Silver's Edge

The gremlin turned his head as Timias passed, fixing him with a hostile stare. Timias met the gremlin’s eyes squarely. There were increasing reports of little incidents of rebellion among the gremlins, who, according to the Lorespinners, had been bred of goblin stock to serve the Faerie. The incidents were generally dismissed as the approach of the annual bout of collective madness that occurred among the entire gremlin population at Samhain. The other obvious threat seemed to elude everyone. When Timias had suggested to the Council, that the gremlins, as distant goblin kin, might find it in their best interests to side with the goblins in the coming conflict, and that being in a position to bring about utter ruin, they might be better banished to some well guarded spot until the child was born, he was laughed at openly throughout the Court. But Timias feared the time was coming when the courtiers wouldn’t be so amused. He would find that thought amusing himself if the consequences weren’t so dire. He picked up his pace, leaning heavily on his oak staff as his aged legs protested.

Once within the palace walls, he didn’t pause on his way through the marble corridors, not even stopping to visit his own apartments. He ignored the fantastic mosaics, the silken hangings, the intricate carvings which graced the palace at every turn, a blend of color, scent and texture so harmonious, mortals had been known to gape for days at just the walls. He strode beneath the gilded arches to the Council Chamber, where the guards straightened to attention and saluted as he approached. But at the open door he paused and peered in, ostensibly smoothing his travel-stained garments, assessing as he did so who was in attendance and their likely reaction to his news.

As he expected, the Queen was at her breakfast, attended by her Consort, Prince Hudibras, and those of her Councilors in residence, and to his dismay, he saw that Vinaver sat at the Queen’s right hand. Perhaps he’d do better to approach the Queen privately.

The idea that Vinaver, who he had always regarded as some mutant perversion of the magic that created the Caul, was able to enthrall her sister with her wiles sickened him. It had been terrible enough to discover that Gloriana’s womb housed two babes—Alemandine and Artimour—fathered separately by a sidhe and a mortal on the same night as the forging of the Caul. But Vinaver’s emergence was completely unexpected, completely unforeseen, an aberration of the natural order of Faerie Timias thought best disposed of. He’d suggested drowning the extra infant to the midwife who’d brought her out for his inspection. The infant’s eyes clashed with his almost audibly, and he felt the desperate hunger stretching off the wriggling scrap of red flesh like tentacles, seeking any source of nourishment. He shook off the infant’s rooting with disgust. “I say drown it,” he said again, shocking the midwife into silence as she turned and carried the infant back to her mother’s arms, to wait her turn for a tug at her mother’s copious teats. Both Vinaver and Artimour were offenses against nature, he’d argued then, arguing tradition, just as he’d argued it when he returned and fought for his Council seat.

He wondered what Vinaver might have been up to in his absence, for any differences between the Queen and her sister that he might have nurtured had obviously been resolved. Vinaver leaned forward with a proprietary hand to caress her sister’s forearm as it draped wearily over the cushioned rest of her high-backed chair. Vinaver’s back was to him, and Alemandine was turned away, engaged in choosing a muffin from the basket the serving gremlin offered. The creature wore cloth-of-gold, signifying the highest level of service. The hackles rose on the back of his neck. If only he could induce the Queen to at least banish them from her immediate service.

But it was the others who were gathered around the table that made him narrow his eyes. For with the sole exception of the Queen’s Consort, Hudibras, they were all Vinaver’s closest cronies. Across from Vinaver, on the opposite side of the table, Lord Berillian of the Western Reach sipped from his jewel-encrusted goblet, his attention focused on a dark-haired girl who sat beside him. Timias did not immediately recognize her, but something about her face made him pause, and he realized she was gowned in an old-fashioned gown of Gloriana’s era. He realized that they paid him no mind for they were all focused on her and the room was thick with some suppressed tension.

Several vacant seats apart, Lord Philomemnon of the Southern Archipelago, peeled an apple with overly deliberate intent, while at the opposite end, the Queen’s Consort, Hudibras, caught another tossed to him by his half brother, Gorlias.

Both Philomemnon and Berillian were Vinaver’s closest cronies and cohorts, the voices who’d championed her cause most vigorously in the early days of Alemandine’s reign, who’d shouted most loudly for his resignation.

The early-morning sun flooded through the wide windows which lined one wall of the long chamber, and glinted off the polished surface of the inlaid table that dominated the furnishings. Fragrant steam wreathed the air, redolent with the rich feast spread before them on golden serving plates.

The Queen looked uncomfortable and cross, her pale green gown spilling over the edges of her chair, her wings folded up behind her. The swell of her pregnancy was not immediately obvious, but her normally milky complexion was sallow, and dark smudges beneath her upturned eyes testified to restless nights. Her thick hair, white as snow, was bound up in braids, coiled neatly around her head, and topped by a platinum coronet set with pearls. He could retire, he thought, still unnoticed, and approach the Queen privately. But that would only delay the inevitable confrontation. Might as well throw the idea down before them like a gauntlet. He took a deep breath and single step across the threshold.

Only the unknown girl saw him, as she peered over the rim of the goblet she lifted to her mouth, for Philomemnon was absorbed in his apple, and Berillian was eyeing the girl’s rounded half-moons of bosom which were emphasized by the old-fashioned cut of her gown with unabashed interest. Timias cleared his throat, ready to speak, when red-faced Hudibras caught the apple he’d been throwing back and forth to his half brother Gorlias and tossed it instead to Timias. He raised his gold goblet just as Timias caught the apple in midair. “Well, well, my dear, see what the sunrise has ushered in today! Good Timias, welcome back from whatever grim hovel you’ve been hiding in.”

Sparing Hudibras no more than a quickly veiled glance of contempt, Timias threw the apple back. He strode immediately to the Queen, and dropped as gently as possible onto a knee swollen with the exertion of his haste. “My Queen.” His old man’s rasp cut like a discordant note through the melodious hail of mannered greetings which now rose around the table like a chorus. “I bring grave tidings—tidings which shall affect all of us unless we take heed now. For there is war…war in Shadow.”

Alemandine raised her long white neck and stared at him, a play of expression as complex as windblown clouds crossing her thin face. She shifted restlessly on the pale green cushions which lined her chair, and the look which settled upon her face was one of peevish irritability.

Timias steeled himself. If he could manage to at least make her listen long enough to call for him privately, he would count this breakfast a success. Her pregnancy had grown only slightly more pronounced, but it was clearly unbalancing the ornate wings she had cultivated so diligently, which now arced at least a foot above her head. In the morning light, the infinitesimal network of blue and red veins was visible through the translucent flesh. He wondered briefly why no one had discouraged Alemandine from allowing the wings to grow so high, for they clearly now contributed to her discomfort, and heard a little sniff of disapproval from Vinaver. He turned, ready to say more, when Hudibras let out a loud sigh of exasperation and threw another apple back to Gorlias. “So what of it, Timias? The mortals are always sparring back and forth amongst each other—half the time I don’t know why we ever bothered to protect them from the goblins, they kill each other with as much glee. Come, let us introduce you to a newcomer to our Court—this is the Lady Delphinea, the daughter of our Horse-mistress, Eponea of the High Mountains. Sit, break your fast with us and tell us of your travels. You must be starving after a week or more of naught but mortal slop.”

A few chuckles went around the table, and Timias could not help but spare a moment to peer more closely into the dainty, delicate face of the girl who sat poised on the edge of her seat. She was young, he could see that, barely ready to make an appearance at Court, and he wondered briefly why her mother, Eponea, had not accompanied her. But there was something about the chit’s face—something that tugged at his awareness, even as he turned away from the arch faces and concentrated only on the Queen. For all he cared, they might have been alone. He looked directly into Alemandine’s pale green eyes. “Events in the Shadowlands are moving toward a great war—a war which will sweep across borders and which will create repercussions that we are ill-equipped right now to bear. You must hear me out, Alemandine, I beg you.”

Not once in all her years on the throne had he ever so addressed her and the Queen stared at him, her pale eyes wide in her angular face. For the first time he saw the real fear hiding behind the petulance. Alemandine was afraid. She faced the greatest challenge of her life, and she was afraid. For a long moment he stared back, sympathy wreathing his ancient features. She desperately needed to assert control over the Council, but as long as they resisted acknowledging the breadth of the challenge that lay before them, she was too torn between the unfamiliar demands of her pregnancy and the constrictions of her fear. What would shock the rest of them out of their complacency? Must he invoke the forbidden name of Lyonesse in order to make them understand the enormity of what they faced?

But Lord Berillian was speaking, the movements of his bejeweled hands sending colored prisms across the Queen’s face as he plucked the grapes off the dark purple bunch lying across his plate. The fat locks of chestnut curls lay coiled on his shoulders, the precise shade of his intricately embroidered doublet. “Indeed,” he spoke between bites of grape. “So what if a new war has broken out in Shadow? What is war within Shadow to us? Have we not our own—” he paused and glanced at Alemandine, and then around the table with a look that seemed charged with some meaning Timias could not read “—our own delicate situation on our hands?”

Alemandine lifted one eyebrow, clearly expecting him to answer, and Timias turned to face the rest. At least she hadn’t had him escorted from the room. This was his chance. He forced himself to speak slowly, deliberately, hoping to make an impression with the weight of his words. “War in Shadow can only undermine our already precarious stability. The greater the unbalance there, the greater the unbalance here. And the greater the unbalance, the more we shall all feel the strain. The Caul does more than hold the silver at bay. The Caul binds our worlds together. What is felt in Shadow is felt here—what is felt here is felt in Shadow.”

Hudibras snorted. “You croak like a crow, Timias. Why not just go about in black and have done with it? We’ll all be warned of doom just by looking at you and you can spare us all your speeches.”

“I beg your pardon, my lord,” put in Delphinea suddenly, her pale cheeks flushing pink. “I think if Lord Timias speaks forcefully it is from his concern for the welfare of your Queen and child, and for the continuation of Faerie as we know it.”

Startled, Timias met her eyes and saw that they, unlike those of nearly every other sidhe he’d ever known in all his long life, were a clear and startling sapphire blue. She is not yet one of Vinaver’s, he thought suddenly, grateful for the unexpected support. She’s not in their pocket yet. And he wondered once again what had brought her to the Court, though maybe not so prematurely as he’d first supposed. “Thank you, my lady.” He bowed in Delphinea’s direction. “We all know that it is not a matter of if the Goblin King will attack, but when. It is in our best interests to ensure that there is peace in the Shadowlands while we face this inevitable foe.”

“Well, what do you think we can do about it?” Hudibras asked, his angular face flushing red. “Mortals are best left to decide the outcome of their squabbles for themselves. We of Faerie have never intervened.” At that Philomemnon looked at Hudibras and laughed openly and Vinaver rolled her long eyes to the ceiling. “Not officially, I mean.”

Timias turned back to the Queen, his expression changing from disgust to resolve. “Your Majesty. I have long studied the affairs of Shadow to understand the impact they make upon our world—”

“This we know, my lord.” Her voice was querulous, and she hid her impatience poorly. Timias sighed inwardly. He had hoped that Alemandine would be sufficiently rested first thing in the morning to willingly entertain such discussion, but now he saw that the demands of her pregnancy had intensified to the extent that such opportunities were becoming unpredictable, if they yet existed. They had better yet exist, he thought suddenly, once more overwhelmed with concern for this fragile creature who bore such a great weight. She was nothing like her mother, but she had ruled perfectly adequately for nearly one hundred and fifty mortal years. Why now did he compare her so unfavorably to her mother? Because, a small voice muttered deep in the back of his mind, she wields the power unevenly, and thus she is vulnerable in ways her mother never was.

“Why should we invest even the time to speak of it, when clearly it would divert us from our concerns?”

He leaned upon the table, his gray robes falling around him, the long locks of his gray hair hanging over his shoulders like a cloak. “Your Majesty. This is no diversion. The welfare, not just of your child, but of all of Faerie hangs in the balance. This is not merely one of their usual disputes, Your Majesty. You must believe me when I tell you that this is a most serious war—with the potential to engulf the whole of Shadow, not merely the country that lies nearest our borders, the one mortals call Brynhyvar.”

At that, Philomemnon sat forward, arching his own brow. “Then tell us, Timias, how is this war different?”

“The King of Brynhyvar is mad—there’s some talk it’s because of one of us, but I haven’t found anything to substantiate that, thank the Hag. It surfaced shortly after the young Prince died last winter. At any rate, his Queen is a foreigner, and her relatives see an opportunity to take over Brynhyvar. But the Duke of Gar has raised his standard against the King, and now, war not only overshadows Brynhyvar, but all its neighbors as well, even to the Farthest Reaches, for the web of blood ties, trade agreements, and strategic alliances stretches across the entire world.”

“And how, exactly, do you propose we intervene?”

“A decisive battle on Gar’s side would win the war before it had a chance to spread. But Gar’s forces are spread out, and the troops which the Queen has summoned from her native land are a professional army capable of decimating the current rebels, unless, you see, Gar calls in alliances from other countries, and thus the war will escalate.”

“Surely you are not proposing we send our own soldiers?” Berillian was incredulous.

“I am proposing we send Lord Artimour as an emissary to the Duke of Gar, along with perhaps one of our own hosts—”

The table actually shook as those around it exploded with guffaws. “Surely you jest, Timias,” put in Vinaver, leaning on her hand. Her mouth curved up in a languid smile, as though she tolerated the ranting of a dotard. “Since when have you ever had time for Artimour? And now, now that Finuviel, by the Queen’s grace, has seen fit to answer her call to assume command of the defenses of Faerie—why, Finuviel depends upon Artimour as he does upon no other—Artimour has become his most trusted second. Even now, Finuviel leads a hosting of our finest knights to the Western March, where Artimour holds the line. And to send such a force into Shadow is unheard of and I’m surprised, good Timias, to think you of all of us would even suggest such a thing. What are we of Faerie but our traditions?” Those were his own words, spoken in this very chamber, now flung back at him. The wings she had grown in deference to Alemandine’s fashion quivered.

Timias flushed as Alemandine raised her goblet. “Our brother is needed where he is. The border there grows more tenuous every day—is that not what the reports tell us, good Timias?”

“I do not doubt what the reports tell us, my lady. And I do not dispute that Artimour is a brave and worthy captain, and that his presence is a great help to Prince Finuviel on the border. But among the mortals, his father is revered and loved and stories of him are told around every hearth in every dwelling no matter how rude. Gar would listen, if we offered him enough forces to make the difference. I have every reason to believe he would accept our help if properly presented.”

“And you would risk our own—”

“There is no risk. We cannot be killed by mortal weapons—wounded perhaps, but as you well know, nothing short of total beheading will kill us. A quick victory will stabilize the Shadowlands. One battle, and the entire problem could be settled.”

“But there’s silver there, Timias. Our knights could be killed by that, or have you forgotten the stuff exists?” Hudibras shook his head.

“And what guarantee of victory is there, Timias? Forgive me, my old friend,” said Philomemnon, “and I do not hesitate to call you that, for though your years in the Shadowlands have aged you, long we have dwelt in the same region, you and I. I understand your concern, and I, unlike some others—” here, he paused and looked at Hudibras and Gorlias “—well appreciate the effect the Shadow-world has ever had on ours, much as many of us would prefer to deny it. But there’s no surety your strategy would work. For one thing, mortals are marvelously unpredictable, not to mention wholly illogical. One thing I’ve learned, in my admittedly limited experience of them—” and here he sighed and a bemused smile flitted across his face, like the flutter of a butterfly’s wings “—is that the only possible way to predict what they are likely to do is to decide what I would do in a given situation and then assume they will do the opposite.” He inclined his head with a little flourish, and another chuckle, louder this time, perhaps even a bit forced, went around the table, and Timias shot each Councilor in turn an assessing look. There was an undercurrent he could not quite understand, but Philomemnon was continuing, “Better our energies remain concentrated here.”

To what purpose, wondered Timias, as his gaze fell on the back of Vinaver’s head, where her thick copper braids hung massed in jeweled caul. What mischief had the witch planned in his absence?

“And what’s in it for us, Timias?” put in Gorlias, interrupting Timias’s train of thought. “It’s not as if we could expect their help against the goblins—except as bait.” This time the laughter was longer.

Timias shook his head, suddenly weary with frustration. “Laugh at me if you must, Gorlias. I tell you all, if the war in Shadow expands across the entire mortal world, we will disappear—like the lost land of Lyonesse.” There. He’d said it. He straightened and folded his arms across his chest.

An awkward silence fell across the table while the courtiers exchanged shocked glances and Delphinea shifted uncomfortably in her seat. This time she avoided his eyes. Alemandine rubbed her temples as if her head ached. Vinaver snorted. “If this is all the tidings you bring my sister, Lord Timias, you might consider a stint on the perimeter, yourself. A few weeks and you might begin to understand what we face. If you hadn’t been off indulging yourself in Shadow, you’d have been here to hear Finuviel speak of the situation himself. We have not the troops to spare to such a dangerous distraction.” Her green eyes flashed in a manner so reminiscent of her mother that Timias took a step back. Vinaver raised her head and her wings quivered.

No one could accuse her of not being utterly loyal to her sister, thought Timias.

But now she was rising, bending like a copper lily over Alemandine, her skirts rustling with a soothing swish. “Come, sister, soon we’ll be away from all this. Allow me to make you a posset. ’Twill soothe your head and we’ll talk about what to pack.” Glaring in Timias’s direction, she rose, edging him aside with her skirts, drawing Alemandine to her feet. “You foolish, blind old man. Come, dear sister.” With gentle murmurs, she drew Alemandine from her chair, allowing the Queen’s head to droop against her shoulder, as she led the Queen away. The breeze raised by the trembling of their wings swirled past Timias’s cheek like a voiceless reproach.

“I hope you’re satisfied, Timias.” Hudibras bit savagely into the apple.

“I shall not be satisfied, my lord Consort, until everyone at this table, within this entire realm, understands the gravity of the situation we face.” He looked over his shoulder and lowered his voice. “Our Queen is no Gloriana. We all know it—Alemandine herself knows it. She needs more from us than a nod of approval. Alemandine needs our help, our guidance—”

“Diverting our own forces to the Shadowlands when we know we will need them here is scarcely the way to do it, Timias.” Philomemnon folded his arms over his chest and shook his head.

Timias tightened his grip on his staff, drawing himself up, wondering how to impress upon them the reality of the threat. But then he caught the Lady Delphinea’s look once more. Her expression did not change, but she raised one eyebrow infinitesimally. He swallowed the words, and shrugged. Something about her appearance nagged at his awareness. Perhaps an opportunity to speak to her privately might be arranged. If he could persuade her, there might be a way Philomemnon and Berillian could be brought to his side. And there were others. A majority of the Council would outweigh the voices of Vinaver, Hudibras and Gorlias and help convince the Queen he was right. Better to let it go now. So he spread his hands and only said, “Think on it. But think not long. Events in Shadow proceed apace. Already it may be affecting Alemandine. If we linger too long, our decision may well be made for us. Remember Lyonesse.” He bowed to each of them, turned on his heel, and walked slowly from the room, leaving them sitting in a flood of silent light, gasping audibly that he should have once again invoked the forbidden name.

The news that a mortal maiden, carrying a goblin’s head in a sack, had arrived at the outpost awakened Artimour and brought him blinking, upright, barely two hours after his head had first touched the pillow just before dawn. “A goblin’s head?” he repeated, as Dariel, his body squire, moved about the room, shaking out fresh underlinen, opening a shutter to let in enough light for him to dress. “Are you sure it’s a goblin’s head?”

“There’s no mistake about that, my lord. I was in the kitchens when they brought her in—you could smell it coming half a league off.”

“And how’d she find her way here?” Artimour dragged himself out of bed, and splashed cold water from the pitcher on the table into a basin and onto his face. He looked up to take the towel Dariel proffered.

“The scouting party you sent out after that last raid, my lord. They found her just as she crossed over the border.”

“They’ve all come back?”

“No, my lord.” Dariel handed him hose and underlinen and did not meet his eyes. “The captain of the watch sent them out again. There are three of the company missing.”

“Missing.” He sank down onto the edge of the bed. The word punched through the fog of his exhaustion like a fist. Something had happened last night, something had shifted, changed. He could smell it, like a flake of pepper just under his nose; feel it, like a tiny piece of gravel in his boot. There was a difference in the goblins last night—they had attacked with a ferocity he had not experienced before. He wondered bitterly how far away Finuviel—Finuviel, his nephew and his junior and his newly appointed Commander—was with the much needed reinforcements. The thought of Finuviel automatically made him even more bitter, for it was difficult to accept that the much less-experienced, much younger sidhe had been rewarded with the title of High Commander of the Queen’s Guard, which meant that he was now Artimour’s commander-in-chief and while he had not yet begun to meddle with Artimour’s carefully constructed plan of defense for the outer wards, there was no doubt at all in Artimour’s mind that once Finuviel arrived, he would begin to question everything that Artimour had done up to now. The line was holding, he thought. But something’s changed, something’s different, and will Finuviel listen and understand? Or would he simply assume that Artimour’s half-mortal blood interfered with his competency, as the Queen and her Council so obviously did?