![[The High King's Daughter]](randal6.gif)
![[The High King's Daughter]](daughter_big.jpg)
I. Borderlands
A gust of wind blew in through the doorway of the abandoned hut, driving the stinging rain before it. The fire on the stone hearth fizzled and went out in a thin trail of gray smoke. Randal of Doun sighed, pulled up the hood of his wizard's robe against the cold and wet, and started over. Carefully, he laid the kindling in place, then held his hands over the arrangement of sticks and tinder and murmured the words of fire-starting.
For a moment nothing happened, even though Randal felt the peculiar mental snap—once experienced, never forgotten— that told him the spell had worked. Then, without warning, the sticks and tinder ignited in a flash, sending a tongue of orange flame reaching up to lick at his sleeves. He jerked his hands away from the hearth and sat back on his heels, watching resignedly as the fire began to fill the hut with hazy smoke.
The closer we get to Elfland, he thought, the more unreliable our human magic becomes. It shouldn't have taken me more than one try to start a fire like that, even with the wind against me. I've known that spell since I was an apprentice.
The interior of the hut darkened briefly as Randal's cousin Sir Walter—four year's Randal's senior, and, at the age of twenty, already a knight—stooped to come in through the low doorway.
"Only one day's worth of food in our saddlebags." The knight's breath made a gray cloud in front of his lips as he spoke. "I hope Master Madoc finds the gateway before our rations give out."
Randal paused in his task of feeding more kindling to the fire, and looked up at his cousin. "It won't be long now," he said. "I can feel it."
"I hope you're right," said Walter. He sat down on the dirt floor near the fire, and held out his hands to the flames. Faint wisps of steam rose from the sodden wool of his cloak. "It's late autumn already. Once the snow falls and the passes close, we'll be stuck up here in the northern marches until spring."
Randal shook his head. "Once we find the gateway, earthly food and drink are no good anyway—I know that much. Where are Lys and Madoc?"
"There's a spring nearby, Madoc says," Walter replied. "They went off looking for it while I tended to the horses. Lys was going to bring back some water, and Madoc ... I'm not sure what he was planning to do. He said something about talking to the hills and listening to the wind, whatever that means."
"It means we're close to the gateway," said Randal. For a while, he sat watching the wisps of smoke that curled up from the fire. Then he looked up. "You've come this far," he said to his cousin. "All the long road from Bell Castle ... there's still time for you to turn back before we reach the gate. I'm the only one who needs to go through."
"I gave you my word," said Walter. "Do you really think I'd abandon a friend and a kinsman at a time like this?"
"No," Randal said. "But I had to ask. Something tells me that bringing the High King's daughter out of Elfland isn't going to be as simple as it sounds."
Walter laughed. "Don't fool yourself, cousin—nothing about this quest of ours is going to be simple. You can worry about getting the princess home to Brecelande; I'll worry about what comes after."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean," said Walter, "that setting the princess on her father's throne is likely to make storming the gates of Elfland look easy. There's not a one among us who's a great lord, or even friends with one. A knight-errant, a foreign minstrel, and a journeyman wizard—not what I'd pick to pull order out of chaos, or make the earls bend the knee to an unknown girl."
Another gust of wind blew more rain into the hut. Raindrops hissed on the hot coals, but this time the fire kept on burning. Randal pulled his robe closer around him and huddled closer to the hearth.
"I know," he said, rubbing his hands together to work some life back into flesh gone stiff with cold. In chilly, wet weather like this, the ugly scar running across his right palm ached unmercifully: a perpetual reminder that some actions could have lifelong consequences. "But we have to try. All our lives, Brecelande's had nothing but wars and struggles for power. We've been lucky so far—Doun is well-guarded and prosperous, and the Schola protects Tarnsberg—but it's only a matter of time before the troubles touch them too."
As he finished speaking, Lys's slight, dark-haired figure appeared in the doorway of the hut. The young Occitanian minstrel was dressed in boy's clothing—her usual custom on the road. In one hand she carried a goatskin water-bag, and in the other a lute in a leather case.
She hung the waterskin from a stub on one of the low, rough- hewn rafters, then sat down beside Randal and took out her lute. The strings jangled as she ran her fingers across them; she frowned, and began the task of bringing them back into tune.
"He's right, Walter," she said quietly to the knight, as she plucked first one string and then another. "Believe me, I know. If there's anything that might keep fighting away from your home and family, then it's worth a try."
She fell silent, her blue eyes darkened by memories, and Randal knew she was thinking about her own family—a troupe of travelling players from the far south, attacked and murdered by the bandits that infested the rulerless kingdom of Brecelande.
For a while nobody said anything. The strings of the lute sounded one at a time under Lys's fingers, single notes repeating over and over as they gradually came into agreement. The girl began to sing, a melancholy tune that seemed to drift upward along with the smoke from the fire, and lose itself somewhere among the rafters.
"Home, home, home, gladly would I be,
Home, home, home, in my own country,
For the oak and the ash and the bonny rowan tree
They all flourish green in my own country."
Outside the hut, the gray light slowly faded, making the doorway into a low rectangle of black. The wind gusted and howled outside. Finally, a footstep sounded on the threshold, and Randal looked up from the fire to see Madoc the Wayfarer coming into the hut. The master wizard's dark brown hair and close-trimmed beard were soaked with rain, and drops of water fell from the edges of his saffron tunic and his kilted cloak of gray wool. He looked exhausted, as though he came from long hours of backbreaking labor, or from time spent in difficult and powerful conjurations.
"The gateway to Elfland is only a short ride from here," he said to Randal, as he joined the others around the hearth. "I can guide you that far, once the sun is up, but no farther—I left the Fair Realm once before, of my own will, and no man or woman who does that can ever return."
Randal poked at the fire with a twig, and watched the sparks follow the smoke-trails upward. "What's it like?" he asked. "Elfland, I mean. All I know is what the masters told us at the Schola: that elves and demons live on planes of existence outside our own, where time and place have no meaning. I've never had any dealings with the elfin plane, but I've met demons before ... and if elves are anything like them—"
Madoc gave a weary chuckle. "Hardly, lad. And don't make that suggestion where someone from the Fair Realm can hear you ... they might not see the joke."
Lys ran her fingers across the strings of the lute in a faint, questioning chord. "The songs and stories all talk about the dangers of Elfland," she said. "Are you saying they lied?"
Madoc shook his head. "No," he said. "They spoke all the truth they knew. Elfland is a wondrous place to visit, but a perilous one as well—and the greatest danger is that you may never wish to leave it."
"Is it that beautiful?" asked Walter curiously.
"Beauty is the least of it," said the master wizard, a note of sadness coming into his voice, "though the Erlking's land is not called the Fair Realm as an idle compliment. But all those things that time can touch, all those things that here in this human world will someday rust or decay or fall from their prime—in Elfland, these same things will stand forever at their best. Swords that never rust, musical instruments that never lose their tune, trees that bear at once fruit and blossom and green spring leaf ... and magic of power and subtlety beyond human measure."
The master wizard sighed. "I wished never to leave there, but leave I did—once I'd taken the High King's daughter to safety, I went back to help him fight his enemies. But time runs strangely in the Fair Realm, and when I came to Brecelande I found my friend already dead and buried."
Lys looked up from her lute. "I've heard tales like that, about travellers spending years in Elfland over a single night," she said. "And other stories, too—is it true that you should never eat or drink there?"
Madoc half-smiled. "You'll get very hungry and thirsty if you don't," he replied. "The fruits of Elfland aren't poison, and eating them won't keep you a prisoner there forever. But all those who taste them are changed."
Randal fell silent. Lys went on playing—haunting, dying notes and minor chords, like an echo of Randal's mood. The night grew darker, the fire burned low, and at last the four travellers fell into a cold and uncomfortable sleep.
Morning dawned gray and watery. In silence they saddled and mounted the horses that had carried them north from the siege of Bell Castle. After riding for some hours, they came over a low ridge of hills, and looked down on a slate-colored sea, stretching in an unbroken line to the northern horizon. For days they had ridden through rocky and broken ground, covered with gorse and heather, but here the grass grew lush and green on the shore. A stand of silver birch trees grew thick in the grass, all the way down to the water's edge.
Walter reined in his horse at the top of the rise. "This is the gateway you and Randy have been talking about?"
"Yes," Madoc replied. "Will you come with me?"
Walter started his horse trotting forward, coming to a halt on the grass itself. He turned and looked to see if the others were following. "If this is the road by which we can bring peace and plenty to Brecelande," said the knight, "then nothing will hold me back."
Randal spurred his own horse forward to draw even with his cousin. Lys and Madoc came up more slowly behind them, and all four started into the birch trees that stood between the meadow and the sea. They had been riding through the slender, white- barked trees for some minutes before Randal noticed that the birch thicket stretched farther out than it should have.
"I hear the ocean ahead of us," he said. "When will we reach it?"
"It isn't far now," Madoc replied.
And Randal saw that he spoke the truth. The trees ended abruptly at the edge of the water, under the cloudy sky. "Go straight on from here," Madoc said. "I can go no farther. This is the boundary between the worlds, where Elfland touches the lands of men."
Randal, Walter, and Lys urged their horses forward into the stream. The fluid came up to their horses' bellies, and then higher. Randal heard an outcry from Lys.
"The water ... it's warm!"
They reined in their horses again, and sat looking down at the thick, sluggishly flowing liquid that stained red everything it touched.
"It's blood," Walter said to Randal after a long moment. "What kind of place have you brought us to?"
Randal could only shake his head, and look to Madoc still waiting behind them.
"All the blood that's shed on earth runs through the springs of this country," the master wizard replied from the shore. "Carry on, and be of good heart, and perhaps you will lower the river that flows between the Fair Realm and our own." Then he turned his horse, and disappeared back among the trees.
"Let's go," said Randal at last. He rode forward, and the others followed.
If the river of blood never grew shallower as they rode, at least it never grew deeper. Before long the birch trees vanished behind them, and still no farther shore appeared. The air hung motionless and heavy, and low gray clouds hid the location of the sun—if any sun still shone.
Then a dark line appeared on the horizon ahead of them. The darkness grew closer as they rode on, until it became a bank of land looming gray and mossy above them, and Randal saw that they were riding toward the farther shore. They urged their horses onward, and scrambled up the bank, going from shadow into sunlight as they rode. The last of the clouds burned away as they reached the top of the bank, and they stood on emerald- green grass beneath a sky of clear, perfect sapphire blue.
Randal turned in his saddle to look back at the way they had come. He bit back a cry of surprise. The river of blood had vanished, and the field on which they now stood stretched all the way back to the southern horizon.
Was that river really the gateway? he wondered. If it was, then it's true that elfin magic works differently from the magic wizards know.
His cousin interrupted his thoughts. "All right, Randy— which way should we go now?"
Randal turned back, and saw Walter pointing at the land ahead of them, where three paths led out across the gently rolling hills. On the right hand side, a narrow path headed sharply uphill, blocked by boulders and sharp rocks, bushes, and brambles, with long thorns hemming it closely on either side.
"If we went that way," said Walter, "it would be slow, and we would only be able to ride in single file. But if I were by myself, that's the path I'd choose—one man could hold it alone against many."
To the left, a pair of standing stones marked the beginning of a long path, broad and level, leading straight away to the horizon. Lys looked at it, and Randal saw her shiver.
"The stones remind me of teeth," she said, "and it gives me a bad feeling. We could travel fast on a track like that—but I think that somebody chasing us could travel even faster."
Directly in front of them, between the other two paths, ran another road, this one marked only by the deeper color of the grass, as it meandered among the gentle hills.
"I say we take the middle road," said Randal after a while. "It doesn't seem either too easy or too hard, and it's more pleasing to look at than either of the others. This is the Fair Realm, after all."
They rode on under a blue sky marked with high, white cloud. The air smelled sweet and clean, and a warm breeze ruffled the higher grass to either side of the road. At length, just as the sun was setting, they came to a single tree standing on top of a low hill. Ahead of them, the darker green of the road wound its way still farther northward among the grassy hills.
The three companions paused on the hilltop beside the tree. Globes of golden fruit hung from its branches, and beneath it sat a young woman in a dress of grass-green velvet, absorbed in her task of threading glass beads on a cord. She laid aside her handiwork and stood to greet the three, speaking musical words that Randal couldn't quite understand, and holding out a wooden bowl full of the golden fruit.
"I believe she wants us to have them," said the young wizard. "And if we want to be guests here in Elfland, I don't think we should refuse."
He bent down in his saddle and took one of the fruits. Lys took another, and then, after a moment's hesitation, so did Walter. The young woman in green took the last fruit, raised it to her lips, and took a bite.
Again Walter looked at Randal. "What now?"
Randal weighed the fruit on the palm of his hand. The golden sphere felt ripe and bursting with juice. After weeks of eating nothing but trail rations, his mouth watered at the fragrance—a rich, heady scent, like honey and spices mingled together.
"Madoc said that the fruits of Elfland would neither kill us nor imprison us," he said at last. "And I'm willing to chance whatever else may happen."
He bit into the fruit. The yellow flesh was soft and sweet, and the sticky juice ran down to cover his chin. Then he raised his eyes. The hills, which before had seemed covered only with blowing grass and wildflowers, he saw now were dotted with small cottages, and not far away rose a castle glistening with glass and gold.
"Welcome to Elfland," said the young woman, her smile both friendly and triumphant. "We have long awaited your coming. The Erlking expects you."
This sample chapter comes from THE HIGH KING'S DAUGHTER (Circle of Magic #6, Troll Books, 1990) ISBN 0-8167-1837-7 $2.95This book will be reissued in paperback in September 2001. You can see other Circle Of Magic books, all of our novels, or, you can go back to our home page.