Chasing the Bard

by Philippa Ballantine

  Chasing the Bard

  Philippa Ballantine

  Published by Imagine That! Studios 2018

  Copyright © 2017 by Philippa Ballantine.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, digital, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or conveyed via the Internet or a website without prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  Contents

  Also by Philippa Ballantine

  1. Lord, what fools these mortals be!

  2. the croaking raven doth bellow for revenge

  3. If one should be a prey, how much the better To fall before the lion than the wolf!

  4. Who will not change a raven for a dove?

  5. Then come kiss me, sweet and twenty, Youth’s a stuff will not endure.

  6. Praising what is lost Makes the remembrance dear.

  7. Give me your hands, if we be friends, And Robin shall restore amends.

  8. All this the world well knows; yet none knows well To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.

  9. The hind that would be mated by the lion Must die for love.

  10. when I love thee not, Chaos is come again.

  11. He’s mad that trusts in the tameness of a wolf, a horse’s health, a boy’s love, or a whore’s oath.

  12. Love by another’s Eyes

  13. Love is a spirit all compact of fire, Not gross to sink, but light, and will aspire.

  14. The inaudible and noiseless foot of Time

  15. Thou dost love her, because thou knowst I love her

  16. The path is smooth that leadeth on to danger

  17. Why, all delights are vain; but that most vain, Which with pain purchased doth inherit pain

  18. How now, my flesh, my child! What, makest thou me a dullard in this act?

  19. Let the white death sit on thy cheek for ever; We’ll ne’er come there again.

  20. My fate cries out, And makes each petty artery in this body As hardy as the Nemean lion’s nerve.

  21. As you from crimes would pardon’d be, Let your indulgence set me free.

  About the Author

  Also by Philippa Ballantine

  The Chronicles of Art

  Chasing the Bard

  Digital Magic

  Books of the Order

  Geist

  Spectyr

  Wrayth

  Harbinger

  The Shifted World

  Hunter and Fox

  Kindred and Wings

  The Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences (with Tee Morris)

  Phoenix Rising

  The Janus Affair

  Dawn’s Early Light

  The Diamond Conspiracy

  The Ghost Rebellion

  Verity Fitzroy and the Ministry Seven (with Tee Morris)

  The Curse of the Silver Pharaoh

  Stay in touch with Philippa by signing up for her email list

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  1

  Lord, what fools these mortals be!

  It was a guilty pleasure. When Puck parted the Veil Between Worlds, and stepped into the forbidden delights of the human realm, it was with a delicious shudder of anticipation. If she found him out he there would be more than the Christian hell to pay for it. He could think of a hundred unpleasant things that Auberon could punish him with, probably even more than the king himself, and yet he couldn’t quite bring himself to step back.

  The wood was so pleasant. The trees sighed to him as he took his first step into the crisp layer of leaves. Surely the rest were wrong about this human world. Beauty still lingered here—even if his people’s music had faded.

  He bent, scooping up a handful of the trees’ castoffs, and with a little flicker of his Art he formed them into a very passable brown coat which he slipped over his head with an almost—giggle. What he wouldn’t have given for a mirror.

  The trees whispered again, the slight wind giving them an eager breathy voice, and, head cocked, Puck listened.

  “Why thank you,” he leapt on light feet to where a sliver of water had gathered between the roots of a grandfather oak. Reflected in nature’s mirror the Trickster admired his handiwork. He flicked his silver white hair out from under his new vest and grinned. The dark leaves looked good—even on this his smallest, and most childlike form. It still needed something.

  Head on one side, Puck considered. Another flicker of art brought a sleeping hyacinth out from its hiding hole. He thanked it as kindly as the tree before plucking it and putting it behind one ear. He’d just settled down for a decent spell of admiring himself when a smell came to him on the breeze. Something human was plodding towards his little nook. Quick as a startled squirrel he’d bounded up the tree and nestled into its friendly crook long before the old woman came puffing around the corner. She paused with a great huffing sigh and wiped a thread of sweat from her creased face.

  Puck had never seen a human so weighed down with objects, a scraggly bag on her back, a sheaf of herbs under one arm, and an odd-shaped stool under the other. His eyebrow went up a notch, and despite wanting to remain hidden, he leaned perplexed over the branch for a closer look. The woman passed right beneath him, all the while muttering to herself in a low angry voice.

  The Trickster had never been one to resist his impulses and was not changing that today. Nor was he known for his skill with Art, but the sharp sliver of Art he sent into the human’s consciousness would have impressed even his stern cousin Sive the Shining. His target didn’t feel a thing.

  The old woman’s mind was heaving with anger, all tied up with someone called Joan who had failed somehow and not aided by the fact that her burden was heavy. This Bess’s bones hurt, her feet hurt in her clogs, and the path was slippery at this early hour. Still the concern in her slowness was not just for herself; she had a duty that he had not quite winkled from her brain, but it was what drove her to walk so quickly in the chill misty morning. She had a good heart, and he’d always had a soft spot for her sort of humanity, so if he called his Art to strengthen her muscles he couldn't be blamed. Sive’s stern look was a whole world away. It was only a moment’s work.

  It was gladdening to see her face relax and her back straighten as the power filled her. It wasn’t his imagination; her eyes did drift to the tree he was hiding in.

  “Thank you Lord Callirius,” her voice was very low but his otherworldly ears were equally sharp.

  Bess had straightened and moved on by the time Puck recovered. He should be incensed that she’d mistaken the reprieve as a gift from his cousin, but he was more shocked that she’d named a Fey at all. How extraordinary, thought Puck as he climbed atop the branch, to watch the woman walk away, faster, and with a great deal less puffing. Could it be that some of the old ways still remained in the humans even after his kind had forsaken this realm? It would have been remiss of him not to find out.

  His people had always hidden from the humans. However as Bess was moving beyond the reach of the trees, there was nothing left to do but to wrap a glamour of invisibility about himself and follow after. Sive should be proud of his determination—if he ever got around to telling her the whole adventure.

  Unseen then he trailed after the old woman, his hidden shape masked by wind-blown grass, or a minor cloud of dust kicked up by her heels. True invisibility was beyond him, so this was more his Art giving any watchers a gentle nudge to look somewhere else. Certainly Bess was moving with such speed she never spared a look over her shoulder. Puck struggled to keep up. He would have loved to pause awhile, and delve into the hedgerows they passed, or perhaps shape-shift to gamble with
the thick-coated sheep he saw on the rolling hills, but he had a higher purpose today.

  They approached a town, a fact he had detected long before he saw the huddle of buildings. That was the one thing he disliked about humans; no matter how amusing or pleasant they were, there always remained a vague scent of decay about them.

  As if she had picked up on his stray thoughts, Bess drew up for a second, letting her eyes wander over Stratford. “Aye the plague is here,” she muttered darkly before stamping on.

  Protected he might be, but Puck still shuddered. He knew all about plagues, and buboes, and shrieks of agony—more than anyone of his light nature should. Many was the time when his cat shape had been lapping up the milk a goodwife left out to please him, and he had heard the moans of the afflicted. Why would Bess be going toward a place of infection when she was clearly no fool?

  Curiosity overcame his desire to avoid any unpleasantness. As they drew closer, the smell became worse, so that even Bess had to halt, and wrap a portion of her cloak around her face. Puck recoiled. Great Mother, they had come upon the limed cesspits where they had thrown the dead. He wasn’t his cousin, he wasn’t used to the ugly nature of this realm—he almost fled.

  “Great Mother, hold my life,” Bess whispered, clutching her bundles tighter before ploughing on.

  It would not have been very brave of him to abandon her after that. Holding his breath, Puck and his glamour passed on, almost knocking the old woman’s heels, until they reached the somewhat less odorous village itself.

  Piles of refuse were burning on the street which did not add to the atmosphere. A group of women perhaps the same age as Bess gathered around one smouldering near the corner, bonneted heads pressed close together, clucking into each other’s ears.

  “Bad time for birthing I’d say.” One nodded sagely.

  “Oh yes, hardly worth the bother,” another pressed her hands together pronouncing judgment.

  Bess passed them in silence as their eyes turned on her. They could never place how, but they knew she was not one of them.

  Puck though had enough to concern himself with. Being surrounded by humanity in all its grime was bad enough, but there was something far worse about the town, a tension that rang through his head. Preternatural senses told him that behind every wall was an anxious human, terrified of death for themselves or their loved ones. Some locked themselves in fornication in a desperate attempt to forget, others were wearing holes in their knees trying to pray past it, but all wore fear around their heart like a chain. Puck pitied them, as was his nature, but there was not enough Art in his body to cure this malaise.

  They turned a final corner in the still street, and Bess’ mind was ringing with relief. Finally there was her destination. For a single one of his immortal breaths Puck was unimpressed, for it looked like any other of the houses in the row, and then his Art broke loose. His ears buzzed with a mighty hum, his vision drained of all colour, and his skin became hot. In that one instant he almost lost hold of his glamour, and his shape. The power he had always wielded with such ease was abruptly staging a revolt, the centre of which was the house Bess was now approaching. It was bright white to Puck, as if someone caged the sun within its frail walls, and even as he stood struggling with his Art, it pulsed faintly like a human heart. And he now he could hear it calling to him, softly but persistently like a half-recalled dream, and so much of him wanted to follow after Bess that tears spilled from his eyes. The ache inside him was a burning pit, and every ounce of Art was urging him toward the house.

  Puck was not a great Fey. He’d not walked the elder days, nor taken up a godhood among the humans; he was the Trickster, not made for serious or important matters. Still he knew when he saw them, and better still he knew those that were more equipped to deal with such momentous events.

  With a half cry of sorrow, Puck threw open the Veil, and quit the suddenly frightening human world. Whatever secrets the house held would have to wait. He could not let it burn his foolish eyes and change him forever. As he passed Between and into the Fey realm, he couldn’t have even identified what he did as cowardice. For the Trickster it was survival.

  * * *

  The banqueting hall's bronze doors burst open as if struck by giant fists. Rows of candles which illuminated the Fey Court flickered and twisted against the sudden onslaught of air. The willowy golden forms of those revellers within turned their masked and bejewelled faces to the remnants of the door, still ringing like a thousand mis-tuned gongs on the marble floor. A remainder of blue lightning danced its way across the metal. The courtiers though were used to such amateur dramatics—every sprite and member of the Fey toyed with them in their formative years—the difference was who was using them now.

  Sive stepped up onto the shattered remains of the door and glowered at the twittering amused faces of her brother’s court. She wore a heavy black velvet dress, which though inappropriate for the eternal summer of the Fey, still suited her well. Violet eyes still boiling with Art fixed on her brother lounging at the far end of the hall. Such raven black hair, which human poets had swooned over for centuries, was at this moment standing around her head—a corona of angry darkness.

  Certainly none could doubt that she had heard the news.

  Auberon, all golden sun to her dark rage, shook his head a little. “Sive, I hope that you will at least have the courtesy to fix the door.”

  The rest of the rainbow-garmented Fey flinched at that. None but he would ever dare to jest with such an enraged Sive. For once though she neither blasted nor yelled. “Why certainly brother,” her measured tones echoed down the length of the hall, “With as much courtesy as you showed in giving me to him!”

  The Court held its breath as the heat of anger rose to their King’s cheeks. Then almost casually he raised one pale perfect hand, and examined it, “I warned you, sister, that Mordant had asked.”

  “But not that you were honestly considering it,” Sive stepped over the still trembling doors, and brushed down the long hallway, eyes locked on her brother. Unwary but amused, sprites fluttered around her like moonstruck moths, piping voices querying Sive’s distress. The taste of her Art in the air drew them; power was a magnet to their kind. Flickering her hands at them, Sive sent not an inconsiderable number of their butterfly-winged forms tumbling across the room. It mattered little; if they hit anything, they merely squealed with laughter and leapt into the air with renewed vigour. Other Fey with not quite the sprites’ recuperative powers bowed if they had time, or scuttled from her reach if they did not. Next to her brother, Sive was the most powerful of their number, and it did not do to get beneath her feet.

  The Fey were on the whole a pale wheaten-haired race slim to the point of thinness, but in all things, like her very personality, Sive was the opposite of the norm. Tall yes, but dark like a moonless night, and strong-boned and vigorous where they were light enough to blow away on the wind. It was what irked Auberon the most, for in all things she was the exact image of their mother Anu.

  As she approached her brother’s throne Sive could feel her Art swirl around her, the desire to destroy barely sated by the door’s sacrifice. She could almost hear the roar of the warriors of old urging her on—but those days were gone, and this was the latest in a series of insults. None but her brother had ever treated her in this way, and even he had just recently come to it. The time when they had both laughed and played, innocent as mortal children, was long gone now. It was a desperate time for every Fey, and their king was not immune to fear. He needed a cure for his people, she understood that—but kin was still kin, and she had expected far better.

  It had all begun with the mysterious departure of their mother. The beloved queen Anu had simply left them without warning one day. It was the beginning of all their problems. The first of which was the arrogance of the son she’d left behind to rule.

  It had not always been so—before Anu’s loss, Sive and Auberon had been close, spending much time riding clouds on Fey horseback, the
ir laughter making even the birds envious. He had played a silver flute and made the flowers dance for her amusement. It seemed that all she could remember of that time was joy, and their thoughts so closely woven it was hard to tell his from hers. The departure of Anu had blasted them apart, she into a dark rage, he into icy indifference.

  “You never even mentioned this marriage to me,” Sive said as evenly as she could.

  “I am still the head of this royal house, sister. I do not need to ‘mention’ anything to anyone.”

  Sive surged forward until she stood a few insolent feet from the top of the dais on which his throne sat. His icy blue eyes regarded her with boredom. Sive knew him better though; with her brother everything was an act, and he hid his fear well beneath a cloak of indifference.

  Auberon shrugged, an elegant spare gesture that he accompanied with a carefully measured grin. “What else could you expect me to do, Sive? Mordant has grown greatly in power, and he has the strength that the Fey need, and quickly. Need I remind you how our numbers have diminished? How the malaise could destroy us all?”

  Sive dropped her eyes for a moment, knowing the mysterious illness he spoke of was no trifle. Her love for Mordant had died the moment she’d set eyes on him after his return from the Between. Though she could not put an exact name to it, the coldness in his eyes had set a deep chill within her. She’d known immediately that whatever she had loved had died in the Between.

  “I am as worried as you are, brother, but something in me says this is not the way.”