by Morgan Blade
The fey girl looked at me. “Who is that?”
“Colt’s mother. She just dropped in to make sure I hadn’t lost our kid, or let him needlessly take part in any duels.” I sent her a warning glance to watch what she said.
Aleys grinned. “No. that would be wrong.”
I nodded. “I know, right? I’m a good father, sort of. At least, he eats regularly. That’s more than many kids have.”
She nodded. “And you’re teaching him how to be a plundering warlord so he will have a trade.”
I nodded. “Thoughtful to a fault…” I broke off as Selene’s attention returned to me. She and Colt held hands.
Predatory, too-wide smile back in place, Selene’s stare slid to Aleys, taking in every detail. “I understand you are my son’s playdate. This is a new friendship?”
“We just met,” the fey princess said.
“What do you think of him?” Selene asked.
“Which one?” Aleys asked. As fey, she displayed great care in the use of her words, and in being precise.
“Either. Both,” Selene said.
Aleys looked at the Colt that was with us. “He is a charming boy. A lot of love and care has obviously gone into him from a good mother.”
Hearing that, a little of the brittle tension left Selene’s smile. “Thank you. That’s kind of you to say.”
“Simply the truth.” Aleys had to answer truthfully, being what she was, but truth has many shades, a tool to be used sparingly so the enemy isn’t armed. “The older version struck me as a trifle conflicted. He blames his father,” Aleys added unnecessarily.
Selene slanted me a glare. “Yes. That’s probably accurate.”
“Hey!” I objected. “How’s that fair?”
From inside my head, my inner dragon glared as well. I blame you, too.
I just can’t win.
“Has Colt shown you his scar?” Selene asked.
Aleys shook her head. “He didn’t really show it to me, but I was there when he killed the Summer and Autumn Kings. It was terrible, so much blood.”
I began to ease slowly back toward the turret.
Selene’s stare stabbed me into stillness. Her voice remained sweetly pleasant as she continued her conversation with Aleys. “It’s a big scar, then? From a life-threatening wound?”
I felt an ass-kicking coming on that I didn’t really want to be a part of. “Colt’s decision. I couldn’t talk him out of it.”
“It’s a really cool scar.” Colt lifted his shirt and traced a line with his fingernail. “It will be about that long.” He exaggerated a little.
High above, the rift in the clouds closed. They were red, as if full of a blood rain ready to fall. Red coils of lightning wove in and out of the cloud cover. Thunder boomed, like a giant dragon kicking the world. The red light of Selene’s eyes grew more intense, hazing away more of her humanity.
“It’s not my fault,” I lied.
She hit me with a look that conveyed her willingness to kill, resurrect, and kill me all over again. It made my balls hurt.
I have got to derail this conversation.
I decided to throw Aleys to the wolves, so to speak. I smiled at her. “Did I thank you for helping him from the ring. You know, I think he’s a little sweet on you. He might even have been showing off a little. What was that he promised? To kill off anyone else trying to win your hand?”
Aleys frowned at me, just beginning to scent her danger. “That’s not exactly right. He just said I didn’t have to be worried about being forced into marriage.”
I added a last nail in her coffin. “Well, he did say he was going to be courting you.”
The fey girl shrugged. “I can’t help it that he finds me beautiful. Many men do.”
The brittleness was back in Selene’s smile. Red lightning chased it’s tail high overhead. Thunder followed, making me cringe.
Selene said, “You should be careful on your journey home. The wilds are full of many savage beasts. Something might happen to that beauty of yours.”
Talk about a not-so-veiled threat…
“Uh, Selene, for Colt to one day inherit Fairy from me as its new Overlord, he will one day have to marry a fey princess. One who has sworn allegiance to us already might be a good choice, especially if he already likes her. I mean, the damage is done.”
“Always room for more damage,” Selene muttered.
Aleys chose that moment to turn arrogant. “I’m not sure I’d have him. He hasn’t any fey blood in him. That means he can lie to me whenever he wants!”
Colt’s eyes grew big. “I don’t lie! I don’t have to.”
“Wait until you get older and have to start dealing with women. You’ll find it’s necessary,” I said.
Both Selene and Aleys stared like I was something they needed to scrape off their shoes.
Crap. I said that out loud. I need another conversational diversion, quick.
I lifted both eyebrows and pointed a finger at Aleys. “Hey, did Colt show you the dungeon? We’ve got an interesting specimen there, I mean prisoner. A fey immortal. You can kill him, over and over, and he keeps bouncing back. Quite annoying, really. And he likes to rape women I understand. I just don’t know what Queen Kellyn is going to do with him.”
“A bad man,” Colt agreed.
“Immortal, you say?” Selene asked.
EIGHTEEN
“Too stupid to be afraid
makes roadkill of us all.”
—Caine Deathwalker
I watched the frozen mountains give way to high, withered brown grass, and twisted tree stumps that were goblins at the edge of sight until you looked straight at them. We followed a dusty road rutted by wagon wheels. Colt and Selene rode with me in my protective red sphere.
Travel in Fairy is half state-of-mind. Landmarks like to get up and move when you aren’t looking. Finding Nightmare proved easy; I just kept thinking: I hope we don’t get caught in Nightmare. That would be terrible!
It came like a slobbery dog in need of a warm bed.
The morning air was a moldy gray shroud that made flat shadows out of hangman trees—many with hanged men still swaying on ropes. One such body developed detail as we passed it closely. The clothing of the purple-faced man reminded me of something a riverboat gambler might wear. I assumed the Nightmare Land was pulling images from my mind, reflecting them at me. This particular corpse had several cawing, albino crows on it. One pecked at an eye. Another tore off an ear and flew away with the prize.
A quote from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar ghosted through my mind: Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears...
“This is cool,” Colt said. “It’s like Halloween all the time.”
I nodded. “Yeah, but without the candy. Someone gives you something here, it’s going to be a poisoned apple.”
The remaining crow turned pink eyes our way. As if sensing our passing, he cawed and flapped away in a burst. The leaden fog swallowed him.
Well, the land knew we were here. This kingdom was just more interactive than most. I hoped the residents remain oblivious to our stealth-mode invasion.
Ahead, I saw moving shadows, three human shapes shambling along. They stopped at a crossroads to stare at a signpost. We drew closer and the shadows became a scarecrow family, frozen in place. The signs pointed every direction but had the same destination spelled out in letters that dripped blood: Hell.
My red shell carried us on. I looked back, and as soon as the mist reclaimed the scarecrows, they began to move once more, probably residents of the land. This was probably not nightmarish to them. When Nightmare is all you know, you don’t miss better dreams. They’re not normal.
Selene was all kid-in-a-candy-store, her face almost pressed to the rolling red shell as she stared out. “I’m getting so many ideas.”
I remembered the narwhal-millipede tentacle-raping monsters she’d unleashed on the Villagers before we closed dimension access to their space. “I’ve never known you to lack inspiration. You are a curdl
ing terror all on your own.”
Floating inside the shell, she turned and drifted to me. She framed my face in her hands and kissed me soundly. “You say the sweetest things, when you’re not chewing on your foot.”
“Can’t you guys save the mushy stuff for when I’m not around?” Colt asked.
“One of these day,” I said, “you’re going to find the right girl and not mind so much.”
Colt shuddered with revulsion. “Like that’s going to happen.”
“You know,” I said, “a harem isn’t really just for making grilled cheese sandwiches and giving you someone to watch anime with.”
“What else is there?” Colt asked.
I lowered my voice. “I’ve got some magazines I’ll loan you when you hit puberty.”
Selene pointed a finger at my face. Her eyes blazed with warning. “Don’t you dare.”
You can’t let a woman know you’re afraid of her. She’ll run you forever.
Playfully, I took a nip at her finger, snapping teeth just short.
She jerked her hand back.
I stared at Colt. “Girls are also good for cooking, cleaning, laundry; all that female stuff.”
Colt looked up at me. “That doesn’t sound very respectful.”
I put on a hurt expression. “I respect women—at least the ones I sleep with. Makes me a perfect gentleman, to a select few. Look, feminists are always saying they’re superior to guys, right? Doesn’t that mean they’d be superior at domestic chores, too?”
Colt continued to stare, looking nearly convinced. “You’d think so.”
“Colt,” Selene said. “You know better than to listen to your father’s musings.”
He ducked his head, not quite meeting her eyes. “Sorry.”
After a minute, he looked ahead. “Are we there yet?”
“I really hope not,” I said. “That might scare me.”
The fog thickened, swirled, then drew back a little, resetting the stage. And we were in a medieval village with stone-wall houses and thatched roofs. The grass remained brown and dry, poking up through flagstone walkways. The dirt road under us morphed into tan and beige cobblestones, not that it made a difference to the smooth roll of the energy sphere we traveled in.
One street connected with another. Some neighborhoods had high walls around better constructed houses. These structures had narrow brick chimneys that stained the air with blotches of dirty smoke. I kept us moving uphill on the general theory that fey lords like to look down on everyone else.
We reached a high ridge behind the town. On top of it, I saw a set of black towers with conical roofs. The towers were connected by a two-story manor. A gray brick road wound snake-like up to the ridge, the land to either side of the road eroded away.
I looked at Colt. “We’re there.”
He looked up the weaving road to the top of the ridge. “Not yet.”
“That looks too much like a trap to me,” I said. “I think we need alternate transportation from here.” I cut the flow of power from my shadow-tat and the red shell flickered and died. Colt and I dropped a few feet to the cobblestone road.
Selene continued to float in the air. “What do you have in mind?”
“Air Colt.”
Colt lifted both eyebrows. “What?”
I smiled at him. “Go dragon, and give mom and dad a ride.”
He grinned. “Sure.” He hopped backwards and his little body went monochromatic, a red-copper haze of light. The light swelled to the size of a school bus, the shape altering, sprouting wings. The light faded out and a red dragon hovered. Yellow stylized flames adorned his sides, identical to those routinely painted onto the sides of hot rods. The beating wings washed us with wind, a whump-whump-whump sound. He landed and grounded knobby, scaly knees, offering us his back to ride.
I leaped to the base of his long neck and seated myself on his shoulders. Selene drifted over and landed behind me. Her arms slid around my waist and locked in place. And suddenly, we were both wearing crash helmets and googles. Colt stood up on all four feet and furiously pumped his wings. We rose into the sky, lurching toward the gray brick road.
The bricks blurred, losing distinction. The entire road peeled upward, a giant ribbon with horizontal ribbing underneath. The ascending road’s beginning edge split, becoming an open mouth. Hinged fangs folded down and locked in place. Yellow eyes opened. The back of the road repatterned itself into scales, the gray blushing into pink, blue, and green mottling. It was like someone had made a monster out of candies. A hissing, agitated monster. The tail pulled loose from the top of the ridge and flicked with annoyance. With the front and back of the snake raised, its middle rested on a ribbon of dirt that still made a swaying path to the top, a path we had no need of as we plunged through the air straight at the snake.
The snaked hissed loudly.
Colt roared, a battle scream wreathed with swaths of smoke.
I gave Colt’s neck a friendly pat. “So, uh, how’s the fire-breath coming?”
The scream cut off. The neck flailed and whipped. Four smoke rings popped out of Colt’s mouth. This was followed by a growl of embarrassment.
“We’ll work on that,” I said.
Selene pulled a hand from my waist and gestured toward the top of Colt’s head. Crimson flashes danced there, and a box appeared that contained four tubes. The assembly strapped itself on, a ridiculous party hat.
“A rocket launcher?” I said. “That almost feels like cheating.”
Hearing me, Colt turned his face my way. The rocket launcher pointed my way too. I waved his head away. “Carefully. I’m not a fan of friendly fire unless I’m doing it.”
Hastily, Colt looked forward again.
Selene tightened her grip, a hug. “Don’t worry. I have control of the launcher.”
Yeah, that going to ease my mind.
Actually, as the snake launched it fanged maw right at us, I was happy for the rockets. Two of them fired. A backwash of smoke and fire parted around Selene and I—her protective shell this time, not mine.
“Thanks,” I said.
She laid her face against my back and murmured. “No problem.”
Beating our speed, both rockets streaked ahead and smacked the snake in the head. Thunder rolled. Bloody chunks sprayed freely. What was left of the head—not a whole lot—was blackened and burning with flames, trailing smoke.
I yelled at Colt. “That’s not going to stop it. Primitive creatures keep going long after they’re dead.”
Colt swerved, angling higher to get clear of the thrashing reptile. The snake’s convulsions became its second undoing as it slipped off the ribbon of dirt and fell from sight. With Colt banking, we followed beside the dirt road. The chasm under us sheltered an impenetrable darkness in which anything could lurk, and probably did. Colt pumped his wings harder, driving us higher into a darkening sky. Time sprang ahead to keep pace, rushing evening upon us.
We hung above the ridge, looking down on the manor with its bookend towers. Overhead, a huge golden moon faded in, gilding a deepening night. Lights came on in the manor. Will-o-the-Wisps swarmed across the sprawling rooftops and gables, chasing each other around chimneys.
The missile launcher fired off it’s last two rockets. Selene’s red barrier appeared to deflect the exhausts away from us. The backwash did Colt’s dragon scales no damage at all. The manor was less fortunate. The roof exploded with twin booms. Tiles disintegrated. Smoke and flames roiled together. The drifting wisps of light scattered, fleeing in all directions.
The launcher vanished off of Colt’s head.
I spoke over my shoulder. “Couldn’t resist using them up, huh?”
I felt her shrug behind me. “You were going to knock on the door anyway. Now, you don’t have to.”
“That’s certainly true. And it’s not like we ever had the element of surprise in this kingdom. It reserves that for itself.”
Colt settled on the front lawn, between two stunted, gnarled oaks. The man
sion had green, well-watered grass spoiled by gopher holes. Selene slid off and I followed. Once we were clear, Colt went all red-copper light and returned to his nine-year-old child form. His black hoodie with the big white skull on its front fit in perfectly with the haunted, burning manor in front of us.
Nobody ran outside to get to safety.
“Are we going in?” Colt asked.
“To a burning building? That’s hardly safe. I’d prefer a reboot of the scene.”
“How do we get that?” Colt asked.
I smiled. “We use fear against fear.”
“And…,” he asked.
“Do you know what dinosaurs fear the most?” I asked.
“Bigger dinosaurs?” Colt asked. “Being made into dino-burgers?”
“It wasn’t bigger dinosaurs that made them go extinct,” I explained.
“The ice age?” Selene asked.
“The Earth got hit by a meteor.” It brought on a sort of nuclear winter. That brought on the ice age.” I lifted a hand, pointing into a starry infinity streaked with falling stars. “We have in-coming.”
Colt looked up. “Are those…”
“Selene,” I said, “we are going to need a very tough barrier, unless the local lord—”
Everything vanished. The horror I had invoked was not allowed to happen. The three of us stood in a corporate boardroom, all of Nightmare reduced to endless darkness on almost every side. We saw a glossy black table that stretched and faded into that darkness. There were tiffany stained glass lamps on the table that created pools of light even though there were no electrical cords.
I turned and saw one end of the table very close. Beyond that, a frail old man sat in a throne-like chair. He wore a charcoal business suit with a royal blue handkerchief. His wrinkled face was mottled with white spots of leprosy. His silver hair had streaks of dark grey at the temples. His scraggly mustache matched, a blend of silver and darker gray. Plastic tubes ran from his nose to an oxygen tank on a stand behind his chair. Past that, on a small piece of wall, an oil panting hung with an ornate gold frame. The portrait showed the same man seated before us. He lifted a trembling hand that was more claw than anything else, and pointed. His hand fell to the dark stained table as if he’d tired himself out.