by Vance, Ramy
“Lie to yourself if you wish, but a vampire dressed in human clothing is still a vampire.”
I didn’t know how he knew, but I squeezed his legs together in response.
He winced in pain before looking at the halfling. “I swore to you, made an oath. I cannot break it.”
Fae and their oaths. But he was right: if he swore to never share the word with anyone but her, then there wasn’t a torture technique, a truth serum or a confession spell in this universe or any other that would get him to talk.
A long silence elapsed until Sarah finally spoke. “Let him go.”
“What? No, my darling. He is just trying to get close to you so that he may—”
“Let him go,” she said in the commanding tone the dark elf had used earlier.
Deirdre looked at me and nodded. We let go.
Free of us, the dark elf pulled himself from the floor and slowly approached Sarah.
“If you hurt her,” Remi said, putting a hand on his chest as he drew close to Sarah.
“So now it is to you that I make this oath, my Rem-ii,” he said, pronouncing the ly erg’s name with a heavy fae accent. “My faithful soldier and friend, I will never hurt the halfling whom you hold so dear.”
Remi’s eyes widened. He removed his hand from his chest.
The Elf King took another two steps toward Sarah. Standing before her, he brushed back her long amber hair before leaning in close and whispering a word into her ear.
The halfling placed a trembling hand over her mouth, and a tear that had escaped her eye rolled over her fingers. In a voice that belonged more to a child than a fully grown halfling princess, she returned his word with a lone word of her own. “Father?”
Death Does Not Become Him
It’s not every day your father returns from the dead. Believe me, I know. My mother returned from the dead (largely because I turned her into a vampire three hundred years ago) and that was a shock. But then again, I didn’t have the best relationship with her.
Judging by the halfling’s tears, I guessed that wasn’t the case for her. This grown young lady fell into her father’s embrace like a toddler who knows that the safest and most loving place to be is in your parents’ arms. If she was conscious of us watching her, she made no show of it as she cried with tears she must have saved just for him through all these centuries.
I would later learn that her father had died when she was eight, and the tears she cried that night in Douglas Hall’s lecture room were for every scraped elbow, head bump and bruised knee he wasn’t there to make better.
Her tears were for every maypole game lost, for every missed father-daughter dance, for every bad dream he wasn’t there to comfort her after.
Her tears were for all the victories, too: every game won, every A+ earned, every moment she had triumphed.
Her tears were for all the little moments that make up a childhood.
She fell into his arms, allowing him to envelop her as though to make up for it all. An impossible task, but one that both of them were willing to take on.
As they cried, he hummed in that way only the fae are capable of, and what I felt there was an unfaltering, unwavering love. This dark elf, this king, would die for her. He did die for her. And whether by magic or time or the departure of the gods or just sheer willpower, he came back from the dead to be with her one more time.
We let them have their time, slowly departing from the conference room to the kitchen while they celebrated their tearful reunion.
↔
That night, no one spoke for a long time in the kitchen. No one said anything as we loitered around the room’s metal tables and near its stainless steel refrigerators, ovens and stoves.
No one spoke, but in our silence, we said volumes of soundless words. It started with Orange removing his wig, revealing his red scalp. With it gone, the ugly elf’s features began to change and he morphed into a goblin. Magic, I thought. Probably the wig possesses a minor glam that allowed this algae-colored goblin to look like a human flesh-colored elf.
But his metamorphosis also revealed something else: he wasn’t Orange the elf, and never had been. His red scalp told us who he really was.
Next was Jarvis. He removed his hat and valet coat. There was no magical transformation, no trow becoming something else. But still he changed, a bright smile adorning his face. Jarvis—or whatever his real name was—reached for Orange’s hand and once they were together, they both wore a look of relief, as if the simple act of their hands touching made everything right in this world.
United, they both pulled out pendants from their pockets and pinned them to their shirts. The artistry was incredible, and the pendent that was no more than three inches in length looked like it was built from a thousand tiny leaves woven together.
Deirdre’s eyes widened in recognition, not because she didn’t approve of a trow and goblin union, but because their reunion confirmed who they really were. “Redcap and Krelis,” she said.
The two, still hand in hand, nodded, placing their free hands over their hearts—the UnSeelie Court salute.
Remi too removed his disguise, taking off his gloves and tossing them in the garbage before putting on the same pendant as Orange and Jarvis … or rather, Redcap and Krelis. He looked at his multicolored palms, a rainbow of blood, all creatures felled by his hands. He rubbed the red stain on his palm like he was trying to remove it.
Jack too transformed. While his appearance stayed the same, he reached into his pockets and pulled out two shackles that he put around his wrists. As soon as the metal braces locked, chains grew out of them and as they lengthened, he wrapped them around his wrists, forearms and biceps until his arms looked they were made of chain-linked metal. That done, he put on the same pendant.
“Jack-in-Chains,” Deirdre said, saluting him in their fae way before bowing. Changelings only bow when presenting themselves to their superiors, which meant that Jack-in-Chains wasn’t just a giant … he was a military general of the UnSeelie Court.
Even Tiny had left his master’s side to be with us in the kitchen. Sitting there, I saw the dog’s uncomprehending gaze replaced by intelligent, observant eyes. I had spent enough time among the fae to know what he was: a barguest, the fabled black dog of the UnSeelie Court. Intelligent, vicious and GoneGodDamn loyal to whomever they pledge their allegiance to.
Tiny wasn’t Sarah’s Seeing Eye dog; he was her bodyguard.
Only Freol didn’t move, staring with an impassive gaze at the fae in the room.
“So,” I said, “I guess there’s a lot you’ve been hiding.”
“I fear we have,” Remi said, “and before you ask the million questions I am sure you have, perhaps we can show you something.”
↔
Remi removed his pendant and blew into it. So did the others. A mist of glitter flew out of them, combining in the center of the room to form a globe filled with a million tiny flickering bugs.
“Beag solas, the Unseelie version of fireflies. They have been trained to tell a story. A story we all have watched over and over to remind ourselves of our purpose, and why we exist,” Remi said, running his hands through the golden mist.
The globe began to form detailed images that few mortal hands could paint. The fae began to hum, imbuing the evolving light with emotion.
And in this way, the story began to unfold.
Connecting the Firefly Dots
Three figures—a man, woman and child—stood by a golden river. The details in the morphing image were so precise that I immediately recognized Aelfric, and Sonia as a young child.
The third figure was a woman with long amber hair cascading over her shoulders and down her figure. From the way they walked hand in hand, I knew this third figure had to be Heurodis.
The three of them were so happy, like I was watching the happily ever after promised in so many fairy tales.
But soon that happiness became something else. The fireflies traded their brilliance for something darker, something more sin
ister. Another scene unfolded.
In it, Aelfric and a very young Sonia—maybe four or five—were camping, and while this scene had no words, I knew this was something father and daughter often enjoyed doing together. Even though this was a serene scene, the fae humming told me something horrible was about to happen.
The scene flew away like glitter in a wind tunnel, and we were in a castle. Heurodis was combing her hair in what must have been her bedroom when Jack-in-Chains came crashing through the door. Well, crashing implies he pushed his way in. It was more like some incredible force pushed him in, if pushing mimicked the force of a train plowing through a cow.
Jack, clearly hurt, rose to his feet and attacked the force that had pushed him aside like one might toss an annoying cat. I couldn’t see who or what was behind that blow—the fireflies didn’t band together to create an image of what it could be—but from the way Heurodis backed away, and the single-minded focus of Jack’s ineffectual attempts to overpower it, the source was clear.
A single figure stood in the middle of the room.
The giant leapt forward, bringing down two balled fists on the invisible figure. The blow was so powerful that the fireflies scattered like dust before reassembling into a scene that must have been hours later.
There stood a wounded Jack, his left arm in a sling. He was standing guard over Heurodis’s unmoving body as Aelfric and Sonia lamented their loss.
Heurodis was dead.
The scene morphed. A war council had convened, and Aelfric sat on the throne. Several fae below were screaming for war—Remi amongst them—while others counselled against it. Both groups were yelling at each other and at the Elf King, who sat impassive. This went on for a long while before Aelfric lifted a silent hand, his decision finally made.
There would be no attack on the human domain, no revenge sought for this kingdom’s loss.
They would do nothing.
Aelfric left the room as his council continued to shout and scream, desperate that this insult to their kingdom be answered.
The fireflies’ glow dimmed and brightened, dimmed and brightened with the passage of time. Seasons came and went, trees grew and were felled before the bio-luminant, magical bugs settled on another time and place.
Sonia, now eight or nine, lived in a cabin in the woods. Inside was modest, a home well taken care of, well-loved, but also devoid of any living soul except Sonia.
She lived there alone.
She was seated on the porch, her excitement palpable. I saw a girl who wanted nothing more than to run up the path leading to the cabin. And she would have, but her caretakers held her back with squeaked admonishments. My gaze focused on the spot next to Sonia, which magnified (the fae equivalent of spreading apart thumb and finger on an iPad, except this three-dimensional display was far more advanced than anything Apple ever came up with) to reveal three abatwas sitting next to her: Snap, Crackle and Pop.
So Sonia wasn’t alone. She had three loving, capable caretakers with her. Granted, they were loving, capable and watch where you step tiny caretakers, but caretakers nonetheless.
Sonia stared up the path until a figure came over the hilltop. She burst toward him, and there wasn’t a force in this world or any other that could have stopped her.
The figure dismounted his steed and ran toward her, and with every step the fireflies revealed more details of who he was: King Aelfric.
The halfling jumped into her father’s arms and the two of them hugged for a long time, the same sort of embrace they had shared in the conference room.
Seeing that made two things very apparent. First, that King Aelfric worried for his daughter’s safety and hid her in the forest, away from the UnSeelie Court and his enemies who hid in the shadows.
Second, they hugged that way because their relationship would soon end. This was the beginning of that end, and my heart thumped as I realized I would soon see what had separated them.
In moments like this, as much as you anticipate the horror to come, as much as you try to will it away, fighting the inevitable is like trying to hold back a ferocious tide.
Father and daughter sat together talking, laughing. They played a game of checkers as the sun continued its climb. Morning became afternoon, and afternoon became dusk.
Dusk became night.
That was when the monsters appeared.
Several creatures attacked the cabin. Even King Aelfric, a force of unimaginable power, couldn’t be everywhere to protect his daughter. Felling beast after beast with his sword, he screamed for her to run.
And the halfling child did as her father commanded. She ran into the dark forest surrounding her home. She ran and ran and ran.
Even though the fireflies didn’t show me what she was thinking or unveil her feelings, I knew she was terrified. Perhaps this was because of the fae humming, but I didn’t think so.
Because as much as their song imbued this horrific scene with emotion, I knew what she was afraid of, and it wasn’t the monsters.
She feared that her father no longer breathed, that one of the beasts had got the best of him and left his body atop a patch of dirt in front of the cabin with his throat ripped out.
A fate worse than death. More than that: his death was her death. And as fear so often does, it lied to her, telling her that these weren’t her worst nightmares playing macabre games with her mind, but the truth.
Her father was dead. She was certain.
And because his death meant she could no longer live, she stopped running and waited for the monsters to come and consume her, too. She waited for death and the dreams that follow.
But death is a cruel bitch; she torments her prey. As the monsters surrounded her, they did not attack.
She didn’t know this then, but they did not attack because she stood in a clearing, daring them to come forth. They interpreted her acceptance of the death they brought as a trap. They hesitated. They were afraid.
The monsters were afraid of her.
Sonia picked up a rock and tossed it at them. Her aim was true and it hit one of the barguests between its eyes. The rock did little damage, more an insult than a blow, but it did the trick: the assaulted beast lunged forward, trap or no trap, to end the little girl.
As it leapt into the air, Sonia lifted her thistle blade that the abatwas had constructed just for such a moment. And with it she stabbed deep into the barguest’s neck.
The barguest bit down on her shoulder, and the two became locked in death’s embrace. Her blade bore down on the beast, and its fangs ripped her flesh.
One of them would have to give, and soon it was a matter of will. Sonia stabbed it again and again, and soon the contest ended. Sonia was the victor, and the barguest was dead.
But Sonia was mortally wounded.
So be it. Sonia stood and gestured for the next beast. Three of them answered her call. They leapt into the air, and all three died before touching the ground.
There stood King Aelfric with his sword, dispatching the beasts in a fury that would have frightened Oberon and Titania into groveling submission.
The remaining beasts, seeing that they would not claim their victim this day, fled.
King Aelfric embraced his bleeding daughter, showering her with kisses and tears.
She was dying, and this was something the king would not accept. Using his magic and strength, he carried her home to the UnSeelie Court. From the fireflies’ brutal portrayal, I watched as three days and three nights passed.
I watched as Sonia’s wound became infected and her eyesight left her.
I watched as a father, desperate to save his little girl, ran through the forest.
Three days and three nights, and they were home. King Aelfric handed his daughter over to the healers and waited.
And waited.
And waited … until finally a healer returned, shaking her head.
I did not know what was said. But I did know how he expressed his grief. With blood and pain.
In a br
illiant flash we were on the mortal plane, at the walls of King Orfeo’s castle. The fury of my dream came back to me as Aelfric killed human guard after human soldier. This was the battle I had watched unfold before me only a night ago.
The Elf King killed them all, every last soldier, before entering Orfeo’s chambers. The human king was on his knees, begging for forgiveness, and Aelfric did the last thing I expected of him. He granted it.
King Aelfric did not end Orfeo, but instead looked at the human for a long, long time before leaving the mortal king unharmed.
That was where the scene ended, the fireflies returning to their pendants, the once radiant room darkened by their departure.
↔
With all that done, Remi sighed. “Now that you have some understanding, I am sure you still have a million questions. We are pleased to answer them all as best we can.”
Tying Up Loose Ends
“Why didn’t he kill Orfeo and complete his revenge?”
“That is a question I have asked myself a thousand times. We all have. I guess he didn’t want to start a war between fae and humans. Or maybe his senses returned to him and the horror of all the death caught up to him. Whatever his reasons were, I suspect we can now ask him,” Remi said.
“And what is your role in all of this? Let me guess, you’re all from the UnSeelie Court, and more specifically, served King Aelfric,” I said, my gaze scanning each of them.
They all nodded, evidently no longer wishing to hide anything.
“And Sarah, or Sonia—”
“Sonia,” Remi clarified.
“She is the halfling child in the story. A child who is now all grown up.”
“Yes,” Remi said.
“But I thought she died.”
“She did,” Remi said. “Dead as can be in a world with magic, but she came back. We don’t know why or how, but again, we have our theories,” he said, pointing at the solemn, silent Other called Freol. “We think it is because of him. Make no mistake, we did not expect him to show up yesterday. He was a surprise, to say the least. But then again, it is always a surprise when Ankou appears.”