The Element of Fire by Martha Wells (shoe dog free ebook .txt) 📖

through the ring intact, and he wasn’t sure whether to be surprised by that or not. He slipped the blade back into the scabbard and said, “Damn it, woman, I trusted you. I told you something I swore I’d take to my grave unsaid. I let you watch while I shot the goddamn King’s buggering cousin. You know enough to get me drawn and quartered a dozen times over.” He was shouting at her now. “You could have bothered to mention that you not only had a quick method of escape from the palace, but that it involved taking me into Fayre which I think you realize is not a place where I wanted to go!”

Kade shouted back, “I had to think about it and by the time I did there wasn’t time anymore! And this is not exactly Oberon’s Court. I mean, I live here and it’s not the most dangerous place on the map for humans and you could credit me with some sense.” Her smaller lungs gave out and she sat down hard on the grass. After a deep breath, she continued in a normal tone, “…and I’m not used to trusting people either and I find it very frightening, and sometimes I don’t know what to think about you.”

What she had said about trust being frightening had hit home with more force than she could have realized. More calmly, he said, “Neither do I.”

Neither spoke for a few moments. Kade sat in the grass and looked tired. Thomas felt he could hardly argue with her for saving their lives, even if it had involved frightening him half to death. He said finally, “So you live here?”

“Actually, over there.” She pointed.

He looked behind them and then up, and thought, foolishly, No, you haven’t seen everything. More than half the length of the lake away, a small round island was suspended in the crystal surface of the illusory water. On top of the island, stretching high overhead, was a castle. It was ancient, its stones tinted green by moss, its three towers capped with round turrets in a style decades out of date, stairways curving up them like twining vines. What was amazing was that its reflection in the water that was not water was not a reflection.

A second castle grew downward from the island that was the base of the one on the lake’s surface, like a stalactite growing from the roof of a cave. It was a mirror image of the castle above, and the sharply pointed top of its tallest, or lowest, turret was gently brushed by a willow tree.

“It’s nice, isn’t it,” Kade said softly, standing at his side now.

Thomas felt he had to agree. “Did you make it?”

“No, it’s been here forever. It’s a Great Spell, like the palace wards, only more complicated and much older. The people from Merewatch, the village up on the shore, can fish in the lake and row boats on it, and drown in it if someone down here doesn’t happen to be watching. But if you know it’s a spell, you can walk into it without getting wet.” She dragged a foot through the grass thoughtfully, then said, “I’m sorry I brought you here without saying anything first. It was rude.”

He looked down at her, admitting, “I overreacted. I didn’t know there would be places like this. I thought it was all blood and bogles, like the city is now.”

“I hate bogles.” She pointed back to the ring marked by the stone menhirs. “That’s the Knockma Ring. I think it was here before the lake. With it I can make a ring anywhere there isn’t iron or wards or something to prevent it. It’s the only ring I know of that can do that, and both the Seelie and the Unseelie Courts want it. I can send us back to the street outside Aviler’s house, to see if Lucas and the others have left yet.” She hesitated. “Now that Denzil’s dead…”

Thomas shook his head. “I don’t know if he’s dead. I’m sure I hit him, but he might be only wounded.”

Kade frowned. “That would be very inconvenient.”

“To say the least.” Thomas couldn’t get his mind off the castle. “When you’re inside, are you upside down?”

“No, that would be silly. It’s bad enough as it is, with the stairs all funny in some places. In the middle, between the castle on top and the one below, you have to climb a ladder for a bit and no one likes it.”

They stood in silence for a time, until Thomas saw something oddly like a large red dog leaping over the grass toward them. “A friend of yours?” he asked.

Kade said with a sigh, “I suppose so. That’s Boliver.”

By the time Boliver arrived he had managed to become a wizened little man about Kade’s height with red hair and an odd peaked hat, and the bluest eyes Thomas had ever seen.

When he had reached them, Kade asked, “How did you know I was back?”

“How could I help but know? They must have heard the yelling in the next century.” He jerked his head back toward the castle. “The others are watching with a spyglass from the wind tower, and it fell to me to come out and ask just what was doing.” He eyed Thomas speculatively.

Kade shaded her eyes and peered at the castle. “Don’t they have anything better to do?” She shook her head in annoyance and turned back to Boliver. “Have the Host tried an attack yet?”

He said, “No, but I been to the village and they say they’ve seen a hag in the pond and there’s been odd things setting the dogs to barking and the sheep to running.”

Kade winced in genuine pain. “It’s what I thought.” She nodded to herself, resigned. “The Host will come here soon.”

Thomas hated to see her so torn and desperate. “Look, you’ve done enough. Send me back to Aviler’s house and stay here.”

She shook her head. “No, that’s what they want. If I let them chase me about, then they’ll know they can make me do anything they please.”

Thomas understood that only too well. It was a damnable trap, one he had been caught in most of his life. He watched her, knowing there was nothing he could do to help her, that his own involvement had made her decision all the more difficult.

She paced and tugged on her hair. “This place is very strong. It can hold itself against them without me for a time. The village… Damn it, the village.” She stopped and told Boliver, “Go up and tell them there’s going to be a battle; tell them to run.”

“Very well, I will.” The fay hesitated then and, with what had to be uncanny and devastating perception, said, “So here’s your reason. Well he’s got my heartfelt sympathy.”

Thomas lifted a brow at Kade, though it was a struggle to keep his expression neutral. The look Kade directed at Boliver should have dissolved him into charred coal on the spot. She said quietly, “You’re dead.”

Boliver shifted uneasily, as though realizing he might have overstepped himself. He said, “I’ll just go and have a word with the village, shall I?”

“Yes, why don’t you do that.”

“Have to be quick, you know. Wouldn’t want to be caught by the Host.”

“It wouldn’t be nearly as terrible as some things I’ve just thought of.”

“Ah. I see. Well, I’ll be going now.” Boliver whirled around rapidly, becoming a ball of heatless flames. He shot toward the lake surface above like a firework.

“Do me one favor,” Thomas said.

“What?” She was blushing furiously and attempting to ignore the fact.

“Don’t kill Boliver.”

Kade sighed, managing a rueful smile. “I wasn’t going to. I just wanted to think about it for a bit.” She dug in the pocket of her smock and produced the chip taken from the wardstone. “I can do this now.”

She started toward the castle, and still half-unwilling, he followed her.

As they reached the base of the hilly garden, the castle had begun to look almost ordinary, as if it were perfectly normal to hang upside down from an island suspended in glass with its top turret brushed by a tree. If he had ever thought about it at all, Thomas would have expected a place like this to be eerily perfect, without blemish, as if it were carved out of marble, all imperfections smoothed away. This fayre castle had cracked stones where heavy climbing vines had silently invaded, moss growing around its windows, and was crumbling around the edge of its parapet.

Below the lowermost turret, a stone stair curved up the hillside garden to meet one of the windows, and Thomas followed Kade up to the top. The garden itself was a little overgrown, as if it was only tended when someone had the time. The grass was tall, flowers hung out of their beds, and heavy rosebushes had all but taken over the low wall that circled it, but the fountain was running cheerfully.

The room inside the turret was round, taking up the entire top, or bottom, level. It was lined with book-filled shelves, and clay jars seemed to be crammed into every available space that wasn’t occupied by the books. It smelled thickly of herbs and flowers, and sunlight from the wide window had faded the once-bright colors of the carpet and the chair covers.

Kade hopped down onto the wide stone window seat and then to the floor. She glanced back at Thomas as he was getting his first bemused look at the room. “Not what you were expecting?” she asked.

He stepped down from the window seat after her. “If I’d ever considered it, I wouldn’t have expected to see the place and still be in any kind of condition to comment on it. You were a deadly enemy of the crown not so long ago, remember?”

“I’d forgotten.” She crossed over to the shelves on the far wall. “Well, it doesn’t look like the abode of a wicked fay sorceress, but this is where it’s all done, all the plots, all the nasty little tricks.” Kade ran a hand along the shelves, and selected a large dusty volume.

She flipped through the book until she found the page she wanted. He watched her as she stood on the lower shelves to take down several of the clay jars. He asked, “How did you find this place?”

“It belonged to my mother. She had others, but she lived here most of the time. After I left the convent, I looked for her. I looked so long and so hard she eventually had to let me find her.”

Kade dumped the armful of jars on the draw table. “She wasn’t a very nice person, not exactly what I was hoping for. But she was taken with the idea of having a daughter, for a while at least.” She paused in dumping the herbs and powders out of their containers and smiled at some memory. “She gave me a fayre ointment to take the mortal scales off my eyes, so I could see through fayre glamour. She had more people here, fay and humans, allof them bound to her somehow.” She went back to her task. “She had Boliver locked up inside a stone in the garden. He’s a phooka, and he likes to change into horses and dogs and fool people, but he’s mostly harmless, and he wasn’t very happy inside a rock. I broke it and let him out, and Moire threw a terrible fit, but she didn’t really do anything about it. That’s when I realized that I didn’t have to do what she said. I knew sorcery, and she was wary of it.”

While she tossed ingredients into