by Kim Dragoner
“Close your mouth, Rhys,” Naida commanded. “It is just Minerva. She is not just listening in on conversations today; apparently she is also showing off.”
The leaves soon gathered into a neat column and then took the form of a beautiful green woman.
“Rhys, this is the image of my dear friend, Minerva. I spoke of her earlier.”
Rhys got to his feet and made a bow to the leafy lady. She curtsied back politely.
“How do you do, my lady?” he asked.
“How do you do, kind sir?” Minerva replied tentatively. She was unsure if he would be able to hear her in her verdant state.
“Why have you come here, Minerva?” Naida asked. “It must be urgent; otherwise you are being purposefully uncouth.”
“Well, Naida dearest, although I do love a bit of mischief in the morning, it is rather urgent.” She paused purely for effect. “Titania is searching for you. There’s some sort of gathering happening in the throne room. Dozens of faefolk from all over have come to speak with Mab. Even the minor rulers have gathered to hear their concerns.”
“It could get rather serious if she thinks I am hiding from court. I am glad you came yourself instead of trying to reach me some other way. Do you think we need to make our way back now?”
“I’d rather we did,” she said quickly, inclining her head in Rhys’ direction. “I really need to know what all the fuss is about. I saw the envoys arriving, Naida. It doesn’t seem to me that all these different factions of fae are just making a casual visit to court. It’s better we get back before any other of her messengers appears here in the glen. I fear for exposing the human boy to more than he may be able to cope with.”
“He knows a lot more about these things than you give him credit for, Minerva. After all, he does live at the court of Morgana.”
“Really?” Minerva blurted out, her eyes widening in marvel. “You live in Avalon? What is it like? Is Morgana as lovely as she is in the pictures? And as powerful as they say?”
Rhys smiled at the barrage of questions.
“Don’t answer her, Rhys. She is too inquisitive for her own good. I shall see to Minerva’s questions when we return home.” Turning back to her friend she said, “The conversation is ended. Go on back to Eon; I will be on my way shortly.”
“I’ll see you soon then.”
“Yes, Minerva. I will see you soon. Goodbye.”
Instantaneously, the leaves lost animation and fell to the ground. Then a breeze took them up and swept them out of the clearing.
“Miraculous.”
“It is, is it not? Poor Rhys, you have been bombarded by so many ethereal happenings in these past few days. A lesser man would have gone completely mad by now.”
“Naida, dear, it would take a better effort than that to send me into madness.”
The easy banter helped to relax them both after Minerva’s surprising visit, but it was clear that the conversation had troubled Naida.
“Are you alright, my dear?” he asked, noting a slightly worried look on her face.
“I will be in a moment. My mind is disturbed by Minerva’s words. Truth be told, Rhys, I am rather petrified of Titania. She is a devious old wraith.”
She breathed deeply and shook her head.
“If she is suspicious about my recent behavior or absences from Eon, she could cause much trouble for me. Distract me, love. Ask me questions.”
Rhys was taken aback by her use of the descriptive for him, but he was far too flattered to make a point of it.
Love, he thought, but instead said, “Well then, tell me, Naida of the Lake, what of your family? Do you have an ancestry as well or do faeries exist out of sheer magic like the stars?”
“Ah, a lovely query; this could take me hours.”
“I truly hope it does. I enjoy your stories immensely.”
“Well, firstly, faeries are not born of magic; we have parents and lineage just as humans do. We speak an ancient language that never had a name but as a result of the war, it was decided that, just as the word ‘faery’ was used to describe all magical creatures in nature, so would the word ‘elvish’ be used to describe all the dialects of our language both written and spoken. I am from a family known as the Brannon vuin, a sort of noble-serving class. My predecessors have been serving at the royal court since time began; of course that meant some of my family sided with Oberon after the war and went to Arcadia with him. They were the entire lineage of my Inyanosse, my mothers’ family.”
“Everyone?” Rhys interrupted. “All these elvish words are starting to get me confused.”
Naida sighed deeply before she answered him.
“Most faery families were divided by the war, Rhys. According to our customs, those who turned their backs on Eon and the service of humanity were forgotten by those that remained. We do not speak their names, nor do we refer to them using any terms of respect in any language of the universe. My mother, Itheilwen, is the second born of the only three inya of her family to remain. The other two are her sisters, Merilwen and Aranel. When inya get married, they are removed from their old family and joined to their new one. So, my mother’s entire family left Eon and followed Oberon, except the inya who were already married and whose new families had chosen to stay. The lineage of my Hanwanosse, my father’s family, stayed with Mab electively. That was long before my time, but my mother still speaks of what happened to her family as if it were yesterday.
“The Brannon vuin are the valets, pages and ladies in waiting of the Ernil vuin, our ruling class. After the war, our assigned duties were extended to include the queens’ guard and the heads of house, which are the queen’s chamberlain, queen’s secretary, head housekeeper, head cook and head steward. My mother, Itheilwen, was Titania’s chief lady before she married my father. When she married my father, her younger sister, Aranel, took up the position. Her elder sister, my aunt Merilwen, has been in Queen Mab’s service for as long as I can remember. She thought she would be replaced when she was married, but Mab insisted that she stay with her until Merilwen had conceived her first child, which my aunt has never managed to do, so she is still chief lady to the queen. My uncle thinks it is a proper conspiracy between the two women in order to remain in each other’s company, while he remains without an heir. You should see the sideways glances Merilwen and Mab get from him every evening at supper. The way Uncle Herion rolls his eyes at them; one day they will roll right out of his head and down the table.”
She paused to laugh heartily at that, feeling very happy with herself for the last comment. He watched as she covered her mouth with her hand shyly in an effort to hide how vigorously she was laughing. He smiled as he saw tears form at the corners of her eyes and spill over as her fit of laughter continued. Rhys cleared his throat as her laughing slowly hiccupped to a stop.
“Excuse me, I do not know what came over me just now.”
“I believe it is called making a jest, Naida. It was quite a good one too.”
“Well, Rhys,” Naida said, looking up at the sun, “I think our time is at its end. I don’t know when we will see each other like this again. There are not many magical places remaining that I know of between here and Kendal, but should you really need me, remember that you only have to find a body of water and look into it with the moon shining over your shoulder. Call for me and I will come.”
Just as suddenly as her face had appeared in the clear water of the pool, it melted away from sight.
Chapter Two
Eon
Light swam like water through the court of the Seelie, motes of gold diving and swirling, resting hither and thither on the wings and ears of faefolk and alighting on the throne upon which Queen Mab sat.
Mab listened to the reports of her subjects. The Ashrays brought tales from the north of England, tales of Scottish glens that crept and stank and polluted the lochs in which they made their dwellings. Boggans, the peat dwellers, crept in twos and threes, still coated in mud. Unused to high court, the dirty and unh
andsome creatures told tales of black riders on red eyed wolves, goblins most likely. A cavalcade of house brownies arrived in the afternoon, bearing tales of burned houses of the good Picts and Celts who refused Mordred’s call.
It was the tales of the morose will o’ the wisp of Ayrshire that finally made up the mind of the court unanimously. The wisp’s flame was so low, it was barely brighter than the dancing light around her, and she had not ceased her weeping since her arrival.
“My queen, noble Seelie Fae, I swear to you that Lord Oberon moves against us all. He aids the man who would be king, and grants access to all manner of evil into the realm of men.”
The high courtiers of the faefolk who sat to the right and left of Queen Mab said nothing, until one Salamander, burning bright, said, “My dear Will-Wisp, remember that beauty is life, and that love conquers all. There is no need to cry over the affairs of mortal wars. They come, they go, surely you have seen them fight again, and again. Nothing really changes. Even if Oberon is aiding this Mordred, son of Arthur, what is it to us?”
The court murmured gently, mostly in agreement. The affairs of men were quite dull, unless it was a romantic affair or a beautiful deed or a broken heart in autumn. The Will o’ the Wisp flared a little brighter, her anger fueling the faelight within her. “Fire-Drake, you would know little of change, sitting up there on your princeling chair.” She turned about in the court, catching the eyes of the dozens of petitioners behind her. “These goodly fae are but the first of what will be the tide of souls seeking refuge and succor if you do nothing. Queen Mab, will you not hear the pleas of your people? The world of men will burn, and Oberon uses Mordred as the spark. Long ago, the Unseelie Court was forbidden from interfering with mortal affairs; what is this, if not a breach of that covenant? My queen, I beseech thee, you must act!”
The salamander lord, resplendent in his red robes and wings of living flame, jumped to his feet and soared into the air, ready to strike down the Wisp for her temerity.
Queen Mab spoke, her voice carried into the very minds of all present.
“Peace, Tinaraden. Unleash no fire in this place. I hear your concerns, all of you. I would hear the words of Oberon Wind-Waker, Oberon Cloud-Splitter. Uncover the Seeing Glass,” she said, standing and moving around the dais where the Seelie Court sat. On the eastern wall of the great chamber hung a mirror, taller than any fae and covered with a curtain spun of countless spider webs. Two attendant faeries flew up to the top of the chamber and unhooked the curtain from where it hung, revealing the polished obsidian surface of the Seeing Glass. Mab took her place in front of the mystical mirror and the court shifted and fluttered behind her to get a good position to see what would happen. With a wave of her regal hand, Mab changed the glass to water, then fire, then a cloud brimming with winter rain. The clouds parted, and there was Lord Oberon of the Unseelie Court, cloaked in royal purple over an armor suit of ebony and gold. There were gasps from behind Queen Mab to see the one time King of the Fae so bedecked for war.
“So, is it true, Oberon?” Mab said. “You make plans to bring war upon us all.”
Oberon smiled knowingly. “War is merely the manifestation of change, my love. The affairs of men should not concern you; your lands are safe. There will be no assault on you, or your court.”
“You have been forbidden from using your influence on Earth,” Mab said grimly. “You stand in violation of your oaths of compliance, and bring death and destitution to men and earth-dwelling faeries. You swore to never again meddle in the wars of men.”
Oberon laughed. “Hypocrisy, my Queen Mab? I thought you of anyone was above such things, but then I remember that you always were capricious when it came to which laws you obeyed, and which you merely enforced.”
“What do you mean? No fae under my command has done what you have done. These spirits tend houses, marshal the flows of streams, lamplight the lochs and glens. What crimes have they committed? To be driven from their homes afore the tides of goblins and their ilk, this is bad comedy, Lord Oberon. You know that to interfere with Earth is to put the balance of all realms at risk, and jeopardize everything that we—that I—have created.”
Mab became ever angrier as she spoke and worked through the fears in her mind. Oberon threw his mane of white hair back as he laughed, his cackling mirth echoing from the obsidian mirror like bats, roosting in the high beams of the hall. The chamber of Queen Mab darkened in response to the foul laughter, forming dark clouds and dimming the dawdling light beams to a low miserable ebb.
“You speak of balance? Mab, do you know how pathetic it is to hear you talk this way? How many hearts have been wedded and broken, how many men who should have died have been aided by do-gooding little boggans and brownies and naiads and dryads? How many mainades and bakkhai have sweetened the wine at just the right moment? And I know for truth that water nymphs quell the storms around England to aid Arthur in his conquests on the mainland. And yet, and yet, you accuse me of interfering with mortal affairs! How many muses whisper in the ear of sages, and minstrels and poets, changing the words in the minds of men, shaping the future to your own design? I am merely replicating your plan, my dear queen.” Oberon affected a wry smile. “I am just being a shade more… let’s say, direct, about the process.”
Mab was enraged; the whole court shrank back, unsure what to think. Were they truly manipulating the world of men, as Oberon had said? The wisp and the salamander huddled a little closer together, their prior conflict forgotten. Mab threw sheet lightning from her fingers, dispelling the clouds overhead and crackling into the mirror bearing Oberon’s image. The fae king ducked to avoid the blast, and the room behind him exploded into flame. Oberon snarled and in a single move swirled his cloak from around his shoulders. Ice came in its trailing wake as it passed through the air. The flames died, and Oberon bared his teeth, which became fangs, long and serpentine. He thrust his hand at the portal, and it manifested as a great skeletal appendage with hooked claws. The fae folk scattered to avoid its swipes; Mab calmly ducked low beneath it and with a whispered word, turned the great hand into ash. She whistled a high note, and the obsidian mirror shattered, and Oberon was gone. Mab sank to her knees, amid the deathly silence of the stunned court.
“My queen?” said the salamander. His fire burned low, lower than the matriarch had ever seen. She raised her head, eyes filled with tears.
“We have done as Oberon said, have we not? We have made our business interfering with mortal kind. Now Oberon aids Mordred in his war and we cannot stand back. I put it to the court that we are at war; we always have been, I was just too blind to see it.”
It was at that moment that Naida and Minerva rushed into the chamber, attracted by the calamitous noise. There was indeed quite the uproar going on in the throne room, just as Minerva had described.
“What is this melee? We heard it all the way from the Everclear pools!” Minerva said, flushed with the sprint she and Naida had made. No one heard her question over the din and the queen was speaking.
“Fae of all kinds, of all nations,” Mab said, “we are in great conflict with the Unseelie Court. We are not a warrior people, and Oberon has enlisted the foulest and most brutal creatures to fight with him. We alone cannot win. Moreover, should we lose, the Glastenning Sisterhood—our mortal representatives at Avalon—will be destroyed, and the Lifetree itself will die. Eon will fade, and magic will be lost; love will fail and darkness will swallow everything.” The fae gathered in the throne room wailed, the boggans wept together and not a single wing fluttered. There was a moment of complete silence; until Naida broke it.
“My queen, you are right. We cannot win alone, but we have allies. We have the means to fight; not in open war against the Unseelie, but through Nestaron. Nestaron must come, Nestaron must save the Lifetree and replenish the power of our world.” Naida’s voice was high and clear; she spoke freely and without trepidation. The court muttered and was unconvinced.
“The Nestaron has never succeeded before
, Naida,” Mab said gently, “and we are still unsure if he has even manifested in the mortal realm. Not for centuries has he been seen. You believe that he can be found before the combined might of Oberon and Mordred crush all in their path?”
“I believe it to be so, my queen. I know it must be so.”
Mab drew herself up, fire again burning in her eyes.
“Muses! Boggans! Salamanders! Wisps and banshees and all fae kind! Fly to your dwellings, spread the word through dreams and visions and the whispered idea in the night, give courage to all of Mordred’s opponents; he must be held at bay. Naida, Minerva; to you, I entrust the great quest of our time. Nestaron must find his way to Rinnah’s Orchard and defeat her in combat. She is a fierce warrior faery who protects the Eternal Branch, which will restore our great Lifetree. We have little time. To all of you, I grant my strength, the permanence of my soul. I cannot sustain you for long before I run the risk of being completely consumed, but for the turn of one moon, you shall walk on Earth as we were once able to do. Do not waste time, for it is short.”
Minerva and Naida bowed to their mistress, and fled, followed by every fae in Eon. The pools leading to Earth were soon filled with the magical sound of faeries, transporting themselves through time and space, to find humans at the right time to make a difference in a war that was unwinnable.
***
Confusion reigned in the courtyards of Eon for hours after Mab had dismissed her audience. The fae milled around, huddled in groups of their own kind as well as groups of mixed kinds; debating, arguing, agreeing and finally, comforting each other that, though dark days were ahead, good would prevail over evil. It always had and it would again. It had to.
Minerva led Naida back to the corridor where their chambers were located.
“Pack your things, Naida,” she said. “We have a long journey ahead of us.”
“When shall we leave, Minerva?” she replied, quite comfortable with leaving all the decision-making to her elder for the moment.