V
NIGHTWALKER
A sleek Faerie woman curled up on either side of him, Ereledan, smoothly golden in candlelight, hair a bright, tangled flame, lay awake and brooding.
He had waited so long, more patiently than anyone who thought they knew him would ever have believed. He had let the tedious years go by without a hint of regal ambition, hiding behind the mask of a shallow, sensation-hungry fool, waiting only for the passing of time to safely dull the memory of late, deposed Grandfather. Perilous Grandfather.
But he had waited long enough! Serein had been dead for nearly a full moon-cycle, and yet here Ereledan lay, no closer to his goal since before the night of that disastrous duel with the half-blood prince and the equally disastrous meeting with his kin, when he had rambled and stammered like a mindless fool . . . What if something like that incredible loss of control happened again? It could destroy him . . .
“Nonsense,” Ereledan muttered. The first had been . . . too much wine. The second, too much tension. He was thoroughly himself again, as both these lovely creatures could attest. And his difficulties these days had nothing to do with wine or mental quirks. No one would meet with him, no one listen to him—Dammit, he wasn’t even sure anyone was receiving his messages. Ever since that message-bird had returned to him with great, bleeding gaps in its side, as though some larger, more deadly creature had deliberately driven it back, Ereledan had suspected the truth: “Charailis.”
She was next in line for the crown, the cold-blooded creature. And so, while she plotted whatever lurked in that devious mind of hers, she was making sure he stayed neatly in his place, no threat to her, nicely submissive—
“Ha!”
It was nearly a roar. The women stirred sleepily. One of them giggled and reached out a caressing hand. At first, Ereledan almost knocked it away, angry at her singlemindedness. But wasn’t that total devotion to her art exactly why he’d taken her and her sister to his bed? What he wanted in all his women? (And yet, once there had been another . . . a woman unlike any he had ever known, sweet and lovely though fully human. Blanche, gentle, lonely Blanche . . . She had loved him. But, unlike Prince Laherin and his own human love, he hadn’t appreciated the gift offered him. Oh no, he’d been a fool, he’d lightly used and abandoned her. And only then, far too late, realized he’d forever lost that one true love.)
No. He wouldn’t think of the past. Ereledan forced himself to relax, letting the woman’s soft hand rove where it would, toying just for a moment with the fantasy of it being Charailis in his bed instead, her long, elegant body cool against his own, her hand, with its silvery nails, exploring his body. Powers, no! She’d probably gut him like a fish with those claws!
He shivered as the hand ran ticklingly down his chest, down his stomach, down . . . And after a bit Ereledan grinned, mentally murmuring the words of a restorative spell, and pulled the giggling woman to him. But just before he let his mind surrender with his body, the Lord of Llyrh told Charailis silently: Try to block my plans, will you? We’ll see how you like it!
###
In her white and silver bedroom, lovely Charailis lay alone, fuming. Serein dead for a moon-cycle now, and she no closer to Hauberin than she had been on that night of his Second Triad celebration.
“Ereledan.”
When none of her little messenger-sprites had reached the palace, returning instead with their small forms trembling with fatigue, whispering words of blinding fogs and swift, perilous winds, she had suspected. When her prized matched team of white, winged steeds had literally grounded themselves, suffering broken flight feathers in a fight—they, who never fought—she knew who must have goaded them on.
“Ereledan,” she repeated softly.
Who else could it be? Who else was her chief rival for the throne? Though if that fool thought anyone would support him in a power-drive—he who came from traitor stock—if he thought anyone would stand by him if by some wild mischance he came to rule, or prefer his bluster to her subtlety . . .
Charailis smiled coldly. But then, slowly, the smile faded, leaving her face bleak as she considered the years, the long, weary years behind her, before her . . . Boredom was the crudest threat to one untouched by time. Oh, there were some, she knew, who claimed to savor every moment of life, like elderly Sharailan, who never seemed to weary of the intricacies of law and politics, or those others who jumped delightedly from interest to interest, announcing to one and all that even with their lengthy Faerie spans there could never be enough time to learn all there was to be learned, do all there was to be done.
“Fools,” Charailis whispered bitterly. “Self-deluding fools.”
She had done so many things in her life already, though she was hardly old by Faerie terms, played so many roles. But it was all in vain. No matter what she did, there was still the emptiness, the hopelessness, waiting for the moment when the thrill of new, of unexpected, was gone.
Charailis bit her lip. If it was only now, belatedly, that the idea had struck her to vie for a crown, for the heady new challenge of royal power that just might stave off the emptiness for a time, that didn’t mean she wasn’t totally determined. To escape that emptiness, she would do whatever she must. Including destroying anyone who blocked her path. Especially you, she warned Ereledan silently.
###
Strangling, smothering, Hauberin clawed his frantic way up from darkness and—
Awoke. He twisted free of the cocoon of blankets, sitting up in his perspiration-soaked bed, alone, shaking. Gradually the bedchamber took on reality about him, chairs, tables, lovely silken tapestries, comforting him that, yes, it had been only a dream.
Only another dream.
Only another time of broken sleep and little rest—Powers, oh, Powers.
Hauberin sat for a time, head in hands, trying to steady his breathing. How many foul nights did this make? So far, he had covered this . . . weakness well. No one at court suspected the truth. He had managed to keep Ereledan and Charailis ready at each other’s throats and away from his own, with each blaming the other for whatever went wrong. He had even had the satisfaction of seeing a prediction he’d made come true: quarrelers Lietlal and Ethenial, the date come round for their duel, had begged off, both pleading, a bit too coincidentally, incapacitating illness.
Hauberin smiled faintly. That had made Sharailan regard his prince with new respect! And as for his ever more darkly circled eyes and gradually increasing slips of logic, why, the nobles all believed them the signs of a man deeply engrossed in magical research. (Commendable, they murmured, citing that expanded wheat-fertility spell as evidence, shows that despite his unfortunately mixed blood, he takes his Faerie heritage seriously.) The prince hadn’t said anything to dissuade them.
Powers, if they learn I can’t even deal with dreams . . .
Hauberin rubbed his burning eyes with the heels of his hands. He didn’t dare return to sleep (to the darkness, to the dream . . .), but his body was crying out for rest. At last, reluctantly, he murmured the words of a fatigue-banishing spell and waited tensely for it to take effect. But too many uses of the spell in too short a time had weakened its effect on him; instead of a rush of new energy, all Hauberin felt was the slightest lifting of his fatigue. It would have to be enough.
And what was he going to do when the spell stopped having any effect at all?
No. He wouldn’t think of that.
The prince slipped from his bed, flinging on the first clothes that came to hand, and set out to wander the palace halls yet again. Black of hair, clothes, cloak, he was very nearly invisible in the dark corridors that night of Moon Dark. His silent approach startled two guards, who whirled, silver-headed spears at the ready, only at the last moment recognizing: “Ae, my prince, forgive us! We didn’t realize—”
“No matter. No. Don’t follow. I would be alone.”
Hauberin kept himself most regally proud of carriage till he was out of their sight, then slowly let his shoulders sag. Those guards were supposed to have been actively patrolling. He should have said something. But he just hadn’t been able to find the energy.
And was this what Serein had meant by his strange curse? That every time Hauberin slept, he would start to—
Phaugh! I will not carry his words around like some idiotic little spell-slave!
No? Then what was he doing wandering the palace corridors like some sleepless wraith? Hauberin gave a dry little laugh, stopping to lean against a wall, welcoming its support, enjoying its smooth coolness, his head thrown back.
If anyone should ask, I can always blame my father’s blood.
Prince Laherin had truly been a born traveler, wandering even into other Realms whenever time and royal duties permitted. Hauberin saw himself in his mind’s eye, a small, dark child staring wide-eyed up at the tall, golden-haired being who always seemed far too splendid to be merely Father, shyly asking the man to travel with him. Laherin had laughed, ruffling his son’s hair, promising lightly that yes, he would take the child-Hauberin with him some day.
Some day. After the death of Hauberin’s mother, that promise had been forgotten. Prince Laherin had thrown himself into a frenzy of grief from which, in time, he had emerged apparently unchanged. Only Hauberin knew that some small corner of Laherin’s soul had died as well. There had been wilder and ever more perilous journeyings over the years, stolen in secret stretches of other-time, with none suspecting but his desperate son, helpless to stop him.
And at last Laherin had found what, perhaps, he had been seeking all along: his death.
Jaws clenched, Hauberin blinked fiercely, telling himself it was merely weariness lowering his defenses. After all, he and his father had never been truly close. And yet, and yet . . .
Damn!
The prince wiped angrily at his eyes and strode determinedly forward. Even after these six years, he hadn’t forgotten the anguish of suddenly waking knowing with a dreadful psychic certainty that his father was dead, slain by mischance or some yet-unknown hand—
No. He wouldn’t dwell on unhappiness. If the past insisted on being recalled, he would think only of the bright days, of his father as happy explorer. As romantic, too, though none would have guessed it from that cool royal facade.
Hauberin smiled. The man had definitely been a romantic. Who else would have fallen so deeply in love with a human woman, slight, dark little Melusine? Who else but a romantic would have ignored all the warnings and shocked murmurings from his court to make her his wife and royal consort?
And what of Melusine? Hauberin could understand a human woman falling in love with a tall, golden Faerie prince. But what courage she must have had, even with love’s support, to come here to an unknown land and people, forever leaving behind all she knew.
But she had succeeded in making herself a new life here.
Hauberin’s smile softened tenderly. Ah, Mother. I do miss you, too.
Of course he hadn’t realized her courage back then when he’d been a boy. She had been merely Mother, warm and loving, but with a wry wit to her that hadn’t allowed her son self-pity or shame. But his memories of her were a child’s memories; she had died so unexpectedly young, when he had been barely eight. Had things been different . . .
Ah, but who could avoid Destiny? At least, Hauberin told himself, she had had the chance to love and know herself loved in return.
And so I come to be small, like her, and dark. And half-human.
Less than half-human.
Hauberin shivered, and caught his cloak more tightly about himself. Serein’s odd, odd curse . . . What rumors had he heard? What secret whispers that the witchly consort’s father had been other than human?
The prince shivered again, all at once feeling very young and very, very alone, aching for someone in whom he could confide, someone who wouldn’t use whatever he might confess as fuel against him.
Alliar. If ever there was a friend who could be trusted . . .
But Alliar had vanished for a time, in the manner of that restless wind spirit. Hauberin didn’t begrudge his friend the need for privacy, and of course the being would be back eventually. But until then he must be alone, and live with loneliness and—
“Oh, enough!”
The prince turned sharply in the direction of that terrace with the mountainous view. All this maundering self-pity was surely the result of too little sleep. The cold air should clear his mind.
Hauberin stopped short, feeling a twinge of annoyance because someone was already out there on the terrace.
Eh, but that someone was slim as a statue, sleekly golden against the darkness: Alliar!
The being was perched casually on the very corner of the balustrade, staring dreamily out into the night, sharp, beautiful, sexless profile softened by a faint smile. One leg was curled bonelessly under, the other bent at the knee, arms wrapped around it, chin resting on it; Alliar apparently quite comfortable and at ease in that precarious pose.
Hauberin hesitated, afraid to startle his friend while the being was so delicately poised on the edge of a sizeable drop. But a moon-moth large as his hand brushed his arm, wings flickering softly silver as it fluttered off, and he started involuntarily, not quite stifling a yelp. The faint sound was enough to alert keen-eared Alliar, who uncoiled back onto the terrace and around to face him in one lithe, wild-eyed leap.
“Hauberin!” The being laughed softly in relief. “For a moment I thought you were a Night Gaunt.”
“Oh, thank you!”
Alliar grinned. “I didn’t mean it the way it sounded. But . . .” Wide golden eyes studied the prince, and the grin faded. “What’s wrong? No, don’t try to deny it. I’ve only been away for a short time, but there’s been such a change in you . . . And your eyes are so very weary.”
“I . . . simply haven’t been able to sleep.”
“Phaugh! I can see that. But I think that’s a symptom, as the healers would say, not the disease.” The being slipped silently to Hauberin’s side. “I’m not Ereledan, you know, or Charailis, or—”
“Oh, Li. You know I trust you.”
“Well?”
Hauberin shook his head. “You were never meant to bear the weight of—of flesh-and-blood emotions.”
“Don’t patronize me. Do you think wind-children have no emotions?”
“Not normal wind—ae, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that.”
He could have struck himself at the shadow that passed over his friend’s face. “It’s true,” the being said levelly. “It wasn’t till I . . . became flesh-and-blood myself that I could fully understand certain things. Fear. And hate.”
“Li, I—”
“And love, and friendship. Those two you taught me. Come now, what troubles you?”
Hauberin stared into the earnest golden gaze, then glanced quickly away. “Serein,” he admitted.
“Serein! But it’s been nearly . . . Surely you don’t still regret his death?”
“Yes. No. Ach, wait. Li, the man was part of my life. Even if I did hate him for most of it. I can’t that easily forget him, or that he’s dead, or that mine was the hand that . . .” But Hauberin couldn’t finish that. “No, Li. I’m not a hypocrite. If I hadn’t . . . if he hadn’t died, he would have killed me.”
“Then why let a dead traitor—oh, don’t look at me like that, that’s exactly what he was. Why let a traitor haunt your thoughts?” The glowing eyes narrowed warily. “Unless he really is haunting you . . . ?”
Serein’s mockery, his certainty: “You’re not rid of me.”
Hauberin forced a laugh. “Credit me with enough skill to banish a ghost.” He took a deep breath. “Serein cursed me.”
“What! And you just stand here? By what Powers did he—ae, what Names did he—”
“None. I had more sense than to let him finish.”
Alliar blinked. “Why, then, whatever curse he began can have no hold on you!”
“So the rules of such things would have it.”
“But?”
Hauberin sighed. “But, as I told you, I’ve been sleeping poorly of late.”
“I don’t understand. Surely there are aids for those who can’t sleep? Potions? Or . . . some willing lady, Aydris or—or Charailis?”
The prince snorted. “You saw her trying to seduce me during the Second Triad celebration, didn’t you?”
“I . . . uh . . . assumed that’s what she was trying to do,” the sexless being said uncertainly. “But you didn’t seem to want to—”
“And you don’t know why. Oh my dear Li, the woman despises me. The only reason she wanted to bed me was to snare my will.”
Alliar’s eyes widened. “You mean, flesh-pleasures are that dangerous?”
Hauberin bit back a laugh. “Not usually. In her case, however . . . With Serein dead, she’s virtually next in line for the crown—unless, of course, Ereledan murders her. If she could control me and take the throne, why, how long do you think she would leave me alive?”
Alliar shuddered. “But I wasn’t thinking of politics,” the being said plaintively. “All I meant . . . I thought gendered folk found relaxation in that odd act of—”
“Oh, we do.” He grinned. “But it would hardly be polite to use someone as a living sleeping-potion, would it?”
The being let out a long sigh of frustration. “Will you stop playing games? If the difficulty isn’t simple lack of sleep, what in the name of all the Winds is it?”
Hauberin winced. Unable to meet his friend’s fierce stare, he turned away, leaning on the balustrade, looking blankly out into space. “Dreams,” he said softly. “But then, you don’t dream, do you?”
“Not as you do.”
“You can’t possibly know the power our unconscious minds can hold over us.” He glanced at Alliar. “Do you want to hear the exact words of Serein’s curse? That I ‘know not peace, not sleep,’ till I learn my mother’s father’s name.”
“Now, that’s an odd thing!”
“Isn’t it? I didn’t take it seriously, of course, not at first, particularly since I knew no Binding Names had been invoked. But since then . . .” Hauberin paused. “It began so slowly, with the slightest troubling of my dreams.” He glanced at Alliar again. “All dreaming beings have such things from time to time. And I . . . was more disturbed by Serein’s death than I admitted even to you; I told myself it was natural for my sleep to be uneasy for a time after . . . that.”
The prince felt himself starting to shiver, and snatched at his cloak, wrapping it tightly about himself, struggling for composure. “But with each night of the moon’s waning, I’ve been falling deeper and deeper into nightmare. Now, at Moon Dark, I—I can’t sleep, I dare not sleep—oh, Alliar, how do I rid myself of a curse that all the rules flatly state can’t exist?”
“You have tried magic?”
“Everything from the slightest little charm for sweet sleep all the way up to the Spell of Ryellan Banishment.”
Alliar raised a startled brow. “And even that didn’t work?”
“Other than alarming half the court sages, who were wondering just what their prince was trying to do, no. And if such a powerful spell failed, it . . . seems to imply something very unhappy.”
“Eh?”
The prince hesitated a long while. Alliar, with all the alien patience of a spirit, did not push him. And at last Hauberin said painfully, “I am a half-blood, after all. Not fully of my father’s kind, nor of my mother’s. Not quite looking or acting like either.”
Even as he said that, Hauberin wished he could have taken it back; Alliar, after all, resembled no one in all the Realms. But the being only shrugged. “So? That just makes you—ah, what did I hear a lady call you?—intriguingly exotic?”
“You’re missing my point, Li. Powers, not only don’t I know my mother’s father’s name, I don’t even know what he was! What if the mixture of races brought out some . . . instability, some slowly surfacing . . . weakness of mind—”
“How dare you!” Alliar’s form blurred and shifted with the force of the being’s sudden indignation. “How dare you belittle yourself?”
“Ai-yi, hold to one form! You’re making me dizzy.”
The being grudgingly solidified, golden hair a wild aureole about the fine-boned head, eyes still fierce. “I just will not hear you talk about yourself that way. The boy who slew my . . . master, who freed me from horror: that boy had no ‘weakness of mind,’ and neither, by all the Winds, does the man he’s become!”
Even Alliar had to stop for breath by that point, and Hauberin, half-astonished, half-touched by his friend’s vehemence, began warily, “But the curse—”
“Damn the curse!” Alliar stopped again, panting, wild golden mane gradually settling sleekly back into place. So. Enough. It’s the lack of sleep talking, not you.”
“Probably.”
“Certainly. Come, let me hear the plot of your dream.”
The prince gave the ghost of a chuckle. “Yes, Mother.”
“What?”
“Nothing.” He was deliberately keeping his voice light. “You do understand that such things can’t possibly sound so terrifying in the telling as they are in the dreaming. But, if you must have it: I’m walking down a smooth-walled, featureless corridor, dark, but not so dark I can’t see where I’m going. What I can’t see is the corridor’s far end, but the air is so close and chill that I very much want to turn and run. But I can’t run. Some terrible compulsion drives me on and on, even though I’m becoming almost sick with horror, even though I know there’s something waiting, even though I know that when I see the truth, I will—die.”
Hauberin broke off with a gasp, shaking. “It’s all right,” Alliar murmured, putting a gentle hand on his arm. “You’re not alone now.”
“No. Of course not.” After a moment, the prince continued softly, “Each time I sleep, I find myself further down that dark corridor. And lately I’ve been hearing a voice in the dream. All it says is a toneless, ‘Grandson, welcome.’ But there’s something behind the words that’s so very unbearable that I find myself screaming like a child, ‘I will not look! I will not look!’ And with that, of course,” Hauberin finished wearily, “I wake myself up.” He glanced at Alliar. “It sounds foolish now, doesn’t it?”
“No,” the being murmured. “If, as I’ve heard, dreams seem quite real to the dreamer, then it doesn’t sound foolish at all. But why have you been trying to solve this all by yourself? Did you never think of finding help?”
“Li, please. That’s the last thing I want to do.”
“But—”
“I did consult with Sharailan privately, pretending I spoke of some hypothetical case I’d come across in my studies. I think he believed me; our Sharailan has outlived any deviousness he might once have had. And he seemed genuinely intrigued by the problem. But for all his musings over past magics, he couldn’t come up with a solution. I didn’t dare press him, or go to anyone else. By that point, I couldn’t keep up the pretense long enough or convincingly enough for that. And if anyone should begin to suspect the truth . . . No, Li,” he added before the being could interrupt, “I’m not being overly cautious. Remember that time three years back, when I fell so feverishly ill from drinking seralis, because no one had remembered that the wine was poisonous to humans and might harm me, too?”
Alliar shuddered. “Of course.”
“Remember the whispers? ‘Sickly half-blood,’ ‘unfit to rule’—I wasn’t so ill I didn’t overhear them. Remember how many loyal vassals were ready to forget their loyalty? How many would-be rebels I had to put down—all the time worrying that I was bringing the land into civil war—to prove that human blood or no, I was still their prince? Li, I don’t want to go through that again.”
“Oh, but surely things are different now. Your people love you.”
Hauberin grinned fiercely. “Don’t be naïve. Some do, some don’t. Most are merely . . . politic. As long as their prince keeps the land peaceful and prosperous and lets them live their own lives, they don’t really care who sits the throne—as long as he can wield sufficient strength. I’ve worn the crown for only six years, a mere eyeblink of Faerie time, nowhere near long enough for everyone to be totally trusting of me.”
“Ah.”
“The slightest sign of human failings from me, and off they’d go again. With Charailis and Ereledan, doubtless, in the lead.”
Alliar sighed. “What complicated lives you solid folk lead! But I agree: You really can’t go to anyone for help. Except to me, of course.” The being paused, head cocked to one side, considering. “Now, here’s a thought . . . Thanks to your mother, you know some spells foreign to this Realm. Suppose Serein had learned some, too.”
“I doubt it. Can you see him ever sullying his hands with human magic?”
“Ah well, we can hardly prove it now. It would have made such a lovely answer, though: none of your Faerie magic working against his curse because that curse wasn’t formed of Faerie Power.”
Hauberin stared at the being. If the curse was real, if Alliar was right, and it was formed of alien Power . . . Without the Name and shape of that magic, he would never, ever, be able to lift the curse . . .
The being could hardly have missed the sudden bleakness in his eyes. “There’s still one very simple solution, my friend,” Alliar said, “and I suppose only weariness has kept you from seeing it. Since you need your grandsire’s name, send someone into your mother’s Realm to learn it! Then whether Serein’s curse really is fueled by some outside Power, or whether you’ve—forgive me—fallen victim to the simpler power of suggestion, we’ve drawn the fangs of his malice.”
Plain enough. Sensible enough. And Hauberin had already thought of it, and flinched from the idea. Now he turned away, biting his lip, feeling Alliar’s gaze piercing him like two golden darts. “Li, I . . .
“What is it?” The being moved to face him, but Hauberin angrily turned away again. “Why, you’re afraid!”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“Oh, really? Then why won’t you look at me? You’re terrified of the very thought of learning that name.”
He wanted to shout, No! How should I be afraid? But not even a half-human Faerie prince could lie. At bay, furious at his weakness, and at his friend for exposing it, Hauberin whirled with a savage, “You go too far!”
A responding flash of anger crossed Alliar’s face. “Pray forgive me.” The formal words were laced with mockery. The sleek form shifted, quick as thought. A lithe elf-girl, golden-maned, knelt in supplication at Hauberin’s feet. After a moment, the prince murmured, “Prettily done, Li. Come, get up. I apologize. Ach, Li, please,” the prince added wearily when the being didn’t move, “I’m not up to feuding right now.”
A bright golden eye glanced up at him. “No. I can see that.”
Alliar straightened, blurring. Hauberin waited till the malleable being had shifted back to sexlessness before confessing quietly, “I shouldn’t have shouted at you. And . . . you’re right. I am afraid.”
“Of what?” Alliar had apparently let anger flow away with the change of shape. “Of whom your grandsire might have been?”
“Of what he might have been. All I know for certain is that he wasn’t—isn’t?—human.”
“What of it? I’m not human. Your father wasn’t human.”
“Don’t be clever. You know that’s not what I meant. Of course there’s other than human, better than human. There’s also . . . worse. I . . . never told anyone this, but I used to have nightmares about that. I used to lie awake, ashamed to call my mother, afraid to call my father, wondering: what if my grandfather turned out to be something—something—Damn! I thought I had conquered that fear long ago.” Hauberin took a deep breath. “Look you, I really don’t want to learn the truth. But I don’t want to die from lack of sleep, either.”
“Why are you so sure the answer is something terrible?” Alliar asked gently. “I never met your mother, but from all I’ve heard she was too good of soul—as is her son, I might add—for her father to ever have been anything Evil.”
Touched, Hauberin murmured, “Thank you, Li.”
The being shrugged, embarrassed. “So, now. I suppose the next question is who you’re going to send into your mother’s Realm. The answer is obvious enough: me.”
“No!” Hauberin had a sudden sharp image of Alliar in human lands, making some fatal blunder in all innocence, of human fear and hatred, of the stake and the flames . . . “Thank you, but you don’t know enough about being human to pass as one.”
“But who else could you possibly—”
“No one.” Hauberin paused. “Except myself.”
“You! But—You—That’s too dangerous! Leaving the throne at a time when Ereledan—Charailis—By the Winds, think! As soon as they knew you were gone, they would declare you dead, and you would return to find your throne usurped and some quiet assassin waiting—”
“Hush, now. I’m not a complete fool, Li, truly I’m not.”
“But—”
“My father used to go off into other Realms whenever the whim took him, without needing to worry about throne or life. I’ve studied his scrolls. And now I know how he did it: Time.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You know that time flows at different speeds in different Realms. My father found the magics to play all manner of tricks with those speeds. He could spend long moon-cycles of mortal time in mortal lands, and have them translate into only a day or even less of Faerie time.”
“But can you do that? Have you ever even tried?”
“No,” Hauberin admitted. “But I have a firm grip on how his magics work.”
“You hope.”
“I know. Li, Li, have I a choice? Can you think of a better idea?”
“What I think, my friend,” Alliar said bluntly, “is that you’ve gone giddy from lack of sleep.”
Hauberin stifled a yawn, wondering if he dared try that fatigue-banishing spell yet again. No, he decided reluctantly. Casting it again so soon would either have no effect at all, or hit his mind with enough psychic backlash to leave him in coma. “Probably,” he admitted belatedly. “But that doesn’t change the facts.”
“Yes, but I—you told me I didn’t know enough about being human to pass. Well and good, but do you? My prince, you’ve lived in Faerie all your life. Just because your mother happened to be human doesn’t make you an authority on the race!”
“Granted. But I do remember almost everything my mother told me about her people and their customs. Yes, I know, that hardly makes me adept. But I do know human ways better than anyone else at court, give me that much.” Seeing the being’s blatant skepticism, the prince added defensively, “And I do speak the human language well enough. You know that; I’ve practiced it on you often enough.”
“True,” Alliar conceded with a quick laugh. “You’ve made me fluent in it! Ae, but that doesn’t wipe away the danger. To go into a human Realm . . . You once told me that humans hold even their own witches in low regard.”
“Low regard! They think them spawns of Evil.”
“Oh, that truly puts my mind at ease! If you make a mistake, reveal your talents—”
“I won’t.”
“Mm. And for all your ‘exotic’ coloring, my prince, you just don’t look particularly human.”
“My own mother had slanted eyes, Li, and these high cheekbones.”
“And how do you plan to explain those? Or do human ears vary wildly in shape, too?”
Hauberin touched one elegantly pointed ear with a light fingertip. “They’re not all that different.”
“Huh!”
“Besides, my hair is long enough and thick enough to hide them. And no one would believe what he or she might chance to glimpse.” He grinned. “After all, what human would ever believe a creature of Faerie would be brash enough to walk among them? In broad daylight, to boot.”
“That’s another point. Sunlight doesn’t bother me. What about you?”
“I can bear it. Inherited protection from my mother. All I need worry about is avoiding iron.”
“Lightly said, considering your mother’s culture is based on it!” The being sighed. “At least iron can’t hurt me.”
“You! Li, I told you—”
“Not to go alone. I have no intention of letting you go alone, either. Come now, you hardly thought I’d let a friend go wandering off into who-knows-what all by himself!’
Hauberin forced a smile. “I don’t suppose there’s any way to stop you.”
“Short of outright imprisonment, no.”
“And that, I would never do.” This time the yawn escaped before Hauberin could stop it. All at once he realized that his legs wouldn’t support him. He sank to a bench just in time, Alliar at his side. Feeling as though his words were coming from a vast distance, the prince forced out, “Then . . . thank you, my friend. I . . . will be . . . glad of your . . . company . . .”
The last shred of the fatigue-banishing spell dissolved. As suddenly as a child, the exhausted Hauberin fell into a warm black ocean of sleep. And this time there was no room for dreams.