by J M Guillen
Kinda. Simon liked to be vague.
But fairies? Fairies were a role-playing standard. The fairies lived in the wild places of the world, hidden from mortal men. Sometimes they dwelt Underhill, sometimes they tricked people so they remained frolicking for a hundred years. One should never eat their food or accept what they said at face value.
Obviously, I’d been completely versed in Andrew Lang’s collections of fairy books.
However, in the moment, none of that information seemed applicable. After all, how could I possibly know how much had simply been made up?
“The Twrch-Umbar loomed o’er this glen.” Jax slid one eye in my direction. “It haunted my kind, drank their glamour entire.”
“What exactly was it?” Rehl pulled himself over the log I’d had to jump over on my way in and offered Alicia a hand.
“A weary sorrow.” Jax sighed. “A remnant gone now.”
The sadness in Jax’s voice touched me. When he spoke, an inherent melody wound through his words. Its beauty fascinated me and caused each syllable to pluck at my heart.
However, one of us hadn’t been starstruck over dealing with a literal legend.
“So by slaughter-ating the stick-pig, you’re saying we did you a favor?” Baxter didn’t glance up as he spoke but kept his eyes on the earthen path before him.
“Clever-tongued manniken.” Jax smiled softly. “Would you deign speak words for me as well or simply choose them?”
“He…” I looked wildly at Baxter. What was he trying to pull?
“Perhaps I mis-heard.” Baxter didn’t seem apologetic. “I thought you said your kind had trouble with the creature Liz risked her life to kill.” He tilted his head to the side for a moment. “Do you think it died because of the iron in her knives? That sounds like something you’d have a hard time arranging.”
“Aiden’s daughter fled wayward, ’gainst counsel.” Jax affixed Baxter with one shrewd eye. “She and her kith found Twilight and peril there.”
“So she did you no service?” asked Alicia, who met my gaze for just an instant. Her hazy silver eyes twinkled. “You say Liz did no… boon for your people?”
She and Bax must’ve talked while we strolled. I stepped over a particularly large mushroom and kept silent. Abriel must have some idea about how to deal with Jax, something we don’t know.
“A boon unsought. Unasked for by my kind.” Jax seemed wary and weary.
“You agree her action is a boon, then.” Alicia nodded. “Let me ask you, what do you normally grant one who answers your riddles?”
“Answer for answer.” Jax ducked beneath the bough of a tree. “Wrought and given, truly.”
“How many answers does one gain if they perform such a service for your people?” Baxter asked the question lightly. “Assuming, of course, they are clever enough to answer your riddle to begin with?”
“A grand assumption.” Jax raised one dark eyebrow. As the moonlight fell across his brow, I noticed for the first time two small, black horns hidden within his messy hair. “One that is oft false.”
“It must be rare indeed that a mortal is clever enough to answer properly.” Alicia’s soft voice felt right at home in the misty shadows. “Rarer still to find a mortal stalwart enough to stand true with one of the fairest folke.”
“And that’s a stone fact.” Jax stopped in place, as if to consider. “Mortal kind fades too, I oft times think.”
“How many answers, Black Horn Jack?” Alicia still spoke softly, but something about the way she uttered his name sang softly in my ears. She didn’t speak as one might in an attempt to capture another’s attention or command them to pay heed. She spoke his name as one might greet an old friend or a family member after a long absence.
He gazed at her with eyes old as tree and stone, dark as pools of sable midnight, and in the half-light of the glade, I thought they reflected ache.
Sorrow, deeper than the forest shadow.
“You are one who knows, then.” His words held wending whispers.
“Knows little.” Alicia smiled. “But enough.”
For a long moment he remained silent. It seemed he listened to something, some whisper of the Earth or secret carried on the wind.
He gazed at each of us, and those dark eyes drank in everything we were, everything we had ever been.
“Three. Three for the glamour-ridden girl.” He spoke firmly and clearly. His words rang like a bell in the mist. “Three truths and the shadows of those truths. Three explanations, freely given, of whatever the Sight shall tell.”
“Three.” Alicia gave him a brilliant smile and nodded her red head. “That’s fair and more than fair.”
“But does she ken the answer?” Jax’s smile grew sharp. “If not, wayward she remains.”
“I remember our road home, either way.” Alicia’s tone fell solid, certain.
“Mayhap.” Jax shrugged. “The Twilight ever shifts.”
“But can we, like,” Rehl cleared his throat, then continued, “speak for a moment? Talk about the answer?”
“I only asked the riddle to one.” Jax gazed around to each of us. “Already do I gift you by allowing her aid.”
“And we thank you for your courtesy.” Alicia paused before she added, “And your hospitality as well.”
Something about that struck Jax speechless. Then, he laughed.
So merry the sound, I could have sworn the trees echoed it.
“Mortal born fools!” Despite the words, Jax shook his head and chuckled warmly. He waved at us, as if to indicate we should go ahead and discuss.
“I don’t believe it’s a tree.” I turned to Baxter and Alicia. “If you just look at the lines, it seems like it might be a tree, but that’s too obvious.”
“Good riddles are never obvious,” Baxter agreed. “The key is to look at some of the lines and try to figure out if they could also match other things. Once you do, you can see if that same item applies across the board.”
“The speaking without sound line gets me.” Rehl gazed at me, and I realized that, just like me, each of my friends must remember the riddle word for word. “Because it’s silent, but it also rustles.”
“I thought about those for a while too,” Baxter agreed. “But the line ‘leaves turn in golden autumn, turn in verdant spring’ finally tripped it for me.” He turned to me. “What else has leaves?”
A creepy little store with the Gaunt Man within, I sarcastically thought.
“A table,” Rehl mused aloud.
“What else has leaves,” he spoke slowly, “that can be turned? Oh, and maybe we don’t say the answer out loud, just in case.”
A book. The answer came to me suddenly.
Baxter must have been able to read it on my face. He gave me a wicked smile.
“Now walk that answer back through the rest of the riddle. See if it fits.”
Whatever magic Jax used, the poetic lines came easily to mind, simple to remember.
“My back unbroken, reaching for the sky,
My roots deep, seeds planted by one long dead,
Leaves turn in golden autumn, turn in verdant spring,
Silent with fragments of deep knowing,
Speaking without sound, rustles in the wind,
Wrought by one who can never taste my fruit.
What am I?”
“It has a spine—an unbroken back.” I said to Baxter. “Its author could be one long dead, who will never get to taste its fruit.”
“I think so too.” He nodded. “But ultimately, it’s your call, Liz.”
“Jax?” I took a step toward the creature, who had chosen to lie upon the log as me and mine spoke. “I have an answer for you.”
“I only accept correct answers.” He gave me a lazy smile and sat up on the log to stare me squarely in the face. “Speak, glamour-wrought. Daughter of Aiden, tell true.”
I paused for a moment, almost afraid to speak.
“The answer is a book.” I gave him a soft smile. “Specifically,
an old book whose author has now left this world.”
“Oh, sweet and clever girl.” His smile grew ever wider, and his eyes shone with a mysterious light. “Yes, yes, and three times yes.”
That tingly sensation, the one I had felt when he first asked the riddle returned, stronger this time. For a moment, it sang in my body, before it filled me with a pleasant buzz, not unlike a nice glass of wine.
“Three answers sought, and three to be wrought.” Jax gazed at me, and his eyes shone merrily. “What would you ask, in-between girl?”
I had actually considered that. I’d narrowed down to a few possible questions, which I still believed far too many. Whatever Alicia knew about Jax and his people, she had certainly done us a favor when she had wrangled more answers out of him. Furthermore, I felt certain I could trust them.
Mostly, anyway.
I gave Alicia a nod and hoped she would instinctively understand what I wanted. It was vital for Abriel remember every single thing Jax said, every nuance of his answer.
She nodded back.
Once she had, I stared Jax in the face and spoke. “I want to bring my father home, and I need to know the best way to do that.” I bit my lip. “Jax, where is my father, and how can he be returned to me?”
Please don’t let that be two questions, I begged inwardly.
Colorless light danced within his eyes, a shine that hinted at patterns I could never understand. For a moment, Jax seemed very far away and grew still as stone.
When he spoke, his voice no longer belonged to him. It had lost the poetic cadence that seemed to weave through Jax’s words and instead resounded with a deep baritone. Strangeling whispers echoed at the edge of his syllables.
“Aiden Shepherd… has wandered far from the realms of men. He is beyond the Twilight… in fell Ar’Ghosa. No art or guile you now possess can take you to him.” He paused. “Yet, if you choose your path well… and heed your mentor… You may see him again.”
My eyes filled with tears. No art or guile you possess…
“That’s a remarkable amount of information.” Baxter glanced at Alicia. “If it can be trusted?”
“There’s no way to really know.” She paused. “Abriel’s truth isn’t the same within the Twilight.”
“I trust him.” Rehl said simply. “Too much rigmarole to bullshit.”
I shook away the tears, pleased for one thing at least. Jax’s answer had helped clarify what I thought might be one of my next questions.
I cleared my throat.
“My mentor, Simon Girard, has also gone missing. If I am to ever see my father again, then I must heed the lessons of my mentor.” I paused. “Jax, where is my mentor, and what is the best way for me to retrieve him?”
This was the test. If my questions actually counted as “double questions,” Jax wouldn’t be able to answer this last, as that would mean he gave four answers instead of three.
Again Jax’s voice sounded as if it came from the depths of the world. It echoed through the hollows of the earth and carried with it none of his poetry, none of his simple rhyme or meter.
“Simon Girard… rests in the stronghold of your most… dire enemy…. He sought out the Gaunt Man… to end the oath you made with him. Now, he rests within Fallen Leaves, stripped of movement, speech, and power.” For a long moment, Jax paused and stared into nothingness with those empty, black eyes. Within their depths, colorless flame danced.
Apparently, I worried for naught. My many years of dealing with malevolent game masters and their wicked, word-bending genies wouldn’t come in handy, it seemed.
“You will have to take him, Elizabeth Shepherd… else he will suffer undying. The Gaunt Man knows your love of him… and prepares for you to come to Fallen Leaves.”
“Fuck,” Baxter breathed.
“Language,” Alicia whispered.
I, on the other hand stood speechless. I stared at Jax’s wide, distant eyes and wanted to scream.
Suffer undying. Horror trickled up my spine at those words. What had Mister Lorne done to Simon? How long had he been trapped, while I screwed around with wolf-spiders and pizza parties?
I clenched my hands with white-knuckled rage. I had to get him. Had to.
No matter what it cost.
I realized my three friends all stared at me. I had no idea how long I’d stood there silently as I trembled with unfocused fury.
Breathe, Liz. I focused and grasped the Wind to take what comfort I could in that tumult. Like my rage, it thundered within me, an infinite storm of wrath.
“Liz,” Rehl whispered. “We’ll get him. We’ll get them both.”
Oh. The tears came, then.
Three words. Three words that meant I wasn’t alone.
Rehl knew what he said; he had to. This had been perhaps the strangest few days in his entire life, a trial by fire he’d stumbled into with eyes closed. Yet he’d come out heart strong and guns blazing. He’d been more than some Blake Runner-style action hero; he’d been a true friend.
I blinked back tears that had nothing to do with rage. I nodded once at him and glanced to Baxter and Alicia.
Bax had stood next to me when he didn’t even know what we fought against.
Alicia had been true before I had even shared all of my truth.
Baxter gave me a slow nod. Alicia smiled slightly.
“Um,” I cleared my throat, and turned back to Jax. My mind raced as I considered the best way to ask my question. I only truly needed one piece of information, but it would be smart to get as much out of him as I could.
He regarded me wordlessly.
“Jax, I need to levy an assault against my most dire enemy,” I parroted his own words. “I need to do this and emerge with my mentor intact, so I may find my father.” I paused in thought for just a moment. “Where in New York can I go to find the store ‘Fallen Leaves,’ and what shall I do to win Simon Girard safely away?”
Jax twitched and stared first to the left, as if he watched some small hummingbird hover there, and then quickly glanced up. When he turned to me with those haunted eyes again, the uncanny smile on his face made me shudder.
“I said he prepares for you… and it is true. The Gaunt Man expects you will have some method of finding Simon Girard… and so has planned well for your coming.” Jax reached upward, as if he attempted to grasp something I didn’t see. “As such… he has hidden Fallen Leaves in the hopes of making it difficult for you. The longer you wait, the more prepared he will be…”
“Where, Jax?” I demanded in a stern tone. I had to make certain he answered my specific question.
“Fallen Leaves has many doors… it was constructed from a piece of a world that is nothing but doors and darkness… Yet while the Gaunt Man may move those doors, he may never close them…” Jax drifted dreamily and for a moment, I wondered if he would ever get to the point. “One such door rests near the roads Flatbush and Lincoln…” He paused.
“Jax?” I questioned.
“Or Flatbush and Rutland. He casts a veil about himself, darkling hid.”
“But here, in the city?”
“Yes. In the place you call Brooklyn.”
Brooklyn, I mouthed at Alicia.
“You have a great many weapons and tools at your disposal,” he muttered, and shook his head as if uncertain. “Yet I cannot see them all. For this reason… cannot tell you every tool you should use.”
I found that intriguing. The Aegis, I thought. It protects the things in the attic, and Jax can’t see them.
“Your stalwart allies will go with you, regardless of what you say or do. Plan well, as Simon Girard would have you plan. In the end, two things will be your greatest weapons.”
I leaned forward, intent.
“The first is knowledge. The Gaunt Man is no man… not in truth. Yet he bears an intricate understanding of the workings of the human heart. He is a creature that wields affection, loyalty, and the desperation love can bring as weapons.”
“Okay.” I felt like
I knew this already.
“Your second weapon will come to you under great duress…” Jax’s voice faded, drifted. “You’ll come to understand the value of one who asks of you a boon.”
“We didn’t ask for more riddles.” Rehl sounded legitimately irritated.
“Right?” I scowled and turned back. “Jax, we need to know…”
But the slender man no longer sat upon the log, staring into nothingness. Only shadows lay there.
“Gone?” Baxter looked around, dismayed.
Jax, Black Horn Jack, whoever he was…
Had vanished.
7
“It’s bullshit.” Baxter walked behind Alicia and the light of Abriel shone over her head. While her truth might not have been as reliable in the Twilight, the physical light of her helped more than a little.
“I get it,” I grumbled behind him. “What did he say exactly? ‘Three truths, and the shadows of those truths’? That sounded like he promised to be pretty damn specific.”
“He also said ‘Three explanations, freely given, of whatever the Sight shall tell,’” Alicia reminded us. “Perhaps Black Horn Jack found himself at the end of his power. I found him remarkably accessible for one of the Faire Folke.”
“He wasn’t much like the elves in ‘The Sapphire of Evensdawn’ module,” Rehl said thoughtfully. “I half assumed Jax would spend all of his time trying to wriggle out of his agreements or steal our shadows.”
“The Fair Folke are remarkably trustworthy.” Alicia vacillated for a moment. “If one is cautious and understands their ways.”
“How do you know so much about them?” I stepped over a large root and basically blindly followed Alicia, trusting Abriel’s memory. “You said Simon didn’t really think much of Black Horn Jack.”
“He didn’t.” Alicia pushed the auburn hair away from her face. “However, Rufus Brighton, the last person I bonded to before Alicia, had a fair amount of dealings with one of them.”
“That sounds like an interesting story,” Baxter said.
“Rufus had dealings with a woman who embodied the nature of Winter.” Alicia glanced back over her shoulder. “She was a cruel thing, but fair in her own way.”