Mistral's Kiss

EVERYONE LIVED, EVEN THE HUMAN POLICEMEN, THOUGH some were driven mad by what they had seen. Abeloec fed them from his cup of horn and they fell into a magical sleep, destined to wake with no memory of the horrors they had seen. Magic isn't always bad.



The black dogs were a miracle: They changed depending on who touched them. Abe's touch turned the great black dogs into lapdogs to lie before a cozy fire, white with red markings - faerie dogs. Mistral's touch turned them to huge Irish wolfhounds, not the pale, slender ones of today, but the giants that the Romans had feared so much - these were the hounds that could snap the spine of a horse with their bite. Someone else's touch turned a dog into a green-furred Cu Sith that loped off toward the Seelie mound. What would their king, Taranis, think of its return? He'd probably try to take credit for it, claim it as proof of his power.



In the midst of the return of so much that was lost, other things much more precious were returned to me. Galen's voice shouting my name turned me in Doyle's arms. He was running across the snowy field with flowers following in his wake, as if wherever he stepped, spring returned. All the rest who had vanished into the dead gardens were with him. Nicca appeared with a following of the winged demifey. Amatheon was there with the tattoo of a plow gleaming like neon blood on his chest. I saw Hawthorne, his dark hair starred with living blossoms. Adair's hair burned around him like a halo of fire, so bright it obscured his face as he moved. Aisling walked in a cloud of singing birds. He was nude, except for a piece of black gauze that he'd wrapped around his face.



Onilwyn was the only one who did not come. I thought the garden had kept him, until I heard another voice shrieking my name in the distance. Then I heard Onilwyn's frantic cry: "No, my lord, no!"



"It cannot be," I whispered, looking up at Doyle, watching fear cross his face, too.



"It is he," Nicca said.



Galen wrapped himself around me as if I were the last solid thing in the world. Doyle moved so he could embrace me as well. "It's my fault," Galen whispered, "I didn't mean to do it."



Aisling spoke, and the flock of birds sang as if they were moved to joy by the sound of his voice. "We reemerged in the Hallway of Mortality."



"Major magic doesn't work there; that's why we're all so helpless to stop the torture," Rhys said.



"We came out of the walls and floors - and trees and flowers, and shining marble came with us," Aisling said. "The hallway is forever changed."



Galen started to shake, and I held him as hard as I could. "I was buried alive," he said. "I couldn't breathe, I didn't need to breathe, but my body kept trying to do it. I came up through the floor screaming." He collapsed to his knees while I fought to hold him.



"The queen was walling up Nerys's clan alive," Amatheon said. "Galen did not take well to that after his time in the earth."



Galen shook as if he were having a fit, as if every muscle were fighting itself, as if he were cold, though fevered. It was too much power and too much fear.



Adair's glow had dimmed enough so that I could see his eyes. "Galen said 'No prisoners, no walls.' The walls melted away, and flowers sprang up in the cells. He hadn't understood how much power he had gained."



Another shriek approached in the distance. "Cousin!"



Doyle said, "Galen's exhortation, 'No prisoners,' freed Cel."



Galen started to cry. "I'm sorry," he said.



"Onilwyn and the queen herself - and some of her guard - are wrestling Cel even now," Hawthorne said, "or he would be here already, trying to harm the princess."



"He is quite mad," Aisling said, "and he is intent on hurting all of us. But most especially you, Princess."



"The queen told us to run back to the Western Lands. She's hoping he'll grow more calm with time," Hawthorne said. Even by starlight, he looked doubtful.



"She has admitted before her nobles that she cannot guarantee your safety," Aisling said.



"We should flee, if we are going to," Hawthorne said.



I realized what he meant. If Cel attacked me now, here, like this, we would be within our rights to kill him, if we could. My guards were sworn to protect, and Cel was no match for the strength and magic that stood with me now. Not alone, he wasn't.



"If I thought the queen would allow his death to go unpunished, I would say, Stay, fight," Doyle said.



One of the great black mastiffs nudged Galen. He reached for it, almost automatically, and it changed before my eyes. It became a sleek white hound with one red ear. It licked the tears from Galen's face and he stared at it in wonder, as if he hadn't seen the dogs until that moment.



Then came Cel's voice, broken, almost unrecognizable. "Merry!" His screams broke off abruptly. The silence was almost more frightening than the shouting, and my heart was suddenly pounding hard in my chest.



"What happened?" I called out.



Andais walked over the rise of the last gentle hill, following Galen's trail of flowers. She was alone, save for her consort, Eamon. They were almost the same height, their long black hair streaming out behind them in a wind that came from nowhere. Andais was dressed as if she were going to a Halloween ball - and you were meant to fear her beauty. Eamon's clothes were more sedate, and also all black. The fact that Andais arrived with only him at her side meant she didn't want extra witnesses. Eamon was the only one who knew all her secrets.



"Cel will sleep for a time," she called, as if in answer to a question we hadn't asked.



Galen fought to stand while I steadied him. Doyle moved a little in front of me. Some of the others did, too. The rest looked behind us into the night, as if they suspected their queen of treachery. Eamon might be on my side some of the time - he might even hate Cel - but he would never go against his queen.



Andais and Eamon stopped far enough away that they were out of easy weapon range. The goblins watched them, and us, from a tight huddled knot, as if they weren't sure whose side they were on. I didn't blame them, for I'd be going back to L.A. and they would be staying here. I could force Kurag, their king, to lend me warriors, but I couldn't expect his men to follow me into exile.



"Meredith, niece of mine, child of my brother Essus, greetings." She'd chosen a greeting that acknowledged I was her bloodline. She was trying to be reassuring; she was just so bad at it.



I stepped forward until she could see me, but not beyond the protective circle of the men. "Queen Andais, aunt of mine, sister of my father, Essus, greetings."



"You must go back to the Western Lands tonight, Meredith," said Andais.



"Yes," I answered.



Andais looked at the hounds that still milled among the men. Rhys finally let himself touch them, and they became terriers of breeds long forgotten, some white and red, others a good solid black and tan.



The queen tried to call one of the dogs to her. The big mastiffs were what the humans called Hell Hounds, though they had nothing to do with the Christian devil. The big black dogs would have matched the queen's costume, but they ignored her. These wish hounds, the hounds of faerie, would not go to the hand of the Queen of Air and Darkness.



Had I been her, I would have knelt in the snow and coaxed them, but Andais did not kneel to anyone, or anything. She stood straight and beautiful, and colder than the snow around her feet.



Two other hounds had come to my hands, and they now bumped against me on either side, leaning in to be petted. I did it, because in faerie, we touch someone when they ask. The moment I stroked that silken fur, I felt better: braver, more confident, a little less afraid of what was about to happen.



"Dogs, Meredith? Couldn't you return our horses to us, or our cattle, instead?"



"There were pigs in my vision," I said.



"Not dogs," she said, her voice matter-of-fact, as if nothing special had happened.



"I saw dogs in a different vision, when I was still in the Western Lands."



"True vision then," she said, her voice still bland and faintly condescending.



"Apparently so," I said, ruffling the ear of the taller of the hounds.



"You must leave now, Meredith, and take this wild magic with you."



"Wild magic is not so easily tamed, Aunt Andais," I said. "I will take back with me what will go, but some of it is flying free, even as we speak."



"I saw the swans," Andais said, "but no crows. You are so terribly Seelie."



"The Seelie would say otherwise," I said.



"Go, go back to where you came from. Take your guards and your magic, and leave me the wreck of my son." It was tantamount to admitting that if Cel fought me tonight, he would die.



"I will go only if I can take all the guards who would come with me." I said it as firmly and bravely as I could.



"You cannot have Mistral," she said.



I fought not to look for him at my back, fought not to see his big hands touching the huge hounds that his caress had brought into being. "Yes, I said. I remember what you told me in the dead gardens: that I could not keep him."



"You will not argue with me?" she asked.



"Would it do any good?" The tiniest hint of anger seeped into my voice. The hounds tucked themselves tighter against my legs, leaning in for all they were worth, as if they would remind me not to lose control.



"The only thing that will call Mistral from my side to yours in the Western Lands is if you come up pregnant. If you become with child, I will have to let go of any who could be the father."



"If I become with child, I will send word," I said, and fought to keep my voice even. Mistral was going to suffer for being with me, I could see it in her face, feel it in her voice.



"I do not know what to wish for anymore, Meredith. Your magic runs through my sithen, changing it into something bright and cheerful. There is a field of flowers in my torture chamber."



"What do you want me to say, Aunt Andais?"



"I wanted the magic of faerie to be reborn, but you are not enough my brother's daughter. You will make of us only another Seelie Court to dance and parade before the human press. You will make us beautiful, but destroy that which makes us different."



"I would humbly disagree with that," said a voice from the crowd of my men. Sholto stepped forward. His tattoo had become a nest of real tentacles again, glowing and pale, and strangely beautiful, like some underwater sea creature, some anemone or jellyfish. It was the first time I'd ever seen him display his extra bits with pride. He stood tall with the spear and knife of bone in his hands; at his side was a huge white hound with different red markings on each of its three heads. Sholto used the side of the hand that held the knife to rub the top of one of the huge heads.



Sholto spoke again. "Merry makes us beautiful, yes, my queen. But the beauty is stranger than anything the Seelie Court would allow within their doors."



Andais gazed at Sholto, and for a moment I thought I saw regret. Sholto's magic rode him, and power breathed off him into the night.



"You had him," she said to me, simply.



"Yes," I said.



"How was it?"



"It was our coming together that raised the wild hunt."



She shivered, and there was a hunger on her face that frightened me. "Amazing. Perhaps I will try him some night."



Sholto spoke again. "There was a time, my queen, when the thought of a chance at your bed would have filled me with joy. But I truly know now that I am King Sholto of the Sluagh, the Lord of That Which Passes Between, Lord of Shadows. I will no longer take crumbs from the table of any sidhe."



She made a sharp sound, almost a hiss. "You must be an amazing bit of ass, Meredith. One fuck with you and they all turn against me."



To that, there was no safe answer, so I said nothing. I stood in the midst of my men, with the weight and press of the hounds milling around us. Would she have been more aggressive if the dogs - war dogs, most of them - had not been there? Was she afraid of the magic - or the more solid form the magic had taken?



One of the small terriers growled, and it was like a signal to the others. The night was suddenly thick with growls, a low chorus that shivered down my spine. I petted the heads of those I could touch, hushing them. The Goddess had sent me guardians, I understood that now. I thanked her for it.



"Cel's guards who did not take oath to him - you promised they could go with me," I said.



"I will not strip him of all signs of my favor," she answered, and her anger seemed to crackle on the cold air.



"You gave your word," I insisted.



The dogs gave another low chorus of growls. The terriers began to bark, as terriers will. I realized in that moment that the wild hunt was not gone, only changed. These were the hounds of the wild hunt. These were the hounds of legend that hunted oathbreakers through the winter wood.



"Do not dare to threaten!" said Andais. Eamon touched her arm. She jerked away from him, but seemed chastened. The wild hunt had been a great leveler of the mighty. Once you became their prey, the hunt did not end until the quarry was dead.



"I do not believe I am the huntsman," I said.



"It would be a bad night, Queen Andais, to be an oathbreaker." Doyle's deep molasses voice seemed to hang on the night, as if his words had more weight on the still, winter air than they should have.



"Are you the huntsman, Darkness? Would you punish me for breaking faith?"



"It is wild magic, Your Majesty; there is sometimes little choice when it fills you. You become an instrument of the magic, and it uses you for its own ends."



"Magic is a tool to be wielded, not some force one allows oneself to be overcome by."



"As you will, Queen Andais, but I ask that you do not test these hounds tonight." Somehow it seemed Doyle wasn't talking about just the dogs.



"I will honor my word," she said in a voice that made it clear that she did so only because she had no choice. She had never been a gracious loser, not in anything, large or small. "But you must leave now, Meredith, this moment."



"We need time to send for the other guards," I said.



"I will bring all those who wish to come to you, Meredith," Sholto said.



I turned, and there was an assurance in him, a strength that had not been there before. He stood there with his "deformity" plain to see. He now made it seem just another part of him, though, a part that would have been as surely missed as an arm, or a leg if it were gone. Had being stripped of his extra bits made him realize he valued them? Maybe. It was his revelation, not mine.



"You would side with her," Andais said.



"I am King of the Sluagh; I will see that an oath given and accepted is honored. Remember, Queen Andais, that the sluagh was the only wild hunt left in faerie until tonight. And I am the huntsman of the sluagh."



She took a step toward him, as if in threat, but Eamon pulled her back. He whispered urgently against her cheek. I could not hear what he said, but the tension left her body, until she allowed herself to lean back against him. She let him hold her; in the face of those who were not her friends, she let Eamon's arms hold her.



"Go, Meredith, take all that is yours, and go." Her voice was almost neutral, almost free of that rage that always seemed to bubble just underneath her skin.



"Your Majesty," Rhys said, "we cannot go to the human airport like this." His gesture seemed to note how many of the guards were naked, and bloody. The terriers at his feet gave happy barks, as if it looked all right to them.



Sholto spoke again. "I will take you to the edge of the Western Sea, just as I took the sluagh when we hunted Meredith in Los Angeles ."



I looked at him and shook my head. "I thought you came by plane."



He laughed, and it was a joyous sound. "Did you picture the dark host of the sluagh on some human airplane sipping wine and ogling the flight attendants?"



I laughed with him. "I hadn't thought about it that clearly. You are the sluagh - I didn't question how you got to me."



"I will walk the edge of the field where it touches the woods. It is an in-between place, neither field nor forest. I will walk, you will all follow, and we will be at the edge of the Western Sea, where it touches the shore. I am the lord of the between places, Meredith."



"I didn't think any royals could still travel so far," Rhys said.



"I am the King of the Sluagh, Cromm Cruach, master of the last wild hunt of faerie. I have certain gifts."



"Indeed," the queen said, drily, "use those gifts, Shadowspawn, and take these rabble from my sight." She'd used the nickname that the sidhe called him behind his back, but that even she had never used to his face before.



"Your disdain cannot touch me tonight, for I have seen wonders." He held up the weapons of bone, as if she had missed them before. "I hold the bones of my people. I know my worth."



If I'd been closer to him I would have embraced him. Probably just as well that I wasn't, as it might have ruined the power of the moment, but I promised myself to give him a hug the moment we had some privacy. I loved seeing that he valued himself at last.



I heard a sound like the breaking of ice. "Frost," I said. "We can't leave him behind."



"Didn't the FBI take him to the hospital?" Doyle asked.



I shook my head. "I don't think so." I looked out across the snow. I couldn't see anything, but...I started moving, and the hounds followed at my side. I started to run across the snow, and felt the first sharp pain in my cut feet. I ignored it, and ran faster. Time and distance shortened - as they never before had outside the sithen. One minute I was with the others, the next I was miles away, in the fields beside the road. My twin hounds had stayed with me, and half a dozen of the black mastiffs were there, too.



Frost lay in the snow, unmoving, as if he couldn't feel the dogs snuffling at him or my hands turning him over. The drifts underneath him were soaked with blood, and his eyes were closed. His face was so cold. I lowered my lips to his and whispered his name: "Frost, please, please, don't leave me."



His body convulsed, and his breath rattled back into his chest. Death seemed to be reversed. His eyes fluttered open, and he tried to reach for me, but his hand fell back into the snow, too weak. I lifted his hand to my face and held it there. I held his hand there while it grew warm against my skin.



I cried, and he found his voice, hoarse. He whispered, "The cold cannot kill me."



"Oh, Frost."



He raised his other hand and touched the tears on my face. "Do not weep for me, Merry. You love me, I heard it. I was leaving, but I heard your voice, and I couldn't leave, not if you loved me."



I cradled his head in my lap and wept. His other hand, the one that I wasn't clutching, brushed the fur of one of the huge black dogs. The dog stretched and grew tall and white. A shining white stag stood over us. It had a collar of holly, and looked like some Yule card brought to life. It pranced in the snow, then ran in a white blur across the snow until it was lost to sight.



"What magic is abroad this night?" Frost whispered.



"The magic that will take you home." Doyle spoke from behind us. He fell to his knees in the snow beside Frost, and took his hand. "The next time I send you to a hospital, you are to go."



Frost managed a wan smile. "I could not leave her."



Doyle nodded as if that made perfect sense.



"I don't think the magic will last until morning," Rhys said. They were all there, trailing behind, except Mistral. He was with the queen, I supposed. I hadn't even gotten to say good-bye.



"But for tonight," Rhys said, "I am Cromm Cruach, and I can help." He knelt on the other side of Frost and laid hands on him, above where his clothing was black with blood.



Rhys was suddenly formed of white light, not just his hands, but all of him glowing. His hair moved in the wind of his own magic. Frost's body jerked upward, leaving my lap and our hands. He fell back against Doyle and me, and said in a voice that was almost his own, "That hurt."



"Sorry about that," said Rhys, "but I'm not a healer, not really. There is too much of death in my power to make it painless."



Frost touched his own shoulder and chest, taking his hands from out of Doyle's and mine. "If you are not a healer, then why do I feel healed?"



"Old magic," Rhys said. "The morning light will find this magic gone."



"How can you be certain?" Doyle asked.



"The voice of the God in my head tells me so."



No one questioned after that. We just accepted it as true.



Sholto led us to the edge of the field and forest. The dogs moved around us, some choosing their masters, others making it plain that they did not belong to anyone here. The ones that chose among us followed as Sholto walked, but the other black dogs began to fall back and vanish into the night, as if we had imagined them. The hound at my side bumped my hand for a pat, as if to remind me that it was real.



I wasn't certain the hounds would stay, but they seemed magically to give each of us what we needed tonight. Galen walked surrounded by dogs, circled by sleek-looking greyhounds and a trio of small dogs dancing at his feet. They made him smile, and helped chase the shadows from his face. Doyle moved in a circle of black dogs; they fawned and capered about him like puppies. The terriers followed Rhys like a small army of fur. Frost held my hand over the back of the smallest of the greyhounds. He had no dog at his side - only the white stag that had run into the night. But he seemed perfectly content with my hand in his.



The air was warm, and I looked from Frost's face to Sholto, and found that Sholto was walking on sand. One moment we were walking in snow-covered fields at the edge of the trees, and the next moment sand sucked at my feet. Water swirled over my bare toes, and the bite of salt let me know that I was bleeding.



I must have made some small sound, because Frost picked me up. I protested, but it did me no good. The greyhounds stayed at his side, dancing around us, half afraid of the curl of ocean, and seemingly worried that they couldn't stay in contact with me.



Sholto led us up on dry land. The three-headed dog and the bone weapons had vanished, but somehow I didn't think they were any more gone than the chalice was from me. True magic cannot be lost or stolen; it can only be given away.



We stood in the darkness, hours before dawn. I could hear the rushing of cars on the highway nearby. We were hidden by cliffs, but that would change as the dawn grew near. Surfers and fishermen would come down to the sea, and we needed to be gone before then.



"Use glamour to hide your appearance," Sholto said. "I have sent for taxis. They will arrive very soon."



"What magic is it," I asked, "that lets you find taxis in L.A. at a moment's notice?"



"I am the Lord of That Which Passes Between, Merry, and taxis are always going between one place and another."



It made perfect sense, but it made me smile all the same. I reached for Sholto, and Frost let him take me, though not just with his arms. The thick muscular tentacles wrapped around my body, the smaller ones playing along my thighs, somehow finding their way under the borrowed trench coat.



"Next time you are in my bed, I will not be half a man."



I kissed him, and whispered against his lips, "If that was you as only half a man, King Sholto, then I can hardly wait to have you in all your glory."



He laughed, that joyous sound that had brought the singing of birds in the sluagh's dead garden. I thought there would be no answer here, but suddenly over the sighing of surf came singing, one birdsong after another, sliding in joyous celebration in the dark. It was a mockingbird, singing for Sholto's laughter.



We stood for a moment on the edge of the Western Sea with the mockingbird's song pouring over us, as if happiness could have a sound.



Sholto kissed me back, hard and thorough, leaving me breathless. Then he handed me back, not to Frost, but to Doyle. "I will return so I can bring the rest of the guards who wish to come into exile with you."



Doyle cuddled me in against his body and said, "Beware the queen."



Sholto nodded. "I will be wary." He began to walk back the way we had come. Somewhere before he vanished from sight I saw the white shine of a dog at his side.



"Everybody remember that the glamour is supposed to hide the fact that we're naked, and bloody," Rhys said. "Anyone who doesn't have enough glamour to pull it off, stand next to someone who does."



"Yes, Teacher," I said.



He grinned at me. "I can cause death with a touch and a word; I can heal with my hands for tonight. But damn, conjuring this many taxis out of thin air - now, that's impressive."



We walked up to the line of waiting taxis, laughing. The drivers all seemed a little puzzled to find themselves in the middle of nowhere, waiting beside an empty beach, but they let us get in.



We gave the taxis the address of Maeve Reed's Holmby Hills house, and they drove. They didn't even complain about the dogs. Now, that was magic.