“Then tell me why you have sought me, for I am as puissant as I am wise, and my time is valuable.”
“You’re a piss-ant, alright. Tell me—you build this all by yourself?”
The Sage looked embarrassed for a moment. Then it intoned: “The Sky City was a gift from the Queen of the Winds, in exchange for advice rendered. I resolved her fierce dispute with the Queen of the Mountains.” The Sage puffed up its chest. “I am, after all, a sage; wise and puissant.”
The magus grinned. “You stole it, huh?”
“You dare to call me a liar?” The sage waved its spindly arms above its head. “I am the wise and puissant Sage of the Sky City!”
The magus drew a .50 calibre Desert Eagle from the holster he wore beneath his open flannel shirt. He cocked the weapon and pointed it at the sage’s face. “What you are, mate, is cactus.”
The weapon clicked feebly when he pulled the trigger.
“Fuck,” said the magus. He turned the pistol over in his hand and glared at it, but the mechanism just would not work. When he looked up again, he found that the sage had vanished.
“Fuck,” said the magus. “Come back here, you little… Fuck!”
The bindings that moored the Sky City to the canopy fell away, and the vast structure fled with a velocity that surprised the magus. He holstered his weapon and extended his hands towards the fleeing city…and so did his shadow, reaching across the stippled green roof of the jungle. His black fingers lengthened until they held the city’s shadow between them. Then he drew his hands apart.
The Sky City’s buildings fell dark as the magus tore its magic. The platter tilted and structures spilled from the sky with a great clattering sound. The jungle below drank down the shattered glass without complaint.
The magus hawked his sinuses clear and spat. Then he called the winds to him once more and flew on, away from the setting sun. His shadow led the way.
4. The Dog-Man and the Barbecue
The magus was trying to light a small gas barbeque when the dog found him.
The Faerie Realms were not subject to the rigors of proper physics, and mortal technology would not function there…but he was a magus, and he felt that it was his right, if not his duty, to violate the natural order as he pleased. Still, the barbeque was proving difficult. Pressurized gas was being correctly administered to the burners, but the magus was unable to make it ignite.
The dog watched him work for some time, although the magus paid it no mind.
Once its patience had been exhausted, the dog began to bark.
“Alright! Alright!” The magus threw up his hands and turned towards the dog.
The dog ceased its barking immediately and sat regarding him. It was an ugly beast: a small terrier with hair that was mostly white, where it showed through the scars and patches of mange.
“What?” demanded the magus, unable to meet its gaze.
The terrier stood up—and continued to rise, until it had taken the form of a much larger bipedal creature.
“Greetings, great magus,” said the dog-man. Its voice was coarse and low. It was clad in uncured leathers, and wore a large, rusty cutlass strapped to its back.
The magus’ curiosity had been piqued. “What can I do for ya?” he asked, banishing the barbeque with an absent gesture.
“I belong to you,” replied the dog-man. Its diction was perfect, despite the way its tongue lolled out of its open grin. “You tell me.”
“You belong to me? Since when?”
“Since now.”
“Unless I mistook that last pub for a pet shop, I don’t think so,” said the magus.
“I am a gift.”
“I don’t like gifts,” said the magus. “So why don’t you fuck off back where you came from?”
“I must obey your commands,” said the dog-man. “But you must speak them as commands, not questions, if you expect me to carry them out.”
“Heh,” said the magus. The dog-man was smarter than he had expected. “What good are ya, then?”
“I’m a dog,” said the dog-man. “I hunt, guard, and fetch.”
“I’m not a pipe and slippers kind of man.”
“I’m not the kind of dog you let into the house.”
“Fair enough,” said the magus, and retired into his tent.
The dog-man resumed its terrier-form and curled up in the warm place where the barbeque had been, and went to sleep.
5. Tavern Games
The countryside grew more rugged as the magus and the dog-man traversed it. The grass thinned to bare soil; the scrub and the trees grew sparse as the pastureland gave way to rocky hills. What little vegetation lay upon them looked stunted and burned.
“This is the Storm Queen’s proving ground,” said the dog-man. “We should seek shelter before she locates us here.”
As the dog-man spoke, a whorl of black clouds coalesced on the horizon. The storm uncoiled across the valley, slashing the terrain anew with razored winds and freezing hail.
“Fuck,” said the magus. When he had been a child, a storm had destroyed the city where he and his father had lived. Cyclone Tracy had been bigger, but this storm seemed fiercer. This storm was not some random meteorological fluctuation; it was a manifestation of some malicious will…and it was coming straight towards them.
“It’s raining tigers and wolves,” said the magus.
“We must take shelter, master,” whined the dog-man, pointing towards a crag that stood some distance away. Squinting, the magus was barely able to discern that a rickety building stood upon it. He muttered a cantrip to sharpen his vision and the building resolved into a tavern. It had been constructed from pale stone and dark wood, and its round windows were yellow with the glow of a hearth-fire.
The magus was sceptical that the tavern would stand before the storm, but he spoke some words and they rose into the air. The dog-man yelped as they accelerated towards it.
“Close your eyes if you’re scared,” said the magus, “but no more whining if you want to come inside.”
The dog-man fell silent.
As they flew towards the tavern, battling furious crosswinds, the magus examined the magic that allowed so fragile a structure to stand firm against the storm. The spell that protected the tavern was in many respects similar to the one that had kept the Sky City aloft: it drew power from the cyclonic storm-winds and used it to push back against the maelstrom. He grunted his admiration of the work.
The magus set them down upon the front porch of the tavern. He shoved through the bat-wing doors and swaggered inside with his thumbs hooked into his belt. The magus liked cowboy movies. He scowled at the dog-man when it paused to shake itself dry in the doorway.
Wooden supports held up the tavern’s sagging ceiling. Torches burned in tarnished brass sconces. Some of the floor was boarded-over; some of it was naked rock sprinkled with damp sawdust. The bar was splintered and scarred, and looked as if it had been many times repaired. There were a few other travellers in the tavern, as well as a group in the back corner that the magus took to be regulars.
The regulars were huddled together, betting on a game that involved cards, half a skull, an array of knives, and a collection of ceramic vessels that were suspended from a wooden gantry by a variety of chains and cords. The players were diverse in every way, excepting that they were all of them very large and very, very well-armed.
“Fairies wear boots,” said the magus. “What a pearler.”
“How may I help you, mortal man?” grunted the bruise-coloured creature that stood behind the bar.
“Schooner of beer, thanks, mate.”
“We serve only food and ale here,” said the publican.
“Ale,” said the magus. The dog-man joined him at the bar. “Water for me dog.”
The publican tapped a pint of ale and filled a bowl wi
th water. The magus sampled his beverage and smacked his lips, and the dog-man did likewise.
“What’s on the menu?”
“Broth,” said the publican, “Or stew. You may determine which it is for yourself.”
“What’s in it?”
“Dead things.”
“Good enough,” said the magus. “Two servings, please.”
The publican brought them the victuals they had ordered. The magus paid him with a handful of unmarked silver coins.
The magus sniffed the bowl of stew. Then he raised his head and sniffed the air.
“Dog,” said the magus, “You smell anything strange?”
“No, master.”
“But you’re a dog.”
“Aye?”
The magus sniffed his bowl again. “I can smell the stew when it’s near my nose, but…the air doesn’t smell like stew.”
“Of course not. The air smells like the air.”
The magus frowned at him. “Odours are part of the air.”
“A thing smells only like itself,” said the dog-man. “How can it smell of something else?”
The magus grunted “In my world, one thing can smell like another. Odours are transmitted through the air, where they can…mingle. They can even attach themselves to other objects.”
“That does not sound a very sensible way for them to behave,” said the dog-man. It sounded a bit offended.
The magus considered that while he consumed his bowl of dead-thing stew-broth, which he found mild to the point of blandness. The dog-man was once again proving to be better informed than he had anticipated. “Tell me,” he said, “What do you know about magic?”
“All beings that dwell in the Realms of the Land require it in order to live.”
“All faeries?”
“All beings,” said the dog-man. “Even mortals.”
“I guess that’s why so few of us can come here.”
“Is there no magic in the mortal realm?”
“There is, but not much. Only a few of us practise it.”
“Then how does your world continue to function?”
“It doesn’t function, so much as…exist, really. For the most part, that’s down to science.”
“What’s that?” asked the dog-man.
The magus took a moment before he replied. “Science is a system of rules that can be used to explain the behaviour of…of every bloody thing,” he said. “Excepting magic, of course.”
“Oh,” said the dog-man, unimpressed. “Here we have rules, but no system. That is why your mortal ‘science’ will not work.”
The publican passed a fresh stein of ale down to the magus. “You should be careful where you discuss such matters, mortal man.”
The magus returned his attention to the publican. “And why’s that?”
“Science is dangerous,” said the publican.
“How can it be dangerous, if it doesn’t work?”
“There is one who practices ‘science’ here, and he has many powerful enemies,” said the publican, with obvious reluctance. “Enemies who listen to idle conversations.”
“Who’s this scientist?”
“A mortal, like yourself.”
“And who are his enemies?”
“The Queen of the Trees, the Queen of the Mountains,” said the publican. “And others, it is rumoured.”
“Who’s spreading these rumours?” asked the magus.
The publican’s livid brow turned a deeper blue when it frowned. “A troupe of players was here, many seasons ago,” it said. “In his cups, the playwright told me the story.”
“What did this playwright say?”
“I could not understand most of it,” said the publican. “He was very drunk, and the story was full of mortal words. But it was the usual: wandering, and war, and tragedy, and horror.”
“Tell me what you remember,” said the magus. “I’ll figure out the rest.”
“You’d best ask the playwright yourself,” said the publican. “I have no head for tales.”
“See if I don’t,” said the magus. “Where can I find this writing fella?”
“He might be anywhere,” said the publican. It produced a ragged piece of parchment from under the bar and handed it to him. “But you are most likely to find him here.”
The magus smoothed out the parchment on the counter top. It was stained and discoloured, rumpled from having been soaked in all manner of fluids, but the magus could still discern some of the script written upon it. He read it aloud, to the publican and the dog-man: “Nentril Revallo presents a Night’s Entertainment like no other. Tales of the Dying Folk, Live Upon the Stage and blahdy-fucken blah.”
The magus squinted at the illustration, which showed a short-legged man standing with his arms akimbo. “In Season at the Ore-Lands Theatre, or Whither the Winds of Drama Dictates.”
The publican glanced over the magus’ shoulder, towards the place where regulars were going about their entertainment. “If you should leave this bar alive, that is where I would seek him.” It bustled to the other end of the bar, where it resumed its vain effort to clean the scarred countertop.
A shadow fell upon them. “The game requiresss a sssixxxth player to proceed,” said the owner of the shadow, “And it’sss your move.”
The dog-man growled. The magus took a long drink from his stein.
A clawed, scaled hand fell upon the magus’ shoulder.
“Did you hear me, mortal? I asked you a question.”
The magus finished his ale, smacked his lips, and then turned to see who had addressed him.
The creature was as much reptilian as it was insectoid; armoured with scales and discoloured plates of bone. It had compound eyes and a flickering serpent’s tongue. Its breath stank of faeces and rotting meat.
“No,” said the magus.
“Yesss,” said the inseptile.
“I’m not much for games, mate,” said the magus, putting a restraining hand on the dog-man’s back. “Can’t ever remember the rules. Find someone else.”
“The first rule of thissss game isss that admisssssion may not be refussssed.” The inseptile smiled, tasted the odourless air with its split tongue. “You are already a part of it, mortal magusss.”
“This,” said the magus, “is exactly the reason I don’t play.”
The other regulars rose from their seats; drawing weapons and gathering sorcerous energies about them. The magus observed that the inseptile, which was twice his size, was the smallest of its peers. “You will play, or you will die,” it said.
“You first,” said the magus. With a snap of his fingers, he disconnected the shield that protected the tavern from the storm.
The building imploded before the Storm Queen’s fury. The winds and the rain and the lightning tore it timber from timber, ripping the structure from the rock face and sending the bodies of those it had sheltered spinning out into the night. Debris fell swirling from the hillside; guttering with flames and giving off clouds of wet smoke. Nobody crawled out of the blasted wreckage that settled on the valley floor: not the publican, not the regulars, not any of other travellers.
6. The Storm
The magus and the dog-man rose away from the ruin and, sparking with static electricity, they streaked upwards through the grey vapour of the storm front.
Above the roiling clouds, the Storm Queen’s host toiled over a fanciful device constructed of bellows and sails and ropes and glass tubes. With that strange machinery they corralled the screaming winds; directed the slashing rains; discharged forks of lightning.
The Storm Queen’s people seemed a miserable lot; bedraggled and wrinkled and scorched. The wings upon their backs had been stripped of their membranes, but they beat feebly as the faeries hunched over their work.
Soon the S
torm Folk were exhausted. The lightning that crackled through the glassware flickered out; the hail they cast turned to sleet, and then drizzle; the winds that drove them lessened and turned away.
The magus turned to the dog-man. “Wherever the wind dictates,” he said. “You think these poor fuckers will lead us to the playwright?”
“I have no doubt of it,” said the dog-man.
The magus spoke some words of sorcery and they turned to follow the waning storm.
7. The Playwright
They followed the storm over the craggy highlands, past the banks of a great river and over a lush and verdant forest. They flew over farmlands, and pastures, and a plain where the tall grass blew before them like the tide of a great green sea.
By the time they reached the amphitheatre, the Storm Queen’s host had dispersed, and only the thinnest ribbons of cloud were hung from the twilit orange skies.
The amphitheatre was all that remained of a prettily ruined fortress. The magus, who had an eye for such things, wondered what had destroyed the fortress in such a symmetrical fashion. Magic, he supposed. Perhaps there had never been a fortress there, only ruins erected to lend the place atmosphere.
Dozens of Folk were seated on the stepped stone bleachers and many more were arriving all the time: some on foot and some mounted on beasts; some in carts or in wagons; some rising up from the earth or congealing from out of shadows.
“I think we came to the right place,” said the magus to the dog-man.
“I have never been to the theatre before,” said the dog-man.
“It’s kind of like the cinema, but shit,” said the magus.
When the dog-man claimed not to know what a cinema was, the magus ignored him.
They spiralled down to the amphitheatre and landed in an unsteady stumble. The magus had flown all through the day and, even with such plentiful magic to power his way, he felt drained. There were some magi who could turn themselves into birds, or bats, or, it was rumoured, dragons. That would surely have been an easier way to travel—but the magus had never had the knack for it. He was as he was, and he had neither the ability nor the inclination to change.
Faerie Apocalypse Page 7