by A. C. Salter
“Why?” Dylap asked.
“Because my last mistress disowned me for speaking with you. They hate the fact that the law states that I must be employed by somebody. They will use any excuse to be rid of me and pass me onto the next.”
“How many mistresses have you had?” Dylap asked.
“Tailor’s servant is my twentieth. I’ve yet to go to the gem collectors, the Palace or Aviary. The only other place I haven’t worked is the Shroom Tree.”
“That’s awful, haven’t you made any friends in all those jobs?”
“I don’t deserve friends.” She had finished measuring his back and slowly came around to face him, the tape held up to his chest. “The fae of Farro won’t forget the war. Most of them lost somebody to the split-wings.”
“I’ll be your friend, Ebbin too.”
“That’s right,” Ebbin agreed.
Elaya’s lip began to tremble and she leaned closer, attempting to hide it. Her arms reached around his shoulders to touch the base of the spine. Sizing him up for the slits in his jerkins.
He was sure he felt a tear fall onto his bare neck, but like her face, it was now hidden beneath her hair.
“I can’t have friends,” she whispered, her words choking with sadness.
Dylap thought she would say more but Mrs Tangilup strode back into the room with her husband. Each of them carrying several pairs of riding boots. Elaya finished the measurement and slipped quietly away, bowing low before disappearing behind the counter. Dylap watched her progress as she paused briefly at the door, her dragonfly-like wings shaking before she carried on through.
“Now,” Mr Tangilup said, setting the boots on the floor. “We have Farrosion weasel…”
“Those will be fine,” Dylap snapped, pointing to the closest pair. He slid one of his feet into the stiff boot and pulled it on. Wiggling his toes, he found that it fit snuggly and so put the other on.
“I’ll take them,” he said, not bothering to take them off. “How much do I owe you?”
The Tangilups exchanged a glance between them before Mrs Tangilup answered, “A deboon.”
Dylap was about to hand the coin over, when Mr Tangilup held his hand, fat fingers pressing into his palm. “But if you would be so kind as to look at our hummer outside, I would be glad to half the bill, Sir. You see, he seems rather lethargic and has taken to sleeping all the time. Mrs Tangilup hasn’t been able to fly him in weeks.”
“I can certainly have a look for you Mr Tangilup,” Dylap said, already knowing what the problem was with the humming bird and feeling as though he was cheating, taking the half deboon. But the way the Tangilups treated Elaya gave him mind to asking for more.
Striding out of the tailors, it felt strange wearing the boots. The soft leather creaking as it masked the rough wood beneath. He hadn’t realised how much punishment his feet had endured until now.
He went to the hummer and began to stroke his feathers, feeling the sleeping bird stiffen yet it didn’t wake. Its snores still rhythmically whistling on the intake. The problem was simple and you didn’t need to be a bird-soother to work it out.
“Well?” Mr Tangilup asked nervously, his wings briefly flashing open to reveal the same smudge tips as his wife’s. “Can you help? It would be a real shame to part with him, you know, us being the only fae in this tree to own a bird.”
Dylap knew that it was rare for a fae of even middle-class to own a bird, let alone a tailor. His guess was that the Tangilups were from a rich family, or that they were granted special status from the high-class.
“He’s overweight and slovenly,” Dylap explained. “There’s nothing wrong that a diet and exercise can’t cure.”
“That’s wonderful news,” Mrs Tangilup said, hugging her husband.
“However, I recommend using somebody light to fly him until he’s improved.”
“Light?”
Dylap nodded. “Elaya is slight and will bear the least weight for the bird.”
“Spit? But she cannot fly. It wouldn’t be right – even their own kind don’t ride,” Mrs Tangilup stated.
“Then I’ll be here each evening to tutor her,” Dylap replied, keeping authority in his voice. “Your hummer is a nice specimen and like you have said, you are privileged to have him. It would be a shame let him fall into ill health and lose him. Master Sabesto wouldn’t be too happy with a bird outside of his care with ailments.”
“But Spit?” Mr Tangilup exclaimed, fingers scratching at his balding head.
“Elaya,” Dylap corrected. “I’ll be here tomorrow evening. See to it that she is properly attired.”
He flicked the deboon at Mrs Tangilup whose chubby hand floundered after it.
“Use what’s left of the coin to make her riding clothes.”
“Very good, Sir,” she replied, etiquette forcing the words through tight lips.
He left them staring as he untied Noggin and climbed on his back, a grinning Ebbin sliding onto the saddle behind him.
“That was incredible,” Ebbin shouted as the squirrel skipped deftly over a tree limb and skittered up the bark of an oak. “Their faces were priceless.”
Dylap smiled. He didn’t believe that he would have acted as such if the tailors had not shown hostilities towards Elaya and himself. He hated the class system of Farro, it was extremely unfair and he was glad for the opportunity to use it against them. He only wished that he was as good a bird-soother as the fae thought he was.
“One thing is bothering me,” Ebbin continued. “How are you going to teach Elaya how to fly when your own lessons have yet to begin?”
The same problem had already manifested itself in Dylap’s mind. How could he teach something that he had yet to learn?
“I’ll think of something,” he replied, hoping that he would. At the least it would give Elaya a small respite from the Tangilup’s company.
10
God-Created Fragments
Dilbus pushed through the strange revolving door into the inventor’s vast chamber. The sun gems in the lamps were barely strong enough to reveal the full height of the cavernous room which was at least a hundred spans high.
“Tinks?” he shouted, his voice echoing around the chamber and rebounding off the various contraptions.
A small glass hatch swung open from a large barrel and the inventor stuck his head out.
“Captain Fenwick,” he said cheerfully as he climbed out of the contraption and glided to the floor. “Nice to see you again. What can I do for you?”
“For a start,” Dilbus said, dropping his false wing at the inventor’s feet. “You can fix that. It worked well until I landed. Then the thing jammed open when it should have folded. It was embarrassing to say the least, but thankfully I was on the ground. I hate to say what would have happened if it malfunctioned while in flight.”
Tinks slapped his head. “Sorry Captain,” he chuckled as he picked it up and carried it over to a work bench. “These prototypes will often need fiddling with until you can straighten out all the niggly bits.”
The inventor slipped a pair of spectacles onto his nose as he spirited a screwdriver from the pockets of his tool belt and began to undo the arm of the mechanism.
“Niggly bits, is a term I don’t want to hear about a device that should keep me airborne.” He nodded towards the barrel that the inventor had climbed out of. “What’s this you’re working on?”
“I call it the Subtwinerer,” Tinks said, opening his arms out to the machine. “Once complete it will take a fairy beneath the surface of the Twine.”
Dilbus stared at the barrel and the brass hatch and wondered which was the less dangerous, the contraption or the inventor himself?
“Why?”
“Why what?” Tinks replied as he returned his attention to the prosthetic wing, tongue sticking out between his teeth in concentration.
“Why go beneath the surface of the Twine? There isn’t anything down there for us fae.”
“Begging your pardon, Sir. But
how do you know?”
A reply began to form on his lips, but Dilbus had great problems coming up with an answer and so shrugged.
“There’s a great many mysteries waiting to be solved. One of which is why the Twine has two colours and why the two stay as they are and don’t mix,” the inventor continued.
“Because the violet shade spews from the Mianni River, where the land itself bleaches magic. This is common knowledge Tinks.”
“I know why they don’t mix, but I wish to understand the how – the very mechanics that the stuff is made from. Maybe if I was to extract a sample from the river bed, a piece of silt that has locked away the secrets of when the river first formed, then I could grasp the reasoning behind it all.”
“But it wouldn’t change anything, Tinks,” Dilbus said, amazed at the inventor’s passion for stripping everything down to its simplest form to attempt to recreate it. His grander inventions rarely worked.
“You’re probably right,” Tinks admitted as he twisted a new screw into the elbow joint of the prosthetic wing. “But who knows what else I might glean from down there.”
“If you get stuck or eaten by a devil cod, then it would only be death that you’ll glean.”
“Which only adds to the adventure, here, try this on,” Tinks suggested as he handed him the wing.
Dilbus slipped the straps over his shoulder and tightened the buckles into place. Then stepped into the middle of the room and released the spring.
The fish bone rods erected stretching the bat membrane out. Dilbus flexed it this way and that, testing its manoeuvrability before pulling a cord to collapse it back down again.
“Seems to be working,” he said, extending the wing and folding it several more times to be sure.
“That’s the niggly bit sorted out. You always get them.”
“I just hope there aren’t any more niggles,” Dilbus replied.
Tinks offered a rueful smile, “It’s the niggles that help us learn. Now what was the other thing you came to see me for? You said the wing was only the first.”
“Yes, I’m glad you reminded me,” Dilbus replied, retrieving from a pouch the glass fragment that he and Limble had found and handing it to him. “Ever seen anything like this before?”
Tinks took the fragment and returned to his bench. He held it over the sun gem lamp, squinting as he brushed it lightly with his thumb.
“Where did you find this little beauty?” he asked, his gaze never straying from the object.
“Found it on the river bank, washed up by the tide,” Dilbus replied, withholding the fact that it was the same place where they had pulled Dylap from. “Do you know where it was crafted or by whom? I thought it might be goblin crystal, but the runes etched into the glass don’t look familiar.”
“That’s because they’re not runes. They’re the written words of a god. The same god that created the crystal it came from.”
“God? Are you telling me this is god-created?”
The thought had never occurred to him. The Twine often washed strange and curious clutter down its two-toned currents, but he hadn’t heard of anything god-created swilling down. He couldn’t comprehend how this all fit in with Dylap, but he was sure it would complicate things and not for the better.
“Do you know which god? Or even what the crystal was for?”
Tinks shook his head as he retrieved a magnifying glass and held it over the fragment. The god words sparkling in the gem light.
“I don’t know much about the gods, that’s more for the spell-binders and casters in the rowan tree. But at a guess, I’d say this piece was part of a large cylinder. Maybe a giant jar or bottle.” He traced his finger along the ridge of the object. “You can see how it subtly curves.”
A heaviness settled into Dilbus’s stomach. The weight of an impending doom that lay dormant, waiting for a victim to discover its secrets before devastating their life. Dilbus had an inkling that he was on the verge of unleashing something terrible.
“Can you keep this to yourself for now?” he asked as he took the crystal fragment back.
Tinks nodded. “You have my word, Captain. By the way, have you heard about the Dylap?”
“What about him?” Dilbus asked, suddenly feeling uneasy.
“It turns out he’s a bird-soother. Can you believe that? He calmed a crazed finch yesterday and Sabesto has given him a place in the Taming Tree. Remarkable, the high-class have been queueing up for him to soothe any ailments their birds have. There’s even talk of him having flying lessons from one of the tamers.”
“Remarkable,” Dilbus agreed. He had already known of the crazed bird and Dylap’s abilities. News like that travelled like wildfire through the city. It was just another mystery that needed to be added to the already growing secrets that surrounding the strange fairy. Secrets it seemed that were hidden from Dylap himself.
Dilbus put the scorched tree and Tinks behind him as he guided his bird through the city. The prosthetic wing was still strapped to him but he decided that he wouldn’t trust it yet. He would leave that for his night time duties where there were less fae around to watch him fail. He was ridiculed enough for not being able to fly. He wouldn’t give them anything more to mock him with.
Choosing a route through the market, he picked the most direct path without flying above the canopy. The black beast still circled high above, its shadow becoming a constant as it patrolled the skies and menacing everything below. Only the city guard flew out in the open, where they would give chase to the monster in random attacks. They would often see it off but it always returned. Like the mission he was given by the general, it seemed they both had something they were searching for.
The rowan was a tree he seldom visited. The spell-casters and binders that dwelt there were a superstitious lot. They had an instant dislike for anything that wasn’t arcane and trusted nobody. Least of all the night watch, who would sometimes be the fairies who would stop them conducting their strange rituals in the dark of night or interrupt an exotic spell which needed to be done as the first rays of dawn spiked the heavens.
It wasn’t as if Dilbus did these things to torment them, which they often accused him of. It was his duty, and more often than not, he stumbled upon them by accident as they were the only fae to be out at night.
He landed along a crooked branch and tied the bird to a twig with burnt leaves. The entire tree was blackened and scorched, the runes carved into the bark glowing, the heat they created curling any foliage left on the rowan.
“It’s, alright,” he reassured the bird, patting it gently on the side of the neck. The eggy smell that permeated from the bark put them both on edge. “I won’t be long. Just don’t eat anything that crawls out of the wood. The chances are it will kill you.”
Leaving the finch, he ventured to the triangular hole in the side of the trunk. Swirling text shimmered around the edges, a ward against any evil or untoward. Dilbus clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. The only thing untoward was inside the rowan.
A silver bell hung beside the triangle and he wrapped his knuckles on it. The sound sent a chill through him, like the impending doom that threatened him earlier, the sound reminded him of a toll rung by death itself.
He was reluctant to ring it a second time and so was relieved when a binder opened the door and stepped out onto the branch.
“What is your business Fenwick?” he asked, a hooked nose pointing out from beneath his hood. His watery eyes darted to the prosthetic wing and a crooked grin split his wrinkling mouth.
They always called him Fenwick. The order didn’t believe in using first names unless it was somebody of high importance. They thought themselves above everyone except royalty. Which was another reason why they refrained from calling him Captain. That and the fact that they despised the night watch.
“I wish to speak with the High Caster. It is a matter of great importance.”
“I doubt that, Fenwick. Something that you deem important we rarely find
of any significance. What is it? I will inform the High Caster.”
Dilbus leaned closer, turning his body so the fake wing brushed the binder’s robe and smiled when the older fairy cringed from the touch.
“My words are for the High Caster only,” he said, fighting the temptation to spring the mechanism and fling the aged caster through the door. “If he deems you worthy of the knowledge, I’m sure he will tell you.”
Sucking his gums in disgust, the binder backed away without another word, closing the door behind him. Dilbus waited long enough to think that the binder had left him there and not sought out the High Caster. His knuckles were about to wrap the bell for a second time when the door opened and the binder stood aside to let him through.
The inside of the rowan was as blackened as the outside. The red glow of runes on the walls and floor lighting the way along the corridor. He breathed through his mouth to prevent the potent odour from damaging his nostrils, but couldn’t stop the taste of rotten eggs filling his mouth. Doors to either side were closed, some of them locked with thick steel banding. Dilbus couldn’t comprehend what was behind them, needless to say, they were dangerous.
They paused outside a stone entrance, a grimoire of a demon carved in each top corner. The eyes of which followed him as he was ushered through, as if reading his thoughts.
The chamber he was led into was dome-shaped. A pentangle covered the entire floor, the lines drawn criss-crossed in the many triangles that formed it. Black candles glowed from each point, the flames as dark as the wax but oddly they produced a blood-coloured light. Around the circular wall were lecterns, thick tomes of spells lay open on them and a caster and binder at each, studying the ancient scripture which had been written long ago in the old line of alabaster trees.
The High Caster sat upon an ebony throne, his beard so long that it lazed in his lap and spilled over his knees. He stared through white eyes, the colour having vanished years ago, but Dilbus didn’t doubt that he could see well enough. The grimoire above the throne grinned as he stepped closer.