Rhianon grimaced dismissively. What could be with those who tasted it. The piteous cries told her that before she could look. Something strange was already happening to all the people in the center of the reception; they were falling to the floor, whimpering, as if they were being burned from within. Rhianon saw the blood mixing with the crushed berries on the floor. And the fairies were laughing. Their laughter made their ears ring.
«Why is it?» She asked Fresia quietly, so that the others could not hear.
«He used to cheat us out of our fields and pay us no taxes,» Fresia explained.
«You mean us?» Rhianon didnt immediately realize that the term generalized everyone here, even her. It was as if she was already among them, and all because no one had noticed she was an outsider. And what would happen when they noticed.
She tried not to look frightened, but a shiver ran down her spine. Watching the carnage begin was hard. Rhianon had never thought that all it took to kill was a touch of hands, fangs, and claws, not hard steel. Some creature only remotely resembling a disembodied lady merely touched the last survivors. They were children, unformed teenagers, crying, unaware of what was happening to them. The fairy only pretended to want to caress them, but the light touch of her fingers opened a network of sores on their bodies. The sores would appear and burst, and nasty parasites would crawl out of them, tearing the clothes on their already dying bodies.
«And then the masquerade begins?» Rhianon asked softly when she saw the fairy take the masks off the dying men and throw them into the fireplace.
«No, it is not at all,» Fresia ran her fingers playfully over her shoulders and leaned close to her ear to whisper, «we wont need masks after that. After all, theres no one else to hide from.»
Even if that was a joke, it was a good one. Several of the fairies had already thrown off their bows, bravely displaying their bodies, covered only by a cloth of fresh flowers. One of the guests had slit the wrist of a corpse and placed a gilded goblet under it. The other fairies, who had cast off their masks, pinched and scratched the hosts body with pins. They checked to see if he was alive and laughed. Rhianon noticed that the clusters of rowanberries and grapes and buckthorn in their hair were most likely real and seemed to grow straight out of their skin rather than serve as decoration. How beautiful and scary it was. She wondered how she herself would feel if the flowers grew right out of her body.
Her musings were interrupted by the whimpering of a dog. Someone who looked like a mischievous elf had fed the leftover berries to the lords hounds, and now they were wriggling in agony on the floor.
«I dont like dogs, its as if they were designed to interfere with my music and everyones fun,» remarked the same harlequin who had recently touched her train. Whether he had done it accidentally or on purpose, she did not know. He did not notice her now. He sat down in a comfortable chair by the fireplace, snatched a harp from somewhere and tossed off his jesters cap. This fell to the floor with the mask attached to it. It must have been a mask, and not the whitewash and makeup on her face, as Rhianon had at first assumed.
«What to play gentlemen?» The harlequin laughed, the harp, which had fallen with the mask at his feet, was now making sounds all by itself, as if someone invisible was plucking the strings.
«Youd better not play at all, youre not wanted here,» remarked some lady, who had also removed her mask to expose her face, whose forehead and temples were covered with a lush veil of violets, which stretched over her ears and even her neck, but the angry eyes on her face seemed even brighter than they were. They burned like two blue lights.
«Is it redundant?» The harlequin raised his head, tossing back his thick brown hair, and Rhianon recognized his face. He had expressive and enigmatic eyes, which sometimes danced with laughter, but the pleasant tanned face belonged to a young man, not a supernatural being. This minstrel had come to play under her tower windows more than once. He got nothing for it except a slap from her servants, but still he came back again and again. He was variously called a bard, a songbird, a troubadour, or more often just an unhappy admirer. He would appear under the windows of her tower with the sunset and play all night if he was not driven away. From other noble lords for his songs he could get gold pieces, from Rhianon he could not even count on words of approval and still he played for her as often as he could. Only once had she seen him in the hall at a feast. Her curls were then adorned with a crown, and power had not yet been taken away by the regents, and Arno said that his singing today was dedicated only to her. She tolerated this, as she did the fact that with every sunset he literally grew out of the ground beneath her window, unmistakably guessing in which wing of the castle she was, as if he could watch over her through the walls. Where had he been during the day? Was he communicating with evil spirits? Or was he only pretending to be human, when in fact he belonged to their secret society? No, he was most likely human. Rianon could tell, and so could everyone else here. But then why didnt they touch him? After all, they had easily torn the other men apart. And Rhianon was sure that if someone suddenly noticed the presence of uninvited guests, ordinary mortals, they would be attacked.
Some of the fairies did attack Arno, but so far only in words; they would not, or could not, harm him. That was interesting. Rhianon took a closer look at his face, but there was nothing unusual about it.
«Go away, youre embarrassing us,» the girl, who had vines growing in her dark hair, actually clutched at his sleeve and tried to pull him from his chair. «Why do we need an ordinary mortal minstrel? Go and entertain the high-born lords, not their bones. Theres nothing left here but bones. We want to have fun without you.»
The bodies left lying on the floor of the hall would indeed soon become naked bones, Rhianon thought. Beautiful and elegant creatures pounced on the remains like dogs. Exactly the same fairy as the one that had been pinching Arno was just nestled against the former lords throat. For a moment she broke away from the meat and bones and looked at the harp lying nearby. Its strings twitched slowly, making faint sounds as Arno himself tried to free himself from his attackers claws.
«Thank God for unearthly music, not for the pitiful skills of musicians,» she hissed in his ear. «Youre not wanted here, youre not wanted. No one invited you. Dont you dare follow us again and spoil our heavenly tunes. This hall is not for the likes of you.»
«But there are others here worse than me,» he exploded. «Even I can smell extra, and you cant.»
Rhianon involuntarily shuddered. Had he really decided to give her away? He had recognized her, that was for sure, but how could he expose her in front of everyone. She had not expected such meanness from him. Involuntarily she clutched at Fresias elbow, but she didnt even notice it. Her dainty nostrils flared oddly. She sniffed the air, as if trying to smell something. It was like a dog following a trail. For a moment Rhianon felt disgust, and then suddenly realized that Arno was not going to give her away. He pointed his hand toward the gentlemen in the black robes. His eyes suddenly flashed a hostile glow. Such a fierce and impudent expression on his calm face she had never seen. It was as if he had changed in an instant, becoming a very different man, unfamiliar and possessed.