As noon approached, Flem had brought out a folding table and assembled a make-shift lunch of thick-cut ham sandwiches and a pot of steaming tea. He’d tucked her chair in, then muttered something about having jobs to attend to and that farms don’t run themselves before stalking off in the direction of the barn. They were sitting beneath the ancient oak tree that had recently planted itself in the middle of the farm yard. To Bill, it seemed to possess a disappointed air, as if it missed moving around on its roots. For now, however, it provided shade from a surprisingly strong autumn sun.
“How are you feeling?” Bill asked as Brianna sat down, his eyes lingering on the angry red wheal on her throat.
“Famished,” Brianna said and the next few minutes were spent chomping through the sandwiches that, despite the slightly stale bread, were still excellent. “Mother makes an amazing mustard, doesn’t she?”
Bill nodded. Flem had suggested adding the bright yellow paste to the sandwich and it had certainly jazzed it up. Bill swallowed the last mouthful. “Delicious. But I meant, how are you in yourself? Do you feel back to normal?”
“I’m not sure anything will ever be normal again,” Brianna said, “but yes, I’m pretty much myself, though very sad for mum.”
Bill poured the tea into two earthenware mugs. “But we’re going to do something about it, aren’t we?”
“Yes, we can’t leave them there. We should go and visit them, make sure they’re being kept in a good condition and try to find out what charges they’re facing. We should also find out who actually threw them in gaol - is that foul Odius in league with the garrison commander?”
“That’s if we believe what the vagrant told us,” Bill said.
Brianna smiled, for the first time in days it seemed. “Oh, I think that information is reliable. From your description, I’m pretty certain it was Stinky Willy who gave you the tip-off. He knows Gramma will be after him and, witch or no, he doesn’t want to be in her bad books. They’re in the gaol at Crapplecreek, sure enough. We should go tomorrow.”
“Only if you’re fully recovered, I’ll go on my own otherwise,” Bill said.
Brianna downed the last of her tea. “Oh, I’ll be recovered enough to go down there and knock a few heads together, you see if I’m not.”
“Tell me about that bandit - Odius, wasn’t he?”
A shadow passed over Brianna’s face.
“I’m sorry to have to ask but I can’t help feeling that something big is starting and I don’t understand a tenth of it,” Bill added.
“When I think of his slimy hands on my throat, it makes me wish my memory wasn’t coming back,” Brianna said with a shudder. “But I don’t know very much about him, really. Mother knew him when she was younger, said he was just a typical jack-the-lad son-of-a-local-nob back then, but he fell in with the Faerie King’s allies. Made him feel important, I imagine. It was before mum got the gift, so she was just a normal girl, like me.”
Their eyes met, for a moment, and they shared a smile at the concept of Brianna, or her mother, ever being “normal”.
“Anyway, he joined up and betrayed my Nan and the other elementals, including Gramma. Nearly cost them their lives. The war would have been lost, and heavens only know what life would be like now for us all, under the heel of the Faerie King and his host.”
“What does the king want, exactly?” Bill asked.
Brianna leaned back against the grooved trunk of the old oak tree.
“Mum’s never talked about it with me,” she said, “but she has discussed it with Gramma and I could hardly help but hear. Especially since I was outside the room with my ear against the door.”
Bill smiled. “What did you learn?”
“The Faerie kingdom is called the Darkworld. Mother thinks it wasn’t always that way, that once it was a mirror of our ‘Brightworld’ but, somehow, it was corrupted so that the sun never breaks through the cloud now. They can’t grow normal crops to feed themselves, they’ve only survived because they worked out how to cultivate mushrooms and other fungi. They grow them in massive caverns beneath the ground heated by lava. Or so mum says.”
Unbidden, into Bill’s mind came the image of bent-backed creatures tending vast fungus farms in the orange glow of a magma lake.
“How would she know?” asked Bill.
“You’d be surprised,” Brianna said. “She probably didn’t find it out first hand, so it might not be reliable. But anyway, they envy us our sunny world, though they’ve grown to hate the sunlight.”
Bill took a lukewarm sip of his tea. “I feel sorry for them.”
“Don’t. They won’t be coming here to share or to ask for aid. They’ll come to conquer and to take,” Brianna said, closing her eyes. “And, if they succeed, our world will be as dark as theirs soon enough.”
The joy and malice of the Fairie King seemed to know no limits as he forced his guests to eat and drink of the finest the Darkworld could provide. They were offered exotic mushrooms, fungal breads and wines brewed from fermented toadstools, but the old man managed to avoid drinking, as a plan had formed when he noticed the watchfulness on the portal slip.
Aside from the ever-present Bently, who was, it seemed, of mixed blood, Humunculus surrounded himself with a fairie bodyguard, although his army was made up mainly of soteks5. His chief generals were also of the goblin race, but the Fairie King kept a handful of his own folk nearby for his personal protection. The rest of the fairie population remained at arm’s length - Humunculus hadn’t lied, cheated and murdered his way to power only to present an undefended back to an ambitious princeling.
So, although his bodyguard was made up of the strongest and quickest of his own people, they were also the least ambitious and, on average, as thick as a constipated pig. The old man had been watching the two faeries guarding the portal. He could see their pale countenances darkening as the revelries got into full swing and by the time the best food and drink were being passed around they each looked as sour as a cat’s backside.
The old man nodded to his daughter and surreptitiously gestured in their direction. She instantly understood, and they edged a little closer to the portal as the party progressed. They took care never to move when the king was nearby and that was often as his pleasure at their humiliation showed no signs of being satisfied. But, by the time the ambrosia was produced, they were mere yards from the stone archway into the Brightworld.
The guards looked at each other, and the old man saw the words “Viride mitis6” form on the lips of one and a look of awe dawn on the face of his comrade.
Borne by a reverent Bently on a silver tray, the crystal bottle glowed with an enchanting green and the company hushed - even the Fairie King himself paused in his dancing.
“See how favoured you are!” his bright, joyful, voice called above the excited murmurings. “No ambrosia has been made in our world for over 200 years and this is the last of the old king’s store.”
The old man felt the tension rise in the room as two dozen pairs of eyes calculated whether there would be enough for everyone. He cast a glance at the guards who were clearly having the same thought whilst being acutely aware that they would be the last in line. Their faces shone with desire.
“So, sip with me now and remember the taste for it will be many years before we enjoy it again,” cried the Faerie King. “But be comforted, the road to more ambrosia than we can ever drink lies through that portal and the world on the other side that we must conquer.”
The king thrust his arm at the stone, the chamber echoing with a metallic thunk as the guards straightened up too quickly and bashed heads.
The room burst into applause, but the old man saw the faces of the guards, briefly illuminated by the king’s attention, fall into shadow and longing again. They watched hungrily as the Fairie Liquid was decanted into tiny glasses. Would there be enough for them? Had they even been remembered? One guard made a tiny move in Bently’s direction, then they glanced at each other and, in that instant, were g
one.
The old man grabbed his daughter’s arm and they ran for the unguarded portal. He was just about to step through the archway when he felt his daughter’s hand disappear.
“Go father!” she cried.
The old man turned but she shoved him in the chest and he fell backwards through the stone and out into the Brightworld.
“Go!” she said again, from the other side. “I will wait for my sons.”
Stumbling, the old man blinked in the late afternoon sun. For a moment he thought of trying to go back and force his daughter to come through with him. While Humunculus had her, he had power over the old man. But no, the stakes were now too high to consider only his daughter, though the pain in his heart as he thought of her inevitable punishment was impossible to bear.
He hurried through the guardian stones and out of view, tears flowing down his face. This was a risk that had to be taken, there was far more at stake than he’d ever imagined. Even now, in his mind’s eye, he could see the dark army, a host so huge it could not be opposed, at least not by any military force this side of Varma itself.
Quite what he could do to prevent the apocalypse, the old man wasn’t sure, but he knew of one person nearby who he could talk to and who, perhaps, might have a solution. He doubted it, but he had to try. Peering at the sun, he worked out which way was west and headed quickly away; with any luck he’d be at Hemlock’s Farm the following day. He choked again on his fear and grief and reflected, in an instant, that this was probably the bravest thing he’d ever done. And he hated himself for doing it.
Chapter 21
Crapplecreek was a dump. Too many people crowded within the perimeter of its walls for comfort, although not so many that they’d be prepared to live on the other side, that would be silly. The streets stank, with open sewers running down the middle and they were clogged up largely, but not entirely, by mud.
The town had made its money on the steam-powered excavation of copper7 but the mines had been exhausted decades ago and now the only mark the former industry made on the place was in the dilapidated and repurposed buildings, and a certain greenish tint to the local brickwork.
Bill and Brianna picked their way through the filth towards the gaol which sat in one corner of the main town precinct. When they emerged from a side alley onto the main road that bisected the town, they could see the forum and basilica, both of which had seen better days and, on the other side of the plaza, a squat stone building that could only be the gaol.
It had taken them several hours to arrive as Brianna, for all her attitude, was still weakened by her near-death experience. Before they tackled the gaol, Bill insisted on resting at a coffee house on the plaza, even though the drinks there cost a fortune.
“What’s the plan, then?” Bill said, as they sipped a particularly bitter city brew.
Brianna shrugged. “Oh, I don’t know, just go in and ask if they’ve got any witches in their cells, I suppose?”
“Really?” Bill responded, astonished
“No,” said Brianna, “I think we should tell the truth, at least partly. We should say I’m looking for my mother who went missing last night. We’ll describe her and say she might have come in with two other women. They’ll deny they’ve got her but, if we watch their expressions carefully, we should be able to tell if they’re lying.”
“Sounds a bit of a long shot to me.”
“Do you have a better idea?” Brianna asked. “And we need to get on with it. We’re going to need somewhere to stay tonight, and I don’t fancy wandering the streets of the city in the dark looking.”
She drained the last of her coffee, put her mug back on the table and strode, a little unsteadily, towards the gaol.
A shape detached itself from the shadows of the forum and followed.
“That went well,” said Bill, collapsing on the hard wooden bench. He couldn’t see his hand in front of his eyes, and the stink of the place seemed to be melting the lining of his nose. Sarcasm was his only refuge.
Brianna banged on the cell door.
“Let us out!” She shouted, the only response being her own words echoing back to her amid the dripping of what had once been water. Pristine though it was when it emerged from the perfect white snows of the Butterlins Mountains, by the time the Crapple reached the town it was more brown than white and the effluent of Crapplecreek’s inhabitants reduced it to an open sewer. It was no coincidence that the local barges that plied their smelly way slowly up and down the river were known as Floaters.
A voice from further down the dark line of cells called out. “Daughter, is that you?”
“Mother? Are you okay?”
There was the sound of quiet sobbing before another voice said. “She is physically unharmed, Brianna. I am truly glad to hear that you survived the attack. But what are you doing here? Please tell me William isn’t with you?”
“Sorry,” Bill said. “At least our plan to find out whether you were here worked, though not exactly as intended.”
“It’s just as well you’re not that Stinky Willy,” said another voice, to audible groans, “‘cos if you were, you’d be in for such a leatherin’!”
“We weren’t to know the goons out front had orders to detain anyone asking about you,” said Brianna as she slumped next to Bill on the bench. “What a mess, even your talent can’t get us out of this. And I hadn’t imagined things could get any worse.”
Bill chuckled grimly. “Oh, however, bad things might seem, they can always go even more bear-shaped.8”
They sat in a silence only punctuated by a quiet sobbing in the other cell. There was nothing to say. Even Stinky Willy’s fate went unembellished. There was a darkness on them all that was blacker than a politician’s soul, a desperation devoid of any hope. What made it worse was that it was shapeless - they knew General Odius had evil intent for the vessels, but they had no idea what form it took. And even if they worked it out, they’d no power to oppose it.
An hour, perhaps two, passed as their mood deepened. And then the door at the top of the flight of steps that led to the gaoler’s quarters opened and two men descended. The first was one of the guards who’d arrested them when they arrived. The other was a rather portly young man in travel-stained but fine clothes and an intelligent, belligerent, face.
The guard came to the cell containing Bill and Brianna and fumbled with his keys before finding the right ones and unlocking the door. He swung it open, and the other man entered. He looked at the prisoners, gave a small bow and said, with a smile that could slice cheese, “My name is Chortley Fitzmichael.”
The quarters of Chortley Fitzmichael were certainly impressive. In fact, thought Bill, they were probably those of the garrison commander who was, even now, hoiking a subordinate out in turn.
“I’m sure we’re very grateful, Master Fitzmichael,” Bill said, “but we came to the gaol to get the three women out, couldn’t you have had them released too?”
Fitzmichael had been standing with his back to them, roasting himself in front of the fire, in what, Bill imagined, he thought was an impressive, confident pose. When he turned to face them, there was a trace of annoyance and, unless Bill was very much mistaken, a little uncertainty.
“I couldn’t have them released as they were detained on the specific instructions of the commander of the city garrison. I could have overruled him, of course,” drawled Fitzmichael, “but, that would have raised inconvenient questions. Frankly, if I’d got to you a few minutes earlier, I could have introduced myself before you’d arrived at the gaol but, once you were inside, it was a case of damage limitation. Oh, and call me Chortley, we are, after all, family.”
“What?”
Chortley chuckled mirthlessly. “Yes, hard to imagine isn’t it, that I’d be related to the son of a charcoal burner?”
“What?” Bill said again, for want of anything more coherent.
Chortley looked down at Bill, his well-made clothes and chubby appearance in direct contrast to his lean, ill
-kempt, half-brother.
“It’s pretty simple, really. We share the same mother. She took off when I was a few days old and found your father, though why she did it is a complete mystery to me. Why would anyone give up a life of luxury and position as the wife of Walter Fitzmichael?”
“To be happy, perhaps?” Brianna asked.
“Can peasants be happy?” Chortley said, as if the question had never previously occurred to him. “Seems unlikely and, anyway, I can’t see how it would be an improvement to live in some mud hut somewhere rather than in warmth and comfort.”
Bill stirred. “So, the Count is your father?”
Chortley smiled. “Quick on the uptake, aren’t you? Yes, I’m not just any Fitzmichael, I’m the Count’s son. Which is why I’m able to have prisoners released from gaol.”
“So, how do you know all this about my mother,” Bill said, still trying to wrap his brain around the idea of having a brother. “I mean our mother.”
Sitting down in the armchair opposite, Chortley adopted a thoughtful pose and told them of Humunculus and their mother’s desperate plea for help.
Had Bill not spent the past few days in the company of a woman who could desiccate people, another who could conjure a tornado and one who’d made an oak tree walk, he would have thought Chortley mad. Indeed, Fitzmichael had suggested this might be Bill’s reaction but, on balance, the story seemed to have the tinge of truth to it. Or perhaps it was that Bill desperately wanted it to be true as it meant there was a chance he might be reunited with his mother.
“What do you think this man will do once you release him?” asked Bill as Chortley poured another glass.
“Well, he’ll set our mother free, that’s all I really care about,” Chortley replied, sitting down and lifting his glass to his mouth.
Brianna, who’d remained largely and uncharacteristically silent during Chortley’s exposition now chipped in.
“You shouldn’t trust him to stick to the deal,” she said, “he sounds to me like the King of Fairie. He invaded forty years ago and was defeated, just, and locked on the other side. Now he wants your help to free himself.”
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