Free Any Man So Daring by Sarah A. Hoyt Page A

tears.
    Will felt horror grip him, expelling air from his lungs.
    Marlowe might have been alive, there beside Will.
    The ghost got a lace kerchief from his ghostly sleeve and with it dabbed at the blood upon his ghostly cheek.
    It smiled, a ghastly, blood-stained smile, and said, softly, “Good morrow, Will.”

Scene Five

    The palace of fairyland as people disperse, yet celebrating the conclusion of the long civil war. After the horrendous spectacle just witnessed, friend leans on friend and one holds the other’s arm, each congratulating the other. Girls and youths whirl in mad cavalcade amid the trees and around the execution block, dancing as though to unheard music. A young male elf declaims a war poem about Quicksilver’s feats. Quicksilver stands atop the marble stairs of his palace and watches Proteus vanish amid the trees. Malachite approaches.

    “L et me follow him, Milord,” Malachite whispered, his hot breath tickling Quicksilver’s ear, his gaze fixed on Proteus's golden hair, Proteus's retreating back. “Let me follow him for you.”
    “Who would you follow?” Quicksilver asked, startled, called back from his contemplation of Proteus and of the great ill he could be thought to have done to Proteus.
    What did Proteus think of Quicksilver?
    He’d killed Proteus's father, and he could give no man back his life. No elf either. All of Quicksilver’s magic, all of the hill’s might, could not restore the life of an insect that had once buzzed through a long summer afternoon, much less the life of a being with thought, like a man or an elf.
    Wherefore, then, should Quicksilver take the life he could not give? From whence came his right to do so?
    Yet Vargmar was a traitor, and as a traitor he’d deserved to die.
    Yet Vargmar was his uncle, and as his uncle, Quicksilver had owed him respect.
    Yet Vargmar had done war on Quicksilver.
    Yet had Quicksilver brought the war about through his own, immense failings? Through his divided self that failed to attach the loyalty of the warrior male elves.
    He was lost in this thought and feeling still the discomfort he’d felt when the axe had severed Vargmar’s neck and spilled the noble blood to seep into the raw wood of the block.
    Quicksilver felt a great sadness, as though he’d lost something as irretrievable as life itself. His innocence? His peace of mind?
    He thought of that image of Silver he’d seen before his eyes. Silver fleeing him? But why should he lament that? Had he not, always, wished he could cease being a double being, at war with himself?
    Out on the block, the body had already twinkled away into the nothing of a noble elf who’d been condemned to eternal death and barred from the wheel of reincarnation that was elves’ recompense for their exclusion from the paradise of mortals.
    But the thoughts, the unease, lingered in Quicksilver’s heart and mind.
    And then, Malachite’s suggestive whisper, his offer to follow--
    “Whom? Whom do you wish to follow?” Quicksilver asked, turning to look into Malachite’s dark green eyes.
    Malachite narrowed his eyes. “Proteus, milord.”
    “Proteus?”
    “He’s gone away from this festive gathering,” Malachite said.
    Quicksilver looked around at the swirling, festive mass of elves, who celebrated the end of the war.  
    Girls sang and smiled and twirled with youth in improvised dance. They were relieved peace had come and that they’d survived the strife. But Proteus might think else.
    “He’s taken himself way from the scene of his father’s death,” Quicksilver said. “To mourn in peace. Can you blame him?”
    “Aye, I can blame him for mourning a traitor,” Malachite said, his voice cutting.
    And what could Quicksilver retort to that? For it was true, as it was true that Proteus’s wounded pride, injured spirit, might lead him wrong.
    But Quicksilver was not wholly ready to burn the branch where he’d cut the root.
    The last glimmer of Proteus's pale hair, the last movement of