Silver's Edge

“I’ll go back and warn my people, so you can go to the Queen and take this news to her. But I want to come back. And when I come back, I want you to help me.”

Deny her, shouted the voice of what he knew to be common sense. But something made him hesitate, and think, for just a moment, of what up to now had been unthinkable. The mortal was most likely dead. The odds were great that by the time he’d returned here from the Court, the mortal’s body would’ve been found—either here, by one of the patrols, or in Shadow. It may even have been found already. How likely was it he would have to actually help her search? It was a reason to visit the Shadowlands—a reason to visit a smithy—possibly even to see a mortal smith at work. One quick glimpse, he thought, a turn of the glass or two was surely all that was required to fill the void with some image of the father he’d never known. And the girl—she might be filthy, but she had acted bravely, and while she was clearly motivated only by a desire to save her father, she had undeniably performed a great service. How otherwise might they have known that the power of the Caul had failed to keep a goblin out of Shadow? She deserved some reward.

So he leaned forward and spoke softly, quietly. He had to be careful. There was far more at stake than either of their fathers. “If you go back, just as you say, and warn your people, and promise to wait for me to come for you, I’ll help you search for your father, after I see the Queen. But you must be patient—remember that time does run differently and I must get leave from my commanding officer. But I give you my word that I will come myself, if you give me yours you won’t come back on your own and you tell me everything you know.”

“Agreed.” Her eyes filled with tears, but she spoke with a simple dignity befitting Alemandine herself.

She was not at all what he had been led to expect. He wondered suddenly what sort of human her father was, to have raised a daughter of such determined character, and who her mother was. She’d been lost in Faerie, the girl had said. Did that mean she was still here? But there was no time for idle speculation. “Well, then?”

“Last night, two visitors came late to the forge. They spoke a while to my father, then left. But he was up half the night hammering away at something, and the last we saw him, he was carrying whatever it was toward the lake.”

“And what has this to do with the goblin or the Caul?”

“One of the visitors was a sidhe, for in the firelight, I saw his eyes—they gleamed the way all of theirs do.”

And mine don’t? he wanted to ask.

She jerked her head slightly toward the door, and continued. “I saw how his skin shone. I understood why some call them the Shining Ones.”

Them? he nearly shouted. It offended him to his very core that she excluded him from the people he thought of as his own. But this new piece of information was as tantalizing as a little puzzle piece, one of those that could fit nearly anywhere. It teased his brain, tempting him to gnaw at it like a hound over a bone. With effort he dismissed it. He rose to his feet, resolving to think on it while he rode. “We must both be off.”

But her next words made him reel. “Was it your father who was mortal?” she whispered.

He fumbled for the gloves he usually wore tucked inside his belt, and when they weren’t there, he flexed his hands, wondering what she would say if he told her the truth. “My father—” He paused. Her father was the center of her world. His was nothing more than the name of a minor character in a holiday masque. Nothing he could say now would make sense to her, and to say more would only delay them from their purpose. “My father is of no concern to anyone anymore.” She looked at him as if he’d slapped her, but he was too unsettled to feel anything like remorse. There was part of him that whispered how easy it would be to follow her over the border, to peek, as it were, into his father’s world. She could even show him a smithy. But another part of him hoped the blacksmith’s body would be found with little further ado as quickly as possible, and suddenly he wanted to be away from this dark-eyed mortal who saw so much. This was the part that would prevent him from following her into the Shadowlands. He tugged his doublet into place, and scooped a hunk of cheese out of the pot with the crusty heel of the bread. It was warm and tangy and rich in a way he instinctively knew nothing of Shadow could match. He chewed and swallowed and gestured to the door. “Come with me, maiden. We must get you across the border ere the shadows lengthen over Faerie. It’s at dusk the goblins hunt.”

Timias was not terribly surprised when a face materialized in his mirror just as he had finished adjusting the drape of fresh sandalwood-scented robes more comfortably around his shoulders. He was, however, quite horrified to see the wrinkled features of a house-gremlin coalesce within the glass. The small figure stepped out of the glass and bowed. Silently it proffered a wax-sealed parchment.

Out of habit, Timias took it, broke the seal and scanned it. Amazingly, it was from the Lady Delphinea, but the fact that a gremlin had stepped through the mirror appalled him. Such magic was only the purview of the sidhe. The idea that a gremlin had unlimited access to the network of mirrors throughout the entire Palace made his blood cold, and he wondered who would have thought to teach one such a thing. He would have to speak to Delphinea at once.

He looked at the gremlin, brow raised. “Who told you to come through the mirror?”

The gremlin bowed, its impassive face not changing. The gremlins had long ago been forbidden to speak, since their voices were so harshly discordant. Instead they communicated with the sidhe by means of gestures, involving both hands and tail. With eyes downcast, the gremlin answered: The Lady Delphinea bid me come to you through the mirror, great lord. Her matter is of great urgency.

“I understand that,” replied Timias, deeply disturbed. “But who taught you such a thing? Who allowed you admittance?”

The Lady Delphinea, great lord. One day when the Queen was in great distress. It’s been said I saved her life.

Timias raised one eyebrow as he felt a deep foreboding. Delphinea’s understanding of the gremlins and their nature was obviously deplorably lacking, but what truly troubled him was the fact that this rank newcomer to Court, this young girl who scarcely looked as if she belonged away from her mother, not only knew the mirror magic but understood it well enough to teach it to a gremlin. He would have to speak to her about it. But there was no help for it now. The damage was already done. This one knew the mirror magic. Soon they all would, if they didn’t already. Steps would have to be taken to protect the Queen. “Would the lady receive me now?”

She bid me tell you she will come to you at your convenience, great lord.

There was nothing wrong with the gremlin’s attitude. He spoke with sufficient humility, not a hint of aggression or bad temper. But it galled Timias nonetheless to think that Delphinea may have unwittingly exposed the Queen to attack. He said nothing to the gremlin, of course. “Fetch your mistress, then.” He gathered his robes and turned away, unable to watch it step back through the glass.

He fumed until a gentle cough behind him made him turn in time to see Delphinea step out of the frame in a rustle of heavy satin skirts. Her gown was the color of midnight skies, and tiny diamonds twinkled in the dark folds like stars. She had not been at Court long enough to have been infected by the fashion for growing wings, and indeed, the old-fashioned style of her gown precluded them, for a great lacy ruff rose from the back of the gown, framing her wide-eyed face and graceful neck in a style he had not seen since Gloriana first established the Court of Faerie. He wondered if the gown itself was meant to serve as a message of some sort, for Delphinea looked as if she’d stepped out of one of the tapestried panels which depicted the beginning of Gloriana’s glorious reign. And he wondered why Eponea had not come herself. But as lovely as the girl was, he could not control his annoyance. “My dear Lady Delphinea, you are a delight to look upon but I did not expect the pleasure of your company quite so soon. And, while it may be rude of me to be so direct with you, my lady, whatever possessed you to teach that detestable creature the mirror magic?”

She paused in the very act of settling her skirts and raised her startling eyes to his. She met his gaze with a directness that bordered on insolence, and he felt a twinge of discomfort. What was it about this young girl-sidhe that was at once so compelling and so unsettling? Her words shocked him even more. “Petri is not at all detestable, my lord. He is a good and faithful servant to me, and his quick action saved the Queen much distress.”

“I see.” He measured her up and down and decided that her honesty was not so much born of courage as an utter lack of artifice. She would speak her mind, until she learned the value of holding her tongue, a lesson she would learn soon enough at the cutting hands of the Court. And then it occurred to him that she resembled someone—someone not immediately obvious. He frowned, trying to remember what her mother looked like.

The frown intimidated her and he saw that his assessment was correct. She was not so much insolent as she was innocent. Her mother had not taught her to lie at all. “Forgive me, Lord Timias, it was not my intention to intrude on you.” She stumbled over her words as she turned to look over her shoulder, into the mirror’s polished surface. So she’d been at Court long enough to know she could’ve been followed.

He softened his gaze and extended his hand. “It’s no intrusion, my lady. But you must understand a gremlin is the last thing I expected to see stepping out of my mirror.” He frowned a little. “Is everything all right?”

She reached up and drew the thick velvet curtains over the mirror. The network of mirrors within the castle meant that it was possible for the unscrupulous, the bored, and the curious to eavesdrop in any room a mirror hung, although to linger more than a minute or two was to risk the danger of becoming visible. Thus all mirrors were curtained. It was possible however, for a careful listener to overhear. He drew her through another door, into the antechamber of his suite, where all the walls were lined with long windows that overlooked his tiny gardens. He shut the door to his dressing room firmly. “Now you may speak freely, lady.”

“My mother told me to seek you out, Lord Timias. The others don’t want to listen to me, but she said your loyalty to Faerie was unquestionable.”

He bowed, reading as much as he was able in the fast play of emotions which swept across her face. She was too young, too unschooled in the ways of the Court to dissemble. And she was frightened. He could see that clearly. “I wish more on the Queen’s Council shared your sentiments, my lady.”

“Ah—the Council.” She shook her head and walked to stand beside a window, gazing out into the garden below, small hands clasped before her. They were lost in the magnificence of the gown. A green marble fountain splashed merrily in the bright autumn sun, and tiny gold finches twittered among dark purple sage and golden snapdragons. “It’s all so beautiful, my lord. But since I’ve been here, I think I’m the only one who sees how fragile it is—how easily it could all be broken and brought down into ruin.”

She turned and once again he was startled by the uniqueness of her beauty. Her hair was glossy and so black the highlights were blue. They matched her eyes, which were the color of the sapphires embroidered into the frilly frame around her sober face. “I believe there is something terribly wrong, my lord. Something terribly wrong within the land—within the fabric of Faerie itself. That’s what brought me to Court. My mother sent me here. Alemandine did not summon me.”

Her words shocked him speechless for a moment. No one ever came to the Court unless at the express invitation of the Queen. To simply arrive without an invitation was a breach of such long-standing protocol no one but the Lorespinners remembered its origins. “What are you talking about, my lady?”

“The reason I came to Court. You know I’ve never been here before?” She paused, as if putting her thoughts in order, then continued. “The Queen has not summoned a Council and no Convening has been called—for all are occupied with their own defenses and the raising up of their hosts. But I had to come—even my mother agreed—” She broke off, clearly too upset to continue.

“What is it, my lady?” Her distress unnerved him, distracted him from remembering something much more important that continued to evade him.

“The cattle are dying.” She said the words slowly, deliberately and he frowned. The great herds of milk-white cattle which roamed the hills and pastures of her mother’s mountain province provided the ultimate source from which so many Faerie delights were concocted. The herd had roamed for as long as anyone could remember over the rolling meadows, sheltered by the high mountain peaks, fed by the lush green acres of thyme and clover, and watered by the clear streams which ran down from the heights. The care and tending of this herd had passed in an unbroken line from mother to daughter for as long as anyone could remember. “The first time it happened—a few springs ago—our people came to my mother and asked her to come and see the body of a calf they’d found in one of the pastures. This calf—” She shuddered and turned her face away, as though from the memory. “It did not die a natural death, for I had never seen anything like it. The body was marked all over by a pox that oozed some greenish, foul-smelling pus. It was as if something ate it from the inside out. Then it didn’t happen again for a while, and we hoped that perhaps it was simply some odd incident. But then, just before Alemandine’s pregnancy was announced, last Midsummer Eve, there was a spate of such bodies and not just within the cattle herds. Birds, fish, the great cats that roam the highest peaks—we found these and more. One stream was fouled by the bodies, so thick did they lie. And then, my mother’s foals began to die. I came here for Alemandine’s help, never suspecting to find her so—so weakened.”

Timias stared into her face, which was no less lovely for the worry that creased her forehead. “And you’ve no idea of the cause?”

“Well…” She turned back to the window and crossed her arms, as though bracing herself. “I do. But everyone—including my mother—considers it so outlandish, no one will listen.”

“A position I’ve found myself in more than once recently, my lady, as you saw this morning.” Timias bent toward her, gesturing with one hand in the general direction of the Council room. “You just heard me advocate the leading of a Faerie host into the Shadowlands, and you were kind enough to encourage the others to listen to me. How could I not do likewise?”

The half smile that quirked across her lips was displaced immediately by a look of such gravity, Timias leaned forward as if to offer comfort. But Delphinea only spoke with that same simplicity that this time chilled his bones. “I think it’s the Caul—the Caul made of silver that’s poisoning the land, the cattle—” She broke off. “I think the Caul must be removed.”

Despite his resolve to listen to her with as fair a hearing as she had given him, he shook his head vehemently. “Lady, surely not. I was there when the Caul was forged—every precaution was taken, only the mortal handled it—”

“But think of it, my lord—” She raised her chin, refusing to back down. “All these turning years, it’s lain, untouched, unlooked at—no one goes near it—and there it just sits on that green globe. The most poisonous thing in all of Faerie. What if—what if it’s the Caul that’s poisoning the land? If it’s the Caul that’s weakening Alemandine? Is that not possible?”

Timias backed away, her words tumbling in his mind as a new vision occurred to him—one so monstrous it defied comprehension. Could it be that the Caul—deemed so necessary, so perfect a solution to the problem of both silver and goblin—was in reality slowly leaching poison into the fabric of Faerie over the years? Alemandine had indeed appeared sickly, even to his untrained eye. The Queen was bound to the land more intimately than the Caul to the Globe. Could it be that her growing weakness was due to the very thing they thought protected them all? Could it be that they had erred? He shook his head. It was difficult to even wrap his mind around the idea. It was too terrible to consider, but he was forced to confront the possibility of truth in Delphinea’s words. He sank down onto a chair, and even as the plush cushioning relieved the ache in his back, he felt the enormity of the potential problem as a physical pang in his chest. He must simply find a way to prove Delphinea wrong. For the first time he actually feared he might not make it into the West. If he weren’t careful, a true death might yet claim him.

For Delphinea was continuing, pressing her point on with a passion almost mortal in intensity. “I know you based the making of the Caul in that most elementary of magic—the law of Similiars. But the amount used in such undertakings is critical—the amount that determines whether it heals or kills—”

“Do not lecture me, my lady!” He raised one gnarled hand to his forehead, feeling every one of his thirteen hundred mortal years. They stared at each other in a shocked silence, and then he said: “Forgive me, my lady. I should not have spoken to you in that tone. The tension of the times affects us all. Soon we will all be squabbling like mortals.”

“My lord Timias,” she replied, her eyes dark with pity. “I don’t mean to imply you and Gloriana and the mortal deliberately did wrong. It was made with the best of intentions—surely that’s why the Caul’s magic has prevailed for so long. But what if too much silver was used in its making? This was something no one ever tried before—how could you or anyone else have been sure what was too much?”

Timias stared up at her. Backlit by the window, she stood poised before him like a harbinger of doom made more terrible by its beauty. “Have you told anyone this?”

“I’ve tried. They think it’s nonsense. I can’t get into the Caul Chamber alone, but I can’t convince any of the lords or the knights to come with me. Even that sot Berillian—he fawns all over my bosom in a manner most unseemly, but can’t bestir himself to help me open the doors.”

He rubbed his head. In Faerie, where the progression of years was experienced as a never-ending circle rather than a linear march into some indeterminate future, shifting accepted thought was as difficult as shifting the calendar in the mortal world. The sidhe understood that what was materialized around them was an expression of their collective thought. An idea such as the Caul, which had worked for mortal centuries, would not easily be abandoned. “And is that what you suggest we should do, my lady?”

She smiled, and knelt at his feet, covering his spotted hands with her own like new-milked cream. “My mother said I should come to you. All I ask is that you come with me—we can go through the mirrors and no one need see us. How could it hurt to look? Maybe these are only the fancies everyone says they are. After all, when was the last time the doors were even opened?”

He shook his head, gazing past her face at some spot outside the window. She was right about one thing. There could be no harm in looking at the Caul. The spell which held the doors of the Caul Chamber was a relatively easy one to overcome—it required a simultaneous touch of the combined polarity of male and female energy. “To my knowledge—never. For once it was done, it has never seemed that there was a need—” He broke off and took a deep breath. “That’s not to say that no one has ever gone to look.”

She gave him a reproving look and he was forced to admit to himself she was correct about that. Once done, the sidhe would not return to it, because they would not expect it to change. It was the fundamental difference between the mortals and the sidhe. It would simply not occur to anyone in Faerie to enter the Caul Chamber. He lowered his eyes to the bubbling fountain, where the finches hopped from rim to ground to shrub, reminding him of the courtiers who leapt so lightly through the days, as if the gravest danger they’d faced in ages was not at hand.

He remembered the night the Caul was forged, the ring of the hammer as it slammed down on the soft metal, fixing it with that raw energy that had crackled through the air like bolts of lightning. What if that energy had not been sufficient to bind forever the relentless poison of the silver? He turned to face her and held out his hand. “Come. You must lead me, lady—’tis an age or more since I have used the mirror magic.”

With a look of gratitude, she took his hand and he led her to stand before another mirror. He placed one hand on her shoulder, the other clutched his staff. For a moment they stood poised, reflected in the polished surface of the glass, and Timias felt his heart contract when he stared at the perfect beauty of her face. It was the color of her eyes, he decided, that gave her appearance such a compelling quality, one that was as fascinating as it was apparent. Or was it? he mused, murmuring aloud to cover for his moment of hesitation, “When I look at you, my lady, I see how foolish I am to waste any time at all in Shadow.”

Despite the cast of worry in her dark blue eyes, a delicate pink stained her cheeks, and her lips quirked up in a fleeting smile. “I’m glad you came back when you did, my lord Timias.” Despite the guileless innocence of her reply, he felt a fleeting throb of warning. There was more to this girl-sidhe than met the eye. Far more. She pressed his hand against her shoulder, then stepped into the glass. Together they walked through the weirdly refracted world behind the mirrors, through twisting corridors and winding staircases lit by intermittent shards of splintered light, until at last they stood behind the mirror which hung opposite the chamber deep within the very heart of the palace.

As she attempted to step through glass, for the first time that Timias had ever experienced, the surface of the mirror seemed to impede her progress, as though it were covered in some sticky, translucent film. She backed away, fine strands of some sticky white fiber clinging to her hand. “What is this?” she murmured.

She pushed through the film with more determination and it gave way with a slight puff. She forced her way through it. As they stepped into the vestibule, they looked back and Timias saw the surface of the mirror was covered with a fine sheen of what he recognized at once as dust. “What is this stuff?” she whispered, more to herself than to him.

Dust, he realized. But did she even know the word? Dust did not exist in Faerie. “It’s dust,” he said aloud.

“Dust,” she echoed, shaking out her skirts. “It’s all over the place.” But there was no more time to wonder about its presence, for she gripped his hand, and pointed at the floor. It was covered with the same sheen of fine white dust as the mirror. And clearly, just as their outlines were visible in the dust of the mirror, the outline of a single set of footsteps led from the set of doors in the left wall, directly to the high bronze doors opposite the mirror.

“Someone else has been here. Not that long ago.” Her voice was flat in the stillness.

“And we cannot ask the guards on the other side of that door, can we?”

“Why would something that cannot be touched need a guard?” Her lips quirked up for a moment in a satirical little smile.

The footsteps led directly to the door, and both Delphinea and Timias were careful not to disturb them. “I wonder who it was.”

“A single person alone could not open the door.”

Whoever had come in had paused before the door, then reversed himself, and exited the vestibule through the set of doors in the right wall. Whoever it was had not wanted to leave by the same way he’d entered.

“Could these be your footsteps, Delphinea?”

“No. I’ve only looked through the mirror. I didn’t even know about that—that dust.”