.
“Lagan (Your Majesty), I distinctly recall asking them to bring me to Mother,” I noted.
We were on the west exterior slope of the Fairy King’s Castle and Oberon was relaxing in the afternoon sun at a table in one of the various patios built into the hillside. Unusually, he was alone, except for the rabbitkin maid standing next to a buffet cart, quietly waiting.
Beyond the low stone wall forming the patio perimeter lay beautiful views of the mountains to the north and south, across the treetops of the ‘High Forest’ of our clan name, and the westward expanse of the valley. As I glanced downhill, I noticed some naked naiads soaking in the sun, but he wasn’t there to peep. The pool wasn’t visible from his position.
He gestured to an empty chair. “Fele Enora, please sit with me. Dalia, a cup for my granddaughter.”
“Lagan,” she responded with a bow, and turned to the cart to prepare my tea.
I pulled out the chair, giving a bow and stating, “Ci râtanda ro (Excuse me.)”
“Sëanílu (Please)” he answered with a smile.
As I sat, he explained, “Your mother will be here in a short while. I’ve summoned her from my wife’s palace. But I must speak to you first. I’m under a bit of pressure here.”
“Pressure, Lagan?” I wondered as the rabbit woman named Dalia set a saucer and teacup in front of me.
“From practically every woman I know,” he elucidated with a bitter smile. “It seems your mother has been campaigning on your behalf in order to have them all chastise me.”
My eyes may have bugged slightly. Exactly what have you done, Mother?
“I’m… not sure I understand…”
“I’m given to understand you were angered by the offer I made to your maids,” he explained as Dalia finished filling my cup.
“Ah…” I raised my eyebrows as I remembered my conversation with Mother.
“Nearly every concubine in the palace has given me an earful at this point,” he added with a tired chuckle.
I took a sip and placed the cup back down before carefully asking, “Do you understand what you did wrong?”
He steepled his fingers and stared at them, then admitted, “Not entirely, no. I thought I was simply offering an incentive to get them past their prejudices, so they could see the very strong benefits they would receive.”
“It’s the incentive you offered, Your Majesty,” I answered. “As I understand it, most unmarried mortal women in the Castle have the dream of catching your eye and becoming a concubine. You stole that dream away, by using it as leverage.”
His eyes narrowing, he took a sip of his tea. Then he nodded. “Of course, I know they think that way. It would be difficult not to know it. Generally, I ignore it, of course.”
After pursing his lips, he smiled and said, “I won’t pretend I entirely understand it, but your mother was quite forceful about how I should fix it, so I’ve done so.”
Secretly a little worried, I asked, “What did she make you do?”
“I granted all three the right to visit my bed,” he stated, kicking his jaw sideways slightly as he contemplated his tea cup. “Women with that right generally end up bearing me daughters and becoming concubines. And I very clearly stressed that they are not obligated to bond with you. Although I still suggest that you take them. All three are good candidates for you.”
I facepalmed. “That’s… sort of… alright, I suppose…”
“Why wouldn’t it be?” he wondered, tipping his head. “I’ve been thinking it was time for me to take a new concubine or two. My living mortal concubines are all past childbearing age, and the fairy ones are just interested in sex. It’s been ages since I’ve bounced a child of my own on my knee.”
With a frown, I noted, “Austrydhur is still a minor by Elven custom.”
He chuckled. “She’s not a full adult, but she’s above the Elven age of consent. It isn’t unusual for an elve her age to begin her family.”
It was still like hitting on a seventeen-year-old, back on Earth, but I sighed and decided it wasn’t my business.
I shook my head for a different reason, though. “It’s not about whether it’s okay for you to take another concubine. It’s about whether they now feel obligated to bond with me in return for what you’ve given them.”
She wasn’t stealthed, so I knew she was approaching and wasn’t surprised when my mother stated, “I already had a long talk with them, Dear. They are absolutely forbidden to bond with you unless they truly want it for themselves. Or to sleep with this old fool unless they truly want that for themselves. I told them that both you and I would get very mad at them if they did either act for any other reason than their personal wish.”
By the end of that speech, Mother had entered, pulled out a chair, and sat. I noticed that she had deliberately skipped asking permission or greeting the King before sitting. I took that to mean he was still in the doghouse over the incident.
Oberon’s lip twisted into a wry smile. “Good afternoon, Deharè.”
“Ëi onar lâ, Lagan,” she responded absently, then she turned her attention back to me. “So the question is, is this arrangement acceptable to you? You aren’t obligated to take them as Servants either, of course.”
I sighed. “I suppose. Just… don’t do anything like that again, Your Majesty.”
His mouth curved down. In Xa-Ne child language– or rather, Ancient Fairy– he muttered, “I just wanted to help you, Mother.”
Unsure how to respond to that, I just looked over to Mother and shrugged, while the maid set a teacup in front of her. She flashed her an appreciative smile
Then she turned her smile to me. “So, my proxy to Oseri seems to have come back awfully fast. I assume you learned something?”
I thought for a moment, then said, “It might be quite sensitive information. I imagine you won’t mind His Majesty hearing, but…”
I glanced toward the maid, who was now leaning close to Mother while filling her cup. I noticed Mother giving the woman’s body some close inspection.
Mother…
“Dalia is a close and trusted adviser,” Oberon stated firmly. “She was one of our best intelligence agents until marriage.”
Mother pooched her lips, looking disappointed. “You’re married?”
Dalia’s eye’s twinkled as she stepped away and bowed. “Happily, Your Highness.”
While deliberately wiping that exchange from my memory, I reported a full run-down of events.
Still mindful of the servant in the room despite Oberon’s assurances, I only described my contact with Eurybia to Mother as “Having a long discussion with your grandmother last night.”
“My mother’s mother,” she confirmed.
I realized that I could also have used that phrase as a code for consulting Senhion’s memories, since Senhion was Mother’s paternal grandmother, and nodded. “That’s correct.”
Of course, I also explained what I had ordered. “I left the final decision on abandoning Oseri to you, but I strongly advise that you do it.”
She sighed. “Yes, I understand. I’ll order it as soon as I return.”
When I finished going through the details, and describing the orders I had given her people in Pendor, I sat back and let them digest it a bit.
“Áne of the Green Tower,” Mother mused. “I had no idea she was concealing such a secret. Everyone thought she was just an incurable hermit.”
“You know her?” I retorted, surprised.
“Well, of course, Dear. We’ve been playmates for thousands of years.”
I knew she was daring me to ask why it was ‘playmates’ rather than ‘friends’, but I could easily guess.
She went on to explain, “She goes through these phases where she doesn’t leave her tower for centuries at a time. She’s been doing that again, for the last several decades. Her other friends and I visit her once in a while to check on her, but she can’t be persuaded to leave. So we just bring new books and refreshments to her and hope she’ll come out of it someday.”
“And you didn’t know about her father?” I asked.
“Nothing at all.”
Pursing my lips in thought, I went over the events with Áne in my mind.
“She said something about being ‘bound by magic against all revelations’. I guess keeping her father a secret was what she meant.”
“So this Erebos, her own father, put such a cruel spell on her,” Mother said, shaking her head.
“Perhaps… it wasn’t her father that did that, but mine,” Oberon suggested, with a troubled tone.
The conflicted look in his eyes told me that it had been a difficult thing for him to say. Then I realized why and narrowed my eyes. “You knew about Erebos, didn’t you? And you knew about Astaroth as well.”
His brow wrinkled as he looked down.
Mother’s eyes grew. “Lagan! You knew about this? And you didn’t say anything?”
I put my suspicion into words. “He was under the same magic. Oranos sealed information on this, didn’t he?”
Things began clicking into place in my head, answers to questions that Senhion had asked herself while in Illusory Space.
Why did Oberon, the most powerful fairy, never challenge the Demon King? It was obvious, the way he gathered mortals around himself, and the way that he always supported those who fought against the demons, that he cared about the mortals and opposed the Demon King. But he never sallied forth to do battle with the enemy directly.
Why did the gods oppose the demon king with holy warriors and demigods and summoned heroes but stop only at, as Erebos put it, ‘cutting off his hands’, destroying his avatars and sending him back into hibernation to gather strength for another try?
Why did Oberon cast the [Great Labyrinth] spell and hide in the middle? Nobody ever heard of him leaving Tëan Tír, at the center of Relador, yet there was nothing in particular in the valley that needed his constant presence. I could guess why he chose the valley literally next door to my mountain. I could see it at that moment; Mount Ciddan was directly north of us, visible in the gap between two of the peaks in the ridge forming the valley wall. He had clearly meant to make sure my mountain was also buried deep within that spell.
He hadn’t responded, so I continued.
“Oranos ordered you to stay away from the Demon King, and he ordered you to build this fortress that the demons shouldn’t be able to penetrate, and he ordered Erebos to act as his jailer. And he ordered both of you to conceal the information about the primordial god who is his source.”
I declared all of this as a fact, because I didn’t need confirmation. Mother was staring at him with raised eyebrows and wide eyes. She shifted to me after he continued looking down at his cup without refuting anything, as if looking for an explanation. Not that I had one.
Oberon stood, completely outside standard etiquette that required us to stand first. Before we could react, he turned and walked to the entrance into the hill. He paused with his hand on the stone jamb.
“Deharè-innan, I’ll be drinking in my suite. If you’re not too disgusted with your father right now, come join me after you’re done here.”
Finding her voice, Mother nodded and said, “I will. And, Lagan…“
Interrupting her and switching to Ancient Fairy, he told me, “Mother, only Father and my aunts can answer your questions. I can only apologize and gnash my teeth. I’m sorry.”
He departed, not waiting for my response.
“Aunts?” she echoed, still in Ancient Fairy.
“The goddesses, obviously,” I answered in the same language.
She sighed and looked at the confused maid, reverting to Dorian. “Dalia, dear, a guest is about to arrive, but he won’t need any tea. I should like a refill though.”
“Guest?” I asked.
“I was waiting for a proper opportunity to arrive,” commented a certain Stregone from the empty air.
Dalia whirled to face the location of the voice, a wicked looking dagger appearing in her hand from out of nowhere.
“It’s okay, Dalia,” Mother declared. “Please relax.”
Even so, as the outrider I could now sense morphed into a proxy in the image of Diur, holding his hands in the air with an bemused smile, the vigilant maid remained in stance.
“Don’t worry, child,” he told her. “I wouldn’t stand a chance against either of these ladies. In my current condition, they’re both stronger than me.”
