Unlucky Charms

by Adam Rex

  “Was it really as bad as all that?” said John. “Didn’t Arthur bring law and order to England or something?”

  “Oh, sure, mostly. It was much worse before Arthur came along. Arthur practically invented chivalry. Honor, and protection of the weak. Each noble knight must be willing to lay down his life in service to those less fortunate than himself. Funny how they still managed to almost completely ignore all the farmers and poor people, though.”

  On all the island there was only one footpath that looked well worn, and it led up to a vault of granite that protected a shaft into the hillside. Merle and John and Finchbriton scrambled closer and staked it out over the edge of a shelf of stones.

  “So what does Pellinore and all this have to do with Nimue and Avalon?” whispered John.

  “Well, I take Arthur away to heal up at an abbey, and remember, his sword is broken. So I know this is the time in the story where I take him to a particular lake and a particular lady offers him a new one.”

  “Oh, right.”

  They traveled, Arthur and Merlin, like pilgrims to the lake of Avalon. It looked much sweeter then, but no less mysterious. Mists still hung low and thick as carded wool, but these were often spun by sunlight into brightly colored tissue that robed the island like a fine mantle.

  And in the water they saw a milk-white arm, around which was wrapped the band of a scabbard, and the hand of which held the finest sword ever forged by man or fairy.

  Arthur inhaled sharply. “I would give my kingdom for such a sword,” he said.

  “Jeez,” said Merle. “Keep your voice down. Somebody might hold you to that.”

  “The sword Excalibur,” spoke someone new, and they found they’d been joined on the shore by a stunning young woman with hair like a moonless sky. It seemed to please her that this hair be still, but that her pallid gown sailed and slipped on a breeze that touched no other nearby thing. “Do you like it?”

  “I like it very well,” Arthur answered, “and I would bring much worship to the Isle of Avalon, were I allowed to wield it in your name.”

  “Hmm,” said Nimue, and she poked out her lip. “But if I give you my sword, I’m left just a lake with an empty arm in it. You see my predicament.”

  “I vow I shall return it to this lake before I die, lady.”

  “See that you do,” said the Lady of the Lake, and just then a small boat drifted to shore through the mists.

  While it took Arthur to the arm and Excalibur, Merle stayed with the lady and looked her over. Unless he’d misread the stories, this was the woman who would one day pretend to be his girlfriend and trap him in a cave under the earth. Well, she was a looker, so he could think of worse things.

  “Your name’s Nimue, right?”

  “And you are Merlin,” said Nimue. “I’ve been following your career for some time.”

  “I’m flattered. So what’s your game here? Giving Arthur a free sword? And I know you’ve been raising Lancelot, and that you’re gonna send him to be one of Arthur’s knights. His greatest knight, a good man, and yet more than anything, it’s Lance that’s going to end up tearing the kingdom apart.”

  “Ah, yes,” Nimue purred. “This fantastic gift you have for foresight. We Fay get the odd flash now and then, you know—but nothing like this talent of yours. You really must tell me one day how you accomplish it. You must.”

  Arthur was just now returning with sword and scabbard, trying to look solemn and dignified when you could tell what he really wanted to do was swing his new toy around and stab trees. And it was best that they get out of there before Merle said something stupid. He never had learned how to talk to girls. They bowed and said their good-byes, and turned toward Camelot.

  “So, uh … which do you like better?” Merle asked Arthur later. “The sword or its scabbard?”

  The young king examined them both. The scabbard was golden, inlaid with silver and stones. Very nice. But the sword was magnificent. “The sword,” said Arthur.

  “You should like the scabbard, actually. ’Cause anyone who wears it will never bleed, no matter how badly he’s cut.”

  Arthur was impressed. “The sword cleaves, the scabbard protects.”

  “Yeah. Really—don’t lose the scabbard,” Merle told him, knowing he would, knowing that story was already written.

  John and Merle and Finchbriton dashed to the vaulted entrance of the mine. They couldn’t hear anything, couldn’t see any signs of life, so there was nothing for it but to plunge downward. The shaft was dimly lit, though there were no visible sources of light. The tunnel was wide enough for four men to walk abreast, and only about seven feet tall, which was itself a kind of relief—the low ceiling really cut down on the variety of Fay that could be coming and going through here.

  At the end the tunnel forked, and they heard a sharp voice approaching from the right, so they ducked into the tunnel on the left. They watched as a scarlet-cloaked and hooded woman emerged, flanked by tiny figures in robes, and continued up the main corridor to the cave entrance.

  “… you try to tell the largest dragon in all the isles what she can and can’t eat. I say, ‘Saxbriton, do you want to stay cooped up in this mountain till YOU DIE, or do you want to slim down to whale weight and go conquer the universe?’ Stupid!”

  “MAH,” said one of the little robed people.

  “Right. Whatever. Anyway, she’s an angel for two or three weeks and then she gets depressed and eats a whole orphanage.”

  When these Fay were out of earshot, John and Merle and Finchbriton stole into the tunnel from which they’d come and followed it into a small chamber made up like a proper bedroom. Oil lamps, chairs with poufy cushions, a lion tapestry on one wall. And asleep on a bed in the center of the room, the Queen of England.

  “Huh,” said Merle.

  “Huh,” John agreed. “So. Did you think she was going to look like that?”

  CHAPTER 29

  Scott could see the elves trying to size him up as he passed through the wide hall—who was this stranger with the leprechaun, in the company of Titania’s most favorite? Was he changeling or human? They’d appraise his clothes, his glamour (or lack of it), and have a flustered little moment of panic. Had they miscalculated? Was boring the new interesting? Were they all to look like smelly highwaymen now? No, they dismissed their fear finally with a wave. The boy was just some charity case.

  “Is that the Finchfather?” said one, a tall elf whose hairline grew birch-wood saplings. He and his compatriot kept pace with the party as it walked.

  “Methinks it is.

  Must this one then beside him be the finch?”

  “Does yonder one resemble selfsame finch?”

  “Well, sure I am ’tis not impossible.

  Perhaps in time a finch becomes a boy.

  Forsooth a finch was not a finch at first—

  But does the bird resemble then the egg?

  Do crops bear semblance to the excrement

  From which they bloom? What majesty might grow

  up from the filth that presently walks past!”

  The elves enjoyed their joke and shared it with whomever would listen.

  “Jester tryouts today?” Mick grumbled.

  Scott leaned over to Mick. “Did the tall one just call me poop?”

  He wondered if it was magic or just nerves that made this hallway seem longer on the inside than it looked on the outside. They passed winged sprites that flitted about like hummingbirds; dwarfs and gnomes; Scandinavian trolls like bent tubers, massive and shaggy with roots; a rail-thin Hindu who kept his head in a birdcage and fed it apple; a woman made entirely of flowers and leaves that reminded Scott of something awful Emily had done to a Freeman a few months ago; a fairy who was like a well-dressed man with the head of a goat; another Scott would have liked to have called a well-dressed goat with the head of a man, though in fairness it was really more of a fawn; a column of smoke that Scott assumed was a column of smoke until Dhanu paused to bow to it before passing. E
ach of these persons and others gave the impression of having had nothing to talk about for the last thousand years, so they seemed glad to see Mick and Scott happen by.

  Then Scott and Mick and their changeling escorts reached a pair of intricately carved doors that opened on their own, bleeding light, and they stepped inside the throne room of the High Queen of the Fay.

  It was like a chapel, a cathedral, with a dark colonnade to the right and left that shined at the edges, outlining every column and arch. A runner of white marble divided the room up the middle like a spill of cream, and a throng of fairy courtiers stood to either side of it, against the walls, like at certain middle-school dances Scott had been to. It parted ways with a typical middle-school dance crowd due to the sheer number of swords and axes everyone seemed to be carrying.

  It reminded him, actually, of every throne room scene of every movie he’d ever watched, where you wondered just what everybody had been doing before the strangers came in. Talking quietly? Waiting in line to sit on the queen’s lap? Whatever it was, they’d all stopped it in favor of staring silently at Scott and Mick, judging them so scathingly that Scott thought it might set his hair on fire.

  But honestly, the first thing Scott saw upon entering, before the axes even, was Titania.

  Her throne was a crescent of columns at the end of that spill of cream, framed by rich tapestries and embellished with a carving of a dragon biting a lion on the neck. Atop the crescent was an alabaster dish, and she sat lightly on that dish like a pearl on an oyster.

  There was nothing about Titania that was not unnerving.

  Her skin was nearly as white as the marble, with a blush of pink at the cheeks, the eyes, the lips, the knees. Her limbs were a touch too long, slightly too slender, and arranged just so out of the confectionery folds of her prom dress. The whole of her body was just too large to be human, but that struck Scott as a whim—she might awake tomorrow with the proportions of a doll, or eat something for supper that disagreed with her and swell up like Alice.

  She lowered her head, gave Scott full view of her high-browed face with its strange mix of vixen and child.

  Dhanu bowed low. Mick did, too, so Scott followed suit. Then the changeling said to everyone assembled,

  “Behold her grace, my gift and godmother:

  Our kingdom dies for love of this, its queen.”

  He turned to Titania.

  “The fickle stars have quit for jealousy;

  The hidden moon retires to gaze at you.”

  Titania smiled faintly and fanned her fingers at him, an “Oh, you,” sort of gesture. Dhanu continued.

  “I bring today two children of the Fay—

  Two wan’dring sons I’ve sworn will see no harm

  By compact with the changelings of the guard.”

  Dhanu stepped aside, and suddenly it seemed like Scott and Mick’s turn to speak. Scott thought he understood how to handle this Titania: talk fancy and kiss her butt. He just needed to want her attention. He just had to want to be the golden boy (that’s how Mick had put it once), and whatever natural glamour he possessed would rise up to the surface. He had more glamour than Dhanu. His dad was a movie star. He could do this.

  “Your Majesty, High Queen Titania,” he said. “I would speak with thee about a great—”

  Mick elbowed him in the shin. The peanut gallery tittered. Titania herself inclined her head a matter of degrees, a minuscule gesture that made Scott want to crawl into his own pocket. What had he done?

  “I said no puttin’ on airs,” whispered Mick.

  Titania spoke, with a voice that sounded like something musical turning inside your head.

  “They laugh at phantoms; ghosts; a word misheard.

  They thought you called us ‘thee,’ but that’s absurd.

  Or are you now our lord? We had not known—

  How thrilling! Let us help you to your throne.”

  Scott could have sworn words like “thee” and “thou” were fancy talk. He’d have to ask Mick about it later. And was Titania seriously rhyming? He glanced around, but it didn’t seem to be bothering anybody else.

  Then a little elf maid approached and tried to offer Scott a glass of cordial, and he was forced to sing “Froggie Went a-Courtin’” until she went away again.

  The hall felt chilly. Scott sighed and bowed once more at Titania.

  “I’m not your lord. It … looks like I’m your jester,” he told her, remembering what Mick said earlier. “I’m sorry. I come from a very different place, and I don’t think that’s the last mistake I’m going to make. But I mean no offense, High Queen.”

  Mick gave him a smile and a nod before Titania answered.

  “Well said—our changeling cousin knows his place.

  Return you to your thoughts, and plead your case.”

  This rhyming—it was like talking to someone who has food on her chin. Scott could barely concentrate on what she was saying.

  “Um. I want to … I want …” Scott breathed. “I’ve heard rumors of a fairy invasion of Earth. I think you’ve been told maybe that humans split our world off from all the magic and the Fay on purpose, so I’ve come here to tell you it isn’t true. I know people say Merle … Merlin is responsible for the split, for the Gloria, but we don’t think that’s true either.”

  The Fay murmured at this. Scoffed.

  “He was really worried it was all his fault, honestly,” Scott insisted. “But … well, I know him, actually, and we’ve investigated it and this whole thing’s a big misunderstanding.”

  “Of course! The fault is ours for being blind.

  When man in ancient times behav’d unkind

  And stole from us the lands we’d held above

  How could we doubt he played but games of love?”

  “Um—”

  “And absence made your hearts grow ever ripe!

  You slandered us with fables, tales, and tripe—

  How mystical we were! How fierce and fine!

  Yet tame to hide our flame and keep in line.”

  Scott shifted from foot to foot. “With … with respect, I think humans have changed a lot since then.”

  “How true—once fate deprived you of the elves,

  You humans turned your swords upon yourselves.

  How swiftly did you newly fantasize

  Of tribes to conquer, then romanticize.

  Our Nimue has told me of the wars

  O’er Africans, red Indians, and Moors?

  You cast us each like actors in the parts

  Of all the best and worst in thine own hearts.”

  Scott thought this might be kind of an oversimplification, but he didn’t want to debate history with a woman who had lived through most of it. And she got to say thine! How come he didn’t get to say things like thine? Whatever.

  “You’re definitely not wrong,” he said. “Humans are bad at dealing with things they don’t understand. So we tell stories. That’s what humans do, is tell stories. I think it’s what we do instead of magic.”

  More murmuring around the hall, but a good kind of murmuring. Thoughtful.

  “But I also think … in the centuries since we’ve lost real magic, and the Fay … I think we’ve gone a little crazy. I mean, glamour used to only mean a kind of fairy magic, I guess, but now humans look for glamour wherever they can get it. We look for magic in movies and clothes and stuff, and in believing that certain people can have a kind of glamour. My dad’s one of these kinds of people. We treat them like they’re more than human, but they’re not, so they always let us down.”

  The room was quiet, really quiet. He thought Titania was ever so slowly leaning forward.

  “If the Fay come to Earth,” Scott told her, “they won’t have to invade. We’ll worship you anyway. I’m sure of it. There are already a dozen magazines in every supermarket checkout lane waiting to do it, a hundred cable shows, a thousand websites. Maybe … maybe you don’t know what those things are, but … won’t it be better if you don�
�t have to rule us? Won’t it be better if we just give you our love?”

  “And does my new young friend not understand?

  We cannot simply stride from land to land.

  For ev’ry elf that parts this shrinking sphere,

  Some wretched soul must cross from there to here.”

  “You could trade places with animals!” Scott suggested. “Cows or sheep or something that would be happy to live out its life grazing in a place as beautiful as this.”

  But here he’d hit a nerve. The elves began to grumble, to make remarks behind their hands. Apparently they found this idea distasteful.

  “Or people!” Scott added quickly. “There are seven billion humans on Earth. How many elves and humans here, a few hundred thousand?” He glanced at Mick, and the leprechaun bobbed his head back and forth, then nodded. “They could totally find enough on Earth who would be willing to trade places. You know, just for the adventure of it. Humans do stupid things all the time for adventure; you have no idea. They have this thing called bungee jumping?”