“Name your tipple, mortal man,” said the fiddler, sighting the mortal over the strings of his instrument. “I am certain we can provide it.”
The mortal raised his hands, palms outward. “I thank you for the offer,” he said, “But really, I cannot.”
“Can’t hold your liquor, then?” said the porter. “You are among friends here, but come the morning you will see none of us again. You need not fear embarrassment, mortal man. We do not judge.”
“I have not partaken for years,” he replied.
“Don’t have a taste for it, then?” said the youthful one. She took a draught from a snifter of some yellow liqueur. “Perhaps a liqueur might be more to your fancy.”
“You might even consider it a dessert,” suggested the fellow with the plaited hair.
“I was a different man, when last I indulged in liquor,” replied the mortal. “I have no desire to visit with him again.” He stood up. “But for now, I am very tired. All I desire is a dry place to sleep. If my currency is not valid tender here I will be happy to pay in labour.”
The room was silent then, and a look passed amongst the folk who occupied it with him. The fox was nowhere to be seen.
He could sense that a consensus had been reached, through the exchange of looks and fidgets and other signs that he could not discern.
“Let us not even discuss the matter of payment,” said the innkeeper. “It is an honour to have one of your kind as our guest. Come, come, I will show you to our finest room.”
He followed the innkeeper up the stairs and she showed him to a room that was indeed fine, if small and windowless. There was a fresh bowl of water on the dresser, and a clean chamber pot under the bed, which was covered by many layers of blankets and sheets and eiderdowns. A cast iron tub stood in the corner gleaming from many hours of vigorous polishing.
“Please, take your ease,” said the innkeeper. “I will send the porter to fill the bath for you.
“Thank you, madam,” said the mortal, “but I am far too tired. I think I will go straight to bed. Please apologize to the others if my snoring is too loud.”
The innkeeper bowed stiffly and backed out of the room. When it closed the door, he noticed there was no lock.
The mortal took off his boots and his socks, which were not only dry but also somehow clean. He washed his face and his hands and then lay down on the bed. His legs were too long for it and his knees hung over the sides, but it was high enough that his feet did not touch the floor, and the eiderdown was sufficiently long that it covered his feet. Still, he felt very comfortable, and he was indeed tired. He laid his head back on the pillow and went to sleep.
In the middle of the night he awoke. It was dark, but he thought the door was cracked open, and six pairs of glistening black eyes were regarding him through the gap.
A voice might have asked, “Is he awake?”
“I do not know,” another might have replied.
“His eyes are closed.” It was possible that a third voice had spoken.
“It said it would be snoring,” a fourth voice may have cautioned. “But I hear no sounds.”
Perhaps a fifth voice lamented, “We should have made it drink the spirits.”
Their eyes continued to regard him for a few moments longer. Then the door closed silently--if it had ever been open.
The mortal awoke in the morning feeling refreshed and ravenous and very thirsty. He laced up his boots, collected his belongings, and made his way downstairs.
None of the weasel-folk from the evening before were in evidence. The only other person there was a black haired young woman whom he might have taken for human, were it not for the bushy yellow tails that were visible below the hem of her gown.
“Good morning, fox,” he said.
“Good morning, mortal,” the fox replied. “I have brought you some breakfast.” She set down a half a loaf of bread upon the table, as well as a wheel of cheese and a pat of butter in a small dish.
“Why thank you, fox.” He sat down to the table and began to slice the bread. “I did not expect such hospitality from you.”
“It was the least I could do,” the fox replied. “Given that our hosts have fled into the forest.”
He smeared some butter upon the bread, and reached for the hunk of cheese. “Their plans have gone awry, then?”
“Indeed.”
The mortal arranged the cheese on his sandwich and said, “I suspected a trap when they refused my payment.”
“They refused to discuss payment with you,” said the fox, “Because their intention was to extract it while you were asleep.”
“I bear nothing of value,” said the mortal. “I fear they would have been disappointed, had they succeeded in robbing me.” He took a bite from his meal, and found it delicious, even if the bread had gone a little stale since the previous night.
“I fear they would not have been,” said the fox. “Their intention was to rob you of your liver, your kidneys, your heart, and your meat, and to line their den with your skin.”
He swallowed a mouthful and said “And you, fox? What payment would you have won for your part in this endeavour?”
“Likely they would have given me your bones.”
The mortal chewed his mouthful carefully, considering. “Why is it that you have not fled with the others?”
The fox shrugged. “I am not culpable in their scheme,” it said. “I am just a guide. I delivered to you exactly what you asked of me. I even served you breakfast, while I have had none.”
The mortal brushed the crumbs from his lips with the back of his hand. “Because I am still alive.”
“Be that as it may,” said the fox. “By my reckoning the ledgers are balanced.”
“You are a wily one, fox,” said the mortal. “But I am not fooled. You have remained here because you think to transact further business with me, now that your scheme with the weasel-folk has yielded nothing.”
“As I mentioned, I am a guide,” said the fox. “And you are a questing mortal. I may yet be of use to you. I am wily, as you say, but I am loyal to the one who employs me.”
“I am not so ready to forgive as you imagine,” said the mortal, “but I have suffered no harm, and I am feeling well, this morning. As a gesture of friendship, tell me in which direction I will find the nearest faerie queen, and in return I will forgive you for leading me into a trap.”
The fox licked its lips while it considered his offer. He was not certain when it had resumed its fox-shape. The fox gave a shrug and said “Alright, then, mortal man. Perhaps it is best for all concerned if you continue to travel by yourself. Follow the river downstream and you will presently come to the Ore-lands. See if the Queen there is to your liking, or not.”
He stood up from the table, and then cast one more look down at the bread and cheese. “May I take this with me?” he asked.
“It does not belong to me,” said the fox, grinning, “So I shall not make any effort to stop you.”
When he left the house, he found that day was clear and bright, and the mud had started to dry.
14. The Queen of
the Ore-lands
As the fox had suggested, he followed the river downstream. Soon he came to a place where a strange metal canoe lay beached upon the riverbank. A heavy iron paddle lay in the silt beside it.
Although it was scuffed and dented, the canoe seemed to be structurally sound, with not a spot of rust upon it. It had been crafted out of interlocking pieces of iron, without welds or rivets, and it was an impressive piece of work for all that it was impractical. The mortal pushed it down into the water, and was surprised to find that it was buoyant. He struggled into the canoe, doing his best to keep his belongings dry. The current picked up as soon as he was seated.
The river bore him out of the forest and into some arid new domain; a place that was cratered and b
arren, like the moon of the world he had come from. But this world was both stranger and simpler than his own. It contained neither satellites nor planets nor seas, just Land and Sky, subdivided into Realms according to whimsy, chance and hearsay. The moon here was usually a disk that hung fixed in the heavens at certain times of the day. Sometimes it was some other bauble, but it was an ornament, and nothing more.
As the canoe drifted down the river, the mortal noticed pits and scaffoldings and mounds of tailings scattered across the terrain, and he knew that folk who lived here mined the earth for ores. Before long, their city rose before him: a great metal edifice, jutting with gleaming spires and bulging with burnished domes. The buildings glowed with heat, and purged steam from pipes and regulator valves.
The mortal drove the canoe aground about half a mile from the city walls. He abandoned it there and continued towards the city on foot.
Inside its steel walls, the Ore City was entirely cast from metal. Every building was cut from sheets of brass or iron or bronze. Even the gutters in the streets were metal.
The only structure that the mortal laid eyes upon that was made of stone and bricks and wood was an old theatre. It had a ticket booth in the middle of its sweeping entrance, and the mortal was sure he could see a concession stand inside the darkened lobby. The billboard above the doors showed the title of the current production: A Fistful of Gold Coins. He thought that was funny, until he saw a playbill in the window advertising a coming attraction: The Mortal Josey Wales. Perhaps there was another magus here. He hurried on.
The folk who thronged the streets of the Ore City clanked and clattered as they went about their business, garbed as they were in clothing made entirely from metals. They grinned at him, and admired the Uzi slung over his shoulder. They asked him what it was, but scoffed when he told them it was a weapon.
Such technology would not operate in any of the Realms. Besides the raw forces of the elements and the pull of gravity, no power could be exerted upon this world unless by muscle and sinew. No work could be executed without a beast to labour at it, unless magic was invoked.
The mortal asked the Ore Folk if they had a queen, and they laughingly told him that they did. He asked if he might have an audience with her, and they laughed at him again. The queen’s agents had been observing him since he had climbed into the canoe. She was expecting him at once.
The Ore Folk rushed him down the steel-riven streets and through the brushed-steel chambers of the chromed-metal palace. Before he had time to properly collect his wits, he found himself in the mirror-plated throne room.
The Queen of the Ore-lands was tall and slender and pale. Her raiment was cast from a dozen different metals, secured to her flesh with chains and welds and rivets. The skin of her cheeks had been peeled-back and secured with wire stitches, revealing too many rows of silver teeth.
The Queen shook out her iron-grey hair and rose from her throne. When she grinned, he could see her teeth from three orifices. “Mortal man, you have been granted audience.” Her voice was like a hammer on an anvil.
The mortal put down his rucksack and bent to one knee. “Majesty.”
The Queen’s gauntleted hands clattered as she brought them together. “My time is valuable,” she said. “What do you seek?”
“Majesty, I seek the most beautiful thing in the world,” he said, keeping his gaze fixed on his bootlaces.
The Queen raised one ring-pierced, chain-threaded brow. “Indeed?”
“Indeed, Majesty.”
“In what form, pray tell, do you expect to find this... object?”
“She is a Queen of the Faerie.”
The Queen’s smile did not waver. “Well? Have you found her?”
“The intricacy and skill of the work that has been wrought upon your Majesty is a marvel—”
“Answer the question,” said the Queen, through her hideous grin. “Am I the most beautiful thing in the world?”
He looked right into her ball-bearing eyes and said: “I find your Majesty to be profoundly ugly.”
The Queen threw her head back and laughed; so long and so loud that the walls of the throne room resonated in sympathy. Her minions smirked amongst themselves.
When she had recovered herself, the Queen of the Ore-lands brushed the hair from her eyes with a movement that was fetching in its economy. She licked her lips and shook her head and said: “I like you, mortal. Ask of me a boon, and I will grant it.”
The mortal asked for directions to the court of the nearest queen, carefully stipulating that she still be living, and humanoid in shape. The Queen of the Ore-lands struck her armoured hands together and directed him to seek the Tree Queen. “She is no friend of mine,” said the Ore Queen, “but I would not deny her the pleasure of your company.”
The Ore Folk provisioned him with dry rations to last him for weeks, but the mortal refused their offer of a steed or an escort. He tramped along the hard-packed road that led amongst the mines until he came once more to the river. As he followed its course the skies lightened and the waters ran clearer. Eventually the grey earth became brown and fertile again, and the craters and pits gave way to grassy, rolling hills.
The Ore-lands were an ugly place, and their queen was cast to match, but the encounter gave him heart to continue his quest.
15. The Farm
Soon the mortal came to a fence behind which fields were tilled and beasts were penned. The farmers that cared for the crops and herds were small and quick, furry and strong, and altogether misshapen. They were not so deformed as to be grotesque, but it was a near thing.
The farmers took him into their homestead, where they laid out a meal prepared from the meats and vegetables they had cultivated. The mortal had been subsisting on the dry Ore-lands’ rations for days and he had not felt hungry, but now, in the presence of fresh food, he found that he was ravenous. He ate every dish they set before him.
When he the meal was done and the children had been put to bed, the farmers gathered around the hearth. They sat him in the place of honour and plied him with wine (which he refused) and fruit and cheeses (which he did not). When he could eat no more the eldest among them asked him what it was that he sought.
“I seek the most beautiful thing in the world.”
“What is that?” asked the elder.
“She is a Queen of the Faerie.”
“The identity of this object is of no interest to me,” said the elder, “but I would understand the property that attracts you to it.”
“Beauty?”
“What is ‘beauty’?”
“Beauty is the quality that makes something pleasing to the senses and the intellect. To the ear and the skin and the nose and the tongue. To the mind, of course...but mostly to the eye.”
The elder considered for a while. “What is pleasing to my nose and tongue is food spiced and cooked. What is pleasing to my skin is the heft of a hammer or an axe or a spade. My mind is pleased by my continued existence; my eye by the sight of crops harvested and beasts butchered.” It scratched its chin, which protruded from the side of its skull. “A queen is not pleasing to me in this way. A queen has only soldiers with which to protect me and taxes with which to afflict me. How is this ‘beauty’?”
“Beauty is independent of usefulness or worth,” the mortal replied. “It is to be coveted for its own sake, though it can be appreciated without being possessed.”
“Then what purpose in the seeking of it?” asked the elder.
“The pursuit of beauty is bereft of meaning.”
The elder shook its head. “I believe that I could learn to enumerate the qualities that ‘beauty’ denotes, though I do not possess the faculties to appreciate them in such a way.”
“You are lucky,” said the mortal.
The farm-folk muttered amongst themselves, but their interest in the mortal had finally waned. They
sent him on his way with half a wheel of cheese, a loaf of bread and a quantity of dried meat.
The mortal turned his back upon the farmlands and headed down into a forest, where the trees twined together like dancers stopped in time. The shafts of golden sunlight that lanced through the canopy were too bright to look upon, and he avoided them for fear he would catch fire, like a fly under a magnifying glass.
16. The Black and Crimson Queen
For three days, the mortal wandered through the forest, finding his way by the sun, whose path through the skies was indicated by the Ore Queen’s map. He saw no sign of the Tree Queen, but the forest was vaster than any Realm in the Land. He knew he would find her there, when the appropriate conditions had been met. Or, more likely, she would find him.
He was sitting down to his midday meal on the fourth day when the black and crimson host came upon him, with their black and crimson banners twitching in the still air and their shadowsteel weapons bared.
The mortal swallowed his mouthful, wiped his hands on his filthy jeans, and stood up. The black and crimson troops had him surrounded.
Bearers in black and crimson livery carried a palanquin into the circle and set it upon the ground. They drew back the black and crimson curtains, and the Black and Crimson Queen rose from her throne. A squire draped a black and crimson cloak across her shoulders.
The Black and Crimson Queen was short and slender. Her hair was long and red; her gown was long and black. A featureless oval mask cut from polished obsidian covered her face.
She turned that mask towards the mortal and spoke: “You are seeking faerie queens. Be it known that one has also sought you.”
“I am honoured, Majesty.”
“You have named a queen to be the fairest of all,” said the Queen, “And the name you spoke was not my own.”
(In unison, the black and crimson host said: “The name you spoke.”)
“Begging Majesty’s pardon,” he said, “but the name I spoke was the only name I knew at the time. I would consider all queens of the Realms, that I may best determine which is the fairest.”
Faerie Apocalypse Page 4