“We will leave you then to your pursuits,” Dillon said, and with a snap of his fingers he transported himself, Kaliq and Cirillo back to the Great Hall of his castle. Seeing the trio the servants rushed forward to bring goblets of wine. They settled themselves before the fire and began to talk. “What sort of faeries do you think existed here at one time?” Dillon asked, looking to his uncle.

“They still exist,” Cirillo replied. “If they did not the watch eye in the hidden room would not have awakened, observed us and folded the chamber in on itself, which in effect has destroyed it and its contents. Whatever else was in that room is now gone. I find this whole situation interesting. According to the scholar it was the Belmairans who set up a room with what they had decided was forbidden reading matter. Why, I wonder? But it was faerie magic that hid that room away from even the scholars of the Academy. Again, why? Nidhug does not know. But whoever secreted that room wanted it to remain hidden, and when my faerie magic opened it up to prying eyes it acted to protect itself from discovery. That is why I placed an enchantment upon Prentice’s rooms and upon the books themselves. I was fortunate to retrieve the volumes that I did. I hope that one of them will give us the answers we seek. Or at least a start.”

“Will they be in all of Belmair, in all the dutchies, do you think?” Dillon wondered aloud.

“How many dutchies are there?” Cirillo asked Dillon.

“Belmair is made up of four land masses. Belmair, the largest; Beldane, Belia and Beltran,” Dillon explained. “Each dutchy is separated from the others by a great sea that surrounds it. This world is mostly water.”

“Interesting,” Cirillo said. “Yet your castle and Nidhug’s sit nowhere near the sea. Why is that, I wonder?”

“I haven’t been here long enough to ask such questions,” Dillon reminded his uncle. “I am far too busy trying to learn about this world, and about the wife I have been given. Cinnia is not an easy girl.”

“Ah, but is she passionate?” his uncle wanted to know. “If a woman is passionate it is easy to forgive her faults.”

“The passion is there,” Dillon said. “She needs tutoring in how to use it.”

“If we could only introduce her to a banquet at Shunnar.” Cirillo chuckled.

Kaliq laughed. “I do not believe Cinnia is ready for such an experience,” he said.

“Remember, Uncle, it is my wife to whom you refer,” Dillon warned. “The women we pass around at the banquets at Shunnar are familiar with us, and with our ways. The women of Belmair are more reserved than those who live in Hetar. That was part of the reason for the exile of those sent away all those aeons ago. They wanted change, they were freer with their affections.”

“But the Hetarians are so bound by tradition,” Cirillo said. “Are they really any different from these Belmairans?”

“Aye, they are,” Dillon answered his uncle. “Those we call Hetarians carried their traditions and customs with them, even if they slightly altered and changed them. The point is they kept their heritage as it suited them to do so. They set up their world of Hetar with all the changes they had wanted to institute here in Belmair. Their history, their legends and mythologies they lost as they created new ones until, for them, Belmair was only a great star in the sky. Everything else was lost.”

“I am glad I am faerie,” Cirillo said. “These mortals are too complex for me.”

“There is much to commend both of these worlds,” Dillon replied, “but I am beginning to prefer the peace and order of Belmair to all the war and dissent of Hetar.”

“Yet that peace and order has a price, my son,” Kaliq pointed out. “Because they eschew trouble and will not or cannot make orderly changes, Belmair’s world will die if an answer cannot be found to why all the young women have been disappearing for the last hundred years. And you are the king who will have to make the changes that keep this world alive, if it is to flourish once again.”

Cirillo suddenly yawned. “This conversation becomes tiresome,” he said, and he peered into his silver goblet, which now appeared empty. He wiggled a finger over it, and it slowly filled with sweet red wine again.

“You did not return to the castle last night,” Dillon teased his uncle.

“I am sojourning with the dragon, if you do not mind,” Cirillo said in a casual tone. “She is a charming hostess, and I am seriously considering stealing her cook and taking her back to Hetar with me.”

“Did you take a dragon’s form?” Kaliq asked, a small smile playing at the corners of his sensuous mouth; the rest of his question remained unasked, for it did not require an answer.

“Aye, at first I did. We flew across the sea to the mountains. It was quite an experience. And afterward she showed me her egg. I gave it a faerie blessing, and the wee creature within the egg glowed golden at me when I did.” He smiled at the memory.

“And when you had returned?” Kaliq probed further.

“I gave her female form. She had never tasted the passions of a mortal female before, and she told me she quite liked it,” Cirillo said. He turned to Dillon. “You say Belmairan females are more reserved, but its dragon female is not.”

“I enjoy the knowledge that Cinnia has never known another,” Dillon said softly. “She is mine, and mine alone.”

“You have begun to think like a Belmairan male, my son,” Kaliq said. “It is good that you understand them, but do not become like them,” he warned. “Cinnia is not like other Belmairan women. With your aid she will help the other women of her world to move forward in such a way as is pleasing to the men of Belmair.” Then he turned to Cirillo. “Do you think Nidhug would mind if I joined you for a short while tonight?”

“You would have to ask her, my lord,” Cirillo said, “but I certainly do not mind.”

“Try not to corrupt Belmair’s guardian,” Dillon said drily, but he was smiling. It was as if they were boys again back at Shunnar, and Kaliq was leading them on some new sexual adventure that would expand their horizons along with their experience.

His two companions laughed. Cinnia had not returned by the time the evening meal was served. The three men ate together at the high board in the small dining chamber that Dillon had arranged to get set up. Afterward Cirillo and Kaliq attempted to make conversation, but they were eager to join the dragon. Finally when he held them with him as long as he could, Dillon burst out laughing, and sent them on their way. Cirillo and Kaliq disappeared in a flash, leaving their host still chuckling. With a snap of his fingers Dillon magicked himself to the scholar’s chambers where Prentice and his wife were deep in study.

“Cinnia, it is time for you to come home,” he said. “Have you discovered anything during these past hours?”

“I am not certain,” she answered him, straightening up, for she had been hunching over her book. “Perhaps. Is it time for dinner yet?”

“Past,” he told her. “Prentice, you need food if you are to keep up your strength,” Dillon told the scholar, and with another snap of his fingers a steaming plate of food and a goblet of wine appeared before Prentice.

“Oh, my,” the scholar said, sniffing appreciatively. “Thank you, Your Majesty. I do not believe I have ever been treated to such a fine meal.” He took a sip from the cup. “And certainly I have never tasted such a fine vintage as this would appear to be.”

“Cinnia will come back on the morrow if it pleases her,” Dillon said, and then he and his wife were gone from the scholar’s room. They reappeared a moment later in the little hall. “Sit down,” Dillon instructed his wife, and with a wave of his hand her supper appeared before her. Taking a decanter of wine from the sideboard, Dillon filled an empty cup, bringing it to her. “Now eat, my queen, and afterward you will tell me what little bit you have discovered this afternoon.”

Cinnia began to eat. “That was so kind of you to give Prentice his supper,” she said as she buttered a bit of the cottage loaf before her. “I don’t think he eats a great deal, and certainly the quality of what he eats is poor, for he seems to consider his personal care a very mundane matter,” she noted, popping the bread into her mouth.

“I agree,” Dillon said. “The man is too thin, and he will need all his energies to search through so many books. We were fortunate to get as many out as we did.”

“The chamber is gone then?” Cinnia asked as she spooned hot stew into her mouth. “Your uncle is certain of this?”

“If Cirillo says it is so, then it is so,” Dillon replied. He sat by the hearth as she ate, for the evening was cool and damp, indicating rain ahead.

Suddenly Cinnia’s green eyes grew wide, and she stared across the chamber. “Dillon!” she pointed, the spoon dropping from her fingers.

He looked to where she indicated, and saw a small crystal sphere floating to him. Dillon held out his hand, and the round object settled itself in his hand. He looked into it and smiled. “Good evening, Grandmother,” he said, fighting back his laughter. He beckoned to Cinnia with his other hand, and she came quickly from her place to sit next to him and look into the ball.

“Do not good evening me, Dillon. Where is Cirillo? He was to be gone a day, and now two have passed. Is he all right? I must speak to him at once!”

“Cirillo is fine, Grandmother. He and Kaliq are enjoying an entertainment at the dragon’s castle this evening. I did not go, for I wanted to wait for my wife, who has been with an esteemed scholar from this world seeking the cause for our problem. This is Cinnia, Grandmother. Cinnia, my grandmother, Ilona, queen of the Forest Faeries.”

“You are a pretty thing,” Ilona said. “Is my grandson telling the truth?” She sent a hard glare in Cinnia’s direction.

“My husband would never lie to you, Queen Ilona,” Cinnia said. “You know that is so. My husband is noble and loyal.”

“You may call me Grandmother,” Ilona said. “Aye, you are very pretty.”

“Cirillo is perfectly safe here, Grandmother,” Dillon assured Ilona. “But he may have to remain with us for a time, for while I am a fine sorcerer, and my father’s magic is beyond everyone else’s, faerie magic more often than not requires faerie magic to undo it. Without Cirillo’s aid we would have lost certain valuable books today that may help us. It was my uncle who saved those books. He is certain there are faeries here in Belmair. I can ask him to reach out to you tomorrow, Grandmother. May I keep the crystal sphere?”

“Of course!” she said impatiently. “That is why I sent it. And it was not easy I can tell you. Something actually attempted to block me from reaching you. If you have faeries in Belmair they are bad faeries, Dillon. Be careful. Oh! Your mother sends her love. She’ll visit soon.” Then Ilona was gone from the crystal.

“Gracious!” Cinnia said. “What a forceful woman your grandmother is.”

He laughed now. “Aye, she is very forceful. My uncle is her only son. He will inherit her kingdom one day. He has never left Hetar before, and she is naturally worried for she dotes on him, but then so does my mother.”

“She is very beautiful, and seemingly ageless,” Cinnia said a trifle enviously. “Does your mother look like her?”

“They are more often than not mistaken for sisters by those who do not know them,” Dillon told the girl. “My mother is almost full faerie in her blood. You will like her, and someday when Belmair is safe again I will take you to Terah to meet the rest of my family. They will love you, Cinnia, as I am learning to do.”

“You said that your uncle and your father were being entertained by Nidhug? Why did you not join them? I hope you have not offended the dragon,” Cinnia said.

Dillon began to laugh, and he laughed until the tears rolled down his cheeks. Finally he regained a mastery of himself as she looked oddly at him. “Nidhug would have been more offended if I had joined the others,” he assured Cinnia.

“Why?” Cinnia pursued the matter.

“Because Nidhug, Cirillo and Kaliq are at this very moment in your dragon’s bed. Cirillo has temporarily given her the form of a voluptuous mortal woman, and she is enjoying the very vigorous and passionate attentions of my father and my uncle. She is, my uncle says, a most lusty female,” Dillon explained.

Cinnia’s eyes closed briefly, then opened again. “I have never thought of Nidhug in that manner,” she said. “She is the guardian of Belmair, not a lusty female.”

“She is both,” Dillon said. “Late yesterday, my uncle took on the form of a male dragon, and together they flew across the sea to her favorite den where they made dragon love before returning here to make love as two mortals.”