She glanced at him once, pleased and amused, then turned her face toward the direction in which they were travelling and sang a low, soft song of a cambric shirt.
Up into the sky they ran, with the moonbeam beneath them, till Gramarye was a small irregular shape on a huge globe behind them. They came into the light of the smaller moon, just as the larger seemed to swing behind them, blocking the planet from their sight. They were in the dark of the moon now; its face was black behind them, its rim etched by scattered light, but they ran on a beam from the smaller moon, ruby beneath them. Then that ruby deepened and thickened, until it seemed to Magnus that he ran through liquid; his legs began to ache, and his steps slowed. His breath came in huge, tearing gasps, and he saw, dimly, that the smaller moon had turned dark too, while the larger had disappeared completely, and with it, the planet wherein lay his home; but the sight bothered him not at all, strangely, and he slogged onward, through a liquid that became thicker and thicker, yet his speed seemed not to slacken.
"Thou wilt never come to Elfland thus," the lady said, and reached down her hand toward him. He caught it, feeling himself unbelievably privileged to be allowed to touch her fingers; but she lifted him up behind her as though he weighed no more than a lady's fan, and he swung about onto the horse's rump, gripping its sides with his knees. She pulled his fingers down to her waist, saying, "Hold fast." Magnus did, with both hands, astounded that something that looked so dainty could seem like spring steel beneath velvet, and by the wonder of the curve of her hip beneath the heel of his hand. They rode in total darkness now; the only light was the glow that emanated from the lady herself, and from the sluggish crimson tide below them-but from the darkness all about came a hissing surge that grew into a roar, then retreated to a hiss that grew again and again in a regular rhythm, like the surge and ebb of the tide, but was compounded of white noise.
"Where are we, lady?" Magnus shivered, though he felt no chill.
"We ride between the worlds, young warlock," the Queen returned. "We ride in the Void."
Magnus felt his scalp prickle; the eerie sensation spread down his back and into his thighs.
But light blossomed ahead, swelling into a vista of trees and grass and a turquoise sky. "Are we come to Tir Chlis, milady?"
"Nay, wizard-knight," she returned, "for so I shall call thee, thou hast yet to be knighted, for I perceive thou dost merit it."
Magnus stared. "Why, how canst thou know?"
"From the tang of Cold Iron about thee, which runs deeper than bone-for here between worlds, it is the essence of a man that shows, not the dross of his skin and visage only."
"Muscle and bone may yet matter, in Tir Chlis." Magnus spoke from vivid memory.
"Aye, yet we are not come there yet." The vista grew wider and wider about them, till the horse's hooves thudded on solid earth. It slowed, nodding its head and blowing through its nostrils, then stopped. Magnus looked up at transparent leaves that seemed to have been carved from slices of emerald, growing from boughs that wore a golden sheen. Fruit hung from that tree, swelling with ripeness, like pears with double tops that turned at angles to one another. Magnus gave a cry of joy and swung down from the horse, leaping to catch at one of the fruits.
"Oh, nay, sir wizard!" the lady cried. "Do not touch the fruit of this garden!"
Magnus yanked his hand back just short of the fruit, and turned as he dropped back to the earth. "Oh, lady, I implore thee, let me pull some of it down for thee to feed upon! For we have journeyed long, and journeyed far, and thou must needs be a-hungered. Only fruit of such beauty as this could be fit for so fine and fair a lady as thyself!"
"Right gallantly spoke." She smiled, her eyes glowing. "Yet know, Sir Wizard, that he who doth touch that fruit will feel horror touch his heart, and he who doth seek to eat of it will die in torment."
Magnus looked up at the fruit sharply, then closely. "Lady, how can this be? For never saw I fruit that looked more marvelous and wholesome than these!"
"They are fair," she returned, "but this little world is but an island in the Void, with many worlds about it-and some are places of torment for souls that seek viciousness, who believe that only by strife and hurting of one another can they thrive. Nay, further-they might swear that only by beating and slaying of one another can the worthiest be found."
"'Tis hellish," Magnus breathed.
"Hellish indeed, and corrupt-and corruption doth breed disease. Nay, all the plagues that are in these hellish worlds do light here, and are gathered up by these fruits. 'Tis on this they batten-the energies of misery and agony that arise from millions of tormented souls."
Magnus drew back with a shudder.
"Therefore, seek not to satisfy thine hunger with such fruits as these," she counselled, "and be not concerned for me, for we of the elfin blood know hunger only rarely; for the greater part, we dine for pleasure alone. Yet thou, I see, art sore a-hungered, now that thou hast paused to think of food. Thou mortal folk must ever be gathering substance into thyselves, for thy bodies do spend it most extravagantly." She cupped a hand in her lap; something twinkled there, and gained form. "Yet I have here a loaf of bread." She held up both hands; energy sparkled between them, taking the form of a bottle. "And here I have a claret wine. Nay, take them from me, that I may descend, and thou mayest dine and rest thyself a while."
He came to her gladly, took the loaf and bottle in his left hand, and held up his right. She clasped it and stepped gracefully down from her mount, who immediately lowered its head and began to graze. The lady drifted over to a tree, folded herself beneath it, and spread her skirts about herbut in such manner as to reveal the outline of hip and thigh. "Come." She reached up toward him. "Sit by me, and dine."
Magnus sat gladly, set the bottle down, and took up the loaf-but, on the verge of breaking it, he remembered what he had heard about faerie food, and hesitated.
The lady laughed like the tinkling of the bells in her horse's mane. "Thou dost fear that tasting of the food of Elfland will bind thee to the elven kind, dost thou not? Yet thou art bound to me already by thine own desire and will, and I promise thee, this food will hold thee no longer than they."
Heartened by her promise, and not even thinking to question it, Magnus ate. A few bites were enough to satisfy him, and a single draft of the wine. The Queen folded them away, still amused, and patted her knee. "Come, lay down thine head and rest thee, and I will show thee fair visions that shall amaze thee."
Nothing loathe, Magnus lay down, breathing in the sweet aroma of her perfume, amazed at his own delight in her presence. "Why, then, show me, fair queen-but they must be sights wondrous indeed, to rival my first view of thee."
"Silver-tongued knave!" She gave him a playful tap on the lips-and he parted them immediately, but too late. "Now behold." She laid one cool hand across his forehead and pointed with the other.
The turquoise sky seemed to thicken there, churning in a whorl of smoke that opened like an iris to show a picture of a hard-packed dirt road, little more than a trail, running arrowstraight through a thicket of thorn bushes and briars, clustering so thickly that the road was frequently lost to view.
"See thou yon straitened track?" she asked.
"I see." Magnus was even more impressed with the huge panorama of leaden sky that stretched above the briars, even to the horizon, for the land was as flat as a tabletop. "What gloomy road is that?"
She gave him a keen look, though he could not have said whether it was of amusement or wariness. "That is the path of righteousness, young wizard, and few indeed are they who inquire after it. Why, then-wouldst thou live a righteous life?"
Magnus chilled the automatic answer on his tongue and seriously considered the issue, searching his feelings. Then, slowly, he nodded. "Aye, lady. I find it within me to hope that I shall. I do wish it, verily."