Opal and Onyx spent the rest of the day in comfortable quarters, separate but adjoining in case they got lonely. The land that could be seen outside the small windows was a deep northern green, with occasional outcroppings of rock and twisted trees. It was beautiful, but a lonely, wild place. Opal realized that the castle was entirely self-sufficient...it had to be.

A slender blond boy of about the same size as Opal entered the young lord's room at dusk. He made an elaborate bow, sending his not-quite-sheer linen robes rippling.

"My master invites the lord Trevelyan and his companion to dine, and sends a humble escort. Lord Nanika has already been guided downstairs." He bowed to Carnelian, perched on the window, as well. She inclined her snakish head with a gracious fluting note.

"Thank you," said Opal, and smiled. The boy smiled back, roguishly and rather suggestively. Opal blushed a little.

It was indeed a lavish dinner. The table was standard size for a Sidhe palace--enormous. The food was glorious...several courses were served one after the other, with dishes of sherbet to wash one's mouth of the taste of the previous dish before moving on to the next. Topaz's servants were quite unusual: slender young Sidhe boys and girls in long robes like the blond boy's. They brought dish after dish, bottle after bottle of wine, milk (for Sapphire) and goat's blood (for Carnelian, which she happily lapped out of a bowl), and all without a word or even a stray glance.

Onyx was slowly beginning to lose the initial discomfort of being inside a large castle with strangers. He was helped, of course, by the magnificent repast, but also by the calming presence of Opal right beside him. It was surprising to realize that these days he was beginning to think of his bride as a comforting presence.

Still, something was nagging at him. Now that he was getting used to his annoyance at the mage's seemingly endless conceit, Onyx had a strong feeling that Topaz was somehow familiar to him. The mage seemed very like someone he had met once...only he couldn't remember who that someone was.

Opal for his part was still rather bruised by Onyx's abrupt denial of any intimacy between them. He had thought that they had become friends by then, at least.

Carnelian gave him no opportunity for self-pity.

Friends, yes. But I don't think either trolls or sluagh are given much to holding hands in public.

I didn't mean to... began Opal, poking at his butterflied shrimp in garlic sauce.

Of course you didn't. But he's still adjusting. Give him a little time. Opal was beginning to wonder why the dragon was being so uncharacteristically sympathetic, when she added, In, say, a few weeks you should be able to persuade him to take advantage of you.

Heat crept over his skin, intensifying until he was blushing furiously all the way down to his waist. Onyx blinked at him, puzzled, and Opal went even redder. His embarrassment was compounded when he caught Topaz watching him with the very faintest of wicked smiles on his face.

"Opal? Are you all right?" asked Onyx. "I think you may have had too much wine. You look amazingly flushed."

"I...I'm all right. How did you get this most marvelous castle?" Opal asked the mage, trying to keep Onyx's attention away from him.

"Why, I won it in a raffle," Topaz replied with a fine smug smile.

A raffle?!

"A raffle?!"

"A raffle?" Opal asked curiously. "How interesting."

Topaz laughed. "Well, no, not exactly. But you could call it that, as there was certainly an amazing number of participants."

"When did this happen?"

"Oh, a few years ago. There was a slight uproar over by the Rune Lands, with a terrible demon, similar to the one we encountered today, but the size of Carnelian's bigger cousins." Topaz petted the dragon, who preened. "More like an ogre, I'd say. He was, however, unlike our adversary this morning, one of the more intelligent of the species. The Clan Vanguard offered a reward of an unbelievable amount of money, plus this castle and its surrounding estate." The mage paused for dramatic effect. His listeners seemed satisfyingly awed.

"Surrounding estate!" said Opal. "Then what I saw out the windows...it's all yours?"

"Quite," said Topaz with a smile.

Onyx frowned. "I had heard of the offer," he said. "I was thinking of volunteering, but I have no use for castles. You've done well here."

Topaz nodded in acknowledgment. "Thank you," he said, and went on.

"Many a knight-errant and magician went to vanquish the monster. Unfortunately many of the would-be saviors ended up carpeting the floor of the thing's lair. The irritated demon then sent back several excess pieces and shattered weaponry."

"That must have been awful," murmured Opal.

"I suspect the demon found it merely amusing," said Topaz, unruffled. "In any case, I happened to be traveling in that area and volunteered my services."

He looked over at his daughter, who was happily attacking her shrimp, and scratched a soft ear. Sapphire paused to purr and rub her head against the mage's hand.

"However," continued the mage, "not all the demon's victims had sought it out. Just before I arrived, Sapphire's family had been passing through when they were taken, and Sapphire herself was imprisoned and saved for..." Topaz paused delicately, "later enjoyment."

"It was going to eat me," said Sapphire with dreadful certainty. "It ate my parents." She looked levelly at the two across the table with a gravity unusual for one her apparent age. Opal realized that she could be much older than she seemed. Hadn't he heard something like that before, about pookas being slow to age? Or was it quick to age? He wasn't sure.

The mage sighed. "Too true. Fortunately, however, I came onto the scene, and was able to lure him out and entrap him before he did any more damage."

"How did you do that?" murmured Opal, completely entranced. Really, this mage was more and more intriguing.

Topaz smiled a mysterious and rather self-satisfied smile. "You'll forgive me," he said, "if I keep that little trick to myself. Suffice it to say that it's been some years since then and the locals are still talking about it. I believe it's become something of a native legend."

At this Onyx glowered at the mage. Familiar or not, the mage was certainly irritating.

Carnelian chuckled over her bowl. Clever. I'm beginning to like him more and more.

So am I, actually, said Opal to her.

The next course was heavier, a rich beef steak in mushroom sauce, with wine of a red so deep it almost glowed. Opal was bursting with curiosity but it was Onyx who, to the boy lord's surprise, asked the next question.

"Why is it that I have the strangest feeling I've seen you before?"

The mage raised both eyebrows, then drew them together...not in anger, but pensively. "My parents," he said finally, "ran a traveling circus."

Onyx stiffened, remembering with clarity a great and secret show in those happier times before his father had forced him into a betrothal.

"One of the many eccentric hobbies of nobility, I suppose," Topaz said as he reached over to help Sapphire finish cutting her meat. "They needed, and therefore took, no money from the participants. Every Moon Tide we would set out and entertain...only villages and small towns, though. Father felt the lords and ladies could afford their own diversions." There was a certain wistful tone to his voice.

"You loved it, didn't you?" Opal said, sipping from his wine. It was sweet, although with a little more bite than he liked.

The corners of Topaz's mouth turned up. "Of course."

"You visited our little village many times," Onyx said. He sounded faraway, as if he was thinking aloud rather than making conversation.

Opal looked at him, startled. Onyx had never mentioned his home village, or indeed any aspect of his past...except in passing, when he had mentioned running away to avoid being betrothed.

"Well, presumably my father and the rest of them still visit," Topaz said. "I was sent to the university to study magic, ever since they found out I had the gift."

"How did they find out?" asked Opal.

Topaz smiled. "I was juggling one day, and realized my beat was off but I wasn't dropping anything. Stopped to catch my toys and collect myself, but they just went on going: three colored balls, two knives and a jack-in-the-box, weaving and bouncing and flying over my head."

Opal began to laugh and even Onyx grinned. "That must have been a surprise!"

"More for me than the audience, I assure you. I've heard the clowns mimicked my cow-eyed gape for years afterward."

Onyx laughed and Opal looked at him in surprise.

So the great hulk does have a sense of humor!

CARNELIAN!

~

After dessert (mango cream pie...Onyx had three helpings), Topaz went upstairs to take his daughter to bed despite protests and piteously droopy ears.

"Can't I stay up and talk? I'm not sleepy at all," Sapphire begged, but belied her words with a yawn and her cat stretch.

Topaz shook his head fondly before pulling the covers up and tucking her in. "Not tonight, darling." He gave her a gentle kiss on the forehead before rising and making his way to the door. He sent a shower of rainbow lights over her head for a goodnight wish. She purred happily, and fell asleep still purring.

"Good night, lovely," he murmured. "Sleep well and sweet dreams."

Knight and bride had made themselves comfortable on the soft armchairs in the guest hall, just far enough apart so no one would get the wrong ideas.

"Onyx?"

"What is it?" Onyx turned.

Obviously the chair was much too large for Opal. He had tucked his slender legs underneath him and draped himself over the arm of the chair. Carnelian perched on the back, head drooping drowsily. Opal's shirt was open at the neck, revealing a white throat and delicate collarbone. Onyx swallowed.

"Would you mind awfully if they...came along with us?"

All thoughts of Opal's throat and collarbone vanished from Onyx's mind. Well...were pushed into the background, anyway. "What!"

"Well, they did save our lives...the mage did, anyway...and they're very nice, and the mage is the only one Carnelian seems to particularly like besides me. Also, don't you...don't you think it's a little lonely, the way it is now?"

Lonely? Onyx bristled. What was he, an ornament on the extra horse?

"I know it's a little abrupt," Opal said contritely, "but I have...a feeling. It's almost the same feeling that draws me toward wherever it is we're going. Almost the same feeling that..." he gave Onyx a shy smile, "drew me to you."

Onyx sighed. "Well, you're the Bride," he grumbled.

"Thank you," said Opal, and gave the knight another of his brilliant smiles. "You won't regret it." In the light of the fire behind his chair Opal looked soft-edged, and wraithlike, and ethereal. Their chairs seemed unhappily distanced from each other all of a sudden, the invisible pull that Onyx had felt from the start dragging him almost physically toward the boy.

Is it so bad? asked a treacherous little voice inside Onyx. A boy bride. Does it really matter? He's beautiful--more so than most females you've met. Look at that skin, and that baby-fine hair, and those soft, wistful eyes--

"What won't Sir Knight regret?" asked Topaz, walking in. Opal made a little gasp and sat guiltily upright, startling Carnelian, who twittered in annoyance before settling down again.

Onyx added "wonderful timing" to the list of things he didn't very much like about the mage.

~

They emerged from the hovel the next day, well fed and watered and stocked for the journey. Two more horses had also been added to their little party: a beautiful dapple that bore Topaz and Sapphire, and a packhorse, an amiable cob pony.

Opal set a course for a small town named Derin, in the province of Krysellene. Again he could not explain why. In fact he felt rather like a homing pigeon, or a salmon returning to its breeding waters. He was sure of his direction, but understanding it was something else altogether.

Two days later they entered the thick forest lands that bordered Krysellene. The forest was made of huge trees of a wood so dark it was almost black, their branches intertwined so closely that hardly any sunshine filtered down to the travellers.

Everybody was on edge. Onyx rode in a grim silence that was almost tangible. Carnelian stayed on Opal's shoulder, shivering--the forest was cold, not a comfortable thing for a fire creature. Opal was not much calmer, shuddering at odd noises and harsh animal cries that rang out occasionally. "It's not a happy forest," he would whisper once in a while. After a few hours of riding he dug his fur cloak out of his saddlebag and tucked it round himself. Carnelian snuggled into the fur, cooing very softly into her master's ear.

Even Topaz was somber as they rode on, though he betrayed no sign of fear. Sapphire, however, was terrified.

Pookas, barring some races, were generally at home in the dark. Cat pookas especially found it comfortable. But Sapphire bristled, and trembled, and hissed as she clung unhappily to the saddle pommel in front of her. Topaz wound a comforting arm around her, and she clung to that instead. Her hissing died down, but her usual purr did not replace it.

"Why is she so troubled?" Opal murmured to Topaz in concern. The mage did not seem worried, but a sadness passed over his noble face when he looked down at his daughter.

"She remembers," the mage murmured back, and Sapphire made an unhappy sound in agreement. "She remembers the darkness of the cave where her family died, and where she would have died if not for happy circumstance. She remembers how heavy and thick and full of evil things that darkness was. This darkness between trees is very like to that, and we both feel it, and it makes her remember." He kissed the soft blue hair between the twitching ears. "Shh, little one. You are not alone this time. Nor are you defenceless, even if you were."

Sapphire's shivers grew a little easier, but she did not release her master's arm.

"Is there anything in particular that we should be worried about?" Opal asked timidly as he looked up at the interlaced branches. The greenish light overhead seemed so far away.

Topaz looked thoughtful. "None that I can remember. However, I had heard a rumor of bandits, unconfirmed so far of course."

"Where there's smoke, there's fire," muttered Onyx. There was a soft metallic rasp as he drew the Dragonsword. He nudged his horse a little closer to Opal's, keeping the sword in one hand, pointing away from them. He gripped Ferra's reins with the other.

All four travelers were riding closer together, keeping the packhorses close as well. Even the horses seemed to understand the need for silence. The only sound was the muffled clop of hooves on loam.

~

The bandits were there. And they had noticed.

Garnet, the scout, knelt down in the soft earth, perfect vision easily spotting their prey. He rose into a half-crouch and mimed to the bandits' leader, also a redcap, who was hidden in a thicket further down the path. Auros nodded and signaled the rest hiding farther on. Garnet knew the hand signals in his sleep.

{ Two Sidhe, a warrior--looks like sluagh, but big--and a pooka. And a little dragon. }

{ Right, } Auros signaled back, an evil grin lighting up his dour features. Garnet returned the grin.

Sidhe. That meant better pickings. Easier too; most Sidhe were as soft as babies, which was why they usually hired warriors to travel with them. That one with the big sword was a fine example. He was as big and good-looking as the trolls that were usually chosen, although trolls were set apart by their tough blue skin and long greenish hair. Odd that a sluagh would be a warrior; you didn't usually see that folk crawling out of their holes for anything. The odds were that he wouldn't be up to troll standard.

Garnet grinned again, baring short but vicious fangs.

Oh well. Their loss.

~

Sapphire smelled them first. She sat bolt upright in the saddle as the horses, too, caught the redcap scent and panicked.

Carnelian, go! Opal urged his pet. Carnelian didn't stay to argue. She shot into the air, straight upwards, and vanished into the trees. She would be able to report to him: her eyes were as good as Sapphire's, and she could stay out of sight--and out of reach--while she relayed information.

The information in this case was not welcome. Opal, you're surrounded! There's at least twenty of them, mostly redcaps and knockers, all armed. They've crept far enough downwind so we couldn't smell them until they were in place. They're closing in! What are we going to do!

Hush, Carnelian! Don't panic. It'll be all right, soothed Opal, with a calm he did not feel. He struggled to keep his growing apprehension from the dragon as he relayed Carnelian's discovery to the others.

Topaz looked grim. "The box formation," he said and Sapphire nodded frantically. "They'll close in on us from all sides. Then they'll kill us and take what we have." He lifted Sapphire onto the cob , ignoring her protests. "Stay in the middle; you'll be safer."

"But we have nothing!" protested Opal.

"On the contrary, young lord. We have five good horses and a wealth of rations. The jewels in your friend's large sword are also worth a fight, as is the one in my belt. Good pickings for a large group of robbers."

"That's what they assume, anyway," growled Onyx, reining Ferra around and lifting the Dragonsword. "We'll soon see." The others followed suit, making a rough hedgehog shape surrounding Sapphire and the two packhorses.

Topaz chuckled a little. "The trouble with robbers is that while they are so good at planning, they rarely do any actual thinking. I think this group will have to learn that."

Suddenly, Opal began to feel much better.

The forest's dead silence was suddenly broken by a growing roar as the robbers charged, yelling at the top of their lungs. The travellers waited calmly for the onslaught.

~

As they rushed forward Garnet had only one thought in his violent redcap mind. Poor suckers.

END CHAPTER 6

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