by Tad Williams
"Hang on, you've lost me again. A conscription — that's like a draft, right? Like when they pick you to go into the army, whether you want to or not?" "Is that what it means in your world?" Cumber nodded. "I knew you used the term, but since your science is so different — we don't even think of it as science, to be honest — I couldn't imagine what it meant, and it's so hard to find reliable texts even in the university libraries."
"I'm still confused. Why do people get . . . conscripted here? Not to go in the army, I take it." Cumber shook his head. "No. You really didn't know? Sorry, but it's the kind of thing every schoolboy learns even if he's only going to spend his life grazing sheep. The conscription determines who goes to the power plants."
"That doesn't seem so bad — it's a job, anyway. Why do they have to force people?" Cumber Sedge stopped. Theo, when I say that people are conscripted to go to the power plants, I don't mean to go work there, supervise, take care of the machinery, do the bookkeeping. They have ordinary employees who make decent wages who do that, people who go home to their families every night and live in houses or flats. No, the people who are conscripted are the ones who generate the power. Or rather, after they lose the lottery, they're taken off to the plants and the power is drained out of them. A few years — ten at the most — and then they're retired, but there's not much left after the plants are done with them, no matter what the government propaganda claims. 'I did my bit, and now I've a long, golden retirement in front of me, thanks to Thornapple Generation, LPB!' or whatever they call it. I've seen a few of the real survivors, people from my own village, before the operators wised up and started shutting them away in Power Worker Retirement Hostels so their potential replacements didn't have to walk past them every day on the village high street and see them shuffling and drooling."
"You mean these power plants somehow . . . suck the power . . . out of people? Out of live fairy people?" Where else would it come from? Cumber's sour laugh returned. And why do you think my mother was so anxious for me to go to school and get my name taken out of the lottery? Modern power generation is the wonder of science, Theo. 'So few giving so much for so many.' That old darling, Lord Daffodil, who was just burned to crackling yesterday, invented that phrase — he used to get a tear of pride in his eye when someone quoted it back to him. He used to talk a lot about the good old days when the farm boys would come spilling off the wagons, anxious to take their place in the generators and do their bit for the good of Faerie."
Theo had to walk without speaking for a while. Bile was swimming in his throat and he was afraid if he opened his mouth he might throw up.
————— By the time they left the park and the trees behind them for good and descended by a series of winding, cobblestoned roads back into the city, an industrial area full of boxy warehouses and equally boxy flatblocks, with washing rippling on the line on every balcony like flags of surrender, it was midafternoon and Theo was losing the surprising energy that had kept him going through the morning. The pall of smoky gray clouds overhead mirrored his mood.
As he stared at the long blocks stretching before him, the buildings featureless except for the surreal silver rooftop sculptures called mirrormasts (which Cumber's confusing explanation seemed to suggest were a bit like television antennas) and the occasional flowering of graffiti on a wall, the symbols even more cryptic and abstract than what he was used to back home, he found himself thinking of Anna, a girl he had dated for a while in the mid-Eighties. She had been a self-proclaimed Wiccan, although her version seemed largely self-invented as far as Theo could tell. She never cursed or thanked in the name of "God" but always "the Goddess," and had a deep and reverent love for dragons, unicorns, and fairies. Theo had thought she was a bit dippy, in fact, but their off-and-on relationship, built mostly around long days spent under her hand-made quilt in her tiny apartment, had lasted for the better part of a year and had been a bit of a refuge for him during a fallow period of his life. He had not thought about Anna in a long time, but now he found himself remembering her solemn explanations of what the fairy-folk got up to with both cynical amusement and a kind of regret.
It's just as well old Anna never made it here, he thought, watching a tiny housewife out on her balcony, pulling so many different children's outfits off the line that he was almost certain she was only renting the until she had the deposit together for a shoe. This is the actual place she used to talk about so much — "Where all the magic comes from," she used to say. "They live off our dreams." And you know what? She was right. But not in a very nice way. He remembered what the now very dead Lord Hollyhock had said about Hellebore's plan, about something called the Terrible Child. And it's going to be even less pleasant soon. They're going to be living off our dreams the way leeches live off blood, except leeches don't have to destroy their victims' whole society.
"You look dreadful, fellow," said Cumber. "Don't worry, we'll be out of the City and into the Fenlands soon." "It's not that, not really. I just . . . I was just thinking about how people — my people, or at least the kind of people I thought I was . . ." He paused, having confused himself a bit. "About how so many human stories are about Fairyland. Poetry, songs. And whether they think the place is wonderful or scary, they always imagine of this place as . . . beautiful. Magical. Terrible but glamorous. And there is some of that. But a lot of it's . . . like this."
Cumber nodded slowly. "If you find that depressing, imagine how someone like me feels about it. This is where I live." Gently but effectively silenced, Theo kept walking. They ate the last of the bread as they passed through a district even less prepossessing than the one they had just traversed, a sprawling shantytown that looked like it was constructed of white plywood. It was a bad neighborhood by any standards, but the locals who came to watch them from the doors of their hovels or peered down at them from low rooftops, a rabble of dirty and distracted full-sized fairies along with brownies, gnomes, and squint-eyed pookas, seemed far too beaten-down to pose much of a threat. Still, as they walked through the narrow, twisting alleys, Theo kept an eye out for Fairyland muggers.
They were just about to cross the local equivalent of a main road, where the shanties stood some half-dozen paces apart and tire-treads rutted the muddy street, when Cumber suddenly grabbed Theo and pushed him back into the shadow of a doorway. They watched as a strange, open car rolled past, more like a jeep than anything else, but with differences in shape and line that would have irritated or even panicked most mortal designers. Half a dozen constables in heavy cloaks and helmets were perched on it, all armed with the beehive guns, their outfits decorated with the abstract flower-glyph that Cumber had told him was the parliamentary insignia. A rabble of children from what looked like a dozen species followed in their wake, little goblins among them, begging for food and money. The grimfaced fairies on the jeep paid no attention to the children but Theo was grateful for the noise and distraction: the vehicle did not even slow as it drove past their hiding spot.
"How far do those guns shoot?" he asked in a whisper when the constables were well past them. "As far as they need to," said Cumber. "Well, the hornets get tired after flying awhile, especially if they've been in the clip for too long without being fed."
Theo shook his head. "You mean there are real live bugs in there?"
Cumber nodded. "Sort of. They're made out of metal. It's a scientific thing."
"Metal, but they still eat? What do they get fed?"
"Bronze shavings, mostly."
Theo sighed. He sometimes thought he could live here for years and still not understand a thing. Soon after the brush with the constables, they left the last of the Eastwater shanty town behind them. The whole of Ys now seemed to be spread before them, but it was strangely uninspiring. The land between them and the water was a descending set of rolling hills studded with rock outcroppings, patchily covered with low trees bent into bizarre shapes by the constant wind — a wind that was already making Theo's clothes snap and flutter.
"It's pr
etty gloomy out here." "Didn't use to be. Do you see that silvery line, there? That's the Moonflood River. It used to be the lifeblood of the place — went right past the Great Hill where the first fairies lived. But when they began building the City up they dammed it and re-routed it, and cut channels so it could be used to irrigate the lands west of the City, until it wasn't much more than a trickle." He swept his hand across the flat, dismal prospect. "This was all True Arden, covered with trees. The queen used to have her dances in the forest meadows past Warstones, below what's now Battle Hill — you can see the hill if you squint, over there. Yes, that ugly piece of rock. But they blocked the river and cut down the forest and this all became mudflats, rocky hills . . . well, you can see for yourself."
The view wasn't particularly inspiring, but the walking was a little easier across the sparsely forested hills and Theo was grateful for that. Still, he couldn't help contrasting the emptiness with the almost hallucinatory beauty of the woods on Larkspur's land and said so.
"Oh, that." Cumber shrugged. "That's not a real forest, that's a rich man's preserve. It used to be part of the Silverwood — in fact, all of Larkspur's lands used to be a tiny section of the Silverwood. It's the same old story, Theo. You must be tired of hearing it by now — I'm certainly tired of telling it. It's gone. They just saved a little piece for Larkspur and his friends to hunt in."
"You people really do like to imitate my world."
Cumber only smiled sadly. An hour later they had reached the Moonflood, more a sluggish canal than a river, hemmed by stone embankments on either side which were the highest features for miles other than a few lumpish hills. The sun had fallen low in the west, the beginnings of a spectacular red glow illuminating the smoky skies behind the peak Cumber had named Battle Hill. The temperature was dropping and mist was rising from the flat, muddy lands around the river. Theo shivered. It had been bad enough sleeping out of doors in the park, with its sheltering ivy and trees. The idea of spending a night exposed in this glum wrack, listening to the distant shriek of seabirds, was miserable indeed. Even Cumber seemed doubtful.
"There it is — the old Fayfort Bridge." He pointed to what looked like nothing more than a pile of wreckage, visible now as they crested a long shallow slope. It squatted over the river like a discarded parade float, a fantasy castle that had been sat on by a giant.
Good God, Theo thought, around here that could have really happened. The bridge towers had mostly collapsed: great round shards of wall lay half-submerged in the moving water, causing the only curls of white Theo had seen the whole sluggish length of the river. A few sections still stood atop the bridge, but only one tower had kept most of its stones. It stood at one end of the wide span like a single tooth in the mouth of a cartoon witch. On either side, where the bridge met the muddy riverbanks, lay more tumbles of fallen stone, half-vanished into the muck and looking so much like the turds of some immense animal that Theo found himself wishing he had never thought about giants at all.
"This bridge used to guard the river, when that was the City's most vulnerable and important artery," Cumber said. "When the river mattered." "I don't see anyone around." "Maybe they've been chased away." Cumber didn't sound anywhere near as sad about it as Theo was.
"No, wait — there's someone moving up on top of it." Theo shielded his eyes. "Not very many of them. I think they see us, too." Whether they did or didn't, a moment later the distant figures had vanished from the bridge's crumbling fortifications and the landscape seemed entirely lifeless again.
It took them another quarter of an hour to follow the river's course down to the foot of the bridge. The space under it was choked with refuse, pieces of wood, piles of stone — Theo could barely see water and was amazed that the river could find places to flow through it toward the Ys. Up close, he was even more surprised by how big the ancient structure was, hundreds of feet from one bank to the other. Its single remaining tower was almost half the height of Daffodil House. He was still staring up in amazement, wondering how many carefully chiseled stone blocks had gone into such an immense thing, when someone shouted at them to stop.
"Do not move." They could barely hear the invisible sentry over the wind sawing through the bridge's broken stones. "There are guns looking upon you."
Theo and Cumber kept very still as a wiry little shape clambered down from one of the broken towers near them. It was a goblin, dressed only in a loincloth and vest despite the wind. At first Theo thought it might be the one who had given him the slip of paper, but after a moment he saw that this one was smaller and older, with grizzled white whiskers surrounding his wide mouth. Still, his movements were sure: he leaped down from stone to stone until he reached the lower fortifications, then clambered down the outer wall on a rope that Theo had not even noticed and came toward them.
"What do you seek?" The goblin looked more put out than nervous, despite the fact that even Cumber was almost a head taller than he was. Maybe there really are guns pointed at us, Theo thought. It was a depressing idea. He felt too tired to outrun a banana slug, let alone magical metallic bees. He started to reach into his pocket, then remembered all the television shows he'd seen about police standoffs and hostage situations. "I have a piece of paper," he said slowly and clearly. "A goblin gave it to me, invited me to come here. I'm going to take it out of my pocket now."
The white-whiskered goblin looked distinctly unimpressed. "Produce this paper, then, or a mighty stinging is what you will receive." "Friendly folk around here," Theo said under his breath. He reached into his floppy fairy-shirt and experienced a moment of real panic before he finally found the paper crammed down into the bottom of the pocket.
The goblin squinted at it, then held it up to the western sky as if looking for a watermark. His eyes grew round and his finger-length nose quivered. He looked at Theo and Cumber with something like astonishment, and for a few bad seconds Theo thought they were both going to be shot.
"Follow me, kind fellows," the goblin said. He actually bowed before turning around to lead them to the foot of the bridge. "By the Trees, look at this!" Cumber had stopped to lean over the side of the bridge. Theo, who had been surreptitiously scouting around for the hidden marksmen with whom they had been threatened, checked with their goblin guide to see if it was all right to look. The goblin didn't seem to care, so he went to stand by the ferisher.
The shanties had been invisible from the direction Theo and Cumber had come, but they were packed up against the other side of the dilapidated bridge along both banks as though a great flood had left them behind. The little town extended far down the riverside toward Ys; Theo thought he could see the end of the shanties about a mile away, but it was hard to tell through the growing shadows. The camp was full of many kinds of fairyfolk, although the slender brown and gray goblins seemed to be in the majority.
"There must be hundreds of people here," Theo murmured. "No, thousands." "And another thousand or so right under your feet, a-living in the fortifications of the bridge and beneath the pilings and even on rafts in the river underneath." The whiskered goblin sounded quite pleased with these arrangements. "But you young masters probably have heard these truths already, if intimates you be of our great Button."
"Button?" Theo shook his head. "Who's Button?"
"Ah, yes." The goblin shook his head approvingly and laid a finger beside his long, long nose. "The more quiet now, the less shouting later." Theo could only wonder what that was supposed to mean, or what weird misunderstanding he had started with his slip of paper. He noted with some surprise that instead of taking them down toward the shantytown along the riverbanks their goblin guide was leading them over the length of the bridge toward the one remaining tower. As they neared it, two large creatures stepped out of the shadowed doorway. They were ogres, Theo was surprised to see, and at least as large and ugly as Tansy's bodyguards, Teddy and Dolly. They glared suspiciously at Theo and Cumber, but at a cheerful gesture from the old goblin they stepped back, their misshapen gray faces sudde
nly more respectful.
The two new arrivals were led up a narrow flight of stone stairs into the tower. Theo was already exhausted, and after they had climbed what he guessed was about five floors' worth he was hoping that if for some reason this was all an elaborate trick to capture them, the capture would quickly be followed by an execution, just to stop his legs from aching. Instead, they reached a heavy wooden door at the top of the stairs. The goblin pushed it open and stepped aside, waving for them to walk through.
"He speaks to some perry dancers who've come all the way from Gateway Oak," their guide whispered as they went past. "So it is possible that you may have need to wait a while before you can be in audience with him."
At the far end of the room sat another, slightly larger goblin, wearing a brown robe so basic that it might have been something a Franciscan monk would put on while his good clothes were out being cleaned. Behind him sat a half circle of goblins and other fairyland creatures, perhaps a dozen in all, of which only one was the kind that looked mostly human, a handsome, golden-haired man in the ageless middle years of his sort. He and the others looked up as Theo and Cumber came cautiously forward, but the goblin did not take his eyes off the trio of almost impossibly slender beings who sat before him, dressed in diaphanous silks and looking more like dream-creatures than things of flesh and blood.
The goblin at last held his hand up and spread his fingers, bowed his head briefly toward the fey trio, and then for the first time looked to the newcomers. Theo recognized him as the one who had given him the paper in the bus station. A smile curved gently across the goblin's thin face.
"You have come. I hoped that it would be so. I am honored by your trust." He shut his eyes for a moment as if dropping off to sleep. "Sad, I am sad, but at the moment I have these other honored guests who have need of, hem, my poor thoughts and meager assistance." He made a graceful gesture toward the sylphlike creatures that Theo guessed must be the perry dancers the other goblin had mentioned.