lifted her face with a hand under her chin. "I am sorry I grew so angry. I should have thought first. All in all, you have done very well. Now I must obtain an amulet—"
Suddenly Aurilia pushed him away and rushed by him. He drew breath between his teeth, whirling around, clawed hand out to seize her. However he stopped short when he saw her standing quite still and looking down at the scrying bowl he had abandoned when he saw Pasgen and Rhoslyn come out onto the path to confront the Sidhe he had sent to finish the destruction of their house.
Aurilia's eyes were as wide as they could get and her mouth hung just a little open with mingled pleasure and fear. "I think you have just lost another quarter of your servants," she said, shivering but licking her lips.
Pasgen watched the burning horde for a moment—the squat, broad rectangles of flame that were the trolls; the wavering, twirling pillars that were the hags and annises; the bouncing, squirming bags that were the bwgwl and boggles; the little flitting convulsions that were the trows—then he smiled.
They were still screaming and writhing when he drew Rhoslyn around them, through the garden, and to the Gate. He pressed a token into her hand. "Go home and then to my house—the token will open it—bring your servants and mine to clean up the mess in this place."
Rhoslyn could scarcely hear him for the screaming. "Enough, Pasgen," she cried. "Enough. Finish them."
He looked at her for a long moment, then said, "Very well. It is their nature. I am sure Vidal was scrying what was happening and I wanted to be sure that he would see what befalls those he sends against us. But he would not care. He might enjoy it." He turned his back on her and looked at the agony on the path, gestured and said, "Ashes."
And there was silence, and nothing on the path except ashes. He turned back to face the Gate and started to step up on it. Rhoslyn caught at his arm.
"Where are you going?"
Pasgen frowned. "I think it is time to remove Vidal. He has always annoyed me, but this . . . insult went too far."
"No!" Rhoslyn exclaimed, clinging to his arm, which was hard as silver alloy under her hand. "No! I cannot leave you behind. I cannot lose you! But if you kill Vidal, Oberon will order you to rule the Dark Court. No, Pasgen. Please. Do not permit yourself to be bound here forever. At least let me dream that some day I can escape from Dark to Bright."
He looked back down the path where the faint breeze that murmured through this domain was beginning to sweep the ashes away. The white-hot fury that had scalded him inside began to cool under the chill of his memory of ruling the Dark Court while Vidal was recovering from the injuries dealt him in the battle to seize Elizabeth.
At the time, Pasgen had actually undertaken the role Oberon had given him with some enthusiasm. Neither he nor anyone else had expected Vidal to survive the wound he had received from Harry FitzRoy's iron bolt. Pasgen assumed he would hold Caer Mordwyn forever.
He had some notion that he would be able to instill order and rationality into Vidal's servants and creations. He was not then certain what he would do with them when he brought them under his control, but he had some nebulous dreams of a kingdom where those who were feared and hated, despised and unwanted everywhere else, could live in peace and plenty and find companionship among each other.
Pasgen had credited much of the evil in the Unseleighe creatures to Vidal, who had urged them to greater disorder and cruelty, laughing at their killing and maiming of each other and their depredations in the mortal world. Pasgen had soon discovered he was wrong about that. Vidal enjoyed what his creatures were and did, but he was not the main cause of their behavior.
Many were inherently evil and could take no pleasure unless they were causing pain. Nor did they care whether that pain was inflicted on outsiders who scorned them or on their fellow creatures. Many were not intelligent enough to know good from bad, nor was there any way to teach them. Some he could have saved—the mischief makers who did no real harm—but most were beyond anything but destruction.
Because he was stronger than they were and destroyed the very worst of them, Pasgen had gained control. He had stopped the excesses that had enraged Oberon and might have led to human invasion Underhill. However, the moment he was occupied with something else, the creatures violated every rule they had sworn to. Pasgen had learned to despair of ever bringing Vidal's realm to some permanent kind of order. He knew that he could only stop the worst excesses of Vidal's creatures by constantly exerting his power over them.
It had been horrible. He had never been so miserable in all his life, not even when Vidal had seized him to teach him the beauties of pain. With Rhoslyn's help he had escaped Vidal, but there would be no escape from Oberon's geas once it was set on him.
Hot rage and ice-cold memory struggled in him and came to a compromise of chilly, controllable anger. Pasgen looked down at his sister's hand, desperately gripping his arm. He brought his own hand up, covered hers, and patted it.
"Clever Rhoslyn to remind me of what it meant to be ruler of Caer Mordwyn. You know I can take Vidal now, that I have no need to fear him."
"Oh, yes, I know that." She did not look back at the path where a thin layer of ash was still drifting.
"Then you will not be afraid, although I still must go and deal with Vidal. However, I promise I will not kill him nor even injure him in any serious way."
"Why? Turn your back on him, Pasgen. Ignore him. He's lost . . . I don't know how many servants. Even Vidal must realize that it is too expensive to attack us."
"I doubt he cares about that," Pasgen said, a muscle in his jaw jumping. "And what if Mother had been here when that horde of Vidal's arrived?"
Rhoslyn's hand gripped Pasgen's arm tighter. "We can abandon this place—"
"No, we really cannot." Pasgen patted Rhoslyn's hand again. "Not without taking from Mother what has returned a life to her. If we built a new place we would have to forbid her to Heal. If we allowed her to bring patients there, how long would it remain undiscovered?"
A small smile softened Rhoslyn's tense mouth. Pasgen always tried to pretend he did not care about Llanelli, but he was the one who had realized what this attack might mean to her. Rhoslyn had not given her mother a thought. She sighed.
"I hate when you confront Vidal," she said, but the remark was no longer either an argument or a plea to stop him. "I am always afraid that you will go too far. Vidal we can outwit or avoid . . . not Oberon."
"I know that," Pasgen assured her with passionate sincerity. "No confrontation. I will simply go and tell Vidal that I and mine are outside of his limits and that I will serve him no longer. Unless—do you want me to say you, too, will no longer serve his purposes?"
"No. As long as he mainly desires me to watch and protect Mary, I want to seem to be his obedient servant." She frowned. "But if he was scrying the attack on the empty house, he must have seen us together."
"And seen you make me stop the burning and try to stop me from going to confront him." He pursed his lips a moment, then smiled. "I know what to say. I will tell him that you are mine and must not be hurt or frightened even though we have quarreled because you wish to remain his servant."
"Very good! I need to remain with Mary and if he thinks I am no longer obedient to him, he will do something cruel or disgusting to make her dismiss me. She is a good woman. I do not want to add to her troubles a fear that she cannot trust her judgment of people. And I hope I will be able to soften her attitude toward Elizabeth too."
Pasgen tightened his grip on Rhoslyn's hand for just a moment, then pulled his hand forcefully from hers as if he were angry. He even pushed her slightly backward, as if to prevent her from following him into the Gate, jumped onto the platform, and activated it.
The last bit of play-acting, in case Vidal was still watching, was wasted. Aurilia's half-frightened, half-voluptuous remark about the loss of his servants had drawn Vidal's attention to the scrying bowl. When he saw the whole mass of his creatures aflame, he had bellowed with rage and slammed the bowl from its stand.
That had caused another argument with Aurilia, who screamed at him for destroying the image. He shouted back that he was not her panderer, to gratify her lower forms of amusement in watching people burn.
"Fool! Fool! I can set afire anyone I want for the fun of seeing someone burn. You destroyed the image and now we do not know what happened. Did the flames go out before they accomplished anything? That would have told us that Pasgen's power is limited. Did they destroy? Was Rhoslyn adding to Pasgen's strength? Was she trying to stop him?"
Vidal was too angry to concede the importance of her questions and merely shouted back, and after a few more basically meaningless exchanges she stormed out of his reception chamber. By the time the door slammed behind her, Vidal had spit out most of his spleen. His first fury over Pasgen's response to his attack was fading into a decided feeling of alarm. Now he, too, regretted destroying his scrying image and the questions Aurilia had raised seemed strongly pertinent.
One thing he was sure of: he would not need to wait long to have those questions answered. If Pasgen had the power to utterly destroy the force he had sent, he would be roaring out of a Gate in Caer Mordwyn very soon. If Rhoslyn had been helping her brother, she would appear with him breathing fire. Vidal began to gather power and build shields.
Power he found in plenty. The anxiety over King Henry's death and whether war would break out between the Catholic supporters of Mary, who was eldest, and Edward, who was male, had gripped not only the nobles but all of the people. The tense energy of fearful expectation oozed out of all and soaked down Underhill, draining away from the warmth and light of the Seleighe domains to those of the Unseleighe.
With shields, Vidal was less successful. He was so strong that he had seldom bothered with shields, depending on swift and deadly attack to confound any who opposed him. He raised shields by habit and did so now, not even considering that they were ragged things with here and there a rough spot, a crack, a hole, rather than smooth mirrors. But Vidal only thought of them as a minor delaying tactic while he launched blows.
He thought, too, of summoning assistance, but the memory of the pack of creatures burning on the path leading to the empty house made him decide against it. If Pasgen saw a host arrayed against him, he was more likely to try to set fire to the whole mass, as he had done before. Vidal was not really afraid of Pasgen's fire; the creatures he had burnt were weak nothings and the Dark Sidhe so addled with oleander as to be useless. He was sure his attack would weaken Pasgen's control and he could quench any flames that reached him.
Perhaps, he thought, reaching mentally to the Gates of his domain, Pasgen would not even reach the palace. If he caught him at a Gate, he could twist . . .
But then the whole palace rang like a giant bell, and Vidal sensed that the place the clapper struck was right outside his door. He spat an obscenity. He had forgotten that Pasgen was a genius with Gates. That accursed, misborn creature had forced a Gate right into the palace. Why, oh why had he ever thought of seizing those babies? He had brought a serpent into his very house.
Vidal gathered his power, formed it into a bright lance, thick and strong. He did not thrust it through the door, which was protected with warding spells, because he did not wish to weaken its force. And if Pasgen had second thoughts and did not enter so much the better. The quarrel would be more easily settled when Pasgen was less angry. But the door opened. Pasgen did enter, and Vidal launched that lance, feeling a mingling of satisfaction and regret that he would be soon rid of a growing nuisance.
The lance struck—and shattered into a thousand glowing shards, each still so powerful that where they fell drapes and furniture charred or began to smolder. Furious, Vidal sent a shower of knives glowing with the poison that made elf-shot fatal. Most, to Vidal's rising rage and terror, slid around Pasgen; the few that struck also shattered.
He called into being a shining net in which each knot held a thread that would pierce whatever the net enfolded and grow into the body. Taking its sustenance from the flesh it invaded, it would send out more and more threads until there was nothing in the net but the eater itself. But before Vidal launched the net, he became aware of an odd tugging, a sense of loosening, just as he also realized that Pasgen had not attempted any counterstroke.
They stood staring at each other for a brief tense moment, until Pasgen said, "You no longer have any shield. I have drawn the power into myself."
And then Vidal shrieked and cast the net because he felt his own power being drained. But though the net fell true, it just lay atop and around Pasgen without touching him. Vidal bellowed curses invoking the Great Evil to swallow Pasgen whole because in a way he knew that he, himself, had given Pasgen this invulnerability. Pasgen had learned shields thoroughly. Before he could do almost any other magic, he had raised and perfected shields to protect himself from Vidal's torments.
Vidal drew power, but as fast as he drew it, Pasgen drained it. He staggered back and back again, feeling his limbs trembling. He had never been so hollow and empty. He could make no defense; his attempt to raise another weapon made him unable to support himself. He sank into his throne as if into a shelter, though the sense of shelter was illusory and he knew it. But the worst of the draining stopped.
"I have not come to suck you dry, Prince Vidal, despite the insult and offense you have offered me," Pasgen said quietly. "I know that you are most fit to rule Caer Mordwyn and I wish you to rule it as you have ever done. However, I am insulted and offended. Thus, I hereby renounce all ties, all loyalty to you. I will answer no summons from you nor do you any service."
"And all protection from me?"
A new painful draw of energy made Vidal gasp. Pasgen's mouth quivered, and with a mixture of rage and fear Vidal wondered if the young Sidhe had restrained a sneer.
"Yes," Pasgen said, "I renounce your protection also, but only for myself. My sister, fool that she is, does not agree. She still wishes to be your servant—likely because she is as eager as you are to see Mary come to the throne. But she is still my sister and I warn you—"
Vidal screamed faintly and nearly lost consciousness as a horrible sucking seemed almost to be drawing the blood from his body.
"I warn you that if harm of any kind befalls Rhoslyn, if she is even frightened or threatened, or more damage is done to my property, I will return and not only suck you dry but draw the power from Caer Mordwyn so that the whole domain falls to dust."