by N. D. Wilson
Henry remembered his first encounter with Eli and wondered if there was something in faeren blood that made stolen bathrobes attractive.
Two other faeries sat across from him in less comfortable chairs. One had a young-looking face, but his hair was both the color and texture of straightened steel wool. The other was older and fat, much fatter than Frank. His head was completely bald, but he made up for it with an enormous rounded beard below a bare upper lip.
All three of them held glasses full of something thick and yellow, like eggnog. They contemplated it silently.
After a moment, the fat one spoke.
“Who does the milking?” he asked. For all of the softness in his body, his voice was sharp. “The mares,” he added, and lifted his glass.
“Flax,” said the fuchsia faerie. Henry recognized both of their voices from the corridor when he'd arrived. Frank had yelled at them.
“The fermenting?”
“Colly handles that. He is improving.”
The fat faerie nodded slowly, and then, flaring his nostrils, he sniffed at his drink.
“Ralph,” the young faerie asked, “I think we should be discussing the boy. I didn't come here to drink mare's milk.”
The fuchsia faerie turned in his chair, looking out the window. “Who,” he said quietly, “ever invited you to call me Ralph?”
“Apologies and prostration,” the young faerie said. He obviously didn't mean it. “Chairman Radulf and Mr. Braithwait, what do you intend to do with the boy? Franklin Fat-Faerie is already creating a froth among the younger set, claiming that he's the seventh son of Mordecai. He needs to be dealt with, and soon.”
“He is the son of Mordecai, is he not?” the fat one asked. Henry had him pegged as Braithwait. The other one had to be Radulf, the one who'd sent him his “a lert.”
“He is,” Radulf said, “though no one could ever explain to me how an infant could escape when his father could not.” He sighed. “Incompetence.”
Henry moved closer, put his dream hands behind him, and leaned against the wall.
“Has he been christened?” the young faerie asked.
“If he had, young Rip,” Braithwait muttered, “you wouldn't need to ask. A lot of things would have regressed around here.”
Rip? He looks like a Rip, Henry thought. Or like someone who did a lot of ripping.
Rip, if that was his name, ran one hand through his coarse hair, scratching his scalp. “I still don't understand why you didn't simply kill Mordecai.”
Radulf sipped at his milk and then wiped his mouth delicately on his pink sleeve.
“We were bonded to him. Killing him would have created … problems.”
“Breaking that bond would have destroyed us,” Braithwait said.
“Yes.” Radulf nodded. “Permanent storage was the superior option. The faeren would patiently hope for his return, and we could enjoy a life of freedom without human overlords of any type, self-governing for the first time in an age.”
“But surely,” Rip said, “entrapping him broke the bond as well? And you tried to kill his son.”
“We did not try to kill his son,” Radulf said. “His son disappeared before we could. And a careful constitutional case could be made that handling Mordecai as we did was in fact in keeping with our bond. Considering his enemies, we probably saved his life.”
“But you will kill his son now?” Rip asked. “You can't risk a christening. You're not strong enough to hold against the power of a naming, and I'm sure Mordecai would take issue with your constitutional nuances.”
Radulf swirled his glass, leaving a creamy film in the thick bowl. “He won't get the chance,” he said. “By week's end, Hylfing will have been crushed, the last of his blood will have been poured out, and we will—”
Radulf looked directly at Henry. Henry flinched and slid to the side. Radulf's eyes did not move. They were fixed on the spot where Henry had been standing.
Henry followed his eyes and nearly choked in surprise. A large clump of dandelions had grown out of the clay wall. A dozen golden faces glowed in sprawling bloom.
Radulf stood. “He's here. Rip, was his room not sealed?”
“It was. In every way.”
The little bureaucratic faerie pulled in a long breath. “Fetch his body now. He has volunteered himself for an early judgment. We have enough already to condemn him.”
Henry turned and ran through the door. In the corridor, he couldn't find the stairs. So he shut his imaginary eyes, blocking everything else out, picturing himself with his knees tucked up against his chest.
He dreamed himself waking.
Henry stirred, straightened his legs out, and opened one eye at a time. Monmouth was crouching in front of him, chewing on a straw.
“I've never even heard of that,” he said. “Not in any of the books.” He laughed and threw the straw at Henry. “We were in the dream, and you just folded up and ghosted off. I tried to follow, but you pushed me back.”
Henry blinked at the room as it was, swerving back and forth between perceptions. With concentration, he could keep it normal, just dirt and wood, and none of the magic that made it.
“Find anything out?” Monmouth asked, straightening up.
Henry nodded. “Yeah. The faeries did something to Mordecai, my father, the guy everyone thinks is my father.” His mind ran over the rest. “And they're coming for me,” he added.
Both of them heard voices, just moments before the door burst open. Five faeries plowed into the room, led by Rip. He pushed Monmouth into a corner and picked Henry's backpack off the floor. The other four surrounded Henry, each latching on to a limb. There would be no thrashing around and kicking. His legs and arms all stiffened in the faeries' grip, and they carried him into the corridor as rigid as a log.
He tried to yell, but his jaw was locked shut. The door to the room slammed, and Henry could do nothing but stare at the ground as it passed beneath him. After more turns than Henry could count, he was shoved through a door, and his limbs suddenly relaxed. Before he could move, rough hands grabbed him, and he was stripped, even his shoes and socks. Shivering in his underwear, Henry tried to stand, but two faeries pushed him down into a chair in front of a very small table and took up positions behind him. The room wasn't much bigger than a closet. A single lantern, suspended above the table, filled the little clay-walled space with light. There were no wood panels.
The door opened again, and a faerie in a battered yellow hat entered unsteadily, looking both tired and surprised. He was chewing on a cork, his gray coat was dirty, and an empty green bottle dangled in his hand.
“What's this?” he asked. “I wasn't notified.”
“You have been now,” said one of the guards, and the two of them stepped through the door. “You're the committee-appointed representation, Tate,” the faerie added, and shut the door behind him.
Henry shivered again. The room really was cold. The faerie looked at him with what could only be disappointment.
“They know it's my day off,” he muttered. “It's my week off. I haven't worked a case since the hooked moon.” He sat down, took his hat off, and set it on the table in front of him. He scrunched up his lips around the cork. “Not this year, actually. Well.” He looked in Henry's eyes. “What have you been doing to get Radulf's knickers in a twist?”
The faerie didn't look much older than Fat Frank, but he seemed far more tired. He had a short beard around his chin, a subdued red, but the hair on his head, pressed into a ring where his hat had been, was nearly brown. He fished a lump of bread and a few slices of cheese out of his pocket and dropped them on the table.
“I haven't been doing anything,” Henry said. “Everything's been done to me.” Looking at the bread and cheese, he tried to remember the last time he had eaten. He couldn't. Oh. Tuna. He pointed at the food. “Do you think I could have some?”
“Right,” the faerie said. “Surely. I've got more.” He slid the bread and cheese across the table. “My name is T
ate, and it's probably best if you tell me everything, though it won't matter. Reality rarely does in this sort of thing, and if old Braithwait and skin-and-malice Radulf are against you, then I'm your friend. And, if it's pride speaking, oh well, but I was always a bit magnificent in debate. What are you doing?”
Henry had ripped the bread in half and tucked the cheese between the pieces. His first bite was already jammed into his cheek.
“That's rather clever,” Tate said. “Never seen it done. What's it taste like?”
“Tastes like bread and cheese,” Henry mumbled.
“At the same time?”
Henry nodded. The bite scraped down his throat. “It's called a sandwich.” Remembering one particular bit of trivia from his one-on-one games of Trivial Pursuit, he added, “Invented by the Earl of Sandwich. He was addicted to gambling, so he ate this way so he could play at the same time.”
Tate's eyes were wide, and his mouth hung open in an impressed smile.
Henry took another bite and chewed. “What are we supposed to do?” he asked. “They couldn't hurt me or kill me, could they? I haven't done anything.”
“Kill you?” Tate asked. “Why would they do that? The faeren haven't executed a human since, well, I can't even remember. I mean, they've killed wizards, but that's hardly the same thing.”
The door burst open, and the faeries stepped back inside. The food was taken out of Henry's hand, and he was lifted out of his chair. Tate rose to follow.
“Of course it depends on what they say you've done, but I guess we'll find that out soon enough.”
Henry wasn't stiffened this time. His legs dragged behind him as he was hurried through the corridor.
“Cheese between bread,” he heard Tate muttering. “Beautiful.”
Double white doors opened in front of them, and Henry was dragged into a large hall with vaulted, beamed ceilings and hundreds of lanterns. Three enormous stone fireplaces hulked cold along the far wall. There were also hundreds of the faeren—men, women, and patches of children—seated on benches. More were pouring in through large doors in the back. Every eye followed him. Scattered through the room, he heard laughter.
Henry felt his whole body blush.
“Committee of Faeren for the Prevention of Mishap, District R.R.K., now in session!” a voice yelled. “Sitting in emergency session according to the Book of Faeren, Section Six, Article Three! Ralph T R. Radulf, Esquire, the Ninth, presiding from the chair!”
Henry was dropped onto a stool in front of the crowd. Two faeries stood behind him. In front of him was a long table on a raised platform. Seven faeries sat behind it. Henry immediately recognized the three from his dream.
Radulf was seated in the middle in an enormous black chair. Tate was squeezing behind the table toward one empty seat.
Radulf lifted a mallet and banged it loudly on the table five times.
“Let the minutes show all members present in the matter of the boy, self-called Henry, self-styled pauper son, hereafter Whimpering Child, hereafter WC.”
Clacking filled his brief pause. A round woman was seated at her own low table on the other side of the platform. She was typing.
“Seventh son of Mordecai!” someone yelled from the back. The crowd rumbled.
Henry took a deep breath. He was as confused as he was worried and afraid. He thought about running. But where? He didn't know the way out, and he was surrounded by faeries who were apparently capable of turning him into a limp rag or a stiff post anytime they liked.
Radulf banged his mallet again until the crowd quieted. “William Tate, committee-appointed defense.”
Tate waved at the crowd and pulled out another lump of bread and a knob of cheese. Henry wasn't exactly confident in his defender. As he watched, Tate fished a small knife out of his jacket and sliced the cheese. Then he tore the bread in half and, grinning at the crowd, made himself a sandwich.
Radulf banged his mallet. “The chair addresses William Tate.”
Tate looked up, chewing. “Yes, Your Majesty?”
The crowd snickered.
“Pray, what precisely are you doing?” Radulf asked.
“I'm eating,” Tate said. He held up his sandwich. “It's called a gambler. Man who invented it gambled.”
Radulf sighed, took off his glasses, and polished them, scowling. “Let the charges be read.”
Rip stood up, holding a piece of paper out in front of him. “The District R.R.K., acting on behalf of Region Zed, asserts, alleges, and declares that WC, despite notification, admonishment, and warning, did knowingly and with malice, persist in actions that roused, released, and/or assisted in the awakening of an imprisoned evil; that due to said actions, the demon sometime called Nimiane, onetime witch-queen of Endor, has risen, strengthened, and even now assaults this district's human sister in the south, the town of Hylfing.”
Henry felt the air go out of the room. Tate put down his sandwich and looked at him.
“What is the committee's recommended judgment?” Radulf asked.
Rip cleared his throat. “The committee humbly requests death, expungement, and the complete and permanent severance of body and soul by traditional means.”
The room was still.
One woman typed.
Henry fell off the back of his stool.
behind the clouds, the sun was up and blazing. For hours, Caleb had pushed his horse as much as he was able, slowing all the way to a walk as rarely as possible and only when the terrain required it. Henrietta's bones rattled like the arrows in Caleb's quiver. Her back and legs ached, and the smell of horse sweat was always beneath her.
Despite the clouds, the day had gone from warm to hot to stifling. The morning breeze had been cool at first, but now it was a moist wind, and it made Henrietta's skin feel greasy.
The grass around them was brown and, in some places, curled. Smaller trees had lost their leaves; others were mottled and spotted. Only the largest trees had remained green.
Along the ground, she'd occasionally seen dead birds and rodents, even a young deer. Now, the smaller animals were as frequent as the dark stones scattered over the hillsides. And when they crossed streams, her eyes always found the floating fish. Bunches of them packed the little eddies behind rocks or branches, where the currents couldn't reach them.
Henrietta's mind was on Kansas and her family. Despite all the aches and pains, despite the heat and weariness and strangeness of the world around her, despite her fear, what she felt more than anything else was complete worthlessness. Why hadn't she learned? Why didn't her mind ever work well before she did something? Regret, that's what her bones ached with. And cold anger with Eli. She'd been stupid, but he'd tricked her. She might have been able to get back, but now she'd never know. Even if the cupboards were still set to FitzFaeren, no one could follow her. The pain from the key digging into her leg kept reminding her of that.
“What did Eli do?” she asked.
Caleb said nothing. The chestnut was climbing across a slope, picking a way between stones.
“Magdalene said that he gave something to my grandfather that he shouldn't have,” she added.
“I do not know the whole story,” Caleb said. “Nor do I need to. But as a matter of state, their feud was somewhat public. Eli was the elder brother, Magdalene was his sister, six years junior. In the early days, FitzFaeren was ruled by kings.”
The horse broke into a trot.
“But the kings were forever desiring expansion,” Caleb continued. “They even rode out against Hylfing and various strongholds of the faeren. They lost much, both in trade and in lives, and after the conquesting folly of three kings, all killed in the field, a woman inherited the rod. Under her, the scattered FitzFaeren found comfort, and they built themselves into greatness. Their artists and architects, poets and musicians were the greatest for many nations around. They still rode to war, but never as the aggressors, and they found peace with their neighbors. Some of their adventurers traveled out through the shadows of t
he worlds and brought back talismans and relics, twelve of them, and around their strength, they built the Halls of FitzFaeren, protecting themselves against every kind of enemy. In that queen's old age, she named her daughter her successor and made her sons dukes. And so it was for three hundred years.”
“And Eli didn't like that?” Henrietta asked.
“When his queen-mother died, his sister was very young, a child really, but the landed families still desired her over him. They did not care that he was peaceful, a great sculptor himself, and a scholar. In the week of her coronation, three of the greatest talismans disappeared. And on her coronation night, FitzFaeren fell to the witch-dogs of Endor. It was Endor's final conquest. People said it was Eli's doing.”
“Was it?” Henrietta asked.
“He came to Hylfing, and we took him in, along with some remnants of the library he had saved from the ruined halls. But then he was discovered to be collecting darker volumes as well, studying at the feet of old Endorian power, the power of demons, not men or the faeren. He said he studied only to know his enemy, but his enemy had already fallen, and some of the books went missing, given away to a man thought to be a wanderer. My brother Francis, your father, followed him and was lost.”
Raindrops spattered on Henrietta's forehead. She wiped them off on her sleeve.
“So yes,” Caleb continued, “I believe that Eli betrayed the FitzFaeren, if not with open-faced malice, at least with folly and self-lies.”
Henrietta was extremely thirsty. She stuck out her tongue, hoping for a raindrop. None came. “Magdalene says he gave the stuff to my grandfather.”
“Yes.”
“That would make my grandfather bad.”
“At the least a fool,” Caleb said. “Perhaps nothing more. Many people meddle with things beyond their strength and nature. It can begin as foolishness, but it must end soon and in wisdom, or in evil and a fall. The desire to touch what should not be touched is as old as the world itself, and is at the root of all its hardships.”