Twelve Days of Faery

by W. R. Gingell

  Althea gave him a sharp, considering look. “That’s a very good question,” she said. “I’ll look more particularly this afternoon to be sure. Most of them seem to be in the middle of the castle: guest rooms and unused galleries in the courtiers’ apartments. Some of them are on back stairways that are mostly for the servants, and there are even two in the courtyards. None outside the castle as far as I’ve been able to tell.”

  “Then it’s almost certainly a daily occupant of the castle itself,” said Markon, a little bitterly. Oddly enough, he would rather have thought that Wyndsor was responsible.

  Althea nodded. “Perhaps I can narrow it down to servant or courtier by this afternoon. Regardless–”

  “You’re going into Faery.”

  “I think it’s best. I can only narrow it down so far from this side. Courtier or servant, there are hundreds to choose between.”

  “Don’t forget–”

  “I won’t leave you behind,” said Althea in a friendly fashion. “But I’ll have to find a viable Door first: I’d rather not open another if I can avoid it, and we’ll be taking fae magic through with us as it is. No need to complicate matters more than we have to. Simple is best when it comes to fae magic.”

  “Why will we be taking fae magic through with us?”

  “I’d like to find the fae that the different spells belong to. If I can scrape together enough from one of the girls, I should be able to take us exactly where we need to go.”

  “Do we really want to find the sort of fae who can simultaneously burn someone from the inside and freeze them from the outside?”

  “That’s what I’m for,” said Althea, a rather formidable look sitting oddly on her pointed little face. “I’m as dangerous as most of the fae over there.”

  Markon was dragged from deep, restful slumber some time after midnight. Someone was prodding his shoulder with irritating regularity, and their persistence was quickly driving away his ability to sleep. Snarling, Markon sat up in bed to find that Althea was sitting beside him.

  “How did you get in here?” he groaned.

  “I am very good at what I do,” Althea said primly. “Are you ready?”

  “Ready for what?”

  “I’ve found us a live Door into Faery.”

  Day Five

  “We’re going now?”

  “Of course. I’ll wait outside.”

  Markon almost flopped back onto his pillows and went to sleep again. Fortunately, it occurred to him just in time that Althea would only go without him if he did so, and with further mutterings he dragged himself out of bed and into yesterday’s clothes again.

  By the time he was dressed Markon’s sluggish thoughts had begun to work a little less sluggishly, and once outside his suite he was able to ask quite intelligently if Althea had managed to collect the fae magic she needed.

  “More than enough,” said Althea. Unlike Markon, who was looking rather wrinkled but carelessly opulent, she was dressed in rich autumn colours that were not only expensive but beautiful. An air of distant nobility sat on her face, and he thought that she carried herself differently tonight than she had earlier.

  He was certain of it when she turned and glided down the hall ahead of him. Where was her bouncing, energetic walk? Tonight she looked unapproachable and regal and not quite human. How long exactly had Althea spent in Faery, alone and lost in an alien land?

  Althea said: “Are you coming?” and Markon, realising that he’d been staring after her, spurred himself into motion again.

  Markon couldn’t see the Door: but then, he hadn’t expected to see it. According to Althea, it was directly opposite them in one dark corner of a quiet library in the west wing of the castle. She was doing small, invisible things in preparation, her eyes shadowed and impossible to read in the darkness. Markon heard the sound of the internal clock striking the quarter past twelve in delicate bells before she seemed to be finished. He still couldn’t see the Door. He had begun to wonder if Althea had done something wrong when she made a decided motion with one hand, as though opening an invisible door, and Markon found that he could see it very clearly indeed. It was a rectangle of bright, warm sunshine that should have lit and warmed the midnight library but didn’t seem to quite touch it. A vibrantly green summer leaf wafted through the Door, floating on a warm breeze that faintly touched Markon’s face, and once his eyes adjusted to the light he could see the green and gold forest from which it came, ruffled lightly in the wind and too beautiful to be real.

  “Are you ready?” asked Althea, her face white and expressionless in the oddly cold sunlight.

  “No,” said Markon, but Althea had him by the hand and was already pulling him irresistibly into the untouchable beauty of Faery.

  Markon couldn’t resist looking over his shoulder, quick and fearful. Behind them was more of the same beautiful forest, as gold and green and untouchably gorgeous as that around them, and in it there was a slight crack.

  “It’s still open,” Althea said. Here in Faery her eyes seemed bluer, her face even paler; and when she moved, her skirts rippling like the leaves in the trees above them, she looked almost fae. Beside her, Markon felt heavy and earthy and very, very human.

  “I left a kind of doorstopper in it,” she added. “It won’t close until we go back through.”

  “What if something else gets through?”

  “Nothing will get through,” said Althea firmly.

  “It doesn’t feel real here,” Markon said. His neck crawled with the feeling of being watched, and the too-perfect forest around them seemed to shift and move in his periphery. “And it’s daylight. Why is it daylight?”

  “We’ve come in to a Seelie piece of Faery. It’s always daylight here: a forever of sun and summer with just tiny bits of autumn and spring at the edges. If we’d come into an Unseelie piece it would be all sable and moonlight and starlight. Do you feel like you’re being watched?” she added suddenly.

  “Yes!” said Markon gratefully.

  “It’s your mind trying to come to grips with all of this,” said Althea, making an unconsciously graceful gesture at the grandeur around them. “Our bodies are different to theirs. The sunshine never seems to sink in further than skin-deep with us, and sometimes you can be convinced for years at a time that it’s all a dream and nothing is real. They don’t like coming through to our world much, either. They like the games, but they’re always trying to change the world to suit themselves and not all of them have the power to keep trying. That’s why they make quick little dashes out to steal children and play pranks. You’ll feel more comfortable after a while, but it never quite goes away.”

  “How long were you here?” asked Markon, eyeing the resplendent trees in some dislike.

  “Oh, about eighteen years,” said Althea. She was looking away through the trees, as if trying to get her bearings. “The trace on our fae magic leads this way. We should be as quick as we can.”

  “Eighteen years!” Markon hurried to catch up with her, his heavy feet sinking into the forest floor of moss and fallen leaves. He couldn’t imagine living with this creeping feeling of not-quite-reality for eighteen years.

  “Eighteen that I remember,” Althea said shortly. “It’s probably best if you don’t let them know you’re royalty. Royalty is very useful to them, and some fae like to collect kings.”

  “That’s appalling,” said Markon, abandoning the attempt to draw more information from her. Her time in Faery was obviously not something that she wanted to talk about.

  “Don’t worry,” said Althea, with the ghost of a smile on her lips; “I won’t let them keep you.”

  The forest began to thin out soon after they started walking, grand, aged trees giving way to slender young saplings that were more sparsely spaced. A clearing, or an end to the forest? Markon wondered, looking up to catch a glimpse of the sky. It was high and delightfully blue, with perfect, pearly clouds scattered across it in the most aesthetically pleasing manner. Like the rest of Faery, i
t had the effect of making him feel heavy, human, and vaguely grubby. He couldn’t help feeling that it was just a little bit too bright: a little bit too beautiful.

  Althea, lightly touching his arm, said: “It’s best not to look at it for too long,” and Markon found to his surprise that he’d stopped walking.

  “In our world there’s the idea of moon-madness,” she said, curling her fingers through the crook of his arm as if they were merely out for a stroll. “Here it doesn’t matter whether it’s the moon or the clouds, if you look up at the sky for too long you start to see strange things.”

  “I’m beginning to think that this is a rather bad idea,” said Markon, but he was amused and a little interested to see that Althea with her hand tucked in his arm was closer to the bouncing, energetic Althea of the human world than she had been just a little while ago. It made him feel less worried, which brought him to the realisation that he’d been worrying about her in the first place.

  “Well, yes,” said Althea. “But it was the best idea out of a slew of worse ones. Is that a cottage, do you think?”

  It was a cottage: the sight of which, much to Markon’s disappointment, caused Althea to withdraw her hand and become distant and fae-like once again. She consulted a vague webbing of something that glittered between her fingers and gave a decisive nod.

  “This is it,” she said. “Don’t be goaded into insulting the fae, and try to avoid making anything that could be construed as a promise.”

  “You mean try not to talk if I can help it,” said Markon, and was rewarded by the brief crinkling of Althea’s eyes.

  She knocked at the door with one firm little fist, eschewing the iron knocker– which, now that Markon thought about it, was a very odd thing for a fae to have on their front door. Althea’s eyes met his over her shoulder and the faint amusement in them told him all he needed to know: the iron knocker was there to announce a particular type of caller. A fae would never use an iron knocker—couldn’t use one—which meant that the fae inside would know the moment a human caller appeared at his or her door.

  Which begged the question, thought Markon, growing cold: just how many human visitors had this particular fae encountered before it seemed expedient to mount an iron knocker on the door?

  The door opened while he was still wondering about it. The elderly fae who had opened it stared at them with piercing golden eyes, two rather cruel lines appearing by the sides of a smile that would otherwise have been quite pleasant.

  She said: “You’re an interesting pair.”

  “I found something that belongs to you,” said Althea, just as abruptly.

  The fae turned her head curiously, and the lines by her mouth deepened in a sharper curl of the lips. “Kind of you to bring it all this way. You must come in.”

  “Thank you,” said Althea, following her into the house. Markon followed them both, wondering why it was that the fae’s hospitality made him feel more nervous instead of less.

  “Your human doesn’t talk much,” the fae said, bringing them into a tiny sitting room. A dedicated sitting room seemed out of place in such a small cottage, but Markon got the feeling that the fae liked to think herself very fine. That feeling helped him to meet her golden eyes and stare wordlessly at her until she looked away first, cackling.

  “He learns slowly, but he learns well,” said Althea, curling the hairs on the back of Markon’s neck with the coldness of her voice.

  The fae grinned sharply. “I see that. You’ve bought me something that I’ll be glad to have back, but I’m curious to know how you got it: I left it in a place that is hard to find.”

  “The human world,” nodded Althea. “I know.”

  “What led you to bring it back to me?”

  “I’m in need of information,” said Althea. “Someone is interfering with a matter that concerns me, and I’d like to know who.”

  The fae’s sharp old eyes became watchful. “Didn’t seek to cross you, lady. There was a debt to be paid. I paid it in service and was let in once the spell was prepared.”

  There was an undercurrent of bitterness in her harsh voice, Markon was certain. Whatever the ‘debt’ was that she had paid, she had not paid it happily.

  “To whom did you owe this debt?”

  “Human scum,” said the fae, and this time the bitterness was stronger. “No name given, merely a few hairs and a way through. Simple matter of a debt to be paid. I’ll be glad to have the magic back, however.”

  “Male or female?”

  “Never saw a face,” she said shortly. “And the voice wasn’t distinctive. I’m one that knows how to pay my debts. I keep my head down and do what’s needed.”

  Althea let the silence draw out until the fae’s eyes dropped again. Then she said: “I see.”

  Markon didn’t see anything physical pass between the two of them: perhaps a glitter in the air, nothing more. But the fae said: “Thanks, lady,” and Althea nodded.

  “My thanks for your information,” she said formally. To Markon, she said: “Come, human. Our business is done here.”

  “How did you come by my cottage?” asked the fae, her eyes suddenly sly again. “Did you come from the world of men?”

  “I came from my home,” Althea said. “We’ll not trespass upon your hospitality any longer.”

  “Can’t blame an old fae for being curious,” said the fae, with a not very convincing chuckle.

  The fae saw them to the door and no further, but Markon wasn’t surprised when Althea set out in an entirely different direction to the one they’d come.

  “My skin is still crawling,” he said softly. “Is she following us?”

  “Almost certainly,” said Althea, and he was relieved to hear the warmth of her voice. “I’m sorry I had to talk to you like that back there, but most fae don’t understand anything except a slave and master relationship between fae and human.”

  “I didn’t take offense,” said Markon. He kept his voice low, fearful of being overheard, but couldn’t resist adding: “She thought you’re a fae. Why?”

  Althea’s eyes, dark blue as she glided through the shadows of the forest, said: “I told you. I’m very good at what I do.”

  “I’m beginning to understand that,” Markon said. “What will we do next?”

  “Harvest more magic to trace, I think,” said Althea. “She was holding back something important. It might help to compare her story with the stories of other fae.”

  Markon found himself smiling at her single-mindedness. “I meant what will we do now? If she’s following us, we can’t go back to the Door.”

  “Oh, that. So long as we get there first and shut it behind us, she can’t follow us. Still, we’ll lead her about for a bit and hope she becomes weary of following us.”

  Althea walked them through the forest until Markon no longer cared if the fae was following or not. His legs were hurting, his lower back was wet with sweat, and the only thing he could think about apart from his bed was a refreshing wash in his ablutions chamber.

  He might have broken and complained like a travel-weary child if he hadn’t at last recognised a few familiar formations of trees and realised that they were very close to where they’d stepped into Faery.

  Althea said: “Wait here, please,” and took a few steps forward. By now used to obeying her, Markon stayed where he was and watched the swift, economical motions she made with her hands. He wished he could see what it was she was really doing.

  He was so caught up in those delicate movements that it wasn’t until Althea said: “Markon,” that he recalled his surroundings. It was the deliberate, careful usage of his name that made him really pay attention. Althea’s back was still to him, but she said crisply: “Duck now, please.”

  Markon dropped to his haunches while she was still speaking, and felt the swish of something rather hefty sweep over his head. Then Althea wasn’t in front of him anymore, and a brief, violent struggle was taking place directly behind him.

  It was all ove
r in the miniscule amount of time that it took him to turn, still crouched. To his vast amusement, Althea was sitting on the old fae, twisting up one scrawny arm behind the fae’s back without deference to her age. Beside them in the fallen leaves was a good sturdy walking stick that had just whistled over his head in an attempt to knock Markon out, if he wasn’t mistaken.

  He heard Althea say, very softly: “If you try to hurt my human again, I will flay the skin from your body and use it as a rain duster.”

  “Mercy!” squealed the fae, her skinny legs wriggling. “Mercy, lady! Wouldn’t have killed him, I just wanted to come through!”

  “A stick!” said Althea, her voice thick with scorn. “You really did need that magic, didn’t you?”

  “Wouldn’t really have hurt him! Just quieted him and sold him on.”

  “Oh, be quiet!” Althea said, with a pinching motion. The fae abruptly stopped talking, though Markon would have been willing to bet that she did so only because Althea had laid a spell on her. “And be still! You will not be free to move until we are gone from Faery. Be silent. Be still.”

  “Are you going to leave her like that?” said Markon, his eyes dancing.

  Althea stood up, smoothing her hair and tugging her bodice straight again. “Yes, and serve her right if a passing will’o’the’whisp decides to dance on her nose until she can move again! She won’t bother us now. If I’d known how little magic she really had left to her I would have left her locked in the cottage.”

  “That would have been a pity,” Markon said, despite aching legs, sweaty clothes and general tiredness. “I wouldn’t have missed that little scuffle for the world! Who taught you how to twist an arm like that?”

  For a brief moment Althea looked taken aback, and Markon was afraid that he’d accidentally stirred more unpleasant memories. Then she laughed; a real, amused chuckle of mirth that warmed him from head to toe, and said: “They taught me that at Holbrooks when I was studying to become an enchantress. The Head said that magic isn’t always reliable and that sometimes a well-placed punch can do more than a spell.”