Silverblind (Ironskin)

by Tina Connolly

  “The fey need a calling tree,” said Stella. “We used those out in the country for emergencies. So you can telephone one and they telephone the rest.”

  Jack snorted at the imagery, but Dorie turned bright eyes on Tam. “You can call them,” she said. “What’s that you whistled in the forest?”

  He shrugged. “Just a little something the fey taught me long ago,” he said, and then stopped, his eyes unfocusing. “No, not just that,” he said. “They said I could use it to call them.”

  “And you did,” said Dorie. “You used it on Saturday.”

  “Not just then,” said Tam. “They said I would know when I needed it.”

  Everyone turned to look at Tam. Dorie thought you could have heard a pin drop in the room. Tam wet his lips, and then, into that total silence he softly whistled the eerie, calling tune Dorie had heard on Saturday. It made even her, want to come closer, and closer.

  The door to the room opened, and Jane, who had stepped out to use the restroom, came running in. Her beautiful white face with its fine red lines seemed to glow. “I felt something,” she said. “What is this?”

  Tam broke off in horror. “I’ve seen this,” he said. “You have fey in your face. We tried calling it out a long time ago, when I was little. Me and my mother. You couldn’t breathe—”

  “Her face is not skin,” put in Edward. “It is clay, infused with fey. She’s one of the last ones left. She needs the fey to animate her face.”

  Moira looked at Jane with stark disbelief.

  “Long story,” said Jane.

  “You can’t take away her fey,” said Dorie, heart pounding at the thought. “She needs it.”

  Tam snapped his fingers. “The masks. The full iron masks, like my mother used to wear. That would block you.”

  “That should do the trick,” agreed Jane. “But where would we find them tonight? I don’t want to go to Niklas’s again, even if he has them. I don’t trust where he’s ended up.”

  Dorie was white. “I don’t care. If you can’t save my mother, we can’t do this. We won’t call a single fey if it’s going to hurt her.”

  Jane wheeled on her. “You have to. This is more important than just me.”

  “No, no, no,” said Dorie, and “Absolutely not,” said Edward.

  “Besides, wasn’t there another woman left in the same boat?” said Tam. “I remember she had the same name as an herb. Aloe? No. Calendula something, that’s it.”

  “And you have to think of her,” said Dorie to Jane.

  “I forbid it,” said Edward.

  Jack laughed and cut across the chorus. “Is that all that’s stopping us from saving the fey? Theater people never throw away potential costume pieces. Frye still has several of those masks in her attic.”

  * * *

  It was a long trek up the mountain, especially after having just done it yesterday. Dorie’s thighs ached and her palm burned.

  They made it to the entrance by dawn. There they stopped, and Tam turned back to face the city, so far off it was only a smudgey glow in the dark blue sky. He whistled.

  The song came through her bones and said, come with me. Come, be with me. Come to Tam. She set her jaw as it pulled on her, wanting her to run to his arms. Come to me. Come.

  Resolutely she turned to face the city, standing next to him, alongside of him. She raised her arms, feeling the cool morning air against her Dorian skin. There was hope now, she thought. She could finish abrading her palm, get all the wyvern goo out. Become Dorie again. She could try.

  But that was not yet.

  For now, she sent her tendrils of thought out, extending her senses, farther than she had ever done before. She felt each caught bit of fey, and with the basilisk power she released them, set them free. And they came to Tam’s call. From the city they came, and from beyond the city they came. Those near that heard his call echoed it to those farther, and farther, just as Stella had suggested. Tam whistled until he was out of breath, and then he took her hand, and they tramped into the forest together.

  They stopped several times for him to catch his breath and repeat the call. As they got farther up the mountain, they began seeing the blue fey. They came swirling toward Tam—if a mist could fall into formation, then that’s how they looked, Dorie thought. And up they went, up, up, up, Tam and Dorie, and farther behind them, Jane and Edward, because they had refused to leave Dorie, and Woglet flying back and forth around them all.

  They began seeing traces of the trail as they neared the ravine. The trail of humans. It was a thick, obvious trail, that had come as far as it could by automobile, and now met up with the footpath and started walking. Tam followed the signs of the trail until he found the two vehicles, loosely covered by scrub. “Can’t be more than eight thugs, I guess,” he said. “I suppose they think that’s enough.”

  “Isn’t it?” said Dorie, looking at their paltry group.

  “Well,” said Tam. “We do have them.” He pointed at the fey.

  Dorie shook her head. “They promised Aunt Helen, remember? They don’t want to fight. They just want to go home. Their new home.”

  They slowed as they climbed higher, nearing the basilisk circle. Went cautiously. The sun was high now, and warm. It was clear that the men were well ahead of them, and they did not know what weapons they possessed.

  That’s when Annika came down the trail, picking her way around the ruts and carrying a white flag. “Dorie,” she said. “Delighted to see you looking so well. And Thomas.” Her frosty voice betrayed her with a slight crack on his name.

  “If you want to do something good for once, you’ll stand aside now,” said Dorie.

  Annika merely raised her eyebrows. “I was rather hoping to give you one last chance. Be the hero to your country that you were meant to be. I’m not interested in glory.”

  “Ha,” muttered Dorie.

  “Merely that things be done right, ja? This is our chance, Dorie. Think of it. Clean air, clean skies. Pay all our debts. Better living for everyone—not just the wealthy. Everyone. Our country—strong, proud, secure. Forever.”

  Dorie stood her ground. “At what cost?”

  “Give it up, Annika,” Tam said. “She’s never going to help you destroy the fey—from this world or any other.”

  “Oh?” said Annika. Her eyebrows raised and Dorie wheeled.

  Two silvermen had ahold of Jane and Edward. They were manhandling them up the path.

  “That’s a white flag?” said Tam.

  “You expected honor among spies?” said Annika coolly. “And now, Dorie-Dorian, if you would be so good as to open the portal and find us a pathway to a new world? One with plenty of fey, please. You managed to get all those here.” She nodded nonchalantly at the pale blue army around Dorie and Tam. Have to give her credit for bravery, thought Dorie. “So you can bring some more back this way. About twice as many ought to do it, I think. For now.”

  “The basilisk will go home and the circle will close,” Dorie said. “There’s only a ‘for now.’ Not a next time.”

  Annika rolled her eyes. “Men are heading to tranq the basilisk even as we speak. I spent this morning adjusting the serum and I feel confident that I have the dose correctly formulated. The basilisk will not be going home.” She wheeled and strode toward the circle. “Come on, then.”

  “Don’t do it,” said Jane.

  Annika laughed as she walked. “Oh, she’ll do it.”

  “I don’t even know if I can do it,” Dorie protested. They stopped at the circle.

  “I suggest you try,” said Annika.

  “Don’t,” said Jane again, and Annika sighed.

  “I assume there’s a reason for the iron mask?” Annika snapped her fingers and one of the silvermen raised Jane’s mask to the top of her head. Annika closed her human eye and focused with her silver one. “Yes … The less fey there is, the harder it is to see, but I think—I think I do see it there, shimmering around your face. This should be an interesting test case.” Annika
narrowed her eyes at Jane and slowly, slowly, Dorie saw Jane’s hands rise to her own throat.

  “Don’t!” shouted Dorie. “I said I’m going.” But Annika was lost in scientific exploration.

  “You can do that, too,” hissed Tam.

  Of course. Dorie focused on Jane, and just as slowly, she saw her hands begin to lower.

  Annika broke off, staring at a smug Dorie. She narrowed her eyes, thinking, and then she shrugged. “You can’t keep your eyes open forever, can you? We have more men, and blindfolds.” She crossed her arms. “I think your mother will make an excellent test subject. And I have a lot of tests.”

  <> Dorie said to the fey. But the fey just hung there, waiting.

  <> <> <>

  Dorie slowly moved into the circle, desperately running through her options for a better solution. She still didn’t even know if she could manipulate the worlds. Still, if she could find the right world, surely she could send the fey through before Annika stopped her.

  But then Annika would make sure that Jane was locked up for the rest of her life. Not to mention Dorie, too. But what were the two of them against an entire race of beings? She knew what Jane would say to do.

  Dorie put her hand up to the boundary of the circle and felt the strange dizziness again, as she started seeing those other worlds, other possibilities. A world with no humans and lots of fey. That’s what these fey wanted—that’s where they wanted to go, to join the others.

  That’s what Annika wanted, but for the reverse reason. A world to pull all the fey from.

  Dorie looked and looked, and then, through the circle, she saw something that she thought was part of a different world at first.

  The silver wings of a basilisk.

  “What are you looking at?” said Annika. “Did you find something?”

  Behind the basilisk Dorie could see the silvermen Annika had sent, fallen on the ground like dolls. It had paralyzed them with a glance; dropped them to the ground. Heck, it might have even killed them—she could not tell if they were breathing. One had remembered his lore and taken a mirror—it lay broken on the ground.

  Annika saw the fallen silvermen. She turned and faced the basilisk with her own silver eye. Her human eye closed as she reached for her tranq gun. “I’m your mirror,” she told it. “You can’t win against me.” The gun leveled and aimed.

  There was a loud clunking sound and Annika crumpled.

  Jane stood over her, iron mask in hand. Behind her her guard stood, paralyzed by the gaze of Woglet. His little wings were flapping mightily as he tried to keep his vision in place.

  The other silverman let go of Edward and grabbed wildly for Woglet.

  And then— “Look away!” shrieked Dorie to her parents and Tam. The two silvermen fell to the ground as the mother basilisk’s gaze swept the group impartially. Her heavy head swung back and forth and then stopped, apparently satisfied that the remaining humans were not going to try to impede her access to her portal. The mirrored scales around her eyes retracted.

  Dorie breathed heavily. She looked around at the waiting fey. The basilisk coming ever closer. She closed her eyes and shoved her hand back up against the circle.

  She knew what she needed to find. All those other Dories from other timelines came swirling around, walking through her, clustering around her.

  But the timeline she wanted was the one with no Dorie at all.

  The one where the humans had lost twenty years ago, or perhaps even before that. The world where the fey had won, and if there were any surviving humans, they only existed in pockets, scraps, caves. That was where these fey were going. All of them, all of them, forever. She would be so lonely without them, and she despaired, but she kept looking, for this was the only way to save them all.

  There were fey around, watching—a blue circle all around. Tam had sung to them, and they had answered.

  Dorie melded herself into them, for the last time. <> she said, and <>

  <> <> <>

  Her fey senses extended through the circle, through all the fey still streaming into the forest, and then she saw the humans there far back at the trail entrance just beginning to make their way up the treacherous and steep mountain. Annika’s backup. Dorie saw them coming, just as the fey-touched ironskin Alice had shown her in the visions.

  They marched into the forest. They marched in with their long copper poles and their iron cages and their woven metal nets and in every hand glowed a silver eye.

  And there was the way, there was the world, and she just had to bring the fey in and tell them to go. She turned, ready to call the fey—but then there were the great silver wings again and she faltered. The basilisk family was coming now, the basilisk and her two babies pushing their way from the cave toward the circle. The third egg had not yet hatched, but the disruption around her nest had caused the mother to abandon her original plan and bring the first two hatchlings in first. She spread her enormous wings at the sight of Dorie, standing in her center, and again her great mirrored eyes opened.

  A basilisk’s gaze was nothing like a wyvern’s. Dorie could not move, felt as though she could not even draw air into her lungs. It came into the circle, and as it did, it triggered the way to open behind Dorie. It drew back—was it going to steam her before going home? Dorie mentally braced herself.

  And then Woglet flew off of Dorie’s shoulder and straight at the mother basilisk, yodeling and steaming his baby steam.

  The mother basilisk blinked, and Dorie was free to step out of the basilisk’s way, move to the edge of the circle. The basilisk looked at the tiny woglet—so much tinier than her own babies, and seemed to shrug, dismissing them all. With her head she nudged her two hatchlings, encouraged them to go through.

  On the other side of the circle Dorie could see into the world that she had selected, that the basilisk had opened. It was another mountain, like here. But there were all sorts of swooping creatures on the other side, ones that had gone extinct here years ago, from hunting and trapping and poaching. And beyond there she saw fey, drawn to the vortex to peer through and see what they were missing.

  “Not a lot,” said Dorie under her breath, and she extended her hand outside the circle, and braced herself, and told them all to come.

  And they came.

  They came like a great storm, barreling through Dorie’s conduit from this world to the next. The basilisk took little notice of them now; she had sent her two chicks through to the waiting mate on the other side, and now she was going back to wait for the last one to hatch. The blue fey poured in as Tam whistled. The men came closer.

  The great mass of fey seemed to gain acceleration as they went. The whistle was calling them, but more, it was pulling them together into a great chain of fey, something stronger together than they were apart. Even with the wyvern goo bottling her own fey up inside, Dorie felt the insistent tug urging her to come with them, to go, go on through.

  Dorie looked at her dear stepmother, with the iron mask covering her face, standing there, braced against the fey storm. There was something like victory on her face, or the feel of your teeth bared in the wind. She was watching the fey go, and she was staying.

  It seemed as though hours went by. Dorie’s arms were shaking from fatigue now, as the last basilisk chick finally hatched and was prodded by its mother to the circle. She was spread-eagled—one hand in the center and one hand outside of the ring.

  The silvermen were coming, closer and closer.

  But the way was open and the fey were going through and they were going to win.

  That’s when she realized that Tam was being pulled, step by step into the circle.

  There was pure terror on his face, and in that moment he looked for her, his eyes met hers, he called out, “Dorie!”

  But she couldn’t stop it. Not now. The mother and baby basilisk were through now, but the way was still open for the fey. The stor
m was being pulled through her; she was the conduit, and if she left the circle now, the remaining fey would be stranded here in this world. “What is it?” she cried into the face of the storm.

  “I don’t know,” he managed. “It’s pulling my hands.”

  Jane turned then, and her eyes met Dorie’s. They knew someone who had been taken by the fey. Who had returned with a fey gift in his hands. A gift that enhanced his natural talents—in that case, sculpture. Edward’s brilliant masks had been a gift from the Fey Queen herself, infusing his fingers with pure blue fey substance.

  Why had Dorie never thought that Tam might have been sent home with a gift? She had even heard it for herself.

  “Your piano playing!” she shouted at him. “Your composing! It’s not yours!”

  “Of course it is!”

  She shook her head, and then, as he was being pulled through the circle and into that new world, she grabbed him and held on for dear life. She was not going to let him go again.

  She had no fey power to hold him. So she held Tam, willing the vortex to simply suck the fey out of his hands and let him go. But it pulled on him and in the maelstrom she could see him change to all manner of different Tams, in different clothing, different hairstyles. Smiling, laughing, angry, clever. All the other Tams on the timeline, and still she held him as the fey in his hands tried to pull him through to join the rest.

  But the grip of her hands was not enough to offset the great mass of inertia pulling him through. All the basilisks were through. Most of the fey were through. There was no help for it. One human could not hope to win against the mass of all the other fey in the universe.

  But she did know how to take the fey out of someone. Hadn’t she done it to herself? It would not have worked with Jane or Calendula—their faces were no longer human, would not work without the fey to animate them. But Tam would still be Tam without his composing. She could do it—if the wyvern goo in her palm didn’t stop her. There was that last little bit of wyvern left in the tattoo on her hand. She tore away the careful bandage that Moira had done. She linked her arm through Tam’s, pulled the penknife from his pocket, and, giddy with the thought of the pain, scraped the last of the wyvern tattoo off her palm.