Dillon laughed, but then he grew serious. “I did protect Cinnia, but I never considered that the Yafir would touch her. That was not simply foolish of me. It was arrogant. I should have put a spell about the castle. In my eagerness to solve this problem I overlooked the obvious.”

“The Yafir are a very difficult faerie race,” Ilona told him. “They have become so used to being reviled that they do not recognize kindness or honesty when they see it. They are probably the most selfish of us all, for they think only of themselves all the time. You held out a hand of friendship, and Ahura Mazda spit on it. If you cannot bring him around, Dillon, you will have no choice but to destroy him and send him into Limbo. They are, it seems, their own worst enemy. But you must try to help them in spite of themselves, for like us they are a faerie race,” she advised him. “Let us go, rude boy.” And with a twist of her delicate wrist and an elegantly pointed finger, she opened a tunnel back to Belmair for them, and together they raced through it from the palace of the Forest Faeries to the Great Hall of the royal castle where Britto almost swooned at the sight of the golden light streaming suddenly into the large chamber as the king of Belmair and his grandmother appeared from out of it.

“Your Majesty!” the steward gasped, swaying upon his feet.

“You’ll get used to all this magic eventually, Britto,” Dillon replied, laughing. “This great lady is my grandmother, Ilona, queen of the Forest Faeries.”

Britto bowed low. “Welcome to Belmair, great lady,” he said, his eyes taking in her beauty, and becoming hers in that moment.

“Thank you,” Ilona said in her most dulcet tones. She recognized the steward’s look of admiration and adoration.

“See that my grandmother has proper quarters and women to serve her,” Dillon ordered the steward. “And where is Prince Cirillo?”

“He is with the dragon,” Britto answered. “Shall I send for him?”

“Send for them both,” Dillon answered.

A serving man came with a tray holding goblets of wine for them.

“Delicious,” Ilona said, tasting hers. “My son has spent the hours you have been away seeking my help with his lover,” she noted. “A dragon! I would have never considered such a thing. But then Cirillo has always liked older females.”

“Nidhug is good magic,” Dillon said. “Her heart is a kind one. She is heartbroken that while she carried me to my three dutchies Cinnia was stolen away. She raised my queen, and taught her simple magic and healing skills.”

“That is why they call your wife the sorceress of Belmair?” Ilona said.

“Yes,” Dillon replied. “But she has the ability to be great one day. I will teach her myself. I wish I had already begun her tutelage in stronger magic. Then maybe she might have protected herself from the Yafir lord.”

“Hindsight is a fine gift,” Ilona noted. “Cease your fretting and concentrate on the task at hand.” She looked about her. “This is a good hall, Dillon.”

They sat speaking quietly of mundane matters for almost an hour, and then Cirillo entered the hall. “Mother,” he said, coming quickly up to her, kissing her cheek.

“I scent lust upon you, my son,” Ilona said wickedly.

“I bathed!” he protested.

“Oh, please,” Ilona replied. “Whenever you are in heat you reek of passion. But it pleases me that you are more like me than your father. Where is your dragon?”

“She will be here shortly,” Cirillo said. “She thought you might like to see me alone first.”

“Ah, she is thoughtful,” Ilona remarked.

Nidhug entered the hall quietly, and made her way to where the others were. “Greetings, Your Majesty. Greetings, queen of the Forest Faeries,” she said.

Ilona’s green eyes moved slowly over the dragon. They narrowed, then opened again. Finally she said, “You are really quite lovely.”

“As are you,” Nidhug answered. “I can see from where Cirillo gets his beauty.”

“Enough!” the prince of the Forest Faeries exclaimed. “We have work to do.”

“Do not be rude, Cirillo!” Ilona snapped. “Nidhug and I must become acquainted sooner than later. And I actually believe I might like her.”

“Indeed, Grandmother, and we shall all sit together tonight at the high board and speak on all manner of things. Nidhug will remain for the meal. Now, however, my uncle is correct. We have work to do.”

“Oh, very well,” Ilona agreed. “Just as long as Nidhug and I may become better acquainted,” she purred.

“Assuredly, great queen,” Nidhug murmured back. “And I will expect you to tell me all about Cirillo when he was a little lad. I have an egg of my own. Not yet hatched, of course, and I am not even certain yet of its sex, but I can certainly equate with a mother’s love.” She fluttered her thick purple eyelashes at Ilona.

“You have a dragon mate then?” Ilona said, and she smiled, but the smile quickly faded when Nidhug spoke again.

“Nay, but it is my duty to provide for a successor, and so I allowed one fine young male dragon passing through our world to help me in the creation of that egg. He flew off when he learned he had been fucking the great high dragon of Belmair, and I have not seen him since, nor do I ever expect to see him again,” Nidhug said sweetly.

“Later, ladies,” Dillon said in what he hoped passed for a stern and firm voice.

Cirillo simply looked relieved when both his mother and the dragon turned to the king with questioning faces. He quickly produced a bubble about them so they might speak in private. “Shall we begin?” he asked them. “You will need to learn my spell,” he said. “I will speak it to you now. Memorize it carefully. Protect the women of Belmair from all harm, and the Yafir. Keep them close within their home. They cannot with a Yafir roam. This spell is an unseen token. It cannot, shall not, ere be broken.”

“It is a fine spell,” Nidhug said.

“A bit simple, perhaps,” Ilona noted, “but it should be effective.”

“Say it back to me,” Cirillo told them, and they did. “Good. Now let us all use the same summoning spell to bring the women into each hall. Bring all the young women of-insert the dutchy name here-now, to me so they may protected be. This hall from Yafir is now sealed. My magic cannot be revealed. That should do it nicely,” Cirillo noted.

“Nidhug,” Dillon said to the dragon, “you will remain in this hall to summon all the young women in this section of the kingdom. Count to three before you call them. Then use the protection spell. Each of us will go to a different dutchy. I will go to Beltran. Cirillo, you go to Belia, and Grandmother, you will go to Beldane. As soon as you have used the protection spell, return the girls, and come back quickly.” He looked at them saying, “Are we ready?”

They nodded, and then turning as one, the faerie trio opened the tunnels to their destinations and raced into the golden light.

“One. Two. Three,” Nidhug said. And then, “Bring all the young women of Belmair to me, so they may protected be. This hall from Yafir is now sealed. My magic cannot be revealed.”

And the hall was filled with all females of childbearing years. They looked about them, startled, and then seeing the dragon gasped with a single collective voice. Nidhug immediately spoke the spell.

“Protect the women of Belmair from all harm and the Yafir. Keep them close within their home. They cannot with a Yafir roam. This spell is an unseen token. It cannot, shall not, ere be broken.”

There was total silence in the hall. “You are safe now from the Yafir, women of Belmair.” Nidhug told them. “Now I will return you to your homes.” She did so with a wave of her paw, and was surprised at how strong her magic had suddenly become. It had to be her contact with Cirillo, she thought. About her the tunnels were opened again, and her three companions dashed back into the hall as the tunnels closed behind them. “I have done my part,” she told them. “The young women in this section of our world are now safe.”

“Alban sends his thanks,” Cirillo told Dillon.

“Tullio would send his, but I couldn’t remain to wait while he nattered on about whether the spell was foolproof, and asked just exactly how I could be certain,” Ilona said. “The man is a pedantic bore, Dillon.”

“And Dreng is relieved, but says he wished the spell had been in effect before he lost his granddaughter,” Dillon told them.

“And now, rude boy, where is that feast you promised us all?” Ilona stepped up to the high board. “Nidhug, my dear, do come and sit next to me. We have so much to chat about,” she told the beautiful dragon. “And the whole evening in which to do so.” She smiled brightly.

“There is the real dragon,” Cirillo murmured low to Dillon as his lover went to seat herself by his parent.

The king of Belmair laughed.

9

WHEN NAPIER IX had pronounced their banishment centuries before, the Yafir had lived in peace with their neighbors, much like them but for the magic they possessed. Told they were to leave Belmair they had made a collective decision to remain. The question was, of course, where they might hide themselves so that they would never be discovered by the Belmairans. Beltran’s forests were deep, but because they took up much of the dutchy, the forests were active with hunters. Beldane’s rolling glens didn’t offer enough hidden nooks, and Belia’s mountains were too cold. The main province itself, while possessing all the traits of the other three, was too populated. There remained but one place that would allow them to be totally hidden from all of Belmair.

The Yafir had made their new home beneath the seas of Belmair. The land entry into this new world of theirs could be found, if one had known to look for it, in an isolated beach cave on the far side of Belia where the coast was too rough-hewn for settlement and therefore deserted. Using their magic, the Yafir had created towns sealed within great bubbles anchored to the ocean floor. Self-contained, they no longer had any need for the surface world of Belmair above them, except in the matter of females. The sunlight filtered dimly into their new settlements. The sea creatures grew used to them, and their homes were deep enough to ride out the storms.

In the beginning they had taken the one hundred women of childbearing years that Napier IX had refused to give them. The women had come from each of the provinces, including the main one itself. Some of the women had conceived life immediately. Those who had not were then given to other Yafir males until they, too, were with child. Now and again, when a woman could not conceive, she was restored back to her own world. Those women, however, returned without memories that extended beyond the time they were taken. And to punish them for having proved useless to the Yafir, they were returned as old women. The women who were kept by the Yafir were spoiled beyond all mortal women, and lavished with riches each time they bore a child. Those who birthed daughters were the most fortunate, for the matings between Yafir and mortal seemed to produce more males than females. The anomaly only created the need for more and more women.

Cinnia had been in her apothecary grinding lavender into powder to be mixed into soap. Her pestle scraped against the sides of the stone mortar as she worked. The lovely fragrance of the flower rose up to assail her nostrils. It was late in the day, and the sun was low on the horizon. She was hungry, and the scent of the lavender, which was a sleeping aid, was making her drowsy. It was then she sensed she was not alone. Turning about, she saw the Yafir, Ahura Mazda, observing her.

“What do you want?” Cinnia asked him. Her eyes were heavy. She struggled to keep them open even as she realized he was casting a spell upon her.

“Stop!” she cried, her own mind desperately seeking a spell to stop him.

“I marked you for my own at your birth, Cinnia,” Ahura Mazda said. “You cannot resist me, for your magic is sweet and simple. Mine is fierce and strong. It is time now for you to come with me.” He reached out to take her hand in his.

Cinnia shrank from him. “Leave me be, Yafir! I have a husband, and you are my enemy! Begone!” She flung her pestle at him.

“You have a fiery spirit, Cinnia,” Ahura Mazda told her, laughing.

“I shall enjoy taming you, and make no mistake about it, tame you I will! But I will not break your great spirit. Now, come!” Stepping forward, he grasped her by her small hand.

His touch rendered her weak, but Cinnia struggled nonetheless to get free of him.

And then she felt as if her entire body was melting away. She had no feeling but for the hand holding hers tightly. She felt herself fading away, her eyes closed despite her desperate attempts to keep them open, and then all was darkness. The cat who kept Cinnia company in her apothecary watched astonished as his mistress and her companion disappeared in a puff of scarlet smoke. The fur went up on his feline back. He yowled, frightened, and then he ran out of the room past Britto, who stared openmouthed.