Read Online 1633880583 (F) by Chris Willrich - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Chris Willrich
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easier to find his words while speaking with the earl; he was free of the stammering that seemed to plague him around every young woman but A-Girl-Is-A-Joy. “But if that’s all true then what do you want with me? I am human. I do not belong in these strange spaces.”
“From time to time in our long existence, we become untethered from reality. Uldra and whole uldra-realms can flit into the cosmic void, and what becomes of them, none can say. Adding human presences to our lands helps guard against this. Adding human blood to our lines is effective too. It also guards against a difficulty we have with metal; the more human blood in our lineage, the better we can cope with the poison metal brings to us. You are quite mundane.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, future son-in-law, that you are both ordinary, and that you are ‘of the world,’ tying us more thoroughly to the here and now.”
“Future son-in-law. So . . . I am supposed to . . . marry . . . um, her.” There were squeaks of suppressed hilarity nearby. “Because I’m . . . mundane.”
“You both are! My adopted daughter here is a changeling, human in form, though uldra in mind. Together you can make many princes and princesses to give our realm many sources of human blood. But that’s not all there is to it, boy. You have a power within you, something we’ve not seen in generations. Power that could wake dragons. Maybe you are the Runemarked King. Maybe not. But you will remain our guest. Alfhild, do you plight your troth with this lad?”
“Yes,” said the earl’s daughter.
“Don’t I get a say in this?” Innocence asked.
“No,” was Alfhild’s matter-of-fact answer.
“You are a hostage prince,” said the earl, not unkindly, “but you lack a country, and there is no one to ransom you. Prepare a feast!”
Innocence got no more answers from Earl Morksol, and in the midst of the hidden folk’s sudden rushing about and bellowing about icemeat and frothfish and shroombread and sweetgreens, he paradoxically found himself alone in the chaos. Even Alfhild ignored him, though her friends provided him with new peasant garb to slip over his nightclothes—white shirt and stockings, red vest, black pants, and shoes—before they too danced away in the general bustle.
They truly thought him incapable of escape. Maybe they were right. He shivered, a captive guest abducted in the dark of the morn. Would Nan and Freidar try to rescue him? Had they any notion how?
He shuffled into a corner framed by an empty suit of glass armor and a tapestry depicting a bizarre assortment of uldra forging a huge magic axe. He couldn’t hope for outside escape. His guardians were helpful, but they were mortal. He needed Deadfall now, but there’d been no word of the magic carpet in all his time in Fiskegard.
Nevertheless he was supposed to have power. Earl Morksol confirmed it. It seemed unfair to be captured over a power he had no ability to use.
He grappled with his own panic, seized that feeling of unfairness, and envisioned it as an axe driven through the flesh of reality.
I am Innocence Gaunt! Chosen of the chi of the Heavenwalls! I have escaped from the Scroll of Years, the Karvaks, and the moon! Even in this mad place, I am who I am!
Where before, on Fiskegard, there was no response to his plea, here in Sølvlyss the castle rumbled and shook. Innocence felt a tingling in his skin. He did not know how to control his power, but the land responded.
He smiled.
Now the gyrating indifference of the uldra ceased, and the simply dressed nobles and beautifully garbed servants stared at him. The glass armor next to him swiveled and brought a sword to bear; for it had been inhabited the whole time by one of the translucent folk. Innocence had been too preoccupied to notice.
Innocence remembered his training. He slipped close to the glass knight, inside the reach of the sword, in the maneuver known as Sly Fox. Immediately he pivoted to perform
“From time to time in our long existence, we become untethered from reality. Uldra and whole uldra-realms can flit into the cosmic void, and what becomes of them, none can say. Adding human presences to our lands helps guard against this. Adding human blood to our lines is effective too. It also guards against a difficulty we have with metal; the more human blood in our lineage, the better we can cope with the poison metal brings to us. You are quite mundane.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, future son-in-law, that you are both ordinary, and that you are ‘of the world,’ tying us more thoroughly to the here and now.”
“Future son-in-law. So . . . I am supposed to . . . marry . . . um, her.” There were squeaks of suppressed hilarity nearby. “Because I’m . . . mundane.”
“You both are! My adopted daughter here is a changeling, human in form, though uldra in mind. Together you can make many princes and princesses to give our realm many sources of human blood. But that’s not all there is to it, boy. You have a power within you, something we’ve not seen in generations. Power that could wake dragons. Maybe you are the Runemarked King. Maybe not. But you will remain our guest. Alfhild, do you plight your troth with this lad?”
“Yes,” said the earl’s daughter.
“Don’t I get a say in this?” Innocence asked.
“No,” was Alfhild’s matter-of-fact answer.
“You are a hostage prince,” said the earl, not unkindly, “but you lack a country, and there is no one to ransom you. Prepare a feast!”
Innocence got no more answers from Earl Morksol, and in the midst of the hidden folk’s sudden rushing about and bellowing about icemeat and frothfish and shroombread and sweetgreens, he paradoxically found himself alone in the chaos. Even Alfhild ignored him, though her friends provided him with new peasant garb to slip over his nightclothes—white shirt and stockings, red vest, black pants, and shoes—before they too danced away in the general bustle.
They truly thought him incapable of escape. Maybe they were right. He shivered, a captive guest abducted in the dark of the morn. Would Nan and Freidar try to rescue him? Had they any notion how?
He shuffled into a corner framed by an empty suit of glass armor and a tapestry depicting a bizarre assortment of uldra forging a huge magic axe. He couldn’t hope for outside escape. His guardians were helpful, but they were mortal. He needed Deadfall now, but there’d been no word of the magic carpet in all his time in Fiskegard.
Nevertheless he was supposed to have power. Earl Morksol confirmed it. It seemed unfair to be captured over a power he had no ability to use.
He grappled with his own panic, seized that feeling of unfairness, and envisioned it as an axe driven through the flesh of reality.
I am Innocence Gaunt! Chosen of the chi of the Heavenwalls! I have escaped from the Scroll of Years, the Karvaks, and the moon! Even in this mad place, I am who I am!
Where before, on Fiskegard, there was no response to his plea, here in Sølvlyss the castle rumbled and shook. Innocence felt a tingling in his skin. He did not know how to control his power, but the land responded.
He smiled.
Now the gyrating indifference of the uldra ceased, and the simply dressed nobles and beautifully garbed servants stared at him. The glass armor next to him swiveled and brought a sword to bear; for it had been inhabited the whole time by one of the translucent folk. Innocence had been too preoccupied to notice.
Innocence remembered his training. He slipped close to the glass knight, inside the reach of the sword, in the maneuver known as Sly Fox. Immediately he pivoted to perform
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