The Monsters of Stephen Enchanter

by Natelson, D. J.

  “I wonder why the queen puts up with her,” mused Youngster, “if she’s so powerful.”

  “It’s not for you to judge the queen!” Snork admonished severely. “At least,” he added thoughtfully, “not when we’re near anyone like your friend here, who might report you—or report that I listened to you without retort.”

  “I should hope not!” cried Stephen. “I should never dream of questioning Her Majesty’s judgment! She’s done so much for us; it would be obscene to feel anything but abject gratitude!”

  “One of the things she’s done is bedazzle you,” Youngster sighed. “I wish she hadn’t. You’re no fun to talk to, this way. You’re walking propaganda.”

  “I don’t know about fun,” said Stephen, “or why I need to be fun to talk to. There are far better things in life than fun.”

  The three of them walked on, under diamond trees that turned to ruby that turned to emerald, lessening in rarity and expense if not beauty the farther they traveled from the Fairy Queen’s palace.

  That was one of the last long conversations between the remaining companions. In later days, Youngster began spending less and less time around Stephen. He was too busy “exploring,” he said, although he never explained why he was exploring, or why he did so very much of it. Youngster also began to eat still less, and never joined Stephen at the never-ending banquet. “I’ll eat while I explore,” he explained. “I don’t like sitting around.”

  Despite this regrettable self-starvation, however, Youngster never openly disobeyed the Fairy Queen, and so his beauty and health remained intact. Stephen wasn’t entirely sure he approved of this: he was sure that Youngster was being unfaithful in thought, if not in deed. Besides, Youngster was insulting Faerie by rejecting its bounty! But it was not Stephen’s place to question the Fairy Queen’s decisions, and so he said nothing.

  Oddly, to his own bedazzled thought, Stephen found himself growing a touch lonely, with only scornful fairies to talk to, and so was pleasantly surprised when Youngster approached him and invited him on a long walk.

  “I have something to show you,” Youngster confided. “It’s quite a distance, so we’ll have to travel quickly. The going won’t be easy, but I’m sure you’ll think it’s worth it. It’s very interesting and demonstrates the full scope of a—a very impressive magic of the Fairy Queen’s. You don’t want to miss that!”

  “You’re right; I certainly don’t. I always enjoy seeing the Fairy Queen’s work. Shall we pack anything? Picnic supplies, perhaps?”

  “No. There’s food waiting for us, and we don’t want to spoil our appetites. Besides, we should start now, if we want to arrive in a timely manner.”

  It was a fine morning for a walk—every morning was, when the Fairy Queen was in a bright mood—and they made good time. When on his own, Stephen had never wandered more than a mile or two away from the Fairy Queen’s palace, and now he enjoyed the changing view, and variations in the landscape. Maybe Youngster was right to have gone exploring; Stephen’s circle had become too insular. In the future, Stephen promised himself, I shall ask to accompany Youngster more often.

  Lush green grass gave way to colorful lava rocks that in turn gave way to a wide plain. As was usual for Faerie, Stephen quickly lost any grasp on how much time had passed since they had started out. Youngster assured him that they had only started that morning—and Stephen supposed he was right, since it was never dark—but it felt like they had been walking for days.

  At last Youngster stopped, beside an outcropping of stone ringed with fairy circles. “All right,” he said, “we’re here. Where are you?”

  “Here,” said Craggy, stepping out from behind the stones.

  XIX

  How glamorous illusion can be, how compelling

  Stephen stared at Craggy and Craggy stared back. “So he found you,” said Craggy.

  “What are you doing here?” said Stephen, finding his voice. “The Fairy Queen took you away! Weren’t you in prison, bound in silver? Youngster once told me he had found you there!”

  “Yes. I was there.”

  “She let you out, then? Oh, I am glad; you must not be so far gone as I feared. I take it that you finally saw things her way. Well done!” Stephen embraced Craggy raptly.

  Youngster coughed delicately into his hand. “Actually . . .” he said. “I couldn’t just leave him there, could I? They were starving him. And Tinkerfingers taught me a few tricks. We used to practice lock picking together, in our father’s shop. And sometimes we’d take turns being tied up and using odd assortments of garbage or whatever else was at hand to escape. . . .” Youngster trailed off, seeing the look on Stephen’s face. “Craggy didn’t come to see the world the Fairy Queen’s way; I came to see the world Craggy’s way.”

  “Do you mean to say,” said Stephen, his voice low and dangerous, “that you broke him out of prison? That you brought me here expecting—expecting what, that I’d help you? That’d I’d be your co-conspirator in treachery? Is Letitia in on this also, or only you two?”

  “She should be here soon,” said Youngster. “She had something to do, but she’ll arrive any minute. Then we can all escape together.”

  “Escape? You mean leave Faerie? I most certainly will not.”

  “You’re only saying that because you’re bedazzled.”

  “Yes, I am! And I intend to stay that way! What of it?”

  “It doesn’t matter what you intend; you’re coming with us; you don’t have a choice.”

  “Why are you talking to him?” Letitia asked, arriving in a flash of green and gold. She wore her old dress and pack, but had decorated both with golden trinkets and jewelry until she glimmered and twinkled in the sunlight. “He’s too bedazzled to answer sensibly, and we haven’t the time for a useless argument.”

  “I was making small talk while we waited for you,” Youngster shot back. “Craggy, lead on—and don’t let us stop until we’re in the real Locklost; I don’t trust my ability to see past illusions, even when I know they’re there.”

  “We’re near the edge,” said Craggy.

  “Near the edge?” said Stephen. “You don’t mean near the edge of Faerie! No! I won’t let you do this to me! I’ll avenge the Fairy Queen this insult! I’ll make monsters to eat you! I’ll enchant your cloaks to let in the wind! I’ll raise the dead bodies of our companions and send them to hunt you down!”

  “Necromancy’s illegal,” said Youngster. “Don’t you care?”

  “What’s illegal in Locklost is of no concern to me—not compared to the thoughts and wishes and commands of the Fairy Queen!” Stephen wrenched Youngster’s hand off his arm and bolted back the way they had come.

  “Catch him!” Youngster snapped. “Hold him! Craggy!”

  Craggy raced after Stephen with a surprising turn of speed, but it was Letitia who caught him and held him until Craggy had caught up. Craggy wrapped his arm around Stephen’s chest and threw him over his shoulder.

  “Release me, you great oaf!” Stephen shouted, kicking and pounding at Craggy—to no effect. Craggy and Letitia returned to Youngster, and the three of them walked south. “Traitors! You—”

  “Hurry,” Youngster advised, stuffing a sock into Stephen’s mouth. “Someone may have heard him.”

  Stephen glared and kicked and pulled out the sock. “How could you? How could you do this to the Fairy Queen? After all she’s done for you! How could you pull me into this? What ill have I done you to deserve such treatment? I warn you now: the Blue Lady will track you down and put you in one of her cages.”

  “How much farther? I can’t see the wall; it looks like Faerie goes on forever.”

  “Not far,” said Craggy, not out of breath despite carrying a struggling enchanter and jogging at fair speed. “Not far.”

  Stephen thought how disappointed the Fairy Queen would be in him, and how hopeless his situation had become, and began to weep, upside-down against Craggy’s back.

  “That is disgusting,” Letitia griped. “I
’m not traveling with him if he’s going to be like that.”

  “I told you,” said Youngster; “I figured out how to break the bedazzlement, but I can’t do it while we’re in Faerie—not without attracting attention.”

  “You better have!”

  Thirty yards later, they crossed a short stone wall in the ground, and the scenery changed drastically to dull, boring old Locklost. Stephen wailed and kicked and screamed harder—although he knew it was already too late. They had broken the Fairy Queen’s command.

  Even as he lamented, Stephen caught sight of something else, something so strange and drastic that his wails caught in his throat and he fell silent.

  Instantly upon reentering Locklost, the entire appearance of every member of the company altered. Their clothes were no longer rich and fine; instead, they were shredded, hanging in rags and loops, torn in a thousand places by flying glass. Even Stephen’s heavily enchanted robes had been torn apart, and now hung in overlarge scraps—overlarge because, as he now realized, he had lost weight in Faerie—vast amounts of weight, as if he had been living off bare scraps for his entire visit, instead of lavish feasts.

  He caught sight of Letitia. The gold on her dress and in her hair had turn into old, dried leaves that crinkled in the wind and fell away. Her dress was as shredded as his robes, and her skin . . . it was no longer glowing with health and beauty. Rather, it was intensely, roughly scarred, torn and lumpy where millions of tiny shards of glass had ripped her skin away, and had not healed properly. Her hair had fallen out in clumps until only wisps remained, and one eye had become permanently, unnaturally, dilated and semi-swollen.

  Craggy lowered Stephen gently to the ground of Locklost, keeping one hand steadily on his shoulder. Stephen didn’t think to struggle: Youngster and Craggy were now properly in view, and he could see that they were no better off than Letitia—and nor, he slowly realized, was he.

  “Good thing it’s summer,” said Youngster, trying to sound cheerful, “or else we’d freeze with our clothes in this condition. I always heard that time ran differently in Faerie, but I never believed it before. I wonder how much has passed.”

  “You knew this would happen to us?” Letitia demanded, her voice high and shrill. “You knew it was all a glamour? That our—our beauty was a gift from the Fairy Queen?”

  “Yes, I knew—and you would too, if you’d thought about it,” Youngster said wearily. “But yes; I knew. Craggy couldn’t see the glamour—can’t see any glamour, as far as I can tell—and he described to me what we looked like for real. I didn’t expect it to be this bad—how could I?—but I’d rather be scarred and free than stuck in Faerie, eating illusionary food and pretending to be happy seeing glamours everywhere.”

  “And you thought I’d feel the same, did you? Is that why you neglected to tell me?”

  “I thought you knew. Don’t you feel the same?”

  Letitia backed away, backed over the low wall marking the border of Faerie. As she did so, the glamour resumed, and she was once more heart-wrenchingly beautiful, with glitters of gold in her hair where the leaves had crumbled. “No,” she said. “Enjoy your lives.” She turned and sprinted back into the heart of Faerie, not looking back.

  Stephen pulled against Craggy’s grip, trying to follow. “Let me go too,” he begged. “I don’t care about the glamour, save that it’s a gift of Her Majesty, but I, too, was happier in Faerie. Don’t force me to stay here. Not away from Her.”

  Youngster sighed. “Hold him still,” he told Craggy. He stepped forward and began rifling through Stephen’s pockets, examining the contents within.

  “Stop it!”

  “Ugh—what’s this? You carry beetles around? And—don’t tell me this is a tongue!”

  Youngster pulled out item after item, exclaiming and making sounds of disgust and laughing—before returning it and continuing on his search. At last, he came up with a handkerchief wrapped around something cold and metal. The manacles!

  “Oh, no—don’t you dare!” Stephen screamed. “Don’t you—”

  But Youngster had already removed one manacle, and proceeded to press the cold iron against Stephen’s face.

  Stephen sagged in Craggy’s arms, limp and unresisting. His mind was suddenly clear and lucid for the first time since he had met the Fairy Queen. “Oh,” he said. “You figured it out. Well done. And thank you.”

  “Will the bedazzlement stay gone, if I remove the iron?”

  “It should, yes—now that we’ve left Faerie and the presence of the Fairy Queen. You were right to wait until we were back in Locklost. If nothing else, she would have sensed the presence of iron in her land, if you’d removed it from beneath its enchantments earlier.”

  Youngster slowly lifted the iron away from Stephen’s face and stepped back. When Stephen made no sudden moves, he nodded at Craggy to release the enchanter.

  Stephen stood on his own, a little unsteadily and more than a little embarrassed. “We’d better get going,” he said, “and find some food along the way—illusion doesn’t fill one up properly, when one isn’t under its thrall.” He strode forward—then hesitated, and looked back. “I’m not going to run away,” he said. “Promise.”

  Youngster grinned. “Welcome back.”

  They walked on through the very welcome Kingdom of Locklost, finding strawberries now and again. Stephen made and enchanted a small monster of dirt to hunt down their supper.

  “It’s strange,” he said, as they roasted a dove; “I would have thought, after all that time without doing any magic, that I’d be overflowing with power. But I’m not. I feel . . . drained. And that monster was only a small one.”

  “Maybe you’re just out of practice,” Youngster suggested. And, a little later, as they walked once more, “Do you think Letitia will tell the Fairy Queen about us?”

  “She’s bound to,” Stephen said morbidly. “Even if she had a choice—which she won’t, once she gets back—she’d do it to save her own skin. The Fairy Queen won’t be pleased with her for trying to escape, and less pleased for letting us escape. I wouldn’t like to be in her shoes.”

  “You nearly were.”

  “Please don’t remind me! I know I was acting like an absolute and besotted fool.”

  “It would almost have been funny, if it hadn’t been so annoying.”

  That evening, they neared the edge of Robin’s Woods—”It really was only a day’s journey from Faerie!” Youngster exclaimed. “The J.E. was right after all; it was only the glamours that made it seem more!”—and began circling it to the west, in unspoken agreement that all the armies of Faerie could not induce them to enter those woods again.

  The trip around Robin’s Woods was several days’ journey, and Stephen found himself often gazing upon the trees. The pines within the wood were as unchanging as ever, but in the absence of snow, shrubs sprang up, some verdant, some brown. Stephen peered between them, half-expecting the long nose, flash of dark hair, and joyous bark that would herald the coming of Dog as he raced to rejoin his old master.

  On the third day of this, there was abrupt movement, and it was almost the right color—but it was too high off the ground for a dog, and moving differently.

  Youngster stopped in his tracks, hearing the approaching creature. “That’s not Robin, is it?” he said.

  “I don’t think so,” said Stephen. “It has four legs.” What was it? A protector of the woods, perhaps, or another monster ready to rip out the throats of unwary travelers.

  No! It was Noble Steed, galloping toward them at full speed! Her coat had lost the glossy gleam it had acquired under Stephen’s care; her tack was missing; her mane had gone wild . . . but it was she.

  Noble Steed slowed to a walk as she approached and hesitatingly, adoringly, covered the last few feet to Stephen. Stephen raised a hand to pat her, but she nuzzled past him and rubbed her warm, wet nose all over his face.

  “That’s never your horse!” Youngster exclaimed. “I thought we’d lost all of them to
Robin! I wonder how she got away.”

  “Noble Steed is no ordinary horse,” said Stephen. He gazed into Noble Steed’s huge, soft eyes. “You left Robin for me?” he asked, forcing back tears. “I always knew you were the noblest of horses—the noblest and the best and by far the most beautiful and intelligent and loyal. There has never been a horse as incredibly wonderful as you. You really are amazing. I shall never look at another horse again, without seeing their imperfections, without seeing how drastically short they fall of you.”

  “The way you talk to her,” said Youngster, “it’s no wonder she adores you.”