Darkshine

by R. D. Vallier

  The man leaned in to sniff me, then recoiled. "Woo! She reeks of the ley line. She must have gotten ensnared in the bleed from the chemical tanker."

  The woman glared at me. One eye wide, the other squint, giving her an air of lunacy. "We need to get rid of her, Gethen."

  I heaved the backpack onto my shoulder and slid my back against the rock. "No need," I said with a nervous laugh, sidestepping. "I was just leaving."

  Gethen appeared in front of me in a burst of shadow, shoved me back into the crook. "Tisk. You leave when I say. Comprende, changeling?"

  The woman crept to his side, her lips pressed tight. Her ears were pointed, I realized, but the man's were folded like mine. "That's Delano's changeling, that is," she said. "And if Delano comes here, a horde of sniffers will follow."

  "Sweetling, sweetling," Gethen soothed. He kissed the top of her head. "We need Delano to come. If the Realm catches the changeling, more darkling blood will flow."

  "I don't care about the other darklings!" The woman's shout echoed in the canyon, darklings-lings-lings-lings dying slowly in the stones. "I don't want war on our turf!"

  "Then we need to keep her," Gethen said. The woman snorted. "Really! Look at her, Melinda! She is weak, her magic underdeveloped. It will take her forever to leave here alone. Delano has undoubtedly sensed her location. He will find her and whisk her away as fast as shadow, bringing the fight to his territory, not ours."

  "And the Realm will follow as fast as sunlight." Tears shimmered in Melinda's eyes. Her shoulders fell and I wondered if she wasn't a creature incensed from insanity, but lashing out from fear. "Why don't they leave us alone? All I want are my stars and my rabbits and my pretty desert flowers."

  "I want you to have those things, too, my love," Gethen said. "But contributing to the darklings' demise will not protect them."

  Melinda scoffed. "She's not even a darkling! She's just a—" Her eyes brightened. "Oh! Oh! I know! Let's kill her!"

  "What?" I gasped.

  "It's a great idea!" Melinda said, bouncing on her toes. "If she's dead, Delano and the Realm won't come here since a new faerie will be targeted as a darkling replacement. Everyone will ignore us to find her."

  Gethen chuckled and stroked Melinda's hair. "My sweetling is so clever."

  "Clever? It's a terrible idea!" I said. Melinda tightened her fists, grinning murderously. I brandished my knife in her face. "Back off, psycho! Or I'll—" Gethen snapped his fingers and a shadow jumped from the rock face, knocking the blade from my hand. I squeaked with surprise, then froze. Gethen smiled at me from behind Melinda's back, then lifted a finger to his lips and winked as if we shared some important secret known only to us.

  Gethen hugged Melinda, squeezing her back to his chest. "However, sweetling," he said, "murdering Delano's changeling probably isn't the best tactic."

  "Of course it is. It solves everything," Melinda said.

  "But isn't she how I came to you?" Gethen asked. "Scared, abandoned, confused. How would you have felt if another darkling killed me just to be left alone?" Melinda's face fell, and I thought I saw guilt budding in her half-moon eyes. He sighed dramatically, then dropped his arms from her waist and gazed woefully at the stars. "I know your Gethen has been a nuisance this last century, but—"

  "No!" Melinda spun around and threw her arms around his neck. "I love my Gethen! I couldn't bare life without him!"

  "Then hear me out," he said, and cupped her face in his hands. "Let's take her into Mountain Heart."

  Melinda pulled back with a gasp. "Mountain Heart?"

  "Faeries can't enter and she will never escape."

  "But that is our place." Melinda stepped away from him, her eyes now slits. "First you want to risk my rabbits and flowers. Now you want to imprison a changeling in our home?"

  "Only until Delano arrives," Gethen said, quickly. His ponytail lashed in the wind. "Then we will ransom her. Will my sweetling like some gold? Perhaps new jewelry?"

  Melinda stomped her foot. "I don't want any stupid gold or jewelry."

  "Some fancy artwork?"

  "No."

  "Hmm. Cash?"

  "No."

  "You little minx. You're going to force me into it, aren't you?"

  Melinda lifted her nose to the sky.

  Gethen groaned as if he had just suffered an embarrassing defeat. But he smiled when her back was turned and gave me another wink. "All right. You win. If you let her into Mountain Heart, you may get a kitten."

  Melinda squealed and spun to face him, her orange skirt twirling. "Really?"

  Gethen grimaced. "Yes. But you must promise to feed it."

  "Oh I will!" Melinda said, clapping her hands.

  "And change its litter."

  "I will! I will!"

  "And not kill Delano's changeling."

  Melinda's shoulders slumped. "Fiiiine." She gazed up at the dark rock face. "Who knows how long it will take Delano to find her, though. We might need to hole up for nights."

  Gethen pulled her close, smiled lovingly into her eyes. "Holed up with a beautiful sweetling. Oh my. Whatever shall we do with ourselves?"

  Melinda giggled. The desert wind howled. They leaned in for a kiss. Gethen's eyes widened an inch from her lips.

  Melinda's brow furrowed. "What's wrong?" she asked, right before he coughed a mouthful of blood in her face.

  "Gethen!" Melinda shrieked.

  Gethen-then-then-then... the rocks shrieked back.

  Gethen collapsed as Orin yanked a knife out of his back.

  Melinda fell to her knees, screaming her lover's name. Orin lunged for Melinda's chest. She shrieked and recoiled; the blade sunk into her side and she disappeared in a puff of darkness. Orin wheeled. The wind howled. Melinda reappeared beside Gethen's sightless face, bawling, tried to wrap his corpse in shadow. Orin lunged, moonlight glinting on the blade. Melinda vanished without her lover's body, her final wail hanging on the stones.

  I stood as stiff as a board, gaping. "Wha-what—"

  "The chemical spill caused a wound in the Earth and we bled out of the ley line." Orin squeezed my arms, my legs, checking for injuries. "I was dumped on the other side of the interstate. We need to hike a few miles, but we might catch an easy hitch. Are you hurt?"

  I shook my head, staring at Gethen's corpse. Blood streamed out of his back. If I hadn't witnessed Delano bleed red in the lamplight, I would have believed darklings bled shadow. "Nn-n-no. They-they—"

  "They were deciding whether to murder or kidnap you." Orin sneered at the dead darkling, then knifed a button off the smoking jacket and tucked it into his pocket. "Sorry to ruin your plans, darkslime. Miriam is going home."

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  I had traveled nearly three thousand miles and now found myself unable to climb seven stone steps.

  The two-storied log mansion was the work of a craftsman. Each log was cocoa streaked umber, the timber exquisite and sanded to perfection, as if the selection and preparation of trees had taken years through painstaking precision and ritual. The mansion's face was mirrored windows, each framed in thick, twisting tree branches. The Sierra Nevada wilderness reflected in the glass, along with the river stone courtyard, Orin's relief, and my pale and anxious face.

  The semi-truck we had hitched a ride on in the desert was completing an interstate delivery to Sacramento, and once we were on the California roadways the rest of our travel was cake. Roadside call boxes were everywhere, and the first one we reached had its cord intact. A faerie driver in a Bronco retrieved us at the nearest exit an hour after Orin's phone call. A few hours and a nap later we stood outside the Realm's main Earth station.

  My heart fluttered as I realized our struggles were ending.

  "This place was once heavily guarded," Orin had said as we sauntered up a river stone pathway. "But it attracted too much attention from the humans. Forty years ago the feds raided, believing it a cult." He shook his head at the absurdity. "Thankfully, we haven't had any problems since the Realm decided t
o keep the grounds low key."

  Low key wasn't how I would describe it. The vine-covered stone wall encompassing the eighty-two acres seemed like it could reflect cannon fire with hardly a chip to its face. The only noticeable entry was the solid, six-inch thick oak and iron gate where our driver had dropped us off. A single guard had answered when we knocked, and granted us passage without a sentence of conversation. I had expected an embassy of sorts, with barred windows, razor wire, video surveillance, and roaming sentries like at the ley line. Instead, the Realm's station looked more like a private vineyard, an aspect which blended in with the quaint, artsy villages and ski resorts we had passed on the way to here.

  "What if the rebels raid?" I asked, as we passed a limestone fountain with water trickling from a mermaid's upturned hands. "Or the darklings? How will the Realm defend themselves?"

  "There are sniffers and a scattering of roaming patrols," Orin said. "Besides, the entrance to the Realm is on the grounds. Border sentries can flood the compound in under two minutes. And neither rebels or darklings are stupid enough to face an entire faerie army."

  I suspected such measures were rarely needed, if ever. The grounds reeked of power and defense, a locked chest booby-trapped to explode if ever cracked. Chickadees—the bravest spirits in the woods—darted between the trees, and I caught glimpses of spiders scurrying along ornamental fences and garden pathways. Hidden eyes lurk everywhere here. And those were just the ones I noticed.

  Orin started up the log mansion's front steps—large, stone things with rippled edges like oak leaves. My legs turned to marble.

  "What's wrong?" he asked, as he trotted back to me.

  "I—I'm scared. What if the Realm hates me? What if they don't let me become a healer? What then?"

  "No one will hate you," Orin said. "And at worst they will recruit you into infantry." He shrugged. "Who knows? We might both be border sentries at the end of today."

  I lowered my voice. "But Delano said the Realm forced him into the mining pits."

  Orin drew back, his eyebrows raised. "Of course they did. Delano is a criminal, a con-artist. A faerie gone bad."

  I eyed the windows, my hunched reflection staring back. "Delano told me he chose to be a darkling."

  Orin laughed. "Yeah. He chose it over a prison sentence." Orin squeezed my shoulder. "You, however, have nothing to worry about. You are a good person, kind and brave. The traits the Realm embraces. They will provide everything you want."

  We plodded up the giant stone steps. The front door flew open when we reached the landing; a sniffer loomed on the other side. He was tall and trim with a chin like a cleaver. His hair was combed-back jet, his eyes two chips of sapphire. A white greyhound stood stiff beside his knee, a chickadee on his shoulder. Like the sniffer at the faerie lodge, he wore tailored clothing the color of cinnamon, a knife and coiled whip on his belt. And like the sniffer at the faerie lodge, he felt just as gray.

  "Name and business," the sniffer said.

  "Orin Grian," Orin said, as I skulked behind him. "Here to report off to Raina for successful probationary retriever assignment of adult changeling, Aluala Liath."

  The chickadee puffed its feathers. "You are late," it said.

  Orin shrugged. "We had setbacks."

  The sniffer stood aside to let us into the mansion's foyer, his greyhound sniffing our legs as we strode past.

  "Inform Raina her guests have arrived," the sniffer said, locking the door behind us. The chickadee chirped and flew off through a side doorway.

  The log mansion's foyer was the size of a small ballroom. Two large doorways yawned along the sides, with red walls beyond them to conceal their secrets. The rear wall had a single closed door, carved intricately with vines and birds and bunches of grapes. A wood stove stood in the foyer's center, fire crackling behind its glass doors, its smoke stack engraved with roses which disappeared into planked, vaulted ceilings. Plush throw rugs with differing designs covered the floorboards. The room had no furniture. Instead, colorful pillows of velvet and suede the size of large dog beds circled the wood burning stove, inviting repose and casual conversations. The place reminded me of an opium den of some obscure, millionaire woodsman.

  "There's my new retriever!" A woman glided out of the doorway the chickadee had flown through, her arms outstretched. Long, curly hair bounced against her back in varying hues of the desert—yucca, peyote, and mesquite, all tucked inside the sand. Her slinky dress slid to her ankles like liquid jade, flashing a milky thigh with each step. A dozen gold bangles jangled on her wrists. The pink diamond on her choker was the size of a quail egg and gleamed as bright as her smile.

  A hunched, flaxen haired man in a gray suit and a yellow and white striped vest scurried behind her. He had the small eyes and long face of a ferret, and clenched a thick book and clipboard to his chest.

  The woman squeezed Orin's shoulders and kissed each cheek. "I thought you'd never get here," she said, then hugged me as if I were her daughter, her hair smelling like sunlight and blooming wisteria. Her eyes widened like rings of smoking sage. "And you must be Miriam." She squealed, delighted. "Our Aluala has finally come home! Come. Sit. You two must be exhausted from your travels. Do you like champagne? Kegan, bring us champagne."

  "Yes, Raina." The ferrety man set his book and clipboard beside the wood burning stove, then scurried out of the foyer. Raina stepped out of her golden high heels and plopped onto a peach cushion beside the fire. Orin and I sat on yellow and baby-blue cushions across from her.

  "So, retriever...?" Orin asked, his eyebrows raised.

  "Of course, silly," Raina said, then wagged her finger at him. "I admit I was skeptical when I heard you detoured to the ley line. But then you killed not one but two darklings." She giggled and pushed his knee with her bare foot, the rhinestones on her toenails sparkling. "I knew then I had made the right decision."

  Orin grinned at his lap, red creeping up his neck. "Thank you, Raina. But there has been a mistake. I killed only one. Melinda escaped."

  Kegan scurried back into the great room with a bottle of champagne and three flutes. He filled the glasses, handed us each one, then settled onto a lavender cushion beside Raina.

  Raina sipped her champagne. "There is no mistake. Melinda is dead. The wound you inflicted proved fatal. The lunatic probably died in a pit somewhere, singing her stupid Gethen's praises. And with you killing both of them, there's no longer a darkling in that region to kidnap a so-called replacement. For once the Realm doesn't need to scramble to protect any infants." Raina sipped her champagne, radiating pride. "All because of you, Orin. I sense a sniffer career in your future. Won't our Orin make a wonderful sniffer, Fino?"

  The sniffer blinked slowly beside the front door. "Superb."

  Orin was a beet. "Oh, I dunno," he said with a nervous laugh. "It was all just dumb luck."

  "Orin," Raina said firmly, and lowered her flute. "Most heroes I know are built on accidents, coincidence, good timing, or someone else's misfortune. The difference is they know how to play off the truth and twist it to their advantage. Why, take Fino. He would have never slain his first darkling if a moving van didn't plow into it first. Right, Fino?"

  "My lady is mistaken," the sniffer said. "I chased down that darkling on foot and popped its head off with my bare hands."

  Raina laughed and clapped her hands together, her gold bangles jangling. "You see? That's how reputations are created. Boast your accomplishments, Orin. They will take you farther than you ever imagined." She drained her flute. "And what about you my changeling? Has my new retriever described the Realm's systems? How everyone plays a part?"

  I nodded. "Yes. I hoped..." I gulped a mouthful of champagne and winced as it slid down my throat. "I hoped to become a healer. On Earth, I mean, that is." My voice sounded weak beneath the foyer's tall ceilings.

  Raina lifted an eyebrow. "A healer? Why, that is a large commitment."

  "I know she'd be great," Orin said. "She is kind and calm and compassionate. He
r first magics even healed a rose petal I tore, and she has knowledge of damage in a region unknown to us."

  Raina straightened as if Orin's words were sobering. "Damage? What kind of damage?"

  I took a deep breath and told Raina about the devastation in Appalachia. My voice shook, then strengthened, as I described the abandoned coal mines slashing the scenery, the yellow streams that murdered habitats, the slag piles altering the landscape, the ponds with water like battery acid which bleached dead leaves, and remained as clear as gasoline year-round.

  When I finished, Raina leaned back in her cushion and released a long, slow breath. Her face had paled. "Thank you for bringing this to our attention," she said. "The destruction sounds dreadful. And frankly it is embarrassing the Realm has allowed this poison to seep for so long. The faerie stations in that region have long been abandoned. I suspect most are in desperate need of repair. Am I wrong, Kegan?"

  "No," Kegan said, scratching his cheek. "Green Valley in West Virginia is probably the closest to acceptable."

  "West Virginia, you say? Hmmm. It's not Ohio, but do you believe your first healer assignment will benefit there, Miriam?"

  "My first...?" I beamed. "Yes! Yes, of course!"

  "Kegan, make a note. Send a builder with Miriam to West Virginia to repair the station, along with two other healers to start the work and train her."

  "Noted," Kegan said, scribbling. "Anything else?"

  "Yes. Send for the tattooists so these two can get winged and purged."

  My brow furrowed. "Purged?"

  "Didn't Orin tell you?" Raina shrugged. "No matter. It is tradition. We burn purium during your tattooing."

  "What's purium?" I asked.

  "A Realm herb to induce visions of those things which hold you back," Raina said, and stood up. "It provides a safe space to confront them so you can move freely into your new life."

  I blinked, startled. "A hallucinogen?"

  We followed her to the closed, carved door in the back of the foyer. "Purium isn't a hallucinogen, exactly. The herb gives images to our hurts so we may heal them," Raina said. "As a changeling, your mother will inevitably make an appearance. It is a miracle she didn't drown you in a bathtub when you were an infant, quite frankly. And I hear you are married."