Black Lament
Page 23

“You present such a fearful appearance at this moment that I doubt you would get a truthful answer,” Puck said.
“Does Oberon’s glamour increase his strength or speed?” I asked Puck, getting irritated with this circular conversation.
He shrugged. “Who can say? It has been so long since Lord Oberon appeared without his glamour that he’s probably forgotten his true nature.”
“That’s not real helpful,” I said. “Are you here to help or to annoy me?”
“Who can say?” Puck repeated, winking at me.
“Yeah, okay, you’re cute,” I said, grabbing Puck’s shoulders and spinning him around. “Move along.”
He glanced back at me. “Remember, Oberon has as much at stake as you do.”
Then he disappeared into the crowd.
“That was useful,” Beezle said.
“You don’t sound sarcastic,” I said.
“That’s because I’m not. Puck helped you out.”
“Maybe I’m delirious from all the monster-fighting, but I fail to see…”
“Ladies and gentlemen of the court, the trial by combat will begin in one minute!” Puck announced. “The combatants will now step forth into the ring.”
I turned toward the center of the room and was surprised to see an actual boxing ring set on a dais in the middle of the room. Puck stood in the middle of the ring wearing a tuxedo he hadn’t been wearing a minute before.
In one corner of the ring stood Oberon. He’d stripped off the signs of his office, the jewels and furs and velvets, and wore only a pair of leather breeches. His chest was thin and milk white, but ropy muscle showed underneath his skin. In one hand he held a broadsword with a basket hilt.
“I’m not stripping down to my Skivvies,” I said to Beezle.
“Why not? Oberon might take one look at your little belly pooch and run away in terror,” he replied.
“Hark who’s talking about a belly pooch,” I said.
“Madeline has gotten thinner, in any case,” Nathaniel said.
“No, I haven’t,” I said automatically. How could I? I was overweight to begin with and now I was pregnant. I was only going to get bigger.
“No, she…” Beezle said, and then trailed off, frowning as he looked at me. “Actually, you have. I wonder if…”
“Madeline Black, please step into the ring!” Puck said in a singsong voice. “Your complete and utter destruction cannot take place without your participation!”
I climbed into the ring, wearing my bloodstained jeans and shirt and holding Lucifer’s sword. “You’re not as cute as I thought you were,” I said to Puck.
“Wait awhile and see if I change your mind,” Puck said in an undertone. Then, in a voice loud enough for everyone to hear, he said, “Welcome, ladies and gentlemen of the court and honored guests! Today’s entertainment is a trial by combat between our very own high Lord Oberon and the lady Madeline Black ap Azazel, representative of Lucifer’s court.”
“Uh-uh,” I said, not wanting the faeries to use my association with Lucifer as a new excuse to try to kill me. “I’m not representing anyone but me, and I’ve disavowed Azazel as my father.”
“Very well,” Puck said. “Madeline Black, then, representative of no one except herself. The rules of combat are these—there shall be no use of magic to harm one another within the ring. Combatants may use physical weapons only, with no assistance from outside the ring. There shall be no mercy offered and none given. This is a fight to the death. If these rules are broken by one combatant, then they no longer apply to the other. Begin!”
Puck spun a quarter turn and disappeared, reappearing beside Nathaniel and Beezle at one outside corner of the ring.
Oberon gave a wild war cry and charged me with his blade out to strike. I parried his blow quickly and slashed under his arms toward his stomach.
As quick as lightning, Oberon danced away from me, the tip of my blade never even coming close to his skin. I spun back to face him just as his sword slashed down at the shoulder of my sword arm.
I was fast, but not fast enough. The sword bit through my thin T-shirt and into the muscle just under the joint. As the sword cut me I felt a little sting of pain in the back of my neck. I clamped my teeth together so as not to cry out as he slid the blade out again. I would not give Oberon the satisfaction of knowing he had hurt me.
I turned on him more aggressively, hacking at whatever I could reach with Lucifer’s sword. It seemed he was always just a little faster, just a hairbreadth farther away than I thought.
A dull headache started to pound behind my eyes as my temper rose and I had to suppress my magic. All that power careened around inside me, looking for an outlet, and it took half my concentration just to keep it under control.
Blood dripped down my arm and made my hands slippery on the grip. My shoulder throbbed every time I swung the sword at the faerie king. I was starting to feel woozy. I hadn’t considered that it would be so difficult to defeat Oberon without magic. I never realized what a crutch my power had become. If something annoyed me, I just blasted it out of the way. I couldn’t do that now.
Oberon had a self-satisfied look on his face. He knew he was winning, and as he feinted and parried and did everything except dance a little jig, I got angrier and angrier.
And, as happened sometimes when I got angry, I suddenly saw what was before me with complete clarity.
Oberon had cheated.
“You cheated,” I said loudly, blocking his sword once more.
“Come, now, Agent Black,” Oberon said smugly. “We will have none of that. If you lose this battle, it will be because of your own incompetence.”
“Or because,” I said, and it was getting hard to speak, “you poisoned me.”
There was a gasp from the watching crowd as I pulled the tiny needle from the back of my neck. I’d felt something sting me when Oberon had cut me in the shoulder, but I’d assumed it was sympathetic pain from the muscle that connected to the joint.
“Someone, probably your queen, shot me in the neck with this when you cut me,” I said, slowly but clearly. “That means, I think, that the rules are forfeit.”
I looked at Puck, who nodded, his eyes no longer merry.
Oberon had dropped his blade to his side, the smug look replaced by calculation.
“And if the rules are forfeit,” I said, and stepped forward before he could think, laying my open palm over his heart, “then I can use magic.”
11
“STOP HER!” TITANIA CRIED.
Oberon’s eyes widened as all the pent-up magic inside me released into his body. I had just enough will left to focus that power so that it didn’t spill over onto everyone in the court.
A massive stream poured from my hand into Oberon. There was a tremendous flash of light, and for a moment it seemed the universe froze. It took everything I had to keep standing, to give the illusion of strength. The poison worked its way into my blood. I felt it killing me by inches.
There was an explosion of magic, and the shock wave that pulsed out of Oberon’s body had enough force to knock down everyone in the immediate vicinity, including me. The magic that was bound to Oberon dissipated into the ether. He was finished.
I struggled to my feet, swaying as the poison made me dizzy. Nathaniel climbed over the ropes at the edge of the ring and came to my side, his arm propping me up. Beezle hovered worriedly.
I felt a subtle warming as Nathaniel pressed his hand over the wound in my shoulder, healing me. The heat ran through my body, burning out the poison, closing all my existing wounds. The child inside me fluttered as Nathaniel’s power touched it.
“Thank you,” I murmured.
Nathaniel brushed his hand over my cheek. “The claw marks from the Hob still remain. You have quite a dashing scar now.”
Beezle landed on my shoulder, squeezing me with his claws. “How are we going to get out of this one?”
All around us the courtiers were murmuring and coming to their feet. Everyone looked around for Oberon, and when they didn’t see him there was a collective gasp. Then Titania screamed.
“Get her! Kill her! Avenge your lord!”
There was a clatter of armor as several soldiers climbed into the ring. I spun toward them, ready to defend myself, the sword in one hand, my other hand fisted.
But Puck stood in the way, and none of the soldiers seemed inclined to knock him over. I wondered just what his position was in the court. “My lady, you have already violated the rules of combat by interfering in the fight. Do not worsen your position by ignoring the pact that you made with Madeline Black.”
“What care I for that agreement when she has killed my lord?” Titania said, her face a mask of grief and anger. “I am under no obligation to keep to the terms that she made with Oberon.”
“I did not kill your lord,” I said softly, but my voice carried.
“Then where is he?” Titania asked.
I held up my closed fist, and then opened my palm. In the center of my hand lay a tiny, sleeping faerie, the size of a housefly.
Titania put her hand to her mouth. “What have you done?”
“I didn’t kill him,” I said. “So there is no blood price, and no vengeance to be had.”
All I’d done was remove the eons of glamour and magic that Oberon had used to cloak himself, and reverted him back to his original form.
And his original form had just the smallest fraction of magic compared to the illusion he’d built up over time. It would take him centuries to return to the form he’d used to try to kill me.
“Madeline Black followed the rules of trial by combat as set forth,” Puck said. “By your own agreement, you are permitted no vengeance, whatever she has done.”
“Where lies your loyalty, Puck?” Titania asked, her eyes narrowed. “With your queen, or with this child of Lucifer?”
“My loyalty lies with my queen, so long as my queen is loyal to her word,” Puck replied.