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It was two sleeps and one night later that they arrived at the mountain home of the Queen of Stone. The solitary peak towered above the gentle hills and rolling fields that had comprised most of the recent scenery. The road they were on dead-ended at an almost cartoonishly abrupt slope of tumbled stone and loosely rooted grass.
Branwyn looked up at the summit apprehensively. “Do we climb it?” She was in decent shape, but the walking was starting to get to her. Weren’t there supposed to be faerie horses? She couldn’t ride, but surely they could pull a carriage. And why weren’t there cars, anyhow? With the gates of their prison cracked open, it was a golden opportunity to update their technology, especially if the faerie allergy to iron was a myth.
Oh well.
“No,” said William grimly. “We go under.” His black mood had barely changed since the confrontation over the control band, although he had admitted the replacement dorodango Branwyn had created was quite nice. She’d made some thematic improvements on Tarn’s idea.
William dropped to his knees, then pressed his forehead against the slope of the mountain. His lips moved in what seemed very much like prayer. Uncomfortable, Branwyn looked away.
“Most of the other leadership positions among the Backworld exiles have moved around,” said Severin conversationally. “The Queen of Stone is the only one who’s held her position since the Fall.” The kaiju has been as good as his word when it came to tagging along, and much to Branwyn’s surprise, he hadn’t done much to cause trouble, either. He’d seemed distracted, although not so distracted that he’d allowed the changelings to sneak up on him when the fire dimmed.
Okay, so there’d been a little trouble, but Branwyn couldn’t say he’d initiated it, even if he was the root cause.
“Is that supposed to mean something?” she asked.
“It means she’s been here in her mountain since the faeries became faeries. Isn’t that interesting?”
“Sounds dull to me.”
“That too. But just think about how Faerie would quake and shiver if she emerged from her hole. Why, the whole thing might collapse without this pillar, this bastion.”
Branwyn regarded him narrowly. “That’s not a metaphor, is it?”
“Nope.” He grinned. “If she moved, more than just Faerie would quake.”
As if on cue, the ground trembled. Then, as William scrambled to his feet, the mountainside split apart. A tall man in ruby armor stepped out of the darkness beyond and surveyed them.
It was literally ruby armor, too, as far as Branwyn could tell. She stared at it in fascination. His breastplate was a giant, faceted gemstone over a black tunic. Plates of ruby made up the rest of the suit, some faceted, some only polished. Whoever had made it had invested a lot of time into it, even if it had been made by magic. It was very attractive. And sparkly. Branwyn approved.
The armor’s owner was also attractive, with dark skin, a smooth scalp, and deep brown eyes. But everybody in Faerie seemed to be beautiful, so Branwyn didn’t find him nearly as interesting. She wondered if a mortal had been involved in the armor’s creation, and if she’d be allowed to inspect it without somebody wearing it.
“The emissaries from Underlight are welcome to the Well of Stone,” the gatekeeper said in a light tenor voice. “The Destroyer is not. Depart from here.”
Severin looked the ruby gatekeeper up and down. “Are you going to make me? Because I really don’t think you can.”
In answer, the other man held a gauntleted hand to one side. With a rush and a hum, red light gathered and elongated in his grasp. Then with a snap, the light solidified into a lance that matched his armor. The very tip of the lance was black, though, and its heart seemed to burn.
“Depart from here,” said the gatekeeper again. This time, his voice had echoes that made the ground shiver. He spun the lance and slashed the air in front of him. “By the manifest power granted by the Queen Eternal to hold the door, I say a third time: depart from here. You are not welcome.” He spun the lance again, then slashed the air twice more in a complicated and lovely drill.
The black tip of the lance seemed to chime as it moved, like a fingertip on crystal. It rose in pitch as a distortion appeared in the air at its point, like the fracturing of glass previously unseen. With a shattering sound, the warp rushed toward Severin.
“Oh, for f—” he began before the warp hit him and he vanished.
“Come along,” said the gatekeeper impassively, as if nothing unusual had happened. He gestured with the lance for them to precede him into the darkness.
The hall beyond the mountain door was vast and pillared, dotted with distant flickers of light that only served to make the darkness deeper. The ground was worn stone, and after walking for a moment, they came to the curve of a stream that washed over luminescent gravel. By that light, Branwyn could make out galleries above, each one hosting a single flame. The cavern looked as if it could easily handle the foot traffic of thousands, but Branwyn saw nobody else throughout their walk.
They rounded a gentle bend, and the glowing creek flowed into tall radiance. At first, Branwyn thought it was a vertical lake. Then she realized it was another hall, this one filled with light. Without hesitating, the gatekeeper led them into it as the stream vanished underground.
The light tinkled. As her eyes adjusted, Branwyn realized that the walls glittered like the crystalline interior of a geode. Near the top of the chamber, the milky crystals grew long and spiky, so long that crystals from both sides of the room intersected to form stone rafters. The floor was polished amethyst, dark as night underfoot and fading to lavender at the walls. Out of the corner of her eye, Branwyn thought she saw the glowing stream running deep in the stone.
But she didn’t have time to look more closely, because this room was occupied. Tall figures wearing strange, upright hairstyles and adorned with scraps of fabric lounged along the walls, draped over chairs. Each chair, Branwyn noticed, was unique: ancient carved wooden antiques, twisted metal deck chairs, even several varieties of upholstered armchairs. And the inhabitants were quite willing to stare.
Branwyn didn’t check her own curious gaze, although she had only a little interest in the people. Her previous encounter with a random lady of Faerie had been more disturbing than fun. But the fashions in this mountain court were very, very different from anything Branwyn had seen outside of a music video. The wearers even posed like models in a video, only their heads turning to follow her as she walked past them. She wondered what Penny would make of them.
Beyond the lounging courtiers, a number of stained glass panels were arranged every which way. Each one bore a classical representation of people engaged in everyday modern life. Each image was animated, moving with a delicate crackling sound. The gatekeeper paused before them and called, “An emissary from Underlight.”
For a long moment, there was no response. Branwyn shifted her weight uneasily, but nobody else moved.
Then the stained glass panels parted, gliding this way and that like they were on invisible rails. Beyond was an enormous throne; it was by far the most elaborate chair in the hall. Eight feet tall, it was carved from a single block of milky white stone with dark flecks on the surface and an opalescent fire in its depths.
The woman who occupied it had hair of obsidian and basalt, glossy and matte, with a huge, spiky crystal comb holding it to one side. Stabbed through the middle of the comb was a tarnished copper splinter. The Queen’s elegant face was weathered grey stone with a black flaw running from her scalp to her chin, and her eyes were the blank eyes of forgotten statuary. She wore a gown of cabochon moonstone, with a star sapphire sash and a truly astonishing number of pleats and folds. It moved as she raised her hand to gesture them forward, the material sliding over itself with a sound like steel over stone.
The gatekeeper stepped aside and Branwyn waited for only a moment before she realized that nobody else was going to approach the throne.
“Right,” she said,
and moved forward. “Hi,” she said. “I’m Branwyn.” Possibly more formal speech was expected with faerie Queens. If so, nobody had told her about it, so she figured that it probably wasn’t that important.
The Queen stared at her for a long moment, giving Branwyn enough time to wonder if maybe her approach had some flaws. Tarn had said something about not insulting anybody.
But she was being perfectly polite according to her own standards.
She pulled off her backpack and started to open it.
“A free human,” said the Queen in a flat alto voice. “Welcome, Tarn’s human.”
“No, I’m Branwyn. But I have come on behalf of Tarn. He sent this.” She pulled out the chest, dropped her bag on the ground, and moved forward to present it.
A low wave of noise swept down the hall, scratching and hissing and grinding rather than murmuring. Branwyn gritted her teeth and kept walking forward. A few feet before the throne, she gave a small bow and held out the chest.
The Queen took it in one large, long-fingered hand, her face still expressionless. She opened it and first picked up the clear bubble. As Tarn’s bubbles did, this one popped. Instead of a physical letter, there was only a musical fall of notes and the scent of pomegranates.
The Queen’s blank gaze fixed on a point somewhere over Branwyn’s head for a long moment. Branwyn took the opportunity to peer at some of the stained glass screens to the sides of the throne. The animated scenes illustrated really did make them look like medieval television sets. There was a pastoral scene, and a scene of an elderly woman in a tiny, old kitchen.
The Queen’s gaze lowered to Branwyn. She took the other orb, the one Branwyn had fabricated, from the chest and crushed it between her fingers without even glancing at it. Branwyn felt a pang of annoyance. She’d worked for hours to produce something beautiful, even knowing that it was a wrapper. Details were important.
Inside the dorodango, she’d nestled a sphere of silver conjured from the fabric of the Backworld. She’d liked the metaphor: reality surrounding a dream.
“Ah,” said the Queen, and delicately extracted something wound around the silver sphere and trailing in the dust. “Tarn makes me an offering and hopes I will send back to him the ornament in my comb, so that he may make something wondrous for us all.”
“Actually,” said Branwyn, “I’ll be doing the crafting. That’s why I’m here.”
The Queen tilted her head. “Will you? Then why was Tarn’s offering this?” She held up the long strand of Branwyn’s hair that had gotten caught in the mud as she worked it.
Oh crap. There was a moment’s silence while Branwyn’s mind raced.
“That’s just a marker that I’m empowered to negotiate on his behalf for the Machine,” she said finally.
“Ah,” said the Queen again, and fell silent. The whole room was silent, except for a quiet crystalline hum, and the chime of the walls.
Branwyn shifted uncomfortably. It was a smooth explanation, but now what? She wasn’t used to interacting with anything as impassive as the Queen of Stone; it unfocused her. And she had the nagging urge to refinish the Queen’s surfaces. She’d really enjoyed her art restoration class in college. That was probably going too far, though. She was pretty sure that was the case, even if she pitched it as a makeover.
Casting her gaze around for inspiration, she noticed the stained glass again. “Your screens are lovely. What do they portray?”
“Images from the world,” the Queen said.
“That’s what I thought. Do you enjoy watching them?”
“They entertain me.” Not a flicker of expression crossed the stone face. The distant hum seemed to grow louder.
“You’re not the only one. Reality television is big right now.” Branwyn hesitated, then added, “If those screens show you the modern world, you’ve seen televisions, right?”
A pause. Then: “Yes. Tell me about reality television.”
Branwyn brightened. “Well, basically, some or all of a group of people’s lives are broadcast for anybody to follow. Sometimes it’s about their job, sometimes it’s about their family life. Sometimes it’s nastier things.” Her nose wrinkled. “Some people will watch anything.” She looked around again. “Maybe we could get some televisions down here for you. There must be a way to get cable into the Backworld.” She smiled. “If that’s what you’d like in trade, I can commit Tarn to it.”
The Queen stared at her until Branwyn’s smile faltered. Then, slowly, like an owl, those stone eyes blinked. She said, with awful majesty, “Not television. No. I think what I will take is your vision. Human. Mortal. Full of life.”
Branwyn took a step backward, then looked around for her fae escort. William and the others stood back outside the cluster of screens, looking utterly unmoved. They weren’t, she realized, at all interested in helping her.
Flushed with adrenaline, she took a deep breath. She still had options. She didn’t know what her escort would do if she canceled the deal, but she bet they’d have a reaction then.
She played for time. “What do you mean?”
“I wish to see your life, through your eyes. Branwyn vision. Reality vision. All of your life.” The Queen of Stone reached up to pull the giant comb from her hair, which tinkled like glass as it fell from the coil the comb had held in place, tumbling over her shoulder and into her lap.
Branwyn froze. That was so much more reasonable than taking her eyes. So reasonable and so deeply horrifying. “How?”
“I will put my blessing on you. All of your nodes are filled, so you must choose something to give up.” She raised a hand as if ready to do magic right there.
“Wait, wait. Let’s lay this out. In exchange for the Machine fragment Tarn wants, you’re going to put a charm on me that will let you see out of my eyes?”
“A blessing,” repeated the Queen. “Charms are human magic.”
“Just sight? One way, you always silently looking over my shoulder? It won’t harm me? I need you to say it, your Majesty.”
Again, there was a scraping from the courtiers. Overhead, one of the giant crystals cracked half-through, with a sound like thunder. In the wake of the snap, the crystal sang against itself. Branwyn glanced up at it apprehensively, but then returned her gaze to the Queen, striving for the same endless patience.
“I will lay a blessing on you, human Branwyn, enabling you to serve as my eyes to the outside world. I will control when and how I use that vision. You will not know if I am watching or not. I will not know what you are thinking. It will not physically harm you, or take away any physical capabilities.” She looked up at the half-cracked crystal. “I will not vouch for the integrity of your heart or mind. If those break, that will also be… entertaining. In return, I will transfer this—” and her fingers brushed against the copper splinter driven through the comb delicately “—Machine fragment to your safekeeping, for you to courier back to the Lord of Underlight.”
“You could just come out into the world yourself, you know,” Branwyn said reproachfully. “Everybody’s doing it.” She wasn’t happy about that statement about her future mental health and well-being.
That flawed stone face frowned. “I do not wish to.”
Branwyn sighed. “How long would I bear your blessing?”
“For as long as you have eyes, of course. It won’t be long. You are mortal, after all.”
Scratch that; Branwyn wasn’t happy about any of this. She’d freed Zachariah from coerced service to this Queen in a fit of temper. And, she thought, because it was the right thing to do. Now she had to take the consequences. She had to let this entity watch everything she did, probably for the rest of her life. No matter what she did, she’d always be aware of the gaze over her shoulder. It made her skin prickle just thinking about it. That kind of invasion seemed like the first step towards even more uncomfortable things.
She could still walk away. Nobody had moved to stop her. They all seemed to move pretty slowly here. She could run if she had to, get
to the doors, burst out, find help, she had charms—
No.
Human Branwyn. Mortal Branwyn. They expected so little of her. Except for Tarn, who seemed to expect so much.
“All right,” she said. “It’s a deal.”
“What charm shall I remove?” The Queen’s free hand flexed.
Branwyn laid out the charms in her head. Not including the ones Zachariah had given her specifically for working with the faeries, she had the Sight, a beacon, the reminder charm, and a charm for turning her fingernails into weapons. It was a harder choice than she expected. Her ability to see magic, her ability to call for help, her ability to stay focused amidst supernatural distractions, and a last-ditch ability to defend herself. She realized, too late, she should have considered what she was giving up magically, as well as personally.
She thought about it a little more. Then she said, “The beacon.”
“Very well,” the Queen said, and held out both her empty hand and the comb to Branwyn.
Branwyn took the empty hand in her own. The Queen said, “And my comb.” Puzzled by being offered the entire comb instead of just the hairpin, Branwyn took it. A tingle ran up her fingers and down her spine.
“It is done,” the Queen announced.
“What, already? You removed the charm and everything?”
In answer, the Queen waved a hand. One of the stained glass screens reconfigured its colored panes with a clatter. It showed a dizzying picture of itself.
With a sudden rush of fear, she activated the Sight. It was an instinctive action, useless except to tell her she still had that charm. Without a mirror, she had no way of checking the rest of her charms.
Right. Next time, pack a mirror.
“I guess it doesn’t take you very much to remove a charm,” she commented, staring at the glass screen. When she turned away, she caught the movement on it out of the corner of her eye. “Uh, are you going to keep that up there? Wait, don’t answer that. I don’t need to know.”
She looked at the thing in her hand. “It’s this splinter here?” She tugged it out of the heart of the comb. It was cold and very hard, but it slid out from the comb as if it was barely held. Up close, she could see that what had appeared to be a single shard of metal was made up of many tiny jointed layers. Inquisitively, she touched one of the joints with a fingernail. It unfolded.
Infinity Key (Senyaza Series Book 2) Page 14