“What do they look like?”
Mother Hemlock screwed her eyes up, as if focusing on an image on the inside of her skull. “I’ve only caught glimpses, thankfully. They’re very pale, almost white, and they’re built like our common lizards, except they often walks upright. And they talks.”
“How big are they?”
“About five inches.”
Velicity’s laugh filled the room. “Five inches? What possible danger could they pose?”
“Well, firstly, miss ‘I know it all’, five inches times a hundred is a lot of trouble. Add in sharp teeth and a brutal attitude and you’ve got a plague on your hands.”
“Oh,” Velicity said.
Mother Hemlock smiled grimly. “You see a spider and you jumps on a chair, but these little bastards would cut the legs off it.”
“But what would they want with Bill?”
“They? Probably nothing. But they ain’t their own masters, they works for elfs.”
Velicity slumped down, the inside of her mind seared with images of Marcello’s bloodied body after Floatslikeabutterfly had attacked him.
“So, the real question is what the elfs want with young Bill,” Mother Hemlock said.
“And where they’re taking him.”
Jessie looked across at Velicity and then at Brianna, who had sat silently throughout. “Oh, I knows where they’ve taken him.” There was a flicker from her daughter. Good.
“Where?” Velicity responded.
“To their country.”
“Then, why don’t we go after them?”
Brianna stirred. “Because where he’s gone, we can’t follow.”
#
Bill watched as the moon rose over the horizon. In another situation, it would have been a beautiful sight to behold, but he knew that it signalled the true beginning of his troubles. Somehow, the elf would use the necklace to part the barrier between their worlds, and they’d step into, first, the Darkworld and then, having crossed that, to the Beyond, beyond.
They sat in a small grove lined with oak trees. A stone stood in the centre of the clearing, so weathered that it looked as though it had grown out of the ground, its inscription long ago lost.
“What makes you think I can survive in your world?” Bill said as the elf strode to and fro.
Stingzlikeabee stopped and looked down at him. “Who was your mother?”
“She was called Astria.”
“And what was she?”
Bill shrugged. “She was half faerie, half human.”
“Yes, and that is why you can pass into the Darkworld without harm. No pureblood human can survive under the Darkworld’s sky, but you have faerie blood, so it does not harm you.”
This only confirmed Bill’s suspicions. He’d wondered about this since he’d been exposed to the Darkworld at the end of Minus’s labyrinth. Thun had been burned by the dim sun in that place, and yet Bill had survived unharmed, and the obvious difference between them (aside from all the other obvious differences) was that Bill had faerie blood and Thun did not.
“But what has that got to do with the Beyond? Will my faerie blood protect me there?”
The elf gave a grim smile, flashing her canines. “No, your elf blood will.”
“What?”
“The evil wizard made faeries, you know this. You saw his place of experiments, which I have also now seen. He wanted to make a race to rule the Darkworld, so who did he choose? A human and an elf. You have our blood in your veins.” She pulled a face that expressed her disgust at this.
Bill snapped his jaw shut when he felt drool running down his chin. “I’m part elf?”
“A very small part.”
Bill ran the calculation. “One eighth.”
“Yes, and it was enough to protect you in the Darkworld. It will be enough to protect you also in our land. Perhaps.”
“Perhaps?”
The elf sat down next to him. “Yes, perhaps. We don’t know. You are the first to mix human, faerie and elf. Did you not think your skin is pale for your species?”
“Yes, but I got that from my mother… oh,” Bill said. “And she got it from her elf ancestry.”
The elf nodded. “Yes, and in other ways you are different also. You are shorter than many of your age and gender, are you not? And you gets sluggish when you are cold. Is this not true?”
Bill thought about it for a moment. “I suppose so. When we were on the road, Brianna always lasted longer than me, but I assumed it was because she was, well, Brianna. She’d travelled more than me.”
“Not just that. Her blood is hot, yours is not so much.”
“What do you mean?”
Stingzlikeabee pointed off into the undergrowth. “The Draconi, they are from my world. What would you call them?”
Several words sprang to mind, but Bill elected to remain civil. “Lizards? Reptiles?”
“Yes. Your world is full of fur and feathers. There are no birds in the Beyond, not like your birds, in any case. Lizards with feathers, yes. We elfs, we are ancient. Our blood is cold. In my world, there are no monkeys, no apes, no humans. Except those within suits of wood and metal sent there by Minus the Evil.”
“You mean, I’m part lizard?”
The elf scowled. “No. That is like saying you are part cow. You are part elf, a very small part. Just enough, though. Perhaps.”
“Look, whether I believe you or not, I don’t see why it matters, why I am needed to do something you cannot do yourself.”
“Well, for starts, we elfs believe you should sweep up your own rat’s droppings and you humans caused our problems. And, for seconds, only you can do it - you, not elfs, not other humans. You has the blood of three races and the power of fire. If you cannot help us, no-one can.”
Chapter 6
CHORTLEY REFLECTED, AS HE SAT in a dark corner of The Count’s Head in Winklesdon, that a large proportion of his enjoyment of life came from simply being Chortley Fitzmichael. Matters became more complicated when he was forced to inhabit another persona. Finding a table to sit at was, it seemed, more than a matter of entering a room and looking around. He’d found that, as Ned the Steward, even raising an eyebrow in a threatening manner had achieved nothing. It was remarkable. Frankly, he was used to proceeding through the world at the centre of a circular exclusion zone that, gently or otherwise, nudged the common folk out of the way and left a clear path. As it was, he’d only found a table at all in this dingy inn because it was already occupied by a man whose few remaining fingers threatened to disassociate themselves at any moment.
Chortley looked across at the man as he tried to lift his mug to his lips, such as they were. He’d introduced himself as Fester Shepherd14, professional leper, before offering to move along the bench in return for remuneration.
“Aye, I come from a long line of schleppers,” he said, “plying my speciality from town to town.”
Chortley felt obliged to respond because that was, after all, what normal people did when asked a question by another normal person. Though extending that label to Fletcher was probably going a step, or a shamble, too far. “Well, I think you put a brave face on your ailment.”
“What’s wrong with my face?” Shepherd snapped, his features sharpening so quickly Chortley half expected them to drop onto the table. “I’ve worked on it for years! Do you think a face like this just creates itself?”
Chortley shrugged. “No?” he hazarded.
Shepherd shook his head, giving the distinct impression that his nose was operating to a different value of centrifugal force and would, if he wasn’t very careful, continue rotating around his head. “No, that’s right. I almost thought I’d fail, you know,” he said, calming as his mind, it seemed, began roaming the rose-petaled pathways of his past. “I come from a long line of schleppers, you see. My granddad, Lazarus, he was a pioneer of the art. He was so accomplished that he had to be careful takin’ a nap by the roadside in case he got mistaken for a decomposing skeleton - he woke up more t
han once at the business end of a plague pit. Mind you, he did very well out of the business, and it certainly beats working for a living.”
“Does it?”
“My dad was a bit of a black sheep, he decided to make a living as a shepherd, like his forefathers. What a waste.”
“What happened to him?” Chortley asked, despite himself.
Shepherd shrugged creakily. “Wolves ate him. Occupational hazard. Well, you can imagine, after that I was set on emulatin’ granddad. Mind, it took years before I was fully infected.”
Chortley was, unfortunately, just swallowing a mouthful of ale. “You got leprosy deliberately?” he managed, wiping his chin.
“Of course, you don’t get it by accident,” Shepherd said. “Well, you can, but we’re talking professional schlepping here, not your hobbyist.”
“But what’s the point?”
Shepherd leaned forward. “Oh, it has its perks. I have absolutely no aches and pains whatsoever and whenever I wants a pint, I have only to ask.”
Chortley watched as the man smiled, expecting his face to explode at any moment. “Yes, of course,” he said, motioning at the landlord. “What’ll you have, Cock?”
Fester Shepherd’s eyes moistened, and tears ran down his pockmarked face. “Are you tryin’ to be cruel, laddie?”
“Sorry,” Chortley responded, feeling that he was missing something. “What are you drinking then?”
“I’ll have a pint of Wally’s, if it’s all the same to you.”
“Wally’s?”
Shepherd nodded dangerously. “Aye, that new Count Walter brew - on account of his recent tragic passing.”
Adrenalin speared through Chortley’s innards. “You’ve heard then?”
“Oh aye, news travels fast,” he said, “and good news spreads like lice in a nunnery.”
Chortley leant forward, and then leant back again. “So, the death of my fath… the count, that is, was not a source of great sorrow to the countryside.”
Fester laughed. “Oh laddie, that’s a good one,” he said, as his various extremities settled down to a dangerous equilibrium, “I thought my sides were going to split for a minute. I ken you’re not from around these parts, but the count was a bastard to top all bastards.”
“And yet, the landlord of this public house has brewed an ale to commemorate him. Very quickly.” Chortley said, feeling irrationally offended by the man’s attitude.
The leper shook his head. “Oh no, we only got the news this mornin’. But old Jok, the landlord, he’s not one to miss a commercial opportunity, so he poured some whiskey into the Stallion’s Pride keg and renamed it Count Walter. That way, he gets to make some extra cash, without appearin’ disloyal. The count’s spies are everywhere.” Fester’s eyes narrowed suspiciously.
“I don’t doubt it,” Chortley responded, “but I can assure you there is no love lost between the count and I. Was no love lost, I should say.” He got up and picked his way through the dim pub to the bar. No love lost, indeed. He was the bastard son of a bastard, a bastard squared. A total bastard.
No, that wasn’t fair. He couldn’t, on the one hand, chastise himself for his weakness (especially when in Velicity’s orbit) while, on the other, considering himself a chip off the old block. The executioner’s block. Which is exactly where he’d find himself if his sister’s men (basically the entire army of the Fitzmichaels barring a few loyal members of the Crapplecreek garrison) got hold of him. And McGuff was late. He began to wonder if even the honest and unimaginative sergeant-major might have decided that his cookie crumbled at Aggrapella’s table.
And without McGuff, he had no-one.
#
The moon had risen over the trees, bathing the clearing in an eldritch light. Stingzlikeabee was pacing around the space between the trees, holding her necklace out in front of her like a compass. And, indeed, she seemed to be looking for a bearing, as she turned it this way and that before, in ever smaller sweeps, she found what she was looking for.
“Get up,” she said.
Bill felt tiny reptilian arms pushing at his back. “Alright, alright,” he huffed, “I can stand up without your help.”
Stingzlikeabee held out her hand and Bill grasped it, surprised by how cold and dry it felt. And scaly. “Hurry,” she said as she held the necklace in front of her and stepped towards the edge of the grove.
For a moment, Bill felt as though his insides were now his outsides and reflexively closed his eyes. The feeling passed almost before it had started and he looked. All was dark, though there was a hint of a moon behind black clouds and he knew that, beneath his feet, was the grey sand of the Darkworld.
“Moves forward, big ape,” said a voice at ankle level, “the gap is small and there are many of us.”
Bill fumbled forward, his eyes beginning to adjust to the almost complete black of the night in the Darkworld. He got the impression that the Draconi had far superior night vision as they flowed around his feet. Stingzlikeabee dragged him a few steps further, then pulled his hands down. “Sit, your weak monkey eyes are no use until morning. We must lie here quiet and hope no goblins patrol here.”
“Where are we? In the Darkworld, I mean.”
Bill felt the elf sit down, though he sensed (or imagined) her head turning to and fro as she scanned for danger. “We are on a high pass in the mountains, I do not know if it has a name. We will move in the morning and find the portal into the Beyond..”
“Mistress.”
Bill imagined the elf turning to look down. “What is it Sebaceous?”
“We is colddd.”
Stingzlikeabee sighed. “I can do nothing about it. We will be in our world tomorrow, I hope, where you can warm yourselves.”
There was a brief pause as the little reptile considered his next words. “But I isn’t sure we will be walking anywhere tomorrow, already we is feeling all slow like. Ssssoon we might sssstoppp.”
“What’s the problem?” Bill asked.
“Our world is warm, Son of Monkeys, but in cold places like this, we freeze.”
Bill turned to where he could just make out the elf’s eyes, glinting in the gloom. “You’re cold too?”
“Not so cold as the draconi, we elfs are more evolved than them. And we are bigger, so we get cold slower.”
There was a definite edge to Stingzlikeabee’s voice. Perhaps it was fear. Maybe it was colder here than she’d expected. Maybe, if he hunkered down, he’d wake up to find them all either dead or sluggish. He’d be able to escape or … put them out of the equation entirely.
Or perhaps not. Bill picked up a rock, sensing the elf and a host of small eyes watching him suspiciously, ready to pounce. He concentrated for a moment, then smiled as the rock began to glow a dull red that illuminated the faces surrounding him, looking for all the world like a collection of eccentric gargoyles. “Here,” he said, putting the rock down on the ground where it sat, quietly sizzling. There was a scurrying sound and he looked down to see it surrounded by lizardly bodies, each attempting to get as much warmth as possible.
“Thank you,” Stingzlikeabee said as she held her hands over the rock.
Bill nodded, then sat back and enjoyed the second hand heat that made it past the lizards, many of who had flipped over to expose their backs to the hot rock. He knew he’d done the right thing, but was less certain he’d done the clever thing. Perhaps tomorrow would tell.
Chapter 7
BRIANNA WAS THE ONLY HEMLOCK on the farm when the man from Montesham arrived. It had been four days since Bill had disappeared, and she’d spent most of that time in her bedroom, existing within a dark fugue and barely aware of time passing.
She’d hardly responded when Sally the dairymaid had, after knocking gently several times, finally lost patience. The old girl had thumped across the floor and stood in front of the window, her considerable circumference blocking out the light.
“What is it Sally?” Brianna asked when she realised that this was an external darkness.
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The dairymaid gestured to the door. “There’s a gentleman here to see you, mistress. Though, there’s not much gentle about ‘im I should say. But he talks like a nob and he asked for the boss, so, as your mother and father aren’t here, I thought you’d ‘ave to do.”
“What does he want?”
“Blowed if I know,” Sally said, with an audible shrug. “But he says he’s on official county business and it can’t wait. He’s got a couple of yobs in the yard - he don’t think I saw ‘em, but it takes a cunnin’ little shit to hide from me.”
Brianna pulled herself up.
“Oh heavens, you can’t go seein’ a man lookin’ like that” Sally said, staring wide-eyed at the creased and, frankly, unsanitary dress Brianna had worn since her wedding morning. The old woman shook her head before stomping off to Brianna’s wardrobe and flinging the doors open. “My, there’s not a lot here for a country girl. It’s all leather and canvas. Still, it’s all that’s clean so it’ll ‘ave to do.”
Brianna looked down at the clothes as they landed on the bed. Travel-stained cloak, shirt and trousers. She’d last worn them on the journey back from the labyrinth, when her future seemed so clear and everything had been alright. Hadn’t it? Yes, it had.
Sally shambled to the door and pulled it open. “I’ll offer him a brew, but you’d best be down quickly.”
She’d gone before Brianna could ask her to undo the fastenings at the back of the dress, so she sighed, gripped the collar and pulled. Tears fell onto the bed cover as she stepped out of the ruined dress, and they carried on falling as she washed herself down with a flannel and the bowl of cold water by the window. She dried herself and picked up the trousers, thinking they felt surprisingly light, as if her dress had weighed her down. She dressed quickly; pulling on her shirt, tightening her belt and retrieving the dagger from behind her pillow.
She straightened up and looked out of the window, actually seeing what was there for the first time since her wedding day. Sally was right - two muscle-bound men lurked in the yard. Which meant that whoever was waiting for her downstairs expected resistance to his mission, whatever it was.
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