Anne Kelleher - Silver's Edge

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.”