There was a long pause. The Queen of this particular Mound would not be the supreme ruler of all the Faerie, if such a position actually existed, but the Faerie are not very good at recognising such distinctions. All of their Queens styled themselves, at least when facing us, as the supreme ruler. It made dealing with them more confusing than it might otherwise have been.
They didn’t understand us very well either, to be fair. When the results of the last Presidential election were announced, the Faerie sent their compliments to the new President…congratulating him on having killed and eaten the last President in single combat. Democracy means nothing to them and probably never will. The higher you move up the Faerie chain of power, the more alien and distant the Faerie become.
“The Queen has no time for you,” he said finally. The sneer only grew louder, until it was all that I could hear. “You may leave.”
I kept my voice calm through an effort. “The path leads right to the Queen,” I said, calmly. “I believe that she has granted us permission to walk to her throne room.”
He stepped aside, his body moving in a distantly snake-like pattern. “The path leads you where it will,” he said. “Follow it.”
I felt his eyes watching us, even though the landscape was changing all around us. Aylia made to speak, but I touched my lips, silently cursing the environment. There was no way I could block them from spying on us, maybe even reading our minds, not here. Using any magic spells I knew would be like trying to blow out a hurricane. The best result I could hope for was nothing happening. The worst…well, I didn’t want to know how the Faerie would react.
“Keep calm,” I said, as the landscape shifted yet again. It was an encouraging sign, in a way; we were walking further down into the Mound. I forced myself to remember to keep accepting the Mound on its own terms. If I thought about just where I was now, I might start gibbering inanely. “We passed through the first hurdle and you did fine.”
A snowstorm manifested out of nowhere and blew into our faces. We huddled together and stumbled onwards, before it vanished just as quickly as it had appeared, without leaving a trace of its presence. It was suddenly baking hot, then freezing cold, and then warm enough to make me sweat. We saw animals in the distance; lions, tigers, bears and other creatures that only existed in song and story, if at all. A unicorn looked at us with sad eyes, before it faded away into the distance, only to be replaced with a strange spider-like creature that lunged towards us before it too vanished. I heard Aylia cry out and caught her before she stumbled off the path.
There’s a school of thought that suggests that the Faerie are actually part of their world, as if they are one massive mass mind instead of hundreds of separate individuals, perhaps even a hive mind. There’s another that suggests that they’re really a specialised insect colony, although one with magic instead of hard work, which I find a little more believable. I have a feeling that if we knew the answers to some of our more persistent questions about the Faerie and their origins, we would rather wish we didn’t. There are so many questions that no one has ever been able to get them to answer. They might be refugees, fleeing a war against an unimaginable enemy, but they didn’t deign to discuss their biology with mere humans.
I said a little of that to Aylia, giving her something else to concentrate upon apart from the increasingly hard journey. No one is sure how all the different Faerie creatures are linked together, but some of us think that they’re all one race, one that takes on many different shapes. Humans are almost identical, genetically-speaking, but the Faerie came in many forms. Was there any relationship between the Faerie, the Elves, and the Pixies, or were they different races, or even young Faerie? There was no way to know.
The landscape steadied suddenly, revealing a massive banqueting hall. It seemed to stretch on for miles, decorated in a fashion I could only describe as tasteless, with gold, silver and rare gems everywhere. I had to remind myself – again – that it came out of my mind and that taking it for granted would be lethal. Everywhere I looked, there were Faerie, eating and drinking to their heart’s content. They were singing and dancing, waving massive mugs of beer or mead in the air; somehow I wasn't surprised to see that the path led right through the banqueting hall. Younger – I though they were younger – Faerie served their seniors, carrying them trays of raw meat and replenishing their mugs. I noticed, scattered here and there among the crowd, a handful of humans. They looked physically fine, but their eyes told the real story; they were trapped, pets at best. If the hippies outside had seen the prisoners, the unlucky few who had made it into the Mound, they would have fled in horror.
I looked away, only to be confronted by a waitress going past with a gigantic bowl of fried chicken and chips. My stomach growled and demanded that I take some to eat, but I fought it down as hard as I could. The waitress waited, an odd smile on her dainty face, until I turned away. I saw her final expression out of the corner of my eye. It was a mixture of contempt and rage, so inhuman that it startled me out of my growing complacency. The danger was only growing stronger as more and more Faerie made their play for our souls.
Another waiter was offering Aylia a bowl of vegetarian food and she was reaching out for it. I pinched her, not gently, on the arm and she started in shock, then realised what she had almost done. The horror in her face helped keep me rooted; she’d been seeing something different, perhaps even something more seductive. Faerie had nearly caught and trapped her, despite all my warnings.
“Come on,” I said, holding her arm. I had an insane flashback to watching one of my comrades get married, when his father-in-law had marched the bride down to the alter. The music in the hall – I had only just become aware of it – switched to the bridal march. It was all I could do to walk down the path, between two tables laden with every kind of conceivable foodstuffs, but we had no choice. Remaining where we were would have meant failure when we had to sleep.
The hall seemed endless; the offers barely less so. All kinds of Faerie appeared in front of us, offering everything from food to stranger services. One of them held out a compass like I’d used to find Drak Bibliophile, back in Norway, offering it to me. I shook my head politely, not trusting myself to speak, and he shrugged like a street salesman. Others held up magic wands of great age and power, or books holding long-forgotten secrets, but we declined them all. The Faerie Code was simple. Any gift, unless it was specifically made freely and without obligation, placed the recipient under an obligation to the giver. We could have offered them something in exchange, but we had nothing of equal value, unless the gift was worthless. Knowing the Faerie, that was quite possible.
“A charm to make you the fairest girl in all the land,” a Faerie said, to Aylia. I watched her carefully as he held up a jewel that sparkled with its own uncanny life. I recognised it from tales; it was – or seemed to be – the famed Beauty Stone. I knew how it worked; it would do as the Faerie promised, but at the cost of draining the wearer’s life away. “Take it, freely and without obligation.”
I lifted my eyebrows, surprised. The Faerie Code was inflexible. Aylia could take it without penalty, which probably suggested that it actually was real, but…
“No, thank you,” she said, clearly.
“Take it,” I said, quickly. She gave me a surprised glance, puzzled. I had been so insistent on not taking anything from the Mound. “You deserve something from this trip.”
I couldn’t explain the real reason, not inside the Mound. If the Beauty Stone was real, it could be locked away in one of the vaults, rather than left with the Faerie for one of them to inflict later on some poor fool. Aylia took the Stone and placed it into her pocket, rather than wearing it. Perhaps she sensed the reason, or perhaps she was just a little terrified. It would be a wise emotion to feel inside the Mound.
Everything shifted again, suddenly, and then we were in the Throne Room. The Faerie had tired of their game and decided to move us along, and out. I wanted to take a breath and relax, but there was no time
. Her presence hit us like a sledgehammer.
We were facing a Faerie Queen.
Chapter Twelve
This is my home, Azazel; my place of power. This is the Heart of the Dreaming. Reality here conforms to my wishes; it is what I wish it to be-- no more, no less.
Dream, The Sandman
She was magnificent.
She was terrible.
It was all I could do to force myself to remain where I was and not throw myself at her feet, screaming that I was not worthy and begging for her forgiveness for having thought that I could somehow face her, even as a gross inferior. Her appearance wasn't really physical, far more so than the other Faerie; she was every woman I had ever wanted, all rolled up into one. She was the centre of her private universe, the centre of the Mound…and everything else paled besides her. I saw only a flickering series of impressions, rather than any single glance at her body…and I had to look away. She was too terrible for a mere human to look upon.
I concentrated, trying to force my mind to see her in a manner that wouldn’t be so discomfiting. It barely worked, yet finally the Queen sat in front of me, looking like a cross between Elizabeth I and a wilful teenage girl. She was naked, yet there was nothing vulnerable about her, no hint of discomfort in her pose; her body, naturally, was inhumanly perfect, without even the slightest flaw to mar her beauty. She looked far more human than any of the other Faerie I’d met, apart from the pointed ears, but her eyes were very different. They were as black as the night and seemed to be staring at me, judging me. I was barely within their notice. Whatever the Queen looked like, in reality, she was very far from human and the wrong word would be fatal. Would Aylia, I wondered, look something like her if she wore the Beauty Stone?
The thought reminded me about Aylia’s presence. The Queen was so overpowering that she had driven all other thoughts out of my mind. I had to force myself to look away from her and look at Aylia, only to see her prostrating herself on the ground. The sheer presence of the Queen had overwhelmed her and all she could do was kneel in worship. Her face was transfixed by a mixture of religious awe and primal fear, without even a hint of her formidable intelligence. I could have lifted her dress and taken her from behind and she wouldn’t even have noticed. The Queen had become her whole universe.
It won’t last, I had to remind myself. It wasn't the first time I had faced a Queen, but Aylia had never seen one before, let alone any of the other Faerie. Dragons, werewolves and vampires didn’t prepare a person for the ultimate personification of magic. She would recover, in time, and the Faerie Code would prohibit them taking any advantage of her – they saw little amusement in forcing someone to break the rules and give themselves to the Faerie, not when they could be tricked instead – but until then we were dangerously vulnerable. Whatever loyalties Aylia had once had, to her father or even to me, would fade under the Queen’s power.
I went down on one kneel and lowered my eyes. It was almost a relief. My mind might have decided to give the Queen a less-overpowering appearance, but she was still formidable. It was like having a sing echoing in your ears a long time after the music had stopped playing, a permanent reminder of something just beyond the edge of perception. If there were any other Faerie in the Throne Room, I couldn’t see or hear them. The Queen occupied all my attention. She outshone them like the sun outshines the moon.
The Queen didn’t speak aloud. Her voice echoed in my head. The Faerie Court protocols, as far as we knew, insisted that the Queen had to notice us, even if we had to wait for hours before she spoke. It was humiliating as hell, intended to remind us of our place in her universe, but there was no choice. Outside, on Earth, cold iron could harm – maybe even kill – the lesser Faerie, but inside a Mound, the Queen was almost omnipotent. It was a mystery how such beings could even be threatened by their subjects, let alone overthrown, but then, the Faerie Code even detailed the proper and acceptable way to commit treason. There were researchers who believed that the Faerie, being effectively immortal, had created such codes just to allow some degree of danger in their lives.
“We welcome you to Our Court under the Hill,” she said, the words echoing around in my head. Her mental voice was at once both sweet and utterly implacable. She gave the impression that whatever we had to say could not possibly be of any interest to her and she was merely speaking to herself, or perhaps to her Court. Oddly, the realisation strengthened me. I’d had teachers like that back at college, the really bad ones who had tolerated no dissent or independent thinking. “We regret that some of Our lesser subjects attempted to bring you into our Court and wish to inform you that those lesser subjects will face due penalty for their offence.”
There was a long pause. I knew better than to take what she said at face value, although her attitude to her ‘lesser subjects’ hinted at why the Faerie were so bloody-minded all the time. She wasn't angry at the lesser Faerie for trying to ensnare us, but for failing in the attempt. Had they succeeded, we would have seen a far less kind side of the Queen. It might have been the last thing we ever saw as humans. Some unlucky people who wandered into a Mound had been changed and warped beyond all recognition by the Faerie, becoming monsters and outcasts, even from their society. I’d once met a man who had had no visible skin. He’d had the skin removed by the Faerie and had spells woven into the remains of his body, giving him immortality of a sort. He’d wanted me to kill him, but I’d failed; the Faerie refused to let him die. He might have escaped into our world, but he was still their toy.
“It is always a pleasure to hear news from Our lesser domains,” the Queen continued, after a pause that could have been hours long. Space and time don’t work quite right inside a Mound. As long as we didn’t eat or drink anything they gave us – unless it was given freely and without obligation – we would leave the Mound bare seconds after we entered it. “It is good to know that your people still pay homage to Us and worship us, even over the will of the creatures you created out of the ether to replace Us. We are pleased.”
She paused again, leaving me to unravel that proclamation. The Queen was making a speech, but for what? Was it intended for her subjects, or was it intended for us? Somehow, I doubted that it was all intended for us; the Faerie just don’t see us as equals, but as creatures so inferior to them that there was no point in even humouring our pretensions. The Queen’s beauty didn’t detract from her speech. Somehow, it made it far worse. What did she mean by worship? The hippies who gathered outside every Mound, called by a call that only they could hear, or something far worse?
“And so We are pleased to grant you audience,” the Queen said, finally. She spoke with the air of a parent congratulating a child on finally doing something simple, as if she were humouring us because it pleased her to humour us. The worst of the slave-owners in the South could not have matched her. “You may stand before Us and plead your case.”
I remained on one knee, despite her permission and glanced nervously at Aylia. The Queen had let her go – or perhaps she had broken free herself, or perhaps the Queen wanted her to feel that she had won – and she was sitting back, trembling. Her dress was soaked in sweat and there was a wild look in her eyes, as if she had run a long way with a rapist or axe murderer right behind her. I wanted to take her in my arms and hold her, promising that everything would be fine, but I didn’t quite dare. The Faerie might take offence if I showed any concern for Aylia, or anyone other than the Queen.
Oddly, Aylia looked far less…feminine compared to the Queen. She still looked the same, even though tears were pouring down her cheeks, but she seemed to be almost a puppet, or a clay golem, rather than a real girl. I had heard of the effect, but I had never seen it before; the Queen outshone anyone else in the room. There had been people, even a pair of Guardians, who have fallen in love with Queens and who could no longer find satisfaction in the arms of merely human women. The stories sounded awfully romantic at first, but they ended badly, often with suicide. Why do humans, I wondered, so often love their tor
mentors?
“Your Majesty,” I began. “Greatest Ruler of All, Most Excellent and Wise Mistress of All You Survey…”
I went on like that for quite some time. One of the first things we had discovered about the Faerie was that it was impossible to over-flatter them. They demanded respect from those they considered lesser and it was hard to give them enough. I described the Queen’s beauty and virtues in increasingly florid hyperbole before finally moving to the meat of the matter. It wasn't just to flatter the Queen, if she could really be flattered by mere humans, but to give Aylia a chance to recover. I needed her thinking straight before she did something that trapped her in Faerie for life.
“A child has been taken from our world, Your Majesty,” I said, finally. My mouth felt slightly dirty, but then I’d been talking bullshit for what felt like hours. I pushed that thought down rapidly. Contempt, even mental contempt, could distract me and eventually lead to my death or imprisonment in Faerie. “We have come before you to seek the child’s return.”
The Queen said nothing. She just gazed at me. Her gaze transfixed me, as if I were a butterfly pinned to a card, as if she was staring into my body and mind and counting all the molecules in my flesh and blood. For all I knew, the Queen could do just that. Her expression was inscrutable, but I held my peace. The Faerie protocol dictated that it was now the Queen’s turn to speak. She might have been trying to lure me into speaking first, and therefore committing an offence, or perhaps she really was thinking about it. I wouldn’t have bet on the latter.
Guardian Glass Page 11