Void: Book Five of the Nightlord series

by Garon Whited

  “Your Majesty?” the spriggan asked, when they were still twenty feet away. I turned to look. He was addressing his King, of course. “What’s to become of my Angus? Could we not keep him?”

  The procession continued to approach and came to a uniform halt a little less than ten feet from me. The shining king turned his visage toward the spriggan and spoke in a voice as melodious as silver bells.

  “He was mortal, little one, and so could not remain with us forever even in the Pleasant Plain. Being of Nuada’s blood, he goes now to Tír na nÓg, there to dwell until the end of all things.”

  “May I ask a question, Your Majesty?” I asked. He directed his attention at me and I realized I couldn’t define the color of his eyes. I mean, they were eyes, yes, with whites and irises and pupils, but I couldn’t tell what the color was. It wasn’t that they didn’t have a color, because I could see them. But it was a color I didn’t recognize, if that’s even a thing.

  “Indeed you may, for we are much amused.”

  “What of his wife, Fiona Gillespie?”

  “She is well-known to us.”

  “I suspect Angus will be unhappy, wherever he is, without her.”

  “She will go where he goes, now and forever, for there is no power we know of that might sunder them.”

  “But not yet,” added the Queen.

  The widow Gillespie stood up from beside Angus’ body. She curtseyed to the royal pair, tears running down her face, and couldn’t speak. The Queen smiled and the King chuckled.

  “Go,” he commanded. “You shall see him again.”

  She went inside. I resisted the urge to follow her, which was weird. A voice of command?

  “And you, our gracious host,” continued the elf-king. “We wonder why you have summoned us here. To smite your enemies? To offer us a grand revel? To make gifts of a hundred children?”

  “None of these. And please, call me ‘Halar’.”

  “As you say. You have our leave to speak of us informally.”

  “You are gracious. I do not know for certain how you came to this place,” I admitted, “but I suspect it has something to do with a pixie. She fought… well, she fought evil and faced iron. She gave her life, I believe, to release powers that opened the way for you. From what I’ve been able to gather, she couldn’t defeat the… the invaders, so she summoned someone who could.”

  “Indeed! We find this most remarkable for a pixie.”

  I didn’t like the way he said it—dismissive. As if pixies were beneath his notice. Maybe they were. He was a king of the faerie. Nevertheless, it rankled.

  “She was a knight in my service,” I replied, trying to keep my tone level. “I am the King of Karvalen—a land far-distant from this place, but still a king. And she fought things that terrified her, fought to defend the things she loved, and gave her life—no, more than that. She sacrificed her life to do so.”

  I don’t know how the elves of the faerie court express surprise, but the sudden silence—sudden, eerie, and total—was either a good thing or about to be an extremely bad thing.

  I drew out the silver box and handed it to him.

  “That’s the dust left from her,” I finished. He opened it, nodded, closed it, handed it back.

  “Indeed it is. Power beyond the dreams of men resides there, for it is the dust of faerie, where dreams may become real. What will you do with it?”

  I turned the silver box over and over in my hands, considering. Incineration meant there was nothing to clone. The magical surge would have eradicated any latent signatures. And if there was the ghost of a pixie anywhere within a hundred miles, she would have been on my shoulder by now.

  “You take it,” I said at last, and handed him the box again. He was definitely surprised.

  “You offer it to us? Such power as would spread a kingdom across half the mortal world?”

  “I won’t use her ashes as a path to power. They… they would burn my feet and scorch my heart. No. I don’t care about power. I care about Trixie. She was my friend, and I loved her. Bring her back to life. Reconstitute her. Or, if that’s beyond your power, do whatever it is the faerie do with the remains of heroes. All I can do is bury her.”

  The faerie king and most of his court regarded me with their eerie, unsettling gaze, still in utter silence. I realized, with a start, that none of them blinked. Ever.

  “No,” said the Queen, softly. “Once a faerie is destroyed, there is no restoration. But you say she was your friend? A mere pixie?”

  “I know I was her friend. I believe she was mine.”

  The Queen held out her hand for the silver urn. I placed it on her palm and she turned her head toward the King. The King nodded, once.

  “As you wish.”

  The Queen opened the box and blew into it, making a glittering cloud. It billowed up unnaturally high, shimmering and shifting, and whirled between us before shrinking to a dust-mote model of Trixie. The ghostly form of glittering dust fluttered in the air, dipped before the Queen, and flew to me, landing on my shoulder.

  “We are very much surprised,” said the King. I couldn’t tell. “I had not thought a pixie could love so much.”

  “This should not go unrewarded,” the Queen added.

  He beckoned the dusty pixie back into the box and it closed with a snap. They both regarded me carefully.

  “It is not often any creature of faerie loves, for we are creatures of passion,” the King told me. “We are the objects of devotion, not the devotees. This is known to us, for we are the King, and we know more than most about the hearts of men. And, as the King, we know pity. We pity you. Yes, pity. For though you wear the body of an immortal, we see your heart is yet human, and broken.”

  “You may be right.”

  “Herald,” he said, gesturing with one finger. An elf-knight in white, enameled scale mail stepped forward. “Sound the call.”

  The herald blew a silver horn. Instead of one note, it sounded a whole chord, echoing like a wave rolling into the shore. The party immediately broke up, scattering in all directions, fading as they did so, leaving behind the mortals hidden in the mass. The humans collapsed, exhausted or enspelled, right there on the lawn. In less than a minute, there was only a field of flowers between two rows of buildings, a long street through the middle, and pockets of snoring people.

  “It has been most pleasing to visit once again in the realms of men,” he told me. “We thank you, and your friend, for the opportunity. Now the night grows old and blood of dawn rises in the cheeks of the eastern sky. Before we are gone again into the everlasting lands, perhaps it is meet we should leave a parting gift, and something by which your friend may be remembered.”

  He whistled. White horses emerged. They came around pillars like some special effect. They came from between buildings. Some probably blinked into existence, only out of my line of sight. It was disconcerting and a little disturbing. All I’m accustomed to seeing appear out of thin air are demonic Things from beyond the world.

  The faerie court mounted up. The whole cavalcade took a turn around the circle portion of the drive. They kept riding in a circle, around and around, and slowly began to spiral upward. The king opened the silver box and sprinkled Trixie’s fairy dust all over the gillyflowers and the fountain. Wherever the dust touched, the gillyflowers closed up, wrapping their blooms into tight bundles. With that, he tossed the box aside, laughing, and the whole horde of them rode away into the western sky to the fading sound of bells and laughter.

  Silence settled on the school, broken only by quiet snoring.

  Faerie folk. Nice enough, if somewhat alien and a little creepy. But who am I to talk?

  I sighed and walked along the driveway. People were snoozing peacefully among the flowers. I wondered if they would wake up at sunrise or sleep for a hundred years. Probably the former. I didn’t see anything in the way of enchanted slumber spells and the magic in the area was diminishing rapidly.

  I also checked out the two new trees
and the smallish standing stones. The trees did have a distinctly human-ish shape to them, with feet in the roots, a body, a bark face, and two upthrust limbs. The stones were less definite, with more of an impressionistic face, screaming, if viewed from the proper angle. The remnants of magic clung to both trees and stones, like water dripping off someone after being hit with a waterfall.

  A deep bark, as from a giant dog, attracted my attention. A tall, broad-shouldered man—man-like being—with antlers on his head and a spear in his hand strode up the drive. He was surrounded and followed by a pack of bone-white hounds, their mouths dripping green fire the same color as their master’s burning eyes. I recognized him.

  “Hail and well-met, stranger,” I called. “Long time no see.”

  He chuckled as he approached. He grounded the butt of his spear and half-leaned on it as his gaze swept over me. I remembered him as being taller. In Karvalen, perhaps he was. Some of the dogs surrounded us. Others roamed, sniffing at everything, particularly the former German soldiers.

  “You seem none the worse for wear,” he observed. He spoke aloud, this time, rather than projecting his thoughts. I preferred his voice to his psyche.

  “I got better.”

  “Indeed. You’ve spread to other worlds, I see.”

  “As have you.”

  “Not in the way you mean,” he replied. “I am a creature of the shining realms, not one of the things your kingdom calls gods.”

  “Oh? Aren’t you one of the things my kingdom calls a god?”

  “Touché. My origins are different from most of them.”

  “That’s fair. So what are you still doing here? Didn’t the bus already leave?”

  “I came when the court of faerie came, for men believe me part of it. I shall return when it suits me to do so.”

  “I don’t suppose I can interest you in some dead Nazi troopers as dog food?”

  He shrugged. The dogs padded quickly toward the manor and in through the front door.

  “Will you be hunting them?” he asked.

  “I don’t think that’s the proper term.”

  “Oh?”

  “I’ll be killing them.”

  “Ah. Yes, that is quite different,” he agreed, nodding his horned head.

  “However, if you’d like to hunt down anything wearing a German uniform anywhere on the isles, I won’t stand in your way,” I added.

  “I would, but I cannot remain for long. A day or two, at most. The flowers are drinking deep of what magic is left after the faerie have departed.”

  “It is getting a bit thin,” I agreed. “What are the flowers doing?”

  “If Auberon did not see fit to tell you, I shall not.”

  “That’s fair, I suppose. Did you stop by for a reason?”

  “Only to greet you, and to pass on a message.”

  “A message? Who from? And what is it?”

  “The Lord of Light you face in Karvalen is not the true one. The first one, the original one, was almost destroyed by the Devourer, but he lives again. Right now, his worshipers are few, but their number is growing.”

  “I’ve been told, but thank you for confirming it.”

  “Do you wish me to hunt the followers of your old enemy for you?”

  “My old enemy?”

  “He would have hunted the Lords of Night to extinction.”

  I thought about it.

  “No, I don’t think so. But wouldn’t taking sides like that be against the rules?”

  “The first Lord of Light hunted your kind almost to destruction, until the last of them fled through the Gate of Shadows in Zirafel. That is not proper for a hunt, and hunting is My domain.”

  “Ah. I do thank you for the offer, truly. I’m grateful. But isn’t it possible he’s learned his lesson?”

  The Hunter snorted.

  “And,” I added, “when I break the church of the current Lord of Light, maybe he can make a comeback—and maybe he’ll remember who made it possible. If he owes me a favor, maybe we can work out a balance.”

  “He may also resent you. He was never known for his tolerance.”

  “Then, if you’re willing, you, me, Reason, and the Mother of Flame can all look him in the eye and suggest he learn some tolerance.”

  “You have very little respect for the gods,” he observed.

  “Most of them haven’t earned my respect.”

  “Most?”

  “There are a few,” I admitted, and winked. He chuckled, a rumbling thing that reminded me of cement mixers. “But on the subject of the other gods, you’ve been around longer than many, right?”

  “Longer than you, yes. Longer than others? Perhaps. Time is a slippery concept when applied to universes that do not treat it in the same way.”

  “But you’ve been around the block a few times, yes?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you mind if I ask you a more serious question?”

  “Are you prepared to be answered?”

  I had to think about that one for a second.

  “No, but I feel the answers will be a net benefit in the long run.”

  “You are learning,” he replied, amused. “Ask your question.”

  “You act like a god in Karvalen, but you mentioned the shining realms and something about how men think you part of the faerie court. I don’t understand what you are and how you relate to the things I think of as the gods of Karvalen. Is it possible to dumb it down enough from my quasi-mortal mind to comprehend?”

  The Hunter was thoughtful, idly rolling his spear in the circle of one hand. The spearhead flickered madly as it reflected various lights around the estate.

  “You are in a peculiar position,” he stated, still thoughtful. “You are not truly the Lord of Shadow, nor his avatar, yet…” he trailed off. “I do not see the harm in telling you what you could discover for yourself.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You will owe me a favor,” he cautioned.

  “One in keeping with this favor,” I agreed.

  “Done. You know of the many worlds, yes?”

  “Yes.”

  “There are many that lie adrift in the void between the worlds, single islands of life within the chaos. There is also this world,” he gestured, taking in our surroundings. “This one is unique, for it grows. It splits, it branches. It is a world-tree, constantly becoming more of itself as long as you must follow the line of Time, like sap through the wood.”

  “Like some sort of Yggdrasil, the world-tree in Norse myth?”

  “It is not so much a myth,” he cautioned, “and Heimdall can see anything he chooses to look at.”

  “Like some sort of Yggdrasil,” I repeated, “the world-tree of the Norse religion?”

  “Better. Yes, for it is a truth behind the mortals’ understanding. The other worlds do not branch and fork in their realities, but this one spreads like a jungle canopy.”

  “How does this relate to the gods?”

  “Do you want to ask questions, or do you want me to tell this?”

  “I’ll be quiet,” I promised.

  “Within the other worlds,” he resumed, “attendant planes exist, formed not of matter. These surround the material islands in polar array. Life exists there, born of thought and will and power. These grow, over time, into the things men believe in. They are different between there than here. Here, this world has a legion of creatures created when the world was created. Similar, but not the same. Perhaps equal in power, but integral to this world. Men have called them angels, gods, and demons, depending on how they were greeted. Yet they have less concern with men than the gods of Karvalen, for example, for these angelic things have their own purposes and powers drawn from the many-branched world, itself.”

  “So, just to be clear, let me try and tell you what I think I heard.”

  “Very well.”

  “Angels exist in this multitude of worlds and belong here, being created along with it. The gods of the other worlds grew there after the world
s came to be. Angels don’t need the belief of men, but the gods do. Have I got it?”

  “Passably so.”

  “But the current Lord of Light—by title—seems more like an angel than one of the gods, right?”

  “True.”

  “He’s feeding on the faith of men, isn’t he?”

  “Obviously.”

  “How? Why?”

  The Hunter chuckled.

  “That is far more than one question,” he observed.

  “Yes, but it’s an important chain of questioning.”

  “I agree, but we have spoken enough of such matters.”

  “And you’re going to be all enigmatic and vanish on me, aren’t you?”

  “Not immediately. I am going to remind you again: if you would strike your old enemy, now is the time. His followers are few in number and he is weak. Are you certain you do not wish to take this opportunity to see them eradicated?”

  “I’m certain. And thank you for not fading away suddenly. That sort of thing is rude and deeply annoys me.”

  He chuckled.

  “I accord courtesy to all those I respect. And I anticipated your answer, but I had to be certain. For a creature of chaos and destruction, you are surprisingly merciful.”

  “Creature of chaos and change,” I corrected. “Change does not always require destruction.”

  “Does it not? Perhaps.” He whistled and the dogs scrabbled out of the house. One held a dismembered arm in its mouth, greenish flames licking around the jowls.

  “Thank you for hosting our revel,” the Hunter said. “It has been a pleasure.”

  “And it’s been a pleasure to have you.”

  The Hunter turned without another word and ran off, his pack baying and howling around him, until they vanished into the woods.

  I went into the house and cleaned up. The dogs made quite a mess.

  The Manor, Friday, December 8th, 1939

  I spent the latter portion of last night cleaning up and cleaning out. Anachronistic anything went through the closet—messes were acceptable, but futuristic or magical artifacts were not. This included the semi-portable reactor from the basement.