Swan on the Moor

Chapter 12

Weylin pressed close to the wall, tuning in his wolf-hearing to any footsteps. He had chosen this little out-of-the-way place in the knowledge that few apart from he and other shifters ever went there, for it was little more than a cave. It changed location from time to time as well – the Sithen had never been a place to conform to physics – and one day it would be incongruously in the centre of a wildflower field, the next, at the edge of the lake. Today it had chosen a bald desert plain, the apparent home of a few air sprites and little else. Weylin had never before even seen this empty, barren land but he had tuned his senses to the magic of the cave, for it had its own 'flavour', as did any faerie location or item should one choose to seek it, and had been led here by the wending paths of the Faerie mound. He now crouched here, waiting, for the approach of what he prayed would be, knew had to be, a fellow conspirator.

He was afraid. There was no way around it. He thought surely, after he had beheaded Adalardo, that it would be over. That Faerie would prosper, that Avalbane had not completely lied in his rumours and whispers of Adalardo's weakness and loss of magic. Even the old King had believed him. It had to be true. He had, in the depths of the night, begged himself to believe it, despite what he had seen Avalbane do, under the cover and safety of his beauty. He always knew how to charm those who mattered, with magic, or with honeyed words if nothing else. Weylin had cleaved to him because he had been powerful and strong, and the Wolf-Lord had not been, had been little more than of minor importance, and Avalbane talked of glory. He knew how he had taken slow control of little things that seemed hardly to matter and warped them into darker places...Weylin was one of the few who knew that the Dusk Lord had not simply abandoned Faerie, as accepted knowledge went, but that he was imprisoned and tormented somewhere within the Sithen. He had never dared look for him, never followed Avalbane when he went to see him, so often, but he knew. Avalbane spoke to him as one might a pet, sometimes, something that could not answer back or tell anyone else. He was kind to Weylin – well, he did not harm him physically, at least – but the sinister way he caressed words of torment as he told Weylin of his command over the powerless, his joy in their pain, chilled him. He knew the depth of Avalbane's hatred for all things mortal and human, anything that faded, anything weak. He could not even begin to guess at the depth of his emotion towards the Dusk Lord, for he had, over the years, put together a thousand tiny pieces of information and realised the secret truth Avalbane must have worked so hard to erase. He had never spoken of it, not even to his Lord. He knew he would end up under Avalbane's knife and smiling gaze, it would be his flesh into which Avalbane carved bloody representations of the rays of the sun with tender ecstasy. And, unlike his other victims who sometimes lived to tremble, speechless, nursing odd wounds which they could not explain, Weylin was under no illusion he would survive.

Yet he could shift again. In his deepest desires he had prayed that he could regain his other form. The day he realised he could not change was as if half of his soul had been ripped out. The keening of the bereft shifters had shaken the foundations of the Sithen as they howled out their grief to the skies, but no-one could change a thing. Humans had feared the world was ending as their combined agony caused earthquakes and storms in the Upperworld, but nothing was returned to them. And now, as simply as a long-lost friend returns into one's life, he could shift. His strong paws could pound over the earth, all his senses on fire, free. He was himself again. And yet...he had seen the look in Avalbane's eyes when he had watched him and the Pooka Woman change their forms. He had

seen, known, the plans formulating behind those blinding eyes. He had no desire to rend the flesh of anyone, to be anyone's weapon. He just wanted to be free. And now, finally, he had realised why the power was returning. Avalbane longed to believe, make the whole of Faerie believe that it was his power...well, this was true, after a fashion. But before Avalbane had torn out his tongue, his eyes and his fingers the history-teller to whom Weylin had spoken had, eyes darting, mentioned one last strange rumour about humanity and the fae and Avalbane. He had never thought it important before; just a stupid detail in a thousand inhabitants of the world, and as everyone knew, the oldest of the history-tellers barely saw another being from one month to the next, bar their individual student to whom they taught the history. They were pure scholars, fae of wisdom, and living beings meant little to them. They were submerged in their songs and dreams of history, singing and weaving the great stories anew in their minds. He had been the only being left who had known this one tiny fact, for Avalbane had worked hard to erase it, and those who knew for the most part were those who would not be missed, were barely known to exist anyway. Now, however, Weylin knew. It was only to easy to connect the dots to the way Avalbane had been so instrumental in drumming up the hatred for his ex-fiancée who he had had driven from the Sithen after she left the Lord of Light for not another Sidhe but a human, and dared to return to Faerie heavy with his seed. Everyone had thought his fury had been nothing more than betrayal and condemned the swan-lady for her actions, renounced her and expressed appalled shock at her preferring a man of mud than the beautiful Avalbane, her betrothed from birth, but only, with dawning horror, did Weylin realise why Avalbane had been so righteous, so filled with determined hatred, for a fae he had otherwise appeared indifferent to through the course of their betrothal.

Had Weylin been a braver soul, he would have simply announced his knowledge, but he knew the folly of this from Avalbane's own example. Subtlety won supporters, won wars. He would start with someone to whom the others would listen, someone who could surely not be convinced by beauty; someone who had the strength to stay true to his doubts and beliefs and feared not to voice them. He had seen at the feast that this was his only hope and even in his whirling mind, unable any longer since he had executed the king to work through a full thought process with any effectiveness, he knew something had to stop.

His ears, even in this form, pricked. Footsteps approaching, yes. He sniffed, and the scent of bronze and steel, of blood and rage, drifted past. Warrior smells. Yes.

"Caadman," he whispered, daring to glance out from the cave onto the bleak landscape before him.

"Wolf-Lord," a voice as impassive as a sword greeted him, and the Warrior Caadman stepped into view.

"I have to speak with you," Weylin whispered, gesturing him into the cave. "At the feast – the words you spoke. The doubt in your voice. I...I can help you."

Caadman stared at him for a moment, as one in a trance, and simply stepped aside. Weylin's blood froze and he knew in a heartbeat the mistake he had made. The warrior really had succumbed to his king's might.

"Ah, to be king," said a voice like the song of spring birds and sunlight, steeped in false sorrow. "Even those most trusted betray you. Weylin, I should have known, but thankfully Lord Caadman has come to see the truth in my words, and the opportunities I can offer. He has become loyal. You, however, I cannot, sadly, say the same of."

As the figure of Avalbane, shining in burning magnificence in the height of his power, stepped into view, Weylin's heart began to stop before the king had even drawn a blade.

"I would leave, Caadman," was the last thing the Wolf heard. "I thank you for your loyalty and honour in these dark times. I would not wish you to see the pitiful end of a traitor, so unlike yourself."

There was not even time to scream.

When it was over and Avalbane allowed the barely recognisable body of that which was once a Sidhe drop to the ground, he leaned down and cut from his head a hank of his hair, more a matted wolf pelt. He brushed it fastidiously off on his sleeve, and, smiling tucked it away in the folds of his silk robe.