The governor is young and serious and the only answer he has to there is an evil is well, we kill it, then. And, it being in the forests: We march on the forests. Burn them, if necessary.
The forests belong to the fae.
"Governor," Eislyn says, bowing humbly to him as he sits at his morning appointments, advisors around him, pens and inks and papers before him, scowling at his probems; "the Throne-on-the-Water cannot and will not support any attack on the fae. The fae cannot and will not brook any attack on the forest. If you do this thing, you will be caught between those two, and I cannot say which will be worse for you. The fae know, too, of the evil that has crept into their places; this has been spoken to me, in my Monarch's land."
"The fae," the governor says, young and slim-faced and tired, in splendid clothes that he wears uncomfortably despite their tailored fit, "cannot be bargained with. They do not treat with us fair or true; I would ask them for aid, if it could be done, or at least make known to them that I do not fight them. But this malignancy stalks my province, taints the wind and sickens the senses, deranges wits and memory. People are stricken, in increasing number; I must fight it."
"If your enemy is what I think," Eislyn says, "harming the forest will not trouble it at all. And harming the forest will be war with the fae, and then you have two enemies before you, and you've made an enemy at your back of the source and legitimacy your authority, and it still poisons your people. You are not a fool, governor; you have been desperate for options, but not a fool. Do not remain set on this."
"And what other options do you bring me, Dreamsinger?"
"The fae," Eislyn says, soft, "are not of this world. This world is of stuff and space, and follows rules of stuff and space, and dreams are a pleasant reverie alongside it; the fae are from some other place, which is of whatever dreams are made of, and follows the rules of dreams, in which stuff and space are only toys and passing fancies. When I say this has been spoken to me, in my Monarch's land, you must understand that as an exchange between ambassadors. No, they do not treat with us straightforwardly; they cannot bend themselves to understand the rules of space and substance, any more than you or I can build a castle or eat a meal made of dreamstuff. But they are not enemies — they do not have to be enemies. You say you'd speak with them, if you could; well, you can speak to me, and through the grace of the Blue-Winged Land, I may speak with them, though I have no inkling to tell you of what they'll say. And so: your option."
He looks at her with darkened brow and tired eyes. "You tell me that my troubles are as simple, now, as a night's sleep?"
"No." She rubs her hands, one over the other, and sighs. "No, governor, would that I could. I am marked, of old, by an evil; and the fae know me by that mark, and that is the reason they will speak with us in this matter. And I will have to seek them in the forest for an audience, just as sure as if I were to meet any other potentate in the flesh. And I say again: I cannot tell you what form their reply might take." She lifts the corners of a tense smile. "Do you know the ballads about the first Dreamsinger, governor? The Knight of Blue-Winged Sleep; Ranwen of the Flowers?"
"They say she fought the Queen of the Fae," the governor says, and waves a dismissive hand. "Or the King. A duel, or battle to the death, or a riddle-contest, or a wager who could play the fiddle best. And she wins, but the fae is angry because they are thwarted, or they think her a cheat, or she has won their heart with her bravery or her skill and so they cannot bear to let her go, and they keep her forever. Or turn her to flowers. Or—"
"All these things can be true at once," Eislyn says, softer still, "in dreams. But I ask you to remember that this is true, about the stories: that she won, and that whatever became of her, we know so. If I do not return word to you, they will nonetheless let it be known what that word is; and for that I must travel with some companion, to carry it back."
Standing among the governor's advisors, Annen draws a hissing breath between her teeth, holds it, and lets it slowly out in the same judgemental sibilance.
"Your service is to this province, your duties to its people and the Throne," Eislyn says, carefully looking at the governor, not Annen. "Mine is to the Blue-Winged Land, my duties to its Monarch, and to the people of this world, who visit it. Send me; let me speak to the fae. Let there be no war here that we need not start."
"I'll take her," Annen says, dark and resigned. "I know the way, I know — what I need to."
"If I say that we will protect you on the way," Kada says, eyes narrowed at Eislyn, "you'll tell me that no, we have a mission here, and it's not to risk ourselves on your errand. Won't you?"
"I will," Eislyn says lightly.
"One of us, Dreamsinger—"
"No," Eislyn says, smiling.
"Knight," Marcus say gravely, "your mission comes to naught if you're harmed on the road."
"The governor," Eislyn says, "has men to lend. A handcount of them, as an escort; if there's need of more, then — well, then things are too dire for me to succeed, already. And then, I'm afraid, it will fall to the affairs of your own god, not mine."
There's a breath where it's in doubt — whether the governor, having knowingly steeled himself for a ruinous course, will turn aside to try an alternative.
"I'll go with her," Annen says again, into his silence, firmer. "She's no fool, sir," and that seems to tip things. The governor straightens with new resolve.
"You'll negotiate with the fae on our behalf?" he says, to Eislyn, eyes searching her.
"As much as is possible, aye."
He nods, slowly.
"Words with you, please," Annen says mulishly. The governer has many matters to attend to; Eislyn is, for now, dismissed. Her friend's hurrying feet catch up to her in the quiet corridors beyond the audience chamber; Annen's hand firmly catches her arm.
"Whatever you desire," Eislyn says, a helpless smile already bloomed on her face, as if Annen hasn't pushed her back to the wall and kept hold of her as if she might ignore her, or run.
Annen opens her mouth, and seems to wrestle mightily with something within her. Eislyn runs the back of her fingers, from her free hand, soothingly along her arm; she shivers and scowls.
"Dream-Knight," she says, raw and accusatory, but seems to have no words to properly express the accusation.
"I don't seek to die, Annen," Eislyn says. "No more than you, by accompanying me. I do no more than what I must."
"Nobody ever became a paladin by doing only what they must," Annen says, tart and tired. "Let alone in order to. Eislyn—"
"Do you think I'd simply die, when I've only now found you again?"
"I think," Annen says, "that you know more about the thing we face than we did, that first time in the desert. More than you're saying. And I think whether any of us die isn't entirely in our hands, and to the extent it is, you're not taking as much care of your life as I'd — as you could."
"Dying," Eislyn says, "is an inevitable matter of stuff and space," and she curls her palm around Annen's cheek. "And I care whether you live, too," she adds, warm and quiet, swiping the pad of her thumb slowly across the very corner of Annen's mouth.
Things can be both entirely true and entirely a distraction; they don't even have to be dreams, for that. But to be asleep and dead and neither, and forever waking? To be a poison that the fae think has affected their own dreamstuff? That sounds very much like dreams. Not something properly fae, but someone who managed to wrest something from their realm, ages ago; someone who made themself somehow partly a dream, someone whose death is a fact in their own hands, to be had or — as is the case — not.
If anyone should know how to make a thing like that truly die, it is Eislyn.
She does not.
