Mercedes Lackey - Prison of Souls

Alaire scratched his head a little; his hair was sweat-damp and his scalp itched. "Still, I never expected weapons training when Father sent me here. Is this the kind of fighting you used when you defeated Carlotta?"

At the mention of the evil princess, Naitachal turned slowly. The look he gave Alaire turned the boy's spine to ice. His skin crawled uncomfortably, as if it were trying to slither off his body. Gods, I hope that wasn't the wrong thing to say, he thought. He could kill me with one look, if he dared.

"Who said we defeated Carlotta?" Naitachal replied casually.

The words stunned Alaire. What is he trying to say this time? "Are you speaking in riddles to confuse me?" Alaire asked, finally. "Or are you just posing questions to make me think?"

Naitachal replaced the ladle and dropped the bucket back into the well, then gave Alaire an appraising look. "They never told you the entire story, did they?"

Alaire perked up at the prospect of hearing some secrets from his family's past. They never went into much detail when I was around; all I ever got was the bedtime story, with the moral "be good, or Carlotta will carry you off."

Sometimes when he walked into his father's study, and his mother and Grant and Drake were talking, he would overhear something about Carlotta. As soon as they saw him, everyone got really quiet.

He hadn't paid as much attention to his own fam- ily's past as he might have. There was all the scope of history to learn, a vast mine to delve in for gems that could become songs. It would have seemed presump- tuous to use his family as a basis for balladry. Still, the mysterious story of Carlotta occasionally nagged at him. Even if he was not likely to become king, he still wondered what had happened back then, and why they were keeping it from him.

"No," he said quickly. "No one ever did. The whole family has been rather evasive about Carlotta."

'Then perhaps I should keep quiet as well,"

Dark Elf replied slyly.

"Not that they were intentionally keeping it a secret from me," he quickly supplied. "I'm sure they just never, well, had the time. Or the chance, I mean, there are some things you just don't discuss with chil- dren. I've been here what, eight years now?"

"Nine," Naitachal said. "And you were never curi- ous about it before."

"I'm nineteen now. I'm not a child." Alaire withered under Naitachal's answering look, which seemed to say, oh, are you not, really?

His Master shrugged. "The royal family never swore me to secrecy on everything. I insisted on a free rein in your upbringing, and got it. What would you like to know?"

"Details. Like, did you use this kind of swordsman- ship," he said, pointing towards the rack of swords, practice and the lethal, metal kind. "Or something a little more esoteric?"

"I was not the hero," Naitachal said, "and I'm still not certain any victory was had on that day, by any- one."

His gaze turned brooding, as it always did when he was about to relate some story from the past. Naitachal gift for tale-telling extended beyond songs and ballads, and Alaire settled back with a feeling of anticipation.

"It began before I became involved," Naitachal said, with a sideways glance at his apprentice. "A Bard named Aidan sent his apprentice, Kevin, to the librar- ies of Count Volmar to copy a manuscript called The Study of Ancient Song."

Alaire nodded, although he had known all this before.

"Thirty years before, Aidan had prevented Carlotta from stealing her brother's throne. At the time, he thought Carlotta had been disposed of, but he had recently learned that she was still alive. Although the situation had changed, Carlotta's ambition had not.

Since you humans have such brief lives, Aidan was now an old man and didn't have the strength to deal with Carlotta. His apprentice, Kevin, was only seven- teen then."

Naitachal shook his head, as if he could not believe the years had passed so quickly. "Kevin was young, eager, and dying to have an Adventure. What he lacked in brains and maturity he more than made up with enthusiasm. However, he was rather reluctant to go off to copy some old manuscript. Aidan didn't tell him how important it was."

"If Aidan was an old man, then wasn't Carlotta an old woman?" Alaire asked, puzzled.

"Yes, and no." Naitachal frowned. "Carlotta was half fairy and a shape-changer. Because of her fairy blood she lived as long as any halfling. As a shape-changer she could simply shift herself out of the ravages of old age. By that time, she had also mastered many o Darker Arts. She was a fair match for anyone."

Alaire had never heard this before. Now he knew why. A member of the royal family was a halfbreed, and she was practicing black magic? Good gods, no wonder they wanted to keep this secret.

Naitachal took no notice of his shock. "Kevin was all alone in an unfriendly place, so it wasn't hard for Car- lotta to learn what Aidan had sent him to do. Sh Kevin's confidence by assuming the form of Volmar's pretty young niece, Charina. This was easy enough for a shape-changer, and the result was quite effective. I believe Kevin had even fallen in love with her. "

Alaire closed his mouth and nodded wisely. "What happened to the real niece?" he asked. This was not part of the bedtime story, which usually never got past the tale of Amber and Aidan.

Naitachal sighed. "What you might expect. Count, we later discovered, murdered her to get her out of the way. She apparently knew something was afoot." He shook his head. "Poor little thing. They killed her before she could enjoy her life."

He brooded on that for a moment, and Alaire gen- tly prodded him back onto the story. "So Kevin came to copy the manuscript, and Carlotta found out what he was doing. Why didn't she simply take the manu- script?"

Naitachal chuckled. "Because the manuscript hid itself from anyone except Aidan or his deputy. When the manuscript disappeared, Carlotta and Volmar staged the disappearance of the fake 'niece' out of des- peration. They blamed both Dark and White Elves for the 'kidnapping,' and that was how I became involved.

I was visiting Volmar's court during some rather aim- less travels. Count Volmar appointed Kevin to lead a search party. To clear my people's name I volunteered to help."

So that's where you came in, Alaire thought. This is getting interesting.

Naitachal squinted up at the sun for a moment.

"None of us knew the book in question had a hidden spell in it, a spell that could 'unmake' Carlotta. Which is to say, to return her to her original fairy form."

Alaire nodded somberly. "Only full blood humans can sit on the throne of Althea." Inwardly, he was both excited and a little appalled. A fairy? In the royal fam- ily? I would really like to know how that happened!

Carlotta is half fairy, my great-great-great-grand- father must have -- ahem. His ears burned as he won- dered how a human and a diminutive fairy could hav Stranger things have happened, I suppose.

Naitachal continued. "Our party would have failed if not for Kevin's leadership. He made us all work together in spite of our continuous bickering. Not sur- prising, since the Count intended us to fail, and chose us for that reason. We were an Amazon, a fairy, myself and a White Elven fighter. Anyone would have thought we would never stay together for more than a day. We became certain, in the course of some inter- esting adventures, that Count Volmar had sent us away so Carlotta could find the manuscript. "

I would truly like to hear that in detail, Alaire thought, but Naitachal was obviously trying to make this a short tale.

"In time we returned to the castle, discovered 'Charina's' captors had 'released' her. The Count treated us like heroes even though we had done nothing to rescue her." His expression became grim.