Faerie Story:  Chapter Eleven

Skinner ignored both Frohike’s glower and Langly’s look of awe when he returned to their room, accompanied by Behaana. He wasn’t sure whether they were reacting to his changed appearance or to Behaana’s spectacular beauty, but he didn’t really care either way. There would be plenty of time for them to converse about such things during the journey back to the Southern Territories.

“We need to get packed and moving,” he announced, after curt introductions.

“What’s happened to you?” Langly demanded. “You look like a Faerie.” Then he paused and reconsidered his comment. “Well, you look like a Faerie would look if he had muscles and brown eyes,” he amended. “Though they’re not even brown anymore really. More a kind of luminous bronze…”

“Somehow Behaana’s magic seems to have awakened my dormant Faerie genes. That’s all. It isn’t important,” Skinner interrupted shortly, before Langly ran out of breath.

“He’s certainly awakened *something*,” Frohike muttered, with a dark look at Skinner’s groin.

“My relationship with Behaana isn’t a topic for discussion,” Skinner snapped. “You know perfectly well why Behaana has allowed me to take his magic. Further conversation on the matter is pointless. Our only priority now is to get out of Faerie land with all haste so that time will again effectively slow for Alexin.”

“Then we’re still returning south to save Alexin?” Frohike snapped.

“Of course, we are,” Skinner replied, puzzled and annoyed by the question.

“Are you sure you don’t both want to take a bath first?” Frohike said, with a pointed sniff.

Since he and Behaana *had* already bathed, Skinner ignored both the suggestion and the bad attitude. He wasn’t sure whether Frohike’s problem was with Behaana’s considerable beauty or with the flush of satiation that stained both their cheeks but, either way, he decided it was best to simply ignore the little Faerie’s rudeness.

“Even if it only takes us a day to return to the Eirendi, we’ll have been gone from the human realm for four nights. That’s at least six or possibly even eight years in human time. Let’s pray they haven’t suffered some bad winters and eaten our horses in the interim. The nearest other place we’re likely to find horses is Ragnarok and...”

“I have horses,” Behaana interrupted quietly.

“Here?” Skinner asked incredulously. “In the City of Ice? How is that possible?”

“Magic makes it possible. Just as magic put the food on your plates last night and this morning. *And* heated the water we just bathed in,” he added, with a glare in Frohike’s direction. “Although we reduced our herd considerably, after accepting that we would remain in this land and so would have no real use of them, I’ve always felt the compulsion to maintain a small stable of the best bloodlines. Just in case.”

He waited for them to pack their furs, then led them through the vast city into a huge ice dome which was blanketed with verdant grass and bordered by orchards filled to overflowing with lush fruit.

“This is impossible,” Langly stated, staring bug eyed at the idyllic scene.

“Without magic it would be,” Behaana replied calmly, in the human tongue.

“You understand my language?” Langly demanded, even more confused by that than the fact the Faerie were somehow growing grass and crops within the ice city.

Behaana shrugged. “Before I did not. Now I do. It is, perhaps, a side effect of my mating with Skinner that I have absorbed much of his human knowledge.”

“Then why hasn’t mating with Frohike given *me* knowledge of the Faerie tongue?” Langly pouted.

“I don’t know. But don’t take it personally or assume it’s because you’re human. My magic has always been different than that of other Faerie,” Behaana said, a little wryly. “All Faerie males are spoken to by their magic. They sense the presence of other magic. They feel deep ‘instincts’ that can only be attributed to the magic within their veins. But I ‘see’ with my magic. I literally can view things that have happened, or are happening or even may only possibly happen. I also am the only Faerie who has ever been able to harness the power of more than one other male.”

“Then that’s why you agreed to mate with Skinner?” Frohike demanded hopefully. “Because lying with him didn’t sever your bond with Roga after all?”

Behaana shook his head grimly. “No, the *sexual* magic can only be shared by two Faerie. In bonding with Skinner, I destroyed my connection with Roga. I can, however, still tap into Roga’s darker magic just as I have access to that of *any* Faerie male. Probably even yours, Frohike. So when Skinner draws upon my magic, he will be given the power of *all* the Faerie combined.”

“Gods,” Frohike breathed, turning to look at Skinner with new eyes. “Then is it the power he offers you that holds you in such thrall rather than his beauty?”

Skinner was tempted to agree and thus heal the obvious rift between himself and the little Faerie. Although Frohike had accepted the idea of his sleeping with Behaana the night before, now Frohike was glaring at him constantly, with his face set in a scowl of disapproval and his eyes darkly suspicious, as though the physical changes wrought by the binding had also changed Skinner’s heart.

Which to an extent they had.

Although he was in control of himself once more, with the dark magic firmly banked inside himself and his mind clear of the lust-haze that had made him swear love for the Ice Queen, Skinner was an honest enough man to accept that Behaana *had* crept deeper under his skin than he’d anticipated..

“Both,” he admitted heavily. “The power Behaana has offered me is so great that it cannot be refused. I see now that everything in my life has led me to this moment, to fulfill a destiny which I was born to discharge. Yet, in all honesty, I cannot say I am indifferent to Behaana’s beauty.”

Behaana preened slightly.

“Bastard,” Frohike snarled, though it wasn’t clear whether he was referring to Skinner or Behaana. “What of Alexin?”

“We ride to *save* Alexin,” Skinner protested. “It is for that reason that I so embrace the magic.”

“It’s more than the magic you’re ‘embracing’,” Frohike scoffed.

“In truth we *do* ride to save Alexin,” Behaana confirmed, but then *his* integral honesty forced him to add, “though I think perhaps that Alexin was merely the Gods’ way of bringing Skinner and I together. I believe the prophecy was always meant to be fulfilled in this way. Skinner and I were *destined* to become lovers.”

“Do *you* believe that?” Frohike demanded of Skinner.

Skinner opened his mouth to speak a denial, but then a look of confusion passed over his features and he shrugged. “I am uncertain,” he admitted. “My heart wants to deny it, but my mind tells me it is the truth. My destiny always lay *here*, Frohike, and all that has happened since I first stumbled through the Faerie gate has worked to bring me here so that I might fulfill the prophecy.”

“You’re saying you no longer love Alexin?” Frohike snarled.

Skinner shook his head in vehement denial. “I will *always* love Alexin. I am... I am possibly simply being affected by Behaana’s magic. I know that. Yet, at the same time, my feelings for Behaana *are* filled with love. My logic tells me that Behaana *is* my destiny and I know not how to reconcile that knowledge with my love for Alexin.”

“In other words, you’re *both* looking for excuses for the inexcusable,” Frohike stated. “I care not whether the damned *prophecy* always intended the pair of you to come together. I accept that it is probably so,” he admitted. “The Gods love to toy with their pawns, caring not for how many hearts are left shattered by their meddling. But I tell you this in truth, Skinner. When the day comes that Alexin is freed and runs eagerly into your arms, you had damned well better forget this nonsense with Behaana. Because if you break that sweet boy’s heart, you’ll answer to *me*.”

“And what, pray, do you intend to do about it?” Behaana spat. “You’re just a deformed, little...”

“SILENCE,” Skinner roared, grabbing Behaana’s arm and shaking him angrily. “Do you want me to demonstrate how I deal with brats, Behaana? Queen or no, you’ll either apologize now or feel my hand on your royal backside.”

Behaana’s eyes widened and his luscious lips quivered into a pout. “You’re threatening *me*? You’re taking *his* side against me?”

“When he is right and you are wrong, my queen,” Skinner replied firmly. “We are the ones at fault here, though the fact that we are both so affected by the magic suggests that we possibly have no choice as to our feelings for each other. Yet the fact remains that we both made a vow *not* to form a lasting affection and already our hearts seek for an escape clause from our oaths. To be angry and even *cruel* to Frohike, simply because he holds up a mirror to our flaws, is wrong. If we like not the picture he shows us, we must accept that it is *our* reflection which appears so distasteful to our eyes.”

For a moment or two, Behaana’s luminous green eyes continued to flash with fury. But then, gradually, his angry expression faded and was replaced by a look of genuine shame.

“Forgive me, Frohike. It is not my nature to be cruel. Lay the blame for my hasty words on the magic burning within me. Or, perhaps, it is that I’ve lived too long as a Queen and now find myself struggling to accept that I can’t have *everything* I want, when for so many centuries my desires have been unquestioned by my people.”

The apology was both pretty and sincere, so Frohike had no choice except to acknowledge it with grace. But his eyes remained dark and troubled.

“Enough of this,” Skinner said firmly. “Lead us to your horses, Behaana, that we might leave this place.”

Behaana nodded and led them through the lush grass until they saw, in the distance, a herd of snow white horses. Behaana whistled softly, and the horses broke off from their grazing and moved towards them in a graceful canter.

“Those aren’t horses,” Langly denied vehemently, as they approached. “Horses don’t have *horns*.”

“Before my curse, *all* horses had horns,” Behaana corrected gently, “and these are the descendants of the beasts that bore us to the northern mountains before the casting of my spell. Somehow they retained their natural appearance, while the horses in the south changed and lost their horns for some reason.”

“Alexin said there were many such side effects of the curse, or at least of the amount of magic left ‘floating’ after you cast your spell,” Skinner said thoughtfully.

“Such as the talking trees,” Langly said.

“Could cats really speak?” Skinner asked.

“Did Alexin tell you that?” Behaana laughed.

Skinner nodded.

“Had we time, I would introduce you to Sapphira. She would tell you all about it.”

“Sapphira?”

“The cat who would own herself a queen,” Behaana laughed. “Her ancestors crossed with us into the north. They are greatly regretful of that decision, naturally. Cats don’t much like the cold.”

“Then she talks?”

“Of course. All the cats here talk. Though I must confess that I’ve always suspected that the southern cats can talk also. They simply choose not to. It’s their way of announcing their disgust at what the Faerie there have become.”

“Talking cats. Horses with horns. Humans who turn into Faerie overnight. I’ll be glad to leave this place,” Langly said, with a shudder.

~~~

Rhianna’s guards were grumbling constantly now. A journey which should have taken no more than two to three days at most had stretched already to a week and, at their current pace, it would take at least another two days to cover the last sixty-odd miles to the castle.

None of them blamed Alexin, as such. It was well known by the guards that high-caste males were highly strung, delicate creatures who were so used to being petted and pampered that they adapted poorly to such things as horseback journeys.

Besides, Alexin’s injured buttocks – and considerable beauty – allowed them to forgive him his childish behavior.

They were, however, most disconcerted by the behavior of their queen.

Although Rhianna had always been unusually affectionate to her males – even to the point of preferring to put her males down rather than passing them over to the barracks when she’d grown tired of them – she’d never before been so clearly besotted by a boy.

“Maybe it’s a different kind of magic,” they said to each other, gazing at Alexin with confused, speculative eyes.

~~~

“So what do we do now?” Frohike demanded, as they reached the canyon and their horses came to a sensible, snorting halt and rolled their eyes in disgust at the narrow sliver of ice that purported to be a ‘bridge’.

Skinner’s mouth curved into a minute smile and, lifting his right hand, he made a small gesture. The ice immediately shimmered, smoothed and widened until it was solid enough for the horses to safely cross it.

“Now, that’s what I call a bridge,” he said, with considerable satisfaction.

“You call that a bridge?” Behaana laughed. “*This* is a bridge.”

He made an overly flamboyant gesture and not only did walls appear on either side of the bridge but crystalline towers rose on either side of the ravine.

“You did that with your own magic?” Skinner demanded, his brows frowning with confusion. “I thought a male couldn’t use his own magic.”

“He can’t,” Behaana chuckled. “I used *your* magic.”

“Mine?” Skinner spluttered. “But I don’t have any magic.”

Behaana gestured at the bridge. “I beg to differ. Whatever happened to make you look like a Faerie has also given you all of a Faerie’s power, Skinner.”

“This is SO cool,” Langly announced. “We can all do magic now.” He punctuated his comment by sending an arc of cold blue fire over the walkway of the bridge.

“Speak for yourself,” Frohike snarled.

Langly flushed guiltily. In his excitement he’d forgotten that Frohike had neither use of his own magic, nor any magic to draw upon. “Well, I have my magic only because of you,” he soothed.

Frohike just grunted.

“I must confess I feel better for knowing I’m not the only one who can wield the magic,” Skinner admitted. “The responsibility would have worn upon me.”

“I equally confess my relief that you *do* have magic to share with me,” Behaana laughed. “I have been so used to my powers for so long that I’d find it most disconcerting to be without them. It’s a good thing that this change has occurred in you.”

“Well, that depends on your point of view,” Frohike snapped. “If Skinner didn’t have the magic, maybe you wouldn’t be digging your claws into him so deeply.”

Behaana looked hurt by the accusation. “I merely gift Skinner with the magic of my people so that he can fulfill the prophecy and rescue his beloved.”

“Yeah, keep saying that and maybe *someone* will believe you,” Frohike replied, his eyes narrowing with dislike.

“You’re being unfair, Frohike,” Skinner growled. “We came here looking for aid and Behaana is freely giving us that aid.”

“There’s nothing *free* about it. Excuse me if I have a problem with the method in which that aid is given. Methinks you have forgotten *why* we set off on this quest in the first place.”

Skinner opened his mouth to retort with something furious and cutting, since he’d had more than enough of Frohike’s belligerent and unfair accusations. He wished he knew what had crawled up the little Faerie’s butt but, whatever it was, he was going to put a stop to it right….

He felt his magic stir inside him and, just for a moment, it was as though he could see right inside Frohike’s mind.

And what he saw choked his anger unspoken in his throat.

Frohike wasn’t *angry* or *disgusted* or even speaking out of defense of Alexin. Frohike was simply afraid. Terrified in fact. His fear was like a haze clouding his ability to reason coherently, and so looking through his mind was like stumbling through a dark nightmare of terror and jealousy.

And, as Skinner understood *why* the little Faerie had changed from an easy going sensible man to one who took every opportunity to insult both he and Behaana, Skinner found himself responding with sympathy, rather than anger. What Frohike feared was that Langly might fall out of love with him in the same way that he thought he was witnessing Skinner falling out of love with Alexin.

If Alexin, who was so much more beautiful than he, could lose his mate’s love to one of the Northern Faerie, then Frohike could only imagine the same happening to his relationship with Langly.

Skinner could understand that fear. He couldn’t even confront Frohike about his thoughts and assure him they were groundless. Because it *could* happen. Skinner didn’t think it was very likely, but it *was* possible.

So instead of responding with anger, he spoke with quiet dignity. “I can see why you believe that. I accept that my earlier statement that I was in love with Behaana was a little... unsettling for you. But I’m adjusting to Behaana’s magic now. I will not deny that I am... fond of Behaana, but I still remain certain that it is Alexin who truly holds my heart

“That’s easy to say *now*,” Frohike pointed out. “You’re fully sated with Behaana’s magic. Let’s see if you still remember Alexin when the urge for the magic comes upon you once more and Behaana is wriggling his buttocks at you like a bitch on heat.”

“How dare you speak of me thus?” Behaana demanded. “I am the Queen of the Fey.”

“You’re not *my* Queen,” Frohike retorted. “I give honor only where it’s due, and so far I have found little in you which demands that respect. I instead call you *thief*, Behaana.”

“ENOUGH,” Skinner roared, as his anger at the insult overwhelmed his sympathy for the little Faerie. “You *will* give Behaana respect, or you may leave this quest now, Frohike.”

The little Faerie gave Skinner a wounded, incredulous look. “You would set me aside, after all my loyalty to you?”

“Not happily and not willingly,” Skinner replied, in the human tongue so that Langly would know what was being said. “You have been my rock, Frohike. My voice of reason and wisdom throughout this quest. I cannot bear the idea of traveling on without you. I know also that your cruel words to Behaana are because you see my relationship with him as a betrayal of Alexin. And in that you are right. But it is a necessary betrayal, and one that I pray he will forgive me for."

“Alexin forgives Skinner *anything*,” Langly pointed out.

“I don’t trust him,” Frohike stated bluntly, with a cold look in Behaana’s direction. “Ask him, Skinner. Ask him here and now whether he intends to let you go.”

Skinner chuckled. “Oh, Frohike. Though I thank you for the compliment, do you *truly* believe the Queen would turn his back on his beloved Roga for me? They’ve been together for a thousand years. No manner of temporary infatuation can destroy a relationship that has existed for so long.”

“If you could see yourself with *my* eyes, then you’d understand,” Frohike replied. “Your humility would do you credit if it weren’t just a form of blindness. What point was there in you regaining your vision if you now choose not to see that which is obvious to an onlooker? You’ve only lain with Behaana once, and already your heart is in his possession.”

“His *safe* possession,” Skinner retorted. “For he will release it. Is that not so, Behaana?”

The Ice Queen nodded firmly, but his eyes slid nervously away from Frohike’s as though fearful of being caught in a lie.

~~~

“The day after tomorrow will bring us safely to my castle,” Rhianna said, as they passed a white rock that indicated they were crossing the border into her queendom.

“Your land is so vast then?” Alexin asked, looking over his shoulder so that she could see his appropriately impressed expression.

“It is a fair sized queendom,” Rhianna chuckled. “Though it is the slowness of our journey which explains why it will take so long to reach the castle from the border of my realm. At a gallop, we could be there in three hours.”

Alexin paled, his eyes widened with fear and he began to tremble within her arms.

“Fret not, sweetness. I know that anything other than a horse’s walking pace terrifies you.”

“It makes me feel sick,” Alexin moaned plaintively. “My stomach churns and my head spins and...”

“So I am well aware,” Rhianna agreed ruefully. Although the boy’s buttocks had healed enough that he could now sit astride her horse rather than on her lap, on the two occasions she’d attempted to speed their pace, Alexin had been so ill that they’d had to call a halt and make camp for an hour or so until his stomach settled once more. It had been a clear case of ‘more haste, less speed’ and so Rhianna had resigned herself to continuing the journey at a slow walk.

It was, though, admittedly pleasant to journey so. Although Alexin was now seated so that she could only see his face if he looked up and over his shoulder, it was inarguably pleasant to ride with the boy’s back tucked against her stomach, her right arm curled around his narrow waist and the back of his head nestled against her breast bone.

Besides, even for a male, Alexin was particularly petite. It was impossible, sitting thus, to forget how short and slight he was, so it was impossible to feel annoyance over his fragility.

~~~

Skinner soon learned that Faerie horses were not only twice as swift at the gallop as human horses, but they needed only a fraction as much rest. Regardless of how hard they were ridden, the next morning they were fresh and ready to move at full pace once more.

“They are of a different breed,” Behaana agreed. “As similar in appearance as humans are to the Faerie people and, at the same time, as different in reality as human and Faerie truly are.”

The horses ate up the miles so swiftly that they passed Ragnarok on their third day after leaving the Faerie realm, and just another four days brought them to the coast.

It wasn’t until they reached the ocean that Behaana and Skinner’s Faerie appearance caused fear and consternation to the humans they encountered during the journey. There, in the coastal city, the southern traders had spread terrible tales of the Faerie atrocities in the south, and so the people were wary and distrustful even though they had no personal experience of Faerie violence.

Far worse still though, the Captain and crew of the sole ship docked in the port were Southerners. They took one look at Skinner and Behaana, drew their swords, raised prayers to their Gods and prepared to fight for their lives.

No amount of reassurances on Skinner’s part convinced the sailors that he and his companions meant no harm to them and merely wanted passage across the ocean.

Finally Skinner, whose temper had always been intolerant but had been grievously shortened ever since Alexin’s capture, became so irritated that he raised his arm and flooded the entire ship with a vast ball of ice-fire. Although the cold flames danced harmlessly over the deck and rigging of the vessel, the effect was so dramatic and terrifying that half the sailors ran away, screaming in fear, and the other half dropped to their knees and quaked in terrified submission.

The Captain himself, being of a braver persuasion, paled considerably and began to shake a little but he stood his ground and met Skinner’s blazing eyes with a steady gaze.

“You’ve made your point,” he spat. “If you wish us harm, we have no way to defend ourselves against your confounded magic.”

“More than that,” Skinner replied coldly. “If I need to, I will simply take your ship, raise a wind and sail it with my magic. I don’t *need* your cooperation or that of your crew. I don’t need any of you on board and would probably prefer not to share your company. That would, however, leave you stranded here and your ship docked in the south. So unless you like the idea of wintering here while you wait for some kind soul to rescue you, I suggest you halt your nonsense and welcome us on board.”

The Captain narrowed his eyes thoughtfully. “I suppose it is too much to hope for that you’d be willing to *pay* for your passage?”

Skinner raised a substantial bag of gold coins and thrust it into the man’s hands.

“Whatever you may believe, not *all* Faerie are without conscience. I would not have you or your crew suffer for aiding us.”

“An *honest* Faerie. Who would have thought it possible?” the Captain grunted, opening the bag and looking inside. He harrumphed gruffly, then reluctantly muttered, “I’ll not have it said that I am less honest than a demon like you. You pay me too much for your passage.”

“You’ll change your mind about that, when you discover how much hay our horses eat,” Skinner replied easily.

“Not to mention how many sets of sheets we’ll need,” Frohike snorted, too low for the Captain to hear.

“I find it strange, Skinner, that you so easily accept being named Faerie by other humans,” Behaana said, after the Captain had left to gather up his reluctant crew.

Skinner looked down at himself ruefully and shrugged. “Would I argue the evidence of their own eyes? I *am* Faerie now. I do not understand why this has happened to me, but I accept it as truth. I find no shame in it, though there was a time when I would have done so. Alexin, yourself and all your people in the City of Ice have taught me that there is no dishonor in being a Faerie *male*.”

~~~

“Think you still of Skinner?” Rhianna demanded abruptly, after they’d ridden in silence for about a quarter hour.

Alexin stiffened within her arms.

“Tell me truthfully, Alexin,” she warned.

“I...I close my eyes and see him in my mind. I see something of beauty and find myself automatically turning my head to share my delight with him. I feel your hands on my hair, and my heart pains me that it is not his fingers that comb and braid me,” he admitted fearfully.

Jealousy surged through her and emerged from her mouth as an angry hiss. Subconsciously, she tightened her hold possessively around the boy’s waist until he squealed with pain.

“Forgive me,” she apologized automatically, though her voice was brittle with anger.

“And yet... and yet I feel all of that as a dull, hopeless ache now, rather than a burning flame,” Alexin continued hurriedly.

“You do?”

Alexin nodded fervently. “I...I no longer believe that he will come for me. My body is forgetting the compulsion of the magic that bound us and, though I still feel a great yearning love for him, it is the love of my heart, not that of my magic. So I have to assume that he is also free of the magic and...and I think that perhaps his love for me has faded with that loss.

“It was my magic that ensorcelled him, Rhianna. I know that now. His heart was hostage to the magic, and so it has now been set free. If he... if he comes for me now it will be only in a womanly way. A desire to reclaim his possession, not a calling of his heart.”

Rhianna gave a deep sigh of relief and squeezed him tightly once more – though, fortunately, with less force than previously. “You’ll always be under the thrall of his memory. He will be your only ever ‘beloved’. Yet you are right that he will never return your love. If he is not The One, then he will never find the means to retrieve you. If he *is* The One, then he’ll take the magic from another male to fulfill his destiny. Either way, he is lost to you forever. So the question now is whether you’ll accept my hand.”

Alexin stiffened again. “Your hand?” he squeaked.

“I have given the matter much consideration, sweetness. I will not share you with my guards. Neither will I take you as my concubine. Despite your lack of magic, I am prepared to offer you the status of beloved husband in my bed. What say you to that?”

Alexin promptly burst into tears.

And, peculiarly, they *weren’t* tears of relief. Although he’d spent an entire week playing a clever game of both deliberately delaying the journey in the hope that Skinner might rescue him before he reached the castle and, at the same time, striving to ensure that Rhianna claimed him for herself alone, just in case Skinner*didn’t* rescue him in time, Alexin felt no sense of triumph at his ‘victory’.

Just a huge, overwhelming sense of guilt.

He hadn’t truly thought, before that moment, of what his deception was doing to Rhianna. He’d thought only of his own wishes and his love for Skinner. He’d forced himself to see Rhianna *only* as his captor and thus unworthy of his concern.

Yet, at heart, Alexin was a gentle, sensitive soul and, faced with the totality of Rhianna’s seemingly genuine affection for him, he abruptly realized that in trying to stay true to Skinner he was doing *her* a grievous wrong.

“I hope those are sobs of happiness,” Rhianna snapped irritably.

“I...I know not *what* I think,” Alexin admitted, his voice thick with emotion, as he decided that, regardless of the consequences, he was finally going to have to tell Rhianna the truth. That he *did* still believe Skinner loved him and so *her* feelings for him were misplaced. “You say I should not depend upon Skinner’s love for me, since it was born of my magic. Yet he claimed always that his feelings for me were real.”

“At the time they probably were,” Rhianna admitted, but then shrugged. “But now you have no magic.”

“And yet *you* claim to love me,” Alexin argued. “And if you can love me, even though I have no magic, why would Skinner not be capable of the same?”

“A clever argument, Alexin. But not clever enough. The difference between Skinner and myself is that I’m not comparing you with another and finding you lacking. To gain the power to save you, Skinner must lie with another Faerie male. A male who *does* have the magic. Do you *truly* believe he will subsequently set that male aside in order to reclaim you for his bed? Do you think that male’s *magic* will allow him to do so?”

“You’re saying it’s hopeless, aren’t you?” Alexin whispered, turning to look at her with tragic eyes. He was no longer speaking with clever deceit nor deliberately toying with Rhianna’s affection. The queen’s words had sent a wave of futility crashing over him, striking him far too deeply for him to respond with anything but honesty. “You’re saying that even if he *does* love me, he will never choose me above that other.”

Rhianna had expected to feel triumph when Alexin finally accepted the truth. Instead she found herself strangely hurt by the lost, agonized look in his eyes. She decided it would hurt her nothing to tell the boy a kind lie.

“Perhaps...perhaps he will take the magic of a male with only a fraction of your beauty,” she suggested gently. “Perhaps, if that’s the case, he *will* find the strength to reject the magic in favor of you.”

A slow tear dripped down Alexin’s face. “I...I thank you for your kindness,” he whispered. “Though I know you say this only to please my ears, not truly believing it yourself, I *do* thank you for saying so.”

“I am a fool to say so, when allowing you hope deprives me of any hope myself,” Rhianna admitted heavily. “I don’t understand this spell you weave upon me that makes me constantly scupper my own designs upon you. I must, it seems, accept that your heart will never be mine. But I will *still* take you as husband, Alexin. On that my mind is set.”

Alexin flinched slightly. “I feel a great, near overwhelming, guilt. I must, it seems, betray both you *and* Skinner, and that is more than I can bear.”

“To lie with me is, perhaps, a betrayal of your love for Skinner, but that’s no reason for your guilt, Alexin. You are a male. Your only place in the world is within someone’s bed. If you are not in Skinner’s then you must be in another’s. Even your monkey-man must understand that. Do you think he doesn’t already *know* another has despoiled you? If he cares for you at all, he will be pleased that you have now come to my bed rather than remaining in Ariana’s cruel hands. Still, in what way do you betray me?”

“Because...because I feel I *should* love you, too, Rhianna,” Alexin admitted heavily. “You are kind to me when I have no right to your kindness. I have no magic, and yet you still offer me marriage. I have not bewitched *you*. I have, I confess, used my wiles against you in the prayer that my beauty might ensnare you. I did that for Skinner. To prove my love for him. To keep myself as pure for him as possible so that his eyes wouldn’t look upon me with disgust. But...but now I feel I have wronged you. I feel even that perhaps I should welcome the idea of being your husband. Not for the reasons I had previously, but simply because you are truly a mate I should be grateful for.

“I said to you that I would not cry in your bed, Rhianna. But now I dare to hope that it will not be merely my bravery that stays my tears. I think, perhaps, that I will find pleasure there. That’s why I betray you. Because I am sure now that you deserve my love, and instead all I can offer you is my obedience and gratitude.”

A relieved smile flooded Rhianna’s face. “That’s sufficient, Alexin. From that we can build our relationship. You will not regret this decision.”

She turned to one of her guards. “Ride on to the castle. Tell the servants to prepare for a wedding feast tomorrow night.”

Alexin was so relieved that he started to cry once more. If Rhianna was planning to marry him properly, with a feast and celebrations to suit his status as a prince, then surely he *was* making the right decision. When Skinner came for him, wouldn’t his beloved feel relieved that he had been treated so well by Rhianna?

And if...if Rhianna was right and Skinner no longer wanted him anyway, he *could* bear the idea of being Rhianna’s husband. Perhaps he’d never love her, or desire her, but he hadn’t been lying when he’d told her he was full of gratitude for her unexpected kindness to him.

~~~

“You seem to be enjoying yourself, my love,” Frohike laughed, as he joined Langly on the deck.

“I never thought I’d willingly set foot upon a ship again,” Langly admitted. “But I *am* enjoying this journey.”

The blond was hanging over the railings, not out of illness this time but out of eager curiosity. A school of sleek dolphins had begun to follow them a few days previously, cavorting through the waves playfully and chittering amongst themselves in their own strange language as though greatly excited by the passage of the ship.

“It’s like having an honor guard,” Langly said, his expression torn between wonder and confusion. “As though they *know* somehow that we are on a great, world changing quest.”

“You’re as fanciful as a Faerie male,” Frohike laughed, though he too found the dolphin escort to be most peculiar. “They *do* seem to have a surprising intelligence.”

“I wonder whether Behaana can speak their tongue,” Langly said. “I would greatly like to talk with the creatures. I’ll ask him.”

“If you’re lucky enough to catch hold of him during one of his brief forays out of Skinner’s cabin,” Frohike growled. “If it weren’t for his concern over the horses, I doubt he’d ever leave Skinner’s bed.”

“It’s necessarily so. Skinner’s using a lot of magic to assure us this smooth, safe and *fast* passage,” Langly retorted. “In less than three days we have already crossed more than three quarters of the ocean. By tomorrow morning, we’ll be on land once more.”

“Perhaps that’s *Skinner’s* reason for spending the entire voyage riding Behaana, but I doubt that’s Behaana’s reason for letting him do so. He’s simply taking every opportunity to further ensnare Skinner within his web.”

“That’s not fair, Frohike. The magic is at work in *both* of them. Can you honestly say that *you* would act any differently than Behaana under the same circumstances? I recall when you first ensorcelled me that you didn’t exactly fight the compulsion in your own veins, did you? Even though I was so desperate to escape the magic that I spent *years* cursing and crying over the spell that bound me to you, you made no attempt to free me.”

“Do you regret that?” Frohike demanded, his eyes dark with hurt. “Are you saying you wish to leave me?”

“Of course not, you stupid little gnome. But the point I’m making is true regardless. Even though you *knew* I didn’t want to be bound to you, you couldn’t fight your own desire to keep me. So why do you blame Behaana for something that he too has no control over?”

Frohike rubbed his face tiredly and sighed. “I know you’re right,” he admitted, his voice heavy. “I know it isn’t fair to curse Behaana and lay no equal blame upon Skinner. I can accept that Skinner is bound by the magic, so I *should* accept that Behaana is equally powerless.”

“Exactly,” Langly agreed triumphantly.

“But all I can see, when I look upon Behaana, is the expression on Alexin’s face when he discovers that Behaana has stolen Skinner’s heart. I hate Behaana for *that*. I hate Behaana for being so extraordinarily beautiful that Alexin will take one look at him and know he’s lost Skinner forever. And I most particularly hate the increasingly *smug* look on Behaana’s face as each day passes and Skinner falls more soundly under his spell.”

“It’s not Behaana’s *intent* to displace Alexin in Skinner’s heart,” Langly argued. “It’s just the magic they share working to bind them together. Neither is it Behaana’s fault he’s so beautiful, is it? As for his ‘smugness’, I think you’re being unfair. He isn’t ‘smug’ as much as he’s self-confident. I think your problem with him is that you expect him to act more like Alexin. It bothers you that he lacks Alexin’s childish innocence. And that’s crazy, because Behaana is two thousand years old. It wouldn’t make sense for him to have lived that long and not have gained some self-confidence. He’s still as sweet and gentle in his own way, but that side of him is tempered by maturity. I think he’s charming.”

“He doesn’t charm *me*,” Frohike spat. “Think you I don’t see the way he uses his wiles to wrap Skinner around his finger? He is as sly as his namesake.”

“Namesake?” Langly asked, frowning with confusion.

“In the human tongue, Behaana means ‘Fox’,” Frohike said, with a disgusted snarl.

“Must be a snow fox, considering his white hair,” Langly chuckled.

~~~

“Rhianna?”

“Yes, sweetness?”

“Will you still let me freely roam your rose garden, as you once promised I might?”

“Of course.”

“And...and will you veil me?”

“Of course I’ll veil you, you silly child.”

“Why?”

“What do you mean, ‘why’? All husbands are veiled.”

“Only to protect them from covetous eyes, lest some woman desires to steal the magic for themselves,” Alexin pointed out. “I have no magic to steal.”

“Even so...”

“It is but tradition, is it not?” Alexin asked. “And already you break tradition by marrying me. So why must I hide my beauty just for tradition? Surely your subjects are in too much awe of you to touch their queen’s property whether it’s veiled or not.”

“You would have me turn *all* tradition on its head, simply to cater to your vanity?” Rhianna laughed.

“You say you believe that our relationship will change to one of love on both sides,” Alexin replied. “It would have more chance of doing so if I were to feel less your property than your beloved. Skinner didn’t veil me. Skinner was proud of my beauty and loved to show it to the world. Besides, it seems to me that your people will better understand the decision you’ve made to marry me if they are constantly faced with my beauty.”

“And so it begins,” Rhianna sighed.

“What begins?”

“The destruction of our world by ‘The One’.”

“I don’t understand.”

Rhianna chuckled ruefully. “There are many ways to destroy a society, Alexin. The most subtle way is to erode it from within. Should I agree not to veil you, then soon other women will decide to follow my example. They will want *their* males to be admired as you are. Soon no male in my queendom will be veiled. Tradition will be shattered. The change will be more insidious than that, though. By keeping our males veiled, we refuse them any possibility of equality. Males are but silent shadows in company, and toys inside our private bedchambers.

“Removing the veil is like the first drip of water that eventually transforms into a river of change. Bare-faced, a male will be capable of ‘conversing’ with his expression rather than being limited only to the fluttering of his eyelashes. Inevitably, that ‘conversation’ will lead eventually to males being permitted to speak in company. And as their voices are heard, perhaps inevitably their ‘opinions’ will begin to matter to their wives. Until, eventually, the society we have now will change beyond recognition.”

“Is that such a bad thing?” Alexin asked cautiously.

“A few days ago I would have said so,” Rhianna admitted. “Now I find myself wondering whether it might not even be an improvement. I have greatly enjoyed this journey with you, against all my expectations. You are far more entertaining company than I had ever realized a male could be. I must confess that I rarely ‘conversed’ with my previous husbands. My interest in them began and ended within my bedchamber.

“Now I find myself wondering whether they too had the capacity to entertain me so, if only I’d given them the opportunity to do so. That’s why I say ‘The One’ is already destroying the world as I know it, for I’m beginning to see our society through new eyes simply through knowing you, Alexin. The you who is developing before my eyes as a direct result of your experiences in Skinner’s hands.

“I wonder, even, if *you* are truly ‘The One’, Alexin.”

~~~

At mid-morning of the fourth day of their voyage, the ship docked at the port town of the Southern Territories.

Aware of Behaana’s warning that he’d be unable to even walk on the soil of the south, Skinner made the decision that they would mount the Faerie horses and ride them off the ship. It was a sensible precaution anyway. The moment the residents of the port saw the horned horses, not to mention his and Behaana’s exceptional height and Faerie features, they were likely to turn into a hostile mob.

For added safety, Skinner tied a rope around Behaana’s waist and secured him firmly to his saddle so that he wouldn’t fall from his horse if the spell weakened him as dramatically as Behaana had suggested it might.

“As soon as we clear the gangplank, kick your horses into a gallop. I want to get through and clear of this port before anyone has a chance to take a good look at us,” Skinner said.

“But they can’t hurt us anyway,” Langly protested. “We have the magic.”

“Let’s assume the worst. I may *not* have the magic,” Skinner replied. “It’s possible that the spell will drain Behaana’s magic along with his strength and I don’t think you have enough control of your own magic yet to protect us.”

Langly paled considerably. “My magic? You’re saying we might end up with only *my* magic between us?” he squeaked.

“I highly doubt it,” Skinner chuckled. “The prophecy can hardly be fulfilled in such a manner. I am *almost* certain that Behaana’s magic will remain accessible to me. But I will not risk our lives on that belief. It’s best that we act on the basis of worst possible scenario and escape into the mountains before we stop and test for the magic.”

“You can feel it now though, can’t you?” Frohike asked worriedly.

“I’m so charged with it I feel I could almost wave my hand and *wish* us into the mountains,” Skinner laughed. “But we are yet to cross onto the actual soil of the south and so everything may yet change for the worse.”

“Can we stop talking about it and do it?” Behaana demanded petulantly. “The prospect of being totally incapacitated by the spell is terrifying enough without me listening to the three of you discussing it as though I’m not even here.”

“You’re right, Behaana. Forgive me,” Skinner said, with a gentle, understanding smile.

“Yeah, let’s move it before his gorgeous royalness wets himself,” Frohike muttered snidely.

Skinner frowned with annoyance and mounted, conveniently ‘forgetting’ that Frohike needed assistance to get into the saddle of his huge Faerie horse.

Langly looked helplessly between Skinner and Frohike, deciding that they were sometimes worse than Alexin for childishness. Skinner clearly wasn’t going to help Frohike unless he apologized to Behaana and, from the look on his lover’s face, it was obvious that Frohike had absolutely no intention of doing so.

Langly wished he could somehow get Frohike mounted himself, and so avoid the row that was brewing, only he...

“GODS!” Frohike screamed in terror, as an invisible had grabbed him by the scruff of the neck, raised him in the air and dumped him unceremoniously onto his horse’s saddle.

“Levitation. How wonderful,” Behaana exclaimed, clapping his hands with glee and looking at Langly with new, respectful eyes. “Your control of your magic is increasing daily, Langly. I know males who haven’t gained so much power in centuries of trying.”

“Really?” Langly asked, grinning with accomplishment.

“Sincerely,” Behaana assured him. “I feel far less fearful of departing this ship, now that I know you have such ability.” Then he turned to Frohike. “And I thank you, my friend, that it is your magic which Langly will be wielding in our defense.”

Frohike just grunted, though his cheeks flushed slightly at Behaana’s comment.

“Told you he was charming,” Langly muttered to his lover, as he mounted his own horse. “No matter how rude you are to him, he always swiftly forgives your aggression and makes an effort to be friendly to you.”

Frohike didn’t reply, but he *did* look ashamed of himself.

“Let’s move,” Skinner said, deciding that there was plenty of time later to discuss Behaana and Frohike’s uneasy relationship. The priority was to get off the ship and discover the consequences of Behaana entering the Southern Territories.

Their slight delay *had* brought some potential trouble to the docks. Several of the sailors had already disembarked and spread tales of their Faerie ‘kidnappers’ to the townsfolk. So the port was thronged with people whose expression varied from terrified to curious to openly antagonistic.

Yet, as they walked their horses over the gangplank, to loud exclamations of wonder at the horns protruding from their horse’s foreheads and a low muttering of hostility at Skinner and Behaana’s appearance, the Captain of the ship – who had been conspicuous by his absence during the journey – took center stage at the front of the dock and loudly announced, “Just let the demons through, good people. They won’t harm any who offer them no trouble. They paid us fairly and well for their passage and harmed us not, though they have a terrifying magic and *could* easily have killed us all.”

“There’s only four of them,” someone called. “And two are clearly human traitors. When have we *ever* outnumbered Faerie so strongly? When have we ever before had the opportunity to take vengeance for the savage cruelties of their breed?”

Swiftly, lest the ability was stolen from him when Behaana’s horse reached the end of the gangplank, Skinner summoned dark, threatening storm clouds that so obscured the sun that it appeared night was falling, though it was still only mid-morn.

A tremor of terror rippled through the crowd, and many of the humans began to slink away, casting fearful looks up at the sky.

“LET US THROUGH,” Skinner roared, “OR SUFFER THE CONSEQUENCES.”

A small smile flickered over Langly’s face and he sent several balls of harmless blue fire into the middle of the crowd, so that the people scattered apart to open a corridor through the center of the throng.

“Now ride,” Skinner said, as his horse leapt down onto solid earth.

He kicked the beast into a gallop, racing through the space formed by Langly’s fire, and the other three horses followed his lead.

It took only seconds for the swift horses to pound through the small town and onto the road to the mountains. A few seconds more and the port was but a memory behind them.

Skinner called a halt and turned worriedly to Behaana.

The Faerie was collapsed over his horse’s neck, his skin leeched of color and his breathing coming in short, pained gasps. It was obvious that it was only the rope holding him on his horse, because he was too weak to even lift his head when Skinner addressed him.

“Are you pained or merely weakened?” Skinner demanded worriedly.

“No pain,” Behaana gasped with difficulty. “But I find it hard to even breathe.”

Skinner probed deep within himself and felt an answering roar of dark power. “At least your magic remains, my queen,” he said. “Though I don’t see how we can travel onwards with you in such distress.”

“Do you retain all of the magic?” Behaana whispered.

“I believe so.”

“Then...then use it to break the spell. I’ll be a burden to you all like this.”

“He’s right,” Frohike said, an eyebrow rising in reluctant respect. “If you have the same level of power now as Behaana held on the day he cast the spell, you should have enough magic to dissolve it.”

“I can’t do that,” Skinner replied firmly. “The spell may weaken Behaana, but it keeps him *and* his people safe from the Faerie women. Even if we were to be surrounded and overcome by females this minute, with Behaana so apparently defenseless, not one of them could raise their hand to harm him. Besides, if we fail in our quest, the females could invade the north and steal the males there for their nefarious purposes.”

“We didn’t come here to fail,” Behaana gasped. “And my people knew the risk they faced when they allowed me to accompany you.”

Frohike grinned widely. “I think I begin to like you after all, Faerie fox.”

Behaana offered him a weak but genuine smile in response.

“What are you all arguing about NOW?” Langly interrupted, his face set in a far less charming imitation of one of Alexin’s pouts.

“I wish the damned magic had given you the Faerie tongue,” Skinner grumbled. “All this translating wastes so much time.”

“Well, excuse me if I’m a ‘waste of time’,” Langly huffed.

“That’s not what I meant,” Skinner said, with an exasperated roll of his eyes.

“Well, that’s what you *said*.”

“Do humans always argue so?” Behaana snickered weakly.

“Only Langly,” Frohike snorted, in Faerie.

“That is SO not fair,” Langly protested.

Frohike blinked. “Did you just understand what I said?”

“So now you think I’m deaf or stupid, as well as argumentative?” Langly yelled, his face flushing with fury. “You want an argument, you poison dwarf? I’ll give you a damned argument.”

In precise Faerie, Frohike replied, “The reason I didn’t expect you to understand, was that I was speaking in the Faerie tongue.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Langly replied. “I heard you perfectly...” his voice trailed off and his eyes widened. “You just did it again, didn’t you?”

“I think,” Frohike replied, “that Skinner had best be *very* careful in future with his wishes. They may not all be so fortuitous in their outcome.”

“Yeah,” Langly breathed, though he looked not at all disappointed in his sudden ability to speak and understand Faerie. “It’s weird. I can’t even tell the difference. You’d think I’d be at least translating inside my head, but its seamless. I just automatically switch back and forth from one language to the other.”

“That’s how it is for me, too,” Behaana whispered.

“And I,” Skinner agreed.

Frohike glowered slightly. “It’s not fair,” he stated. “It’s not so easy for me. And neither do I have the magic. All in all, I definitely have the worst of this deal. And it’s not fair because I’m a *real* Faerie,” he added, with a sniff in Skinner’s direction.

“I would wish for you to have the magic also,” Skinner said, “but I know not what the consequences would be. I could, in effect, be demanding the dissolution of your bond with Langly so that you might mate with another Faerie.”

Both Frohike and Langly paled at his words.

“Well, I guess I don’t actually *need* the magic,” Frohike blurted quickly.

Langly gave him a grateful and relieved look. “I would rather lose all my magic *and* my ability to speak Faerie than lose you.”

“I hate to interrupt this touching love-fest,” Behaana gasped. “But I really *am* finding it hard to breathe. Can we move this along?”

“You want me to attempt this, even knowing your protection from the females will be removed?” Skinner demanded.

“Just do it already,” Behaana replied. “I’ll have your magic to protect me, won’t I?”

It was that argument which convinced Skinner. He’d promised Roga that he’d return Behaana to him safely and even though he didn’t *want* to keep that promise, he still intended to fulfill it. He certainly didn’t want to instead return to the City of Ice with the news that Behaana had been slain or captured by the females. But Behaana was right. With Skinner’s own magic, Behaana *would* be capable of defending himself even without the protection of the spell.

“Alright,” he said. “Though I have no idea of how to do it. Should I simply wish for the spell to reverse itself?”

“Um.... Won’t that mean the two Territories will rejoin?” Langly asked nervously. “Because if so, I think we’ll all end up drowned.”

“He’s right,” Frohike said. “If the two Territories slam back together, the ocean between them will probably form a huge tidal wave.”

“Wish just that part of it broken which so afflicts me,” Behaana suggested quietly. “Wish that I am no longer impervious to the touch of a female.”

“I have a really bad feeling about this,” Skinner muttered, but closed his eyes and concentrated upon carefully wording his ‘wish’.

“Well?” he said a moment later, when Behaana remained slumped in his saddle.

Behaana just shook his head weakly.

Skinner frowned, considered for a few moments, then wished that Behaana was capable of deliberately putting himself within the dangerous reach of the females.

This time the effect was instantaneous. Behaana straightened in his saddle, shook himself as though to throw off the last remains of the strange weakness that had drained him, and grinned so widely that even Frohike chuckled.

“I feel fine,” he announced happily. “What did you do?”

“Remembered that spells work in complicated ways,” Skinner replied, with a wry smile. “I had, in Alexin’s words, a ‘big thought’. My first wish merely left you incapacitated *and* vulnerable. It should have occurred to me that if the spell only prevented a female from harming you, then only a female would be unable to cross from one Territory to the other. So the spell also prevented you from accidentally or purposefully placing yourself in danger.”

“Hot damn, we are SO going to kick those bitches’ butts,” Langly smirked.

“Maybe it’s about time you told us your plan for doing just that,” Frohike suggested to Skinner. “Assuming you *do* have a plan?”

“I’ll explain it to you as we ride,” Skinner said, kicking his horse into a slow canter.

~~~

“I’ve been thinking,” Alexin said, after they’d ridden for another couple of minutes. “I can’t possibly marry you tomorrow night.”

“And why, pray tell, is that?” Rhianna growled.

“I’ll need a new gown,” Alexin pointed out seriously. “I can’t get married in *this*.” He gestured with disgust at the now more than tattered dress he was wearing.

“I have a closet with many gowns suitable for your beauty, Alexin. I *have* been married before.”

“They won’t fit,” Alexin sulked. “I’m unusually petite. I bet your other husbands were taller and heavier than I am.”

“They *were* slightly taller,” Rhianna admitted. “And neither of them had your delicacy, though they were perfectly slim considering their somewhat larger frames.”

“Then I’m right, aren’t I?” Alexin said, with satisfaction. “Even if you make me wear a *used* gown for my wedding, it will still need to be altered to fit me properly. And that will take at least a day.”

“Were I not completely convinced of your vanity, Alexin, I would suspect you of inventing yet another delaying tactic,” Rhianna laughed. “I suppose *one* more day’s delay is neither here nor there at this stage.”

Alexin considered that for a moment.

“If one day is ‘neither here nor there’,” he said slyly, “surely *another* day wouldn’t matter either. Then I could have a *new* gown instead. One made of material chosen to perfectly compliment me. I was thinking of something in Etrovian lace, perhaps in sea green, with a bodice of emerald spidersilk embroidered with pearls and...”

Rhianna groaned and shook her head wearily as the boy continued to burble happily about his ‘dream’ wedding gown. He sounded so *excited*, so enthusiastic about the upcoming event, that she didn’t have it in her heart to refuse him.

Perhaps, she reluctantly decided, the feast she’d already ordered could be a ‘betrothal’ celebration, with the wedding itself following a couple of days later.

It had been a mistake, perhaps, to fall for such a bewitching, infuriating boy. But hopefully her patience would be rewarded when she eventually took a smiling, willing Alexin into her bed rather than one sniffling and whining over being married in a ‘used’ gown.

~~~

“We head for Sylvana’s castle first,” Skinner explained. “Although I’m pretty certain that Alexin is in Ariana’s hands and therefore unlikely to be found within his mother’s queendom, it’s Sylvana’s realm which poses the greatest threat. She has the largest army and controls all of the ward-gates. The sooner we leash Sylvana, the sooner Crystal City and all the other human settlements are safe from attack.

“Before you ask,” he added, when Frohike opened his mouth to protest, “my decision is *primarily* based upon my desire to rescue Alexin. Although my instinct tells me to rush immediately to his side, we cannot afford to leave ourselves open to attack from the rear when we reach Ariana’s queendom to free him. By first nullifying Sylvana and her guards, we greatly increase our chances of success.”

“But you’ve been saying all along that time is of the essence,” Langly pointed out. “Yet now you’re going to add several days to our journey by traveling south past Ariana’s land to Sylvana’s queendom and then turning around to go back on ourselves.”

“No,” Skinner corrected. “I’m going to add several *weeks* to our journey, because we’ll travel south through the human realm, only entering Faerie land when we’re at the walls of Sylvana’s castle.”

“We have to,” Frohike reminded Langly, a little condescendingly. “There are no ward-gates here in the north.”

“That’s not quite true,” Behaana interrupted. “Well, it *is*, but it’s irrelevant, because Skinner can just ‘wish’ a gate into existence wherever he wants to. We could enter the Faerie realm this moment if Skinner wished it so.”

“But I won’t,” Skinner agreed, “because the longer we remain in human time, the less time passes for Alexin.”

“I trust the boy will fully appreciate the saddle sores we’re developing for his sake,” Behaana said, but his tone and expression were so light that not even Frohike bridled with offence.

“So we get to Sylvana’s castle and then what?” Langly asked.

“I’m not entirely sure,” Skinner admitted. “I’m thinking something along the lines of a spell to seal the castle and trap the occupants inside. Then we can return later and deal with them properly.”

“That sucks,” Frohike said, with a frown. “You’re just going to trap them inside, knowing full well that the imprisonment will infuriate them, when we *all* know how Faerie women prefer to vent their anger.”

“He’s right,” Behaana agreed. “The males within the castle *will* suffer greatly as a result of the females’ fury.”

“I know,” Skinner agreed. “But what would you have me do? Kill all the females and free the males from their captivity?”

Behaana shuddered and fell silent.

Frohike however, grinned nastily. “Sounds like a perfectly good plan to me,” he said. “I lived four moons in that castle once. Believe me, there isn’t a *single* female within its walls that is worthy of any compassion, and the males *definitely* need to be rescued.”

“Make your mind up, Frohike,” Skinner snapped. “You’ve spent the last week and a half accusing me of not caring enough about Alexin, yet now I tell you I won’t waste time at Sylvana’s castle because I want to rescue Alexin as soon as possible, you want me to delay my rescue of him and conquer a queendom instead.”

“If you’re The One, if you are indeed the proverbial ‘Sword of Vengeance’ then it’s your duty to free *all* the males,” Frohike retorted. “And I *know* I’m being inconsistent. I know I’m now guilty of doing what I’ve been accusing Behaana of doing. I’m deliberately distracting you from Alexin’s plight. But my *gut* tells me that you must do this thing, Skinner. There’s been a pattern to everything that’s happened. All along this quest, you’ve been following a clear direction mapped out to you by the Gods. And if that direction takes you next to Sylvana’s queendom, then I believe that’s because you’re supposed to deal with Sylvana *now*, not simply delay the conflict for a more convenient time.”

“What say you?” Skinner asked Behaana. “Does your magic speak to you in a similar fashion?”

Behaana was silent for a long time, and when he finally met Skinner’s gaze it was with eyes filled with tears. “I...I fear to answer,” he whispered. “I cannot...cannot bear the guilt of it.”

Skinner frowned briefly, but then his brow cleared as understanding came to him.

“You refuse to answer because you *do* agree with Frohike. Is that not right?”

Behaana just flinched, but his silence was agreement enough.

Skinner’s face softened. “I know you feel great pain at the thought that females might die at my hands, through the power of *your* magic But I swear this to you now, Behaana. I have no love for the Faerie women but neither am I a murderer. I will demonstrate my power to them, and my willingness to kill them if necessary, and will pray that they have the sense to concede defeat without the spilling of their blood. Any woman who chooses not to stand against me will be safe from my wrath regardless of the crimes she may have committed in the past.”

“You will find few such women,” Behaana replied. “It is our females' nature to make war, even in the face of overwhelming odds. I too once thought that logic would force them to accept the futility of fighting male magic, and all know how *that* turned out.”

“The difference is that they knew you were too gentle to kill them, Behaana,” Skinner replied. “Whereas gentleness is *not* one of my more prevalent traits.”

“It’s just the prophecy at work, Behaana. The Sword of Vengeance is destined to strike down any woman without goodness in her veins. That doesn’t leave *that* many females with much hope of a happy ending, does it?” Frohike said, reaching over and patting Behaana’s thigh in an awkward gesture of comfort.

Behaana nodded and gave him a faint smile of gratitude. “You’re right,” he said, “though the wording of that prophecy came from *my* lips, so I still bear the blame. What on earth was I thinking when I screamed that out of my mouth?”

“All things considered, it was probably the smartest thing you *did* say,” Langly blurted. “If you’d ever seen one of the poor bastards who fall victim to their roving patrols, even *you’d* be hard pressed to feel any remorse at the idea of a Faerie female dying at Skinner’s hands.”

“Too right,” Frohike shuddered. “I remember this one time in Stonekeep when the city guards brought in this man who’d been only partly skinned. Something must have disturbed the Faerie who’d captured him, because they’d only skinned his back. By that time, of course, they’d already put out his eyes, castrated him and cut both of his arms off. Anyway, my point is that it took him almost a *week* to die, instead of the usual day or two and

His words trailed off as Behaana paled to a ghostly grey, scrambled off his horse, ran to the side of the path and began to vomit.

“Too much information,” Langly advised him dryly.

Skinner just gave him a filthy look, dismounted and went over to comfort the stricken Faerie.

“He really *is* as sweet as Alexin in his own way,” Frohike admitted reluctantly, as he watched Skinner guide the wobbly legged Behaana a short distance from where he’d been ill and encouraged him to lower his head between his legs and take deep, steadying breaths.

“I’ve been trying to tell you that for days,” Langly replied. “You’re not the only one worried about Alexin’s reaction to Behaana, but none of this is Behaana’s *fault*. If he’s too gentle in nature to cope with the idea of Faerie females being killed or listen to tales of humans being tortured, do you honestly think that he’ll do the wrong thing when faced by Alexin’s distress? It doesn’t matter whether he’s currently imagining he’ll keep Skinner for himself. When it comes down to it, when he sees how much pain he’d cause Alexin by acting so selfishly, Behaana *will* release Skinner from the compulsion. It would be completely against his nature to do otherwise.”

“You’re right,” Frohike admitted, hanging his head in shame. “I have misjudged him.”

“Well, perhaps not entirely,” Langly allowed. “Behaana does *want* to keep Skinner for himself. You’re right about that. And who could really blame him? Skinner *is* a greatly attractive man. But Behaana is a man who time and again in his life has proven his willingness to sacrifice his own happiness for a greater good. Rather than resenting his current relationship with Skinner and berating him for the pleasure he takes in having Skinner as his lover, I think you should feel sorry for Behaana for the pain he’ll suffer when he gives up that pleasure and returns Skinner to Alexin.”

“I had not considered it thus,” Frohike said. “Yet I hear the truth in your words. From now on, I’ll treat Behaana more kindly.”

“It would suffice if you simply stopped making him vomit,” Skinner growled, when he caught the tail end of the conversation as he returned to his horse.

“I’m sorry,” Frohike told Behaana, as the Faerie climbed a little shakily into his saddle.

“It’s alright,” Behaana replied. “You have, at least, made my mind feel a little more easy about what is likely to happen when we confront Sylvana. When I find myself cringing and wishing to steal my magic back from Skinner as he uses it in violence, I will fill my head with the vision of that unfortunate human and tell myself that at least no more will suffer *that* grievous fate.”

~~~

“And as for my jewelry,” Alexin chirped, “I want to avoid emeralds. They’re so ‘obvious’ for a boy with my eye coloring, don’t you think? Not that I want anything to clash, naturally, but I was thinking perhaps diamonds, peridots and jade. Or perhaps turquoise to compliment the sea green lace.

“Though, I’m not absolutely *certain* about the sea green lace. Perhaps it would be more flattering to my coloring to have a gown with cream skirts. Not *plain* cream, obviously, because that would look too simple for a wedding gown. But cream with a hem embroidered with green and gold thread in a design of entwined roses. With perhaps a few matching roses embroidered on the breastplate of my bodice. Just small ones, of course, because too much design on the chest would draw people’s eyes away from my face.

“But that might look too elaborate. A wedding dress ought to make a boy look ‘pure’ and even though I’m *not* pure anymore, I don’t actually want to advertise that fact by wearing a dress that’s unsuitable. So pure is probably the way to go. Not white though, because that would make me look sallow. Perhaps a *very* pale green. So pale that it *almost* looks white. With just a small embroidered trim on the hem. Definitely roses though. I like roses. And that way I could wear real roses in my hair in the same color as the embroidered roses.

“A *really* pale green might clash with my skintone though. I suppose I could go for a really pale blue instead. That would work well with turquoise jewelry. I don’t think it would work with peridots though, and I really *like* peridots. Maybe a dusky pink with gold trimming would be best, with diamond jewelry and perhaps some pearls scattered here and there on the bodice. ..”

As Alexin’s voice droned on and on and on, Rhianna came to the startling conclusion that listening to his ‘boyish’ drivel, while endearing, was far less entertaining than the few times she’d had *real* conversations with the boy.

“Tell me more about the monkey-man city you visited,” she suggested. “Do they truly live like people rather than animals?”

Instead of pouting over being interrupted, as she might have expected, Alexin seemed to grasp eagerly at the new conversational topic.

“Except for the terrible smell, it was almost like a *real* city,” Alexin assured her. “They certainly don’t live like animals. When I was there...”

And as the boy continued, Rhianna found herself rethinking a lot of things she’d always taken for granted about the so-called monkey-people. In fact, she found herself rethinking a *lot* of her previous preconceptions, including the fact that males had no business speaking of anything except their beauty.

~~~

It took them only a little over a week to reach the most southern tip of the mountains, despite the treacherous trails they’d traversed, mainly because the tireless Faerie horses had covered the miles almost effortlessly. It had, however, helped considerably that they’d had no need to ride around rockfalls or avoid paths where avalanches were likely. With no more than a flick of his fingers, Skinner could clear tons of fallen rocks or form a ‘bubble’ of protection around them so that if rocks fell from above, they’d bounce harmlessly off an invisible shield instead of striking them.

Twice he’d stopped the flow of a fast river so that they could reach the other side rather than find a shallower, safer place to cross. Once *Langly* had stopped a river, just to prove to himself he could. And when their route had brought them to a place where the wooden bridge they’d crossed only weeks previously had been irreparably damaged by a small earthquake, Behaana had replaced the crumbled structure with a solid, permanent bridge of stone. Skinner had dryly said he should carve his name into it, so that the generations of humans who subsequently enjoyed the use of the bridge would know who to thank.

And when they reached the place where the southern mountains began to gentle into rolling hills, Skinner drew them to a halt.

“Although I’m not certain, I believe this plateau ahead of us is where Sylvana’s castle stands,” he said.

“Then form a ward-gate and take us through,” Behaana said staunchly, though his eyes were dark with dread.

“Yeah, let’s kick some Faerie butt,” Langly smirked.

“I admit to a certain satisfaction at the idea of leveling that damned dungeon,” Skinner admitted.

“Just as long as you don’t level *everything*,” Frohike reminded him. “There are males within that castle as well as females, and they are innocent of anything other than being placid sheep. No insult meant,” he added hurriedly, with an apologetic nod in Behaana’s direction.

Behaana smiled wryly. “How can I take insult at the truth, Frohike? We males are indeed an overly placid breed. It seems that the accident of your birth gifted you with as much as it took away. Perhaps you lack a male’s normal beauty, but you also lack his cowardice.”

“It isn’t cowardice to be gentle by nature,” Skinner barked. “The fault lies purely with the females of your species. It’s their abuse of the male nature that is wrong here, not the male nature itself. And, speaking of such things, I wish you to stay here, Behaana, while we three cross over into the Faerie realm.”

Behaana stiffened slightly. “I am not afraid,” he insisted.

“But I am,” Skinner replied. “I cannot concentrate upon what I must do *and* worry for your safety. I am filled with your magic. I don’t need your presence at my side to fortify me. Your presence *will* distract me, however. So please, stay here where I may know you are safe. My magic will protect you from any threat in the human world, but it may not be sufficient to keep you from harm in the Faerie realm.”

“But...but Frohike has *no* magic at all, and you’re letting him accompany you,” Behaana pouted.

“I confess I would prefer that Frohike stay here, too,” Skinner admitted. “But Langly has power enough to protect him and the will to use it in violence if necessary. I may well need Faerie advice, and Frohike cannot only give me that, but has a ‘human’ way of thinking. He also is less likely to become violently ill at the sight of blood.”

“You can’t *stop* me from accompanying you,” Behaana said, his tone belligerent.

“I can’t,” Skinner agreed. “And I’m not ordering you to remain here. I’m merely asking you, my queen. Please. Do this for my sake, if not your own.”

For a moment, Behaana’s full lower lip trembled with disappointment but then he sighed and nodded his head in reluctant agreement.

“Thank you,” Skinner said, with a heartfelt sigh of relief. Then he turned to the others. “Let’s do it,” he said.

With just a flick of his hand – which wasn’t actually necessary but he still struggled with the idea of simply *thinking* something into reality – Skinner opened a portal into the Faerie realm. It wasn’t a ward-gate as such, more a tiny rip into the other dimension which sealed itself the moment they rode through.

And they found themselves not ten feet from the walls of Sylvana’s castle.

“Wonder what would have happened if you’d opened the portal just a few yards further on? We might have materialized right inside the wall itself,” Frohike muttered darkly.

“I doubt the magic would allow me to do something like that,” Skinner replied easily. “That’s probably the reason I chose that exact spot to enter this realm.”

“I guess so,” Frohike admitted. “Our magic *does* seem to have an inbuilt instinct for self-preservation.”

“I think the gate into the castle is around the other side,” Langly said, after craning his neck in both directions and seeing no way in.

“I intend to make my own gate,” Skinner chuckled, raising his right hand and visualizing a hole in the solid stone wall.

“Now what?” Langly asked.

“We simply ride through. Don’t worry,” Skinner added, “I’ve raised a shield around us that should protect us.”

“It’s the ‘should’ bit that bothers me,” Frohike grunted, but he still kicked his horse forward to follow Skinner through the ‘gate’.

“Well, I always wanted to ride into a city and be greeted by a huge throng,” Langly quipped, as they emerged into the castle courtyard and found themselves confronted by perhaps sixty guards. “I always visualized being offered flower garlands rather than swords though.”

Skinner snorted with appreciation at the joke before raising a totally grim visage to the gathered Faerie.

“I AM THE SWORD OF VENGEANCE,” he boomed. “LAY DOWN YOUR ARMS OR SUFFER MY WRATH.”

Doubt and even a little fear flickered over the faces of some of the guards. Most had assumed Skinner to be a woman at first glance but although his tone was low for a male it was definitely not that of a female. And as they drew closer they realized that despite his musculature he *was* definitely male.

So, as Behaana had predicted, their response to Skinner’s words was to raise their swords and charge.

Skinner didn’t even wait for them to reach the invisible barrier he’d formed around himself and his companions, he sent an arcing flame from his fingertips and swept his arm from left to right so that the foremost line of guards were immolated. He did, however, deliberately use only a fraction of his power so that although the women’s clothing caught fire, the flames leaping over their bodies were not automatically lethal.

As the burning women ceased their charge, dropped their swords and began to frantically beat out their flaming clothing with the assistance of their colleagues, Skinner raised his arm to one of the towers and made it explode. As a shower of shattered stone rained down into the courtyard, Skinner addressed the guards once more.

“That was your second and final warning. Move against me again and you WILL die.”

“I don’t get paid enough for this,” one of the guards muttered loudly and deliberately dropped her sword to the ground.

At least a dozen other guards followed suit and began to back away out of the line of fire.

“Cowards,” another woman snarled. “It is but a male and two monkey-men.”

“And males *can’t* harm us,” a different guard agreed. “No matter how much magic it has, it’s still only a male. It isn’t ‘warning’ us. It’s *bluffing* us. No male has ever been able to harm a female. They’re emotionally incapable of violence.”

Skinner was glad Behaana wasn’t there to witness what he did next. He wasn’t proud of it, considering that it *was* murder, but he could feel the tone of the crowd changing. Even some of the guards who had already retreated, were beginning to creep back to collect their weapons.

He raised his hand, smiled grimly at the two outspoken females and they both exploded. Not in flame but literally, just as the tower had, and their decimated flesh rained down on their colleagues so that all the guards were blood splattered and horrified.

“Do any of you still think I’m bluffing?” he asked into the sudden silence.

For a moment none of the women moved or spoke and then, as though at a silent signal, over half of them turned and ran, and the rest dropped their weapons.

“Always knew they were cowards at heart,” Langly growled. “From the way they never attack humans unless they outnumber them at least five to one.”

Frohike nodded his agreement, though he was damned sure that if *he* had been on the other side of Skinner’s anger, he would have taken the sensible option and ran too.

“This is but a few of the guards,” Skinner warned. “There are probably as many again in the barracks arming themselves even as we speak.” He raised his hand with the intention of blasting the barracks as he had destroyed the tower.

“No, don’t, Skinner,” Frohike said urgently.

For a moment he didn’t think Skinner was going to listen to him, but then Skinner blinked, made a conscious effort to rein in the power, and turned his attention to the frantic Faerie. “You want me to spare them?”

“Not the guards,” Frohike said. “The barracks. If you bring the walls down, you’ll kill not only the guards but the boys who live beneath the barracks.”

“Boys? What boys?”

“The boys born and raised to be barracks men,” Frohike explained. “They live their lives in underground cells beneath the barracks itself.”

“Cells? As in dungeon cells?” Skinner demanded.

“Yes,” Frohike agreed. “I know this from my time as a captive of the Faerie women of this castle. “When I complained too bitterly that I had been abandoned to live in the human world, my mother dragged me down into the boys’ dungeon to show me that I had, in fact, been lucky to have been born so deformed.

“Boys like Alexin are the exception, Skinner, not the rule. Only princes or boys of exceptional beauty are brought up to be the husbands of the high-born females. Low-caste boys are raised purely as breeding stock for the lower-born women. They aren’t controlled with lies and pretty baubles, but with terror and fear. They are raised as little more than animals, barely learning even the rudiments of language because they are kept in individual windowless cells and taught only that their existence depends utterly upon them being pleasing and docile to the women who own them.”

“But they must also have the magic,” Skinner argued. “Why does that not protect them?”

“The taking of them is such that the magic is lost within minutes on the first night of their bedding,” Frohike explained. “The day a boy reaches 18 years, he is escorted up to the barracks and taken by many women. The second rape destroys the magic before it even has a time to develop, and by the end of that first night it is nothing more than a vague memory. It is done that way purposefully, I think, because the high-caste women don’t *want* the guards to have magic.”

“Talking of high-caste women,” Langly interrupted urgently. “I think we’ve got trouble.”

Skinner and Frohike turned their attention to where Langly was pointing with a trembling hand. The guards were falling back to allow perhaps thirty women to cross the courtyard. All were dressed in leather and steel, like the guards, but their armor was finely crafted and elaborate, clearly denoting a higher rank. It wasn’t just that which set them apart however. Each and every one of them was emanating the power of male magic.

At the head of the high-caste women came Sylvana herself, her eyes blazing with fury – though it must be said that as much of her anger was directed at her cowardly guards as it was towards Skinner - and her whole posture arrogant and assured.

“Very clever tricks,” she purred, as she approached. “But now we’ll see how one lone Faerie stands against females of rank.”

A little of her assurance faded as she came near enough to see Skinner’s features. She was greatly confused as to whether she was addressing an horrifically mutated male or a creature that was neither male nor female but a combination of both. She didn’t have enough imagination to realize that the Faerie before her was actually the same monkey-man she’d so recently tortured in her dungeon, but the fact his features were familiar caused her a certain amount of consternation. Because she knew she *hadn’t* seen him – if it truly *was* a him, before. He wasn’t the kind of creature that one would forget. He was the tallest male she’d ever seen, standing a good 6 feet 8 in height, he carried so much muscle that he looked more like a female and his eyes were a strange, luminescent bronze.

Yet, since she intended to kill him within the next few minutes, she decided his appearance and identity were irrelevant.

“Let me show you that queens don’t bluff either,” she laughed.

She lifted her right hand, and the other females followed suit, and white-hot flames rose upwards from their fingertips, as though they had harnessed lightning to their aid. Then, as a group, they smirked and threw their fire towards Skinner and his companions.

Langly squealed.

Frohike flinched.

Skinner raised his hand and the spears of lightning froze mid-flight and crashed to the ground, splintering into a thousand pieces of ice.

“Is that the best you can do?” he mocked, knowing fire and storm magic *was* the only power they could wield against him.

It was, perhaps, a little spite on his part that he let them continue their assault upon him for several minutes longer. As Sylvana’s fury and frustration increased, her volleys of fire became so wild and unpredictable that several of them struck some of her own people rather than flying true. And all the flames that did come Skinner’s way were turned into ice and then, finally, in a small homage to Alex, Skinner turned one of the fiery barrages into a shower of rose petals.

And as the women gaped in disbelief at the petals floating down to blanket the courtyard, Skinner reached out and ‘snapped’ the magic bonds between the women and their males.

“What have you done?” Sylvana screamed, as she felt the magic draining out of her limbs.

Skinner’s only reply was to steal a trick out of Roga’s book and wish for ice bands to materialize around her and the other high-caste women so that they were all securely bound.

He turned his attention to the shivering, shell-shocked guards.

“You are all evil women,” he said. “You all delight in torture and mayhem. You all treat your males in ways that would disgust anyone with even a shred of conscience. You are, however, less accountable for your actions than *these* females.” He gestured angrily at the bound women. “They, at least, had the power and position to change your evil society if they had so wished. Yet they chose not to do so and now will pay the price of that choice. You, on the other hand, have the opportunity to try and convince me that you would be willing to change your ways if allowed to.”

A dozen or so of the guards began nodding frantically, though most simply looked sullen as though they were simply biding their time for revenge.

Skinner reached out mentally and tapped several of the nodding guards on the shoulder as though with an invisible hand. “Step forward,” he barked.

Nervously they complied.

“Escort the former queen and her cohorts to the dungeon,” he ordered.

“Obey him and you’ll die,” Sylvana screamed.

One of the guards shrugged. “Seems to me that if we *don’t* obey him, we’ll die,” she said. “Though at least his way of killing guards is faster than yours, you bitch.”

There was a general murmur of agreement throughout the entire courtyard and a lot of the sullen-faced guards abruptly became less mulish about the change of leadership of the castle. Sylvana had made no friends in the barracks with her habit of killing and torturing guards at the least provocation. While none of the women liked the idea of a *male* telling them what to do, it was inarguable that the life expectancy of them all had been considerably improved by Sylvana’s defeat.

“I’m waiting,” Skinner snapped.

The guards he’d picked out – and several more who suddenly volunteered themselves as they realized this might be their one and only chance to physically abuse high-caste women who had ruled them with such cruelty – descended on the bound women and began to pull, drag and even kick them towards the dungeon.

“See what you have to work with?” Frohike muttered. “Even the *best* of them are still savage bitches.”

“How big *is* the dungeon?” Langly asked, as the guards began roughly throwing the women down the steep stone staircase and even Skinner winced slightly, remembering his own painful fall down that same brutal staircase.

“Just about big enough for thirty women if they stand close together,” Skinner admitted.

Langly just blinked.

“YOU,” Skinner barked, pointing at a small huddled group of guards.

They gulped and looked at him in obvious terror.

“Go fetch as many provisions, food *and* water as you can carry and take it to the dungeon.”

They looked confused but obeyed with alacrity.

“You’re going to feed them?” Frohike blurted, totally confused.

Skinner just smiled grimly and turned to another group of guards. “Go into your barracks and tell every female to come out into the courtyard right now. Then collect any women who are lurking elsewhere in the castle. Any woman who isn’t in this courtyard within ten minutes will be executed.”

They obeyed him, but with far less enthusiasm than the others had. So he sent a bolt of fire after them, judging it precisely so that it would merely bite their ankles and buttocks before dissipating.

They moved a lot more enthusiastically after that.

“What now?” Langly asked.

“Once we get all the women together, I can throw a binding spell around them to keep them in place. Then we’ll look for the males. There must be at least thirty husbands or concubines in the main castle to have empowered Sylvana and her cohorts. But they’re not my priority. It’s the barracks men and the boys beneath the barracks who probably need to be rescued first.”

“You say rescued, but *how* exactly? You aren’t intending to take them with us, are you?” Langly asked.

“I’ll explain later,” Skinner said, as the guards returned to the courtyard with the provisions. “Just throw everything down the stairs,” he instructed, “and then stand back.”

“What are you doing?” Langly asked.

“I will set a spell to seal the torture chamber forever,” Skinner replied bluntly. “With Sylvana and her cohorts trapped within. I intend for that damned chamber to become their grave.”

“Then why have you filled it with water and provisions?” Frohike demanded, his expression totally confused.

“Because they don’t deserve an easy death,” Skinner replied. “It is not in me to physically torture them, as they undoubtedly deserve to be tortured, but I am perfectly happy to let them mentally torture themselves as they first dream of escape and then turn upon each other like animals as they realize that the fewer of them who survive, the longer the food and water will last for the remainder.”

Frohike shivered. “You are mightily cruel, Skinner.”

Skinner thought about it and then nodded. “Perhaps I am,” he agreed, but he didn’t sound apologetic. “I prefer to think of myself as a practical man.”

“It doesn’t bother you that Sylvana is Alexin’s mother?” Langly queried.

“You think I would spare that bitch simply because her blood flows through Alexin’s veins?” Skinner laughed grimly. “No. For in truth I find her most culpable *because* she shares Alexin’s blood. To have given birth to such a sweet and good child, she *must* have within herself the capacity for some goodness of her own. Yet she chose never to find that gentler part of herself. She made the *decision* to remain cruel even when 18 years of Alexin’s company should have softened her heart. For I defy any female with even an ounce of goodness within her bones to remain impervious to his charm.

After he’d sealed the chamber and had cast an invisible barrier around all the females in the courtyard to keep them subdued and harmless, he led Frohike and Langly into the barracks.

For the second time, he found himself thanking the Gods that he’d chosen to leave Behaana behind because what he found inside the barracks was enough to bring tears to *his* eyes. He shuddered to think of how such a sight would have affected the sensitive Ice Queen.

“I should have killed them all,” he growled.

“It isn’t your destiny to turn the Southern Territories into another City of Ice,” Frohike reminded him sympathetically. Although the little Faerie was equally horrified, he wasn’t shocked. He had, after all, been inside the barracks before. Albeit three centuries previously. “If you kill *all* the females, you destroy the Faerie.”

“Perhaps they *should* be destroyed,” Skinner retorted.

Off each barracks room, which were set out as community dormitories for the guards, there were a half dozen cells. Each of the cells contained a barracks man. There were twelve dormitories in total, which meant that within minutes Skinner collected seventy-two shivering, barely clad males who flinched from each other’s touch, let alone Skinner’s. It was clear that they had all been so badly abused that they were barely capable of reason. Even though there were no females in the room, every single male was quaking with terror, their eyes flicking fearfully to the empty beds in full expectation that they had been collected from their cells to perform their regular ‘duty’.

All but three of the barracks men appeared to be under thirty, though many of them had an ‘oldness’ about them that belied their years. They seemed frail, worn out and near death as though their bodies were physically failing under the strain of fulfilling the females’ demands upon them. The three older men were, conversely, less worn and fearful than the younger males, and so Skinner addressed himself to them.

“Am I right in assuming from your ages that you were not raised within this pit of depravity?”

“We...we were once married men,” one of them confirmed fearfully. “I was...was widowed recently.”

“And I,” a second male confirmed.

“And you?” Skinner asked of the third, less attractive male.

“I...I was widowed long ago,” he whispered. “But for many years I was nurse to the Prince.”

“You were his nurse?” Frohike demanded. “Then of what use are you in a barracks anyway?”

The nurse flushed hotly. “It seems my body still has *some* entertainment value for a female,” he whispered.

“Forget that,” Skinner snapped rudely. “The important thing is that he was Alexin’s nurse.”

The man’s previously dull eyes sparked with sudden interest. “You know Alexin? Have you news of the Prince? Is he well? Is Rhianna treating him kindly?”

“Rhianna? Who in blazes is Rhianna?” Skinner barked.

The nurse cringed fearfully and began to tremble.

“Forgive me,” Skinner said, deliberately softening his tone. “I had believed Alexin to be in Ariana’s hands.”

“He was,” the nurse whispered. “But I heard a guard say that Rhianna challenged Ariana for the Prince, killed her and stole him for herself.”

“Tell me of this Rhianna. Is she as cruel as Ariana, if *any* female could be described as anything other than cruel?”

“Queen Rhianna has a reputation for being surprisingly considerate of her males,” the nurse whispered. “I know, in truth, that she is the suitor that Alexin would have chosen, had he not been kidnapped by the monkey-man. Well, except that it turned out that Alexin was already promised to Ariana, of course.”

Skinner wasn’t sure how to take that knowledge. He was glad Ariana was dead and relieved beyond measure that Alexin was in the hands of any female other than her, but it disturbed him immensely that Alexin was held captive by a woman he’d indicated a previous willingness to marry. Alexin had no reason to believe he would be rescued, so it was entirely possible that, terrified for his future, Alexin had gone with Rhianna willingly and now wouldn’t even *want* to be rescued.

But then he shook his head in furious negation. There was no such thing as a kind female, only one less cruel than the average. No Faerie female could truly give Alexin the kind of love the boy needed.

And maybe *he* hadn’t done such a brilliant job of being a good mate for the boy, but he was damned sure he was a better choice than *any* Faerie woman would be.

“You seem more sensible... I mean, less fearful than the other males,” Skinner said.

“I have suffered far less than they,” the nurse replied sadly, “though it’s only a matter of time before I become as they are.”

“No, that will never happen, my friend,” Skinner said, then quickly explained the situation to the nurse. “Can you try to explain this to the others while I go and collect the boys that live below?”

“It would be easier to do so if I take them out of this place. I won’t be able to gain their attention when they are standing staring at the beds in which they have been so often tortured.”

“Good idea,” Skinner agreed, admiring the nurse more by the second. “What’s your name?”

“Byers,” the nurse said, “though none have called me such since my wife died.”

“Not even Alexin?”

Byers shook his head and chuckled. “No. The Prince called me always his ‘Dinah’. He was the sweetest, most loving child.”

Frohike snorted wildly. “Alexin named his horse after his nurse?” he demanded, in the human tongue lest he upset Byers with the comment.

“That makes sense to *me*,” Langly retorted. “And it’s not funny, it’s sweet. And somewhat sad. Alexin must have so missed his nurse’s care that he named his horse Dinah and cared for it as his ‘Dinah’ had once cared for him.”

Skinner cleared his throat of a sudden lump of emotion, then turned to Byers and said, “Take the other males outside, we’ll talk more later.”

“I’ll take them to Alexin’s rose garden,” Byers replied. “That way I won’t have to lead them past the women in the courtyard.”

Skinner nodded his agreement and led Frohike and Langly towards the staircase which descended to the boys’ cells.

“He’s pretty bright for a Faerie,” Frohike remarked. “Probably because he had all those years as Alexin’s nurse when he wasn’t being abused. It’s remarkable how much more intelligent someone can appear if they aren’t always living in terror.”

“We should take him with us,” Langly said. “Just think how happy Alexin will be to see him, and the poor boy’s going to need all the pampering he can get after being kidnapped by first Ariana and now this Rhianna woman.”

“I’m perfectly capable of pampering him myself,” Skinner growled jealously.

“By the Gods, Skinner. You don’t understand *anything*, do you?” Frohike laughed. “A prince’s body is sacred. Not even Sylvana was permitted to see him unclothed. That’s why I was surprised to find Byers in the barracks. A prince’s nurse is of no use to a female. He’s a neuter.”

“What?”

“A nurse has no sexual organs. He is not only gelded but his... well, his member is surgically removed. Not for fear he’d abuse his charge, but because as a neuter, a ‘no-sex’, his touch is considered to be less likely to taint a boy’s innocence.”

“That’s monstrous,” Skinner said, his face paling.

“It’s Faerie female logic,” Frohike replied. “Which is *always* monstrous. I very nearly suffered the same fate when I was prisoner here. Some of the guards quite fancied having a little neuter dwarf to tease and torment. The groin of a neuter has a lot of raw nerve endings. They can be tortured endlessly for amusement, though since the females can’t actually take full pleasure of the male, they soon lose interest. I doubt Byers would have survived for long, had we not arrived to rescue him. Anyway, that’s why I’m saying there’s absolutely *no* excuse for you to feel jealous of Byers' relationship with Alexin. It truly is merely the pure and innocent love of a boy for his beloved nurse.”

“We cannot take him with us,” Skinner said, raising a hand for silence when Frohike opened his mouth to argue. “Because we have no spare horse. We will, however, return for him when Alexin is safe. Agreed?”

“Agreed,” Frohike said, though he muttered under his breath that *his* horse was perfectly capable of carrying a second rider.

“I’ll think about it,” Skinner snapped. “In the meantime, let’s get these poor boys out of this place and into the sunlight.”

They had entered a well-lit corridor. On either side of the corridor, there were several dozen black cell doors. “Can there be so many?” Skinner breathed.

“Every male child born within the queendom is housed here,” Frohike explained. “Remember that for every female who lives within this castle, there are probably a dozen living in small settlements scattered around the queendom. There are no males in those settlements. The females come here periodically and trade their produce for the privilege of mounting the barracks men. It provides a booming economy. Any male children from those couplings are bought back by the barracks, or forcibly stolen back if the females attempt to keep them, and then are raised here. So within these walls you’ll find perhaps as many as fifty male children of various ages at any given time.”

Except for a small, floor-level hatch in the cell doors through which food could be passed if a female chose not to enter, and a small grate high upon the wall so that a little light from the well-lit corridor turned the cell’s interior into a grey gloom rather than a black abyss, the cells were windowless, dark, cold, forbidding and totally inescapable.

Their interiors were equally bleak. Containing only a single narrow cot, a water bucket and an open drain in the far left corner, which seemingly doubled as a place to wash and a way for the cell’s occupant to relieve himself.

In the first cell that Skinner opened, there was a naked boy reclining on the cot, who sprang hurriedly upright the moment the door opened and then scrambled off the cot to kneel on the floor with his head bowed in obvious submission.

It wasn’t his servility which brought a growl to Skinner’s lips, but the boy’s posture. Rather than kneeling upright, the boy had spread his knees wide and arched his back so that his groin was fully displayed. More than this, however, the boy was frantically stroking his member to hardness with trembling fingers while his other hand lifted his sac and thrust it up and forwards as though in offering.

“I thought you said a boy was kept virgin until 18 years,” Skinner snarled, judging the boy to be no more than fifteen or sixteen years old.

“They are,” Frohike agreed. “Not through any sense of morality by the Faerie females but because experience has taught them that to take a boy before he’s that mature shortens his lifespan considerably. Barracks males live short unhappy lives anyway, but unless a boy is physically mature before the mating begins, his body fails even more swiftly.”

“Then why does he appear so...so...”

“Sluttish?” Frohike suggested dryly.

Skinner nodded.

“Because, as I said, he has been trained his whole life in preparation to be a barracks man. Though he is innocent yet and untouched by female hands, this behavior has been drilled into him. When a female enters his cell, he automatically displays himself for her pleasure.”

“We aren’t female,” Skinner pointed out.

“I doubt *that* has occurred to him, since none but a female guard has ever entered his cell. He probably didn’t even look at us before dropping to the floor and averting his gaze. Besides, he possibly doesn’t even know the difference between a male and a female anyway, since it’s unlikely he’s ever seen one of the other males. His behavior is so programmed into him that I doubt any thought is involved whatsoever. Someone enters his cell, and this is how he automatically behaves.”

“It’s an abomination,” Skinner growled. He stepped forward into the cell and barked, “Rise to your feet, boy. And look at me.”

The boy looked terrified and confused, but scrambled quickly to his feet. He placed his legs wide apart and frantically began to stroke himself to hardness again, since his erection had flagged slightly with the fear of the unexpected order.

“Stop,” Skinner snapped. “Stop touching yourself, boy.”

The boy’s beautiful blue eyes filled with tears and he began trembling uncontrollably, but his hands left his member and clasped each other in front of his belly as though that was the only way the boy could prevent them from automatically returning to his groin.

“Find the poor child some clothing,” Skinner said. “Fetch clothing for them all.”

“What are you going to do, Skinner? We can’t stay here to protect them and whatever changes you impose while we’re here will be undone the moment we leave this castle.”

“I think not,” Skinner said, his mouth twitching into a grim smile. “Until such time as we can return to establish some kind of long-term change, we’ll place the women inside these cells and give the males the freedom of the castle. I can cast a spell to seal the castle from the outside, so none can attack it in our absence.”

“There are still far more women than there are cells,” Langly pointed out. “We would have to place at least five in each, and the cells are barely large enough to comfortably hold two.”

“Their comfort is not my concern,” Skinner retorted. “I pray they *do* suffer greatly as they experience for themselves the cruelty that they have imposed upon their males. Once you have clothed them all, release the boys and lead them to the courtyard. I’ll cast a spell of compulsion on the females to make them enter the cells without protest.

“Then I’ll seal the cell doors with magic. Even if the women within use the delivery of their food in an attempt to intimidate the males into releasing them, the doors will not open. I think their attitudes may improve considerably during the time we are absent.”

“Then we’re moving on now?” Frohike asked.

“Time’s wasting,” Skinner said. “We need to get back to the human realm, collect Behaana and move northwards to find this Rhianna’s queendom.”

“I bet *Byers* knows where it lies,” Frohike suggested slyly.

“What is it with you and this damned nurse?” Skinner snarled. But then he shrugged. “If you want to bring him along, then do so. But his safety is yours and Langly’s responsibility. I have enough to worry about with Behaana and Alexin.”

~~~

 

Back to Index