Midwinter

Mauritane stepped forward. "I am," he answered, also in High Fae. Mauritane chanced a look around. The Unseelie soldiers remained on their knees; Ma Denha was looking desperately at his men's weapons, which lay in a pile out of reach. Satterly stood by Silverdun and Mave, his mouth hanging open. Only Raieve stood at the ready, sword out, ready to do battle.

"This is the instant!" said the Thule Man. "Beyond this I know nothing. I cannot see it. I am at the water's edge." He stared at Mauritane in wonder and fell silent. As the seconds passed, his smile faded and he appeared to grow uneasy.

"What is your business with me?" said Mauritane. "I do not know you."

The Thule Man's jaw clenched and his teeth ground together like stones. Sparks flew from between his lips.

"What's he doing?" Satterly asked.

"What is your business with me?" Mauritane repeated. "Are you indeed the Thule Man?"

"Yes," the Thule Man finally said, through gritted teeth.

"I know you only from a child's story."

The Thule Man's jaw unclenched. "Tell me that story," he said.

Mauritane looked to Silverdun, who shrugged, and to Raieve, who said, "I don't speak his tongue."

The Thule Man slammed a heavy fist into the rock wall behind him. "I have waited long enough for you. If I want the story, you will at least have the courtesy to give it to me."

Mauritane sighed, his mind working furiously. What was this creature after? Was it truly the Thule Man from the book on his father's mantel?

"As I recall," said Mauritane, annoyed at his own confusion, "it was during the Rauane Envedun-e, before the Great Reshaping, before Titania united the kingdom. The Thule Man was a High Magus from the city of… Renat, I believe. One of the last true Magi of the Thule Fae."

"No. It was the City Emerald," the Thule Man growled. "Renat was but a village in those days."

"The City Emerald, then," Mauritane continued. "He was an old man who feared death and devoted his studies to the pursuit of immortality. To that end he pushed beyond the boundaries of accepted thaumatics and began to experiment with forbidden things: the Black Arts, Blood Magic, that sort of thing.

"His colleagues cautioned him against that dangerous path, but he ignored them. Then they warned him sternly, but he threatened them. Then one day a serving girl discovered the bodies in his cellar; the victims of his diabolical experiments."

"The story does not mention," the Thule Man interrupted, "that I was by no means the only Magus in those days with bodies in his cellar, nor that the serving girl was directed there by a jealous colleague. But no matter. Pray, continue."

One of the Unseelie soldiers, one who hadn't yet spoken a word in Mauritane's presence, started up from his place by the fire. He ran naked to the stack of weapons and shook a sword from the pile. He shouted his battle cry and ran at the Thule Man, swinging his arm in a powerful arc, aiming for the tendons at the Thule Man's heel.

"Eben, stop!" shouted Ma Denha, but the soldier ignored him.

The blade, however, only struck the skin and recoiled. Eben began hacking furiously at the giant creature, but to no avail.

The Thule Man looked down, irritated, and plucked Eben from the ground. He wrapped his fists around the man's head and squeezed. Mauritane heard an ugly popping crunch and then Eben's body went limp. Blood flecked with gray trickled from the Thule Man's fingers.

"Hold!" shouted Mauritane, mainly to Raieve, who seemed ready to rush the giant herself. "This… man has made no move against us, and we are not in battle until I say so."

The Thule Man nodded. "Pray, continue," he said again, wiping his bloody hand upon his thigh.

Mauritane met his gaze for as long as he was able. When he was finally forced to look away, twin spots of red hung in his vision. "When his deeds were made public, the Magi exiled him from their city. From every city he visited thereafter, he was likewise turned away. Finally he came to the Contested Lands and went among the creatures and villains who lived there."

"True enough," muttered the Thule Man.

"Though exiled, however, the Thule Man did not give up his quest for immortality. In desperation, he found one of the shifting places and ate it, hoping it would confer upon him the secrets of time and space.

"But he was wrong. The shifting place proved too powerful for his depraved mind and his perverted re. It warped his body, turning him into a giant, and it unhinged his mind.

"And now he lives like a wild thing in the Contested Lands to this day. He finally discovered the secret of immortality, but he paid for it with his soul."

"Is that all?" said the Thule Man.

"No," answered Mauritane. "When I was a child, my mother often added that if I were to misbehave, the Thule Man would come and carry me off to the Contested Lands, where he would eat me."