"It hath not been so long as that," Gregory assured him, gaze drifting. "Nay, and this trance hath restored me even as sleep doth."
"And how didst thou track me?"
"Why, I knew where thou wert yestere'en, so I went to the marge of the stream and touched soil and rock, till I found traces of thee."
Magnus's eyes widened; he had not known Gregory shared his own mixed blessing of psychometry, the ability to "read" the residue of emotions left in inanimate objects. "So thou didst track me by the echoes of my feelings? Eh! Little brother! I would not have had thee share mine agonies so!"
"I could bear it." But the paleness of the youth's face made clear how deeply the experience had shaken him. "Yet I was grieved to find thee so sorely wounded in thine heart, and shocked to find..." He broke off, looking away.
"Shocked to learn that even I, the eldest, might feel I had failed?" Magnus asked softly. "Shocked that even I might feel my life had been to no purpose?" He cast about for something reassuring to say, but could only manage, "All men feel so at some time or another, little brother. Being eldest, and accustomed to command and achievement, doth not make me immune." And, with a shock, he realized that was true.
"I had not known," Gregory muttered.
Magnus nodded. "Big brothers, too, are human, my lad." And some, he reflected, were more human than others. "But how thou couldst perceive thyself as failing, when thou dost succeed in aught thou dost attempt-!"
"I have not suceeded in the finding of love," Magnus reminded him.
"Thou art young yet," Gregory returned, which was quite something, coming from a thirteen-year-old.
"Gramercy; I had feared I was ancient. And I have not succeeded in the world of Faerie, as I doubt not thou hast perceived. Nay, I have made a fool of myself."
"Yet thou didst succeed!" Gregory looked up, surprised. "Didst thou not know? Thou and thy co-walker succeeded, where one alone would not have!"
"Succeeded?" Magnus frowned. "Why, how is this? Succeeded, in bringing him into the Faerie Queen's clutches, when by himself, he would have been able to resist her blandishments?"
"Not forever," Gregory said firmly. "If his despair was a match for thine own, his resolve would have crumbled, and he would have gone to the Queen-aye, and that ere long, too."
Magnus had to admit that Gregory was probably rightbut, then, he usually was.
"Yet by himself," Gregory went on, "he would ne'er ha' been more than a servant. Nay, she would have dandled him after her endlessly, he ever hoping for some sign of favor, ever yearning for the ecstasies she promised-yet would never have attained to them, for the game to her was to see how deeply she could bind him by his own desires, with the least satisfaction."
"Must the Faerie Folk ever be playing games?"
"Aye. What else shall they do with their interminable lives? They have no need to labor, they have no duties to occupy them. What else shall save them from dying of boredom, save games of one sort or another?"
Magnus was amazed all over again, not at how much his brother knew-he was getting used to that-but at the depth of his understanding.
"Yet thou, by thine appearance and imminent departure, won through to her," Gregory explained. "She could see that the force of Albertus's resentment, of his will to banish thee, was stronger than thy desire to stay-so she took the only means she knew, to increase thy desire."
"And his." Magnus stiffened in a moment of insight. "She could not lose thereby, could she? For the action that inflamed my passion, inflamed his also, till it burst the bonds of his reserve and made him abandon all else in his need for her."
"Even so," Gregory agreed. He started to say something else, then caught himself.
"I am a cat's-paw, eh?" Magnus's mouth twisted in a sardonic smile. "Thou dost think that she but made use of me, as a tool to win the other whom she truly wished."
"Nay, not so," Gregory quickly assured him. "She would have been as glad to have thee as him."
"Why, what tolerance!" Magnus said, with a hard laugh. "How gracious, to accept either one! How open-minded of her! Yet I think she would rather have had him, brother, for he was of her world."
"Mayhap." Gregory frowned.
"And so." Magnus pulled on his boots and stood, buckling on his sword belt. "So he hath gone to the elven kind, and is lost. Doubly lost, tenfold lost, for winning the favors of the Queen's body; the ecstasy she brings him will have him ever panting after her for another favor."
"Aye; and she must give them," Gregory said, "or his desire will curdle into hatred, and he'll storm away from her."
"I doubt it not. So she will bed him now and again, ever in time to keep him from turning away, and will hold him all his days--or till she tires of him." He turned a bleak gaze upon his little brother. "How then? How then, when he is cast out of Elfland? Will he not despair, and seek death?"
"She dare not enrage him too greatly," Gegory pointed out, "for he is a mortal who can wield Cold Iron, and a wizard, who doth know the ways in which to wield it most shrewdly 'gainst the elven kind. Nay, if 'tis as much his desire that holds him, as her own, then she must needs quench his yearning when her own doth lapse."
Magnus frowned down at him. "Dost thou know this of thyself?"
"Nay; I had it of Vidor. Such liasons are naught new, in Tir Chlis. They endure seven years-or at the least, 'tis seven years till the one enthralled returns again to mortal kind."
"Time may run at different rates within the Faerie's spells." Magnus nodded. "So he is gone from his enemies for that long. How will the land fare without him?"
"His father, his mother, and Vdor endure," Gregory reminded him. "They may mourn his loss, but will preserve his inheritance."
"If he doth wish to take it up."
"He will," Gregory said, with some certainty. "The Faerie-taken return to waste away, or with greater zest for life-and I think that Albertus is not the kind to pine."
Looking within himself, Magnus had to agree. He would survive out of sheer stubbornness, if nothing else-but he was equally likely to stay alive just out of anger. He nodded. "He will live, and thrive. Thou sayest he will have greater appetite for life?"
"Aye; Faerie will drain him or fill him to bursting, the one or the other. And he will return with knowledge of elven magics, added to his own."
Magnus shuddered at the thought. "He will be a most puissant wizard."
"Aye, in the future-and for now, he is happy. Or if not happy, at least living in delight."
Magnus wondered at his brother's distinction, but decided he didn't want to hear it explained.
8
Rod looked up, then looked up again, wide-eyed. Sure enough, that was Magnus, riding into the village square. But why the look of cold determination? What had happened to his son in the forest?
Somehow, he didn't think he should ask. The lad would tell him, if and when he was ready.
But there were some things he could say. He stepped toward the young man, waving. "Good to see you back, son! Changed your mind?"
"Resolved it, rather." Magnus dismounted and stood beside him. "We must have some purpose in living, must we not? And if we have none, we must make it." He glanced around to be sure no one was near, and lowered his voice. "Folk have the right to leave this place, if they wish it. Let us see if there are any we should aid."
Rod grinned and slapped Magnus on the shoulder while he wondered at the boy's words. But there would be time enough to puzzle them out later. For now, mending fences was more important. "I don't know about you, but it's been a while since I've eaten. Let's go find a tankard of ale and something to munch."
Magnus glanced up at the sun. "Aye; 'tis noon. I find I could surround a flagon."
"Just take the ale out of it first, okay?"
They found the tavern, got a tankard each and some sausage, that being all the tavernkeeper had on hand. He served them himself, since Hester was still in school. Rod watched Magnus keenly for signs of regret, but didn't spot more than a sardonic twist of the lips.