“We’re here to protect you,” Mavourneen said. “There’s no need to extinguish any fire.”
They were so good at lying. It took her a few seconds to figure out how they might be misleading her.
“The satyr,” she said.
The ambassador, huffing for breath between screams, turned his head. She saw the connection he’d previously masked.
“I suppose that concludes our second piece of business,” she said. “Returning to the first subject… the three Faerie I was going to introduce to the Duchamp children. I assume I have permission to invite them?”
“I…” he huffed, he paused to grimace and grunt. “Hereby grant you and your troll safe passage… along with Gearalt, Aifric… and Lachtna, to exit my realm uncontested. Those who sat at this table and those named, will face no trial, tribulation or trickery by my hands. I promise”
“Include the satyrs,” Riordan said, growling the words.
“…I name the satyrs… unf… to be included… in the deal,” the ambassador reluctantly added. He was red-faced now, and sweating bullets from pain alone.
“Let’s go,” Riordan said.
Sandra didn’t budge.
“A problem?” Mavourneen asked.
Too easy.
What was the trick?
“No,” Sandra said. “Not good enough.”
“Your way is clear,” Riordan said.
“Yes,” Sandra said. “So is Hildr’s. So are the Satyrs, and the Faerie who are going to see the children…”
The Faerie had been very clear about who was free to leave.
Why? Why be so specific?
Was there anyone who was ready to leave, who hadn’t been named?
Someone here, who mattered on some level, who, by the wording, hadn’t been sitting at the table? Had her husband sent someone or something to keep an eye on her?
It took a few long moments of heavy consideration before the answer dawned on her.
It wasn’t a good answer, the sort that made things make sense. Just the opposite.
When she spoke, however, it was with the practiced ease that the Duchamp family had instilled in her. “No… let’s be more general. Promise me that, until sunrise, everyone is free to depart unmolested.”
The ambassador stared up at her.
Hildr hefted the table. It didn’t seem to be enough, so she stepped on the Faerie’s sternum. The added pressure made his arms shift, which renewed the pain of the shattered joints.
He had to huff for breath before he could speak. “I so promise.”
“Promise you won’t artificially manipulate the sun’s rise or fall,” she said. “It’s your little kingdom here, I don’t know what rules you can make or break. We get at least twelve regular Earth hours, without tricks.”
“I would have to disable too many-” he was cut off as she shifted her weight, jostling him. He screamed again.
“Try again?”
“Yes.”
She turned to leave. The mercenaries fell into step on either side of her.
Of course, they were a problem unto themselves.
“I’d appreciate it if my words could find their way to certain ears,” she said, to one of them, or both of them. She wasn’t entirely sure. “The Duchamps bring a lot of benefit to certain groups in the Faerie. We have longstanding relationships, and it would be a shame to end it because the ambassador was careless. If another Faerie of rank were to reach out to fill the void the ambassador has left, it would be very much appreciated.”
“We can get word out,” Riordan said.
“Thank you,” she said.
She spread her arms, then swept them together.
Hildr did the same, reaching out to either side, then drawing her hands together. Except she seized the two mercenaries’ heads along the way and cracked them together.
Sandra paused to examine the fallen mercenaries. “They’re alive?”
Hildr nodded. She could speak, but it was often easier and clearer to gesture.
“Then let’s go.”
She found the connections to the Faerie and tugged. Easy enough; they were waiting for her.
She manipulated the connections between herself and the lost satyrs. A standard connection formed a straight line. She loosed it, giving it slack, and let the currents the spirits and other forces of the world were traveling carry it out.
Ariadne’s thread.
Once she found the right elements, she gave it more structure. The line formed a path. A guiding line between her and the Satyrs in the labyrinth. A traditional maze was little problem, but this was a maze meant to confound intruders who might surreptitiously explore the ambassador’s realm for a few hours every week for centuries. There were twists, turns, down stairs, up stairs, Escher devices and portals that could lead to entirely different areas. There were also denizens.
Some would kill you. Others would be like the satyrs. Creatures of sexuality, fertility, and animal instincts. Satyrs could take in these traits to be lighthearted and simple, warm sources of raw affection.
That hadn’t, Sandra knew well enough, been what the ambassador had wanted them for, as creatures lurking in the maze.
All things had their darker sides.
The three Faerie and the satyrs found her at roughly the same time that she found the exit. They had been twisted by glamour, the uglier aspects of their nature exaggerated. They smelled bad, now, had hunched backs, twisted, furtive faces. Their horns were far larger, wicked. Natural weapons.
They would go back to normal, given time.
“Any others I should know about?” she asked. “Stolen property?”
“No,” one replied.
“That’s no ma’am.”
“No, ma’am,” he said. He didn’t look happy about it. He looked angry. Slighted.
As creations went, they were simple. Two dimensional. It was so easy to change them.
She led them through. From a holly-encrusted gate to the big city. No heads turned at her sudden appearance.
In downtown Toronto, the satyrs took different shapes. Even there, they were different from their usual. Where they might be handsome, flirty young men in their teens and twenties, unabashed in their attraction to any woman they saw on the street, they now looked like the sorts one might cross the street to avoid. Not because they were large, but because of the menace they radiated.
It wasn’t a long walk to the condo. She let herself in.
The statue was easily two stories tall, sitting in the center of a pond of deep red wine. Food, fresh, sat at its feet.
Littered around that pond were the various servants of Dionysus, gathered in heaps and piles, using each other for pillows, where there weren’t enough blankets and cushions strewn on the floor.
“Stay,” she ordered the satyrs. Without checking to see if they’d obeyed, she picked her way carefully through the assorted servants.
Satyrs, boys and men, smiled up at her, some reaching out, as if she’d fall into their arms. The fur on their legs was soft, the curls of chest hair and chin-scruff inviting.
Fifteen years, and they still tried. Fifteen years, and she still imagined herself giving in.
The nymphs were what the satyrs were, in a way, holding to an ancient ideal of womanhood and female sexuality as the satyrs held to manhood and male sexuality. There were differences, but the simple description served.