He looked both ways along the corridor. Nobody was in sight, although he could hear clattering in the kitchen and ribald revelry in the “grotto.” He closed the door and hurried off, hoping nobody would see him. Then he realized he was wasting his time. Leo would tell the others anyway.
He pushed through the double doors on the Mundane side and stepped down the short corridor. The disgusting creeping sensation of passing through the portal to the Unreal slithered across his body. At the other end he pushed the vine curtain aside and stepped into the grotto.
As he made his way back to the middle he passed Haylee. She was still asleep, and would be until the night ended. They had taken everything they could from her, for tonight. He turned to walk away, then leaned over and pulled a fake fur comforter across her. She was still naked, and he thought she looked cold. Or that’s what he told himself.
By the time Leonides called the night to a close, Marco had screwed two more women. The others had each doubled that. Every night the club attracted almost two hundred couples, drawn by the rumors that exactly what was going on was going on. Nobody went away able to prove anything, but then nobody went away feeling anything but happy—even if they weren’t sure what they were so happy about. The Faerie saw to that, as they saw to the comatose males. Even there, exceptions were not uncommon.
After the clientele—or “donors”—had left and Leo had locked up the Mundane entrances, the grotto dropped fully back into the Unreal and a shudder of relaxation rippled around the whole group. Some made sounds of disappointment, but to Marco it was a relief and a release. For a moment, at least. Leonides called them all to the heart of the grotto. It was time to see how much energy they had collected for the night. They gathered around the oak at the centre of the clearing, and Leo opened the moss-covered panel in the trunk, almost reverentially.
The hopeful anticipation popped like a bubble and was replaced with a group groan. Behind the panel, the collector crystal showed only a little over three quarters full. They had missed quota again.
Almost en masse, hostile eyes turned to find Marco and glare at him. He wanted to protest, to shout out that even if he had doubled his efforts, they still would have been short. But he kept his peace. If he spoke out, offered excuses, it would only make things worse, and it might be the final straw that drove them to violence. He could feel it flowing just below the surface, looking for an excuse to flood outward.
Leo lifted the crystal out of its holder and shut the panel. That was the signal to disperse. Satyrs drifted from the grotto in small groups, muttering to each other and casting glances about, as if looking for Marco. But he was nowhere to be seen. He was not hiding—exactly—but he had found a seat on a couch that happened to be out of the way.
Leo found him. As if on a route he would have taken anyway, he casually passed Marco, just close enough to glare at him before walking off, slowly shaking his head.
“Tough night, huh?”
Marco flinched before he realized the voice belonged to Alphrein, their provider of all things faery, who was looking at him over the back of the couch. Marco wondered what the faery was standing on in order to do that.
Alphrein climbed over and sat at the opposite end of the couch. His legs pointed straight out, and the couch looked like more of a bed for him. Marco nodded, then turned his face away and covered it with his hands as he propped everything up on his knees.
“What’s the problem?” Alphrein asked. “Dey giving you da goils when youse want da guys?”
He laughed at his own humor and his terrible faux-Brooklyn accent. Marco wished he would go away, but when he sneaked a look out the corner of his eye, the faery was still there. He sighed and straightened up.
“There’s no problem. Honest. Just a bad night.”
“One bad night is not what I hear.”
“I can handle it.”
“Sure. That’s why you’re so happy to walk out with the rest of your clan instead of hiding here until they’ve all gone.”
Marco couldn’t find anything to say, and he was starting to feel uncomfortable under the diminutive faery’s gaze. “Everything’s fine,” he repeated.
Alphrein shrugged and jumped down from the couch. When he stood in front of Marco, they were eye to eye.
“Okay,” the faery said. “But when you decide to admit there’s an issue, come see me. I may be able to help.” He walked off, disappearing into the undergrowth outside the grotto.
Marco also rose from the couch. He started to walk toward his own nest, and wondered if the faery might have the right of it, after all. He stopped in his tracks, shook his head sharply and barked a cynical laugh. Who was he kidding? The faerie never offered help without a price, and often offered help where there was nothing that needed fixing.
He carried on to his nest, musing over how close the faery had come to tricking him.
***
A week later, Marco lagged behind after everybody else had left. Only this time he sat on a stool in the middle of the grotto, hoping Alphrein would wander by.
“You look awful,” the faery said, sneaking up behind him, making him flinch again. But it was less of a flinch and more of a panicked jump, really. Marco closed his eyes and took a deep breath when he realized who it was.
“I wish you wouldn’t do that,” he muttered.
“I know,” said Alphrein, grinning widely. “But why the long face? I hear you guys made target five days out of seven, and I even overheard the lovely Leonides saying you were actually pulling your weight for a change.”
Marco put his head in his hands and groaned. Somehow that made it worse. “I have been trying.”
“And that’s not good?”
“No.” He drew the word out, whining. “It just makes me feel terrible, and the harder I try, the more I do it, the worse it gets.”
“Seriously? But I thought that’s what satyrs were all about; par-tay animals of the multiverse.”
“Well maybe I’m just different,” Marco snapped.
Alphrein raised his hands defensively. “Nothing wrong with that.”
“Try convincing Leo.”
“So what is it that’s screwing you up so bad? I was under the impression that once you guys hit the vino, everything kind of took care of itself.”
“It does. But afterward, it’s horrible. Such emptiness. The others just pick up another pitcher and start again, but it makes me sick. I just wish I didn’t have to drink the wine in the first place, then none of the rest would happen.”
“So why don’t you stop?”
“I can’t. I try but eventually the wine wins. I have to go out there and take a drink, and then . . . well. And Leonides is constantly on my bad, so even if I could stay off the wine, he would kick my ass for not working.”
“Good point. But can’t you tell him you don’t want to do it anymore?”
Marco was shaking his head before the faery had finished speaking. “Not that simple. Leo made a commitment to the Master to collect . . . It’s a commitment we have to honor as a clan.”
“So ask for a different job.”
“Doing what? This is who we are. I either contribute, or I’m a liability. The clan can only have so many members. The only way to replace me is when I die. Then they can create a replacement.”
“Unenlightened.”
Marco nodded and put his face back in his hands to wallow in the gloom.
“There may be a way out of this,” Alphrein said, slowly. Marco raised his head. “There’s only one slight problem.”
“What?”
“You need to go out into the Mundane.”
There was a long silence.
“It’s the only way,” said Alphrein. “There’s a place I know of. They have people there. People who can help with situations like this.”
“Satyrs?”
“No, idiot,” snapped the faery, a flash of fire flickering behind his eyes. “People who have a problem with wine.”
“Really?”
>
The faery nodded. “Think on it first. You’d be taking a big step. Finding a way to get off the wine isn’t exactly in the best interest of your clan.”
“So what do I have to do? And how can I go out into the Mundane? I can’t be seen. You know that’s not allowed.”
“I can help with that,” said Alphrein.
Marco’s heart sank. Here came the sting. The price. “How much?”
The faery tried to look wounded, but didn’t quite succeed. “A trifle, nothing more. I can provide you with a glamour to disguise your more . . . obvious non-human features.”
“How much?”
“For now, nothing. I’m just looking to do a friend a favor.”
“How. Much.”
“When you die, I inherit your estate.”
“What?”
“The Faerie are long lived. We can take the time to speculate when we accumulate. By the time you die you could be a pauper, or you could be fabulously rich. I’m betting on the latter.”
Marco said nothing, but thought furiously. Anything from the Faerie that seemed fair by definition wasn’t, but he couldn’t see the catch in this—and that worried him.
“You don’t have to tell me now,” said Alphrein. “You need to go away and think this through anyway, so . . .”
“No, I want to do it,” Marco blurted, almost surprising himself. “I want to go see this person. Maybe they can help, or at least give me an option not to go on like this . . .”
“I understand,” said Alphrein, a cooing sympathy in his voice. “So if you could just make your mark here . . .”
From out of nowhere a short parchment appeared, fluttering gently to land in Marco’s lap, while Alphrein proffered him an ink-ready quill that had not been there a moment ago.
Marco took the quill and scanned down the document. It seemed to say exactly what they had discussed: a glamour to allow him to walk freely in the Mundane in exchange for all rights to his estate upon his death. He made his mark and both parchment and quill faded away.
“When should I go?” Marco asked.
“Tomorrow,” the faery replied.
“So soon?”
“The next opportunity would be eight days hence. Can you wait that long?”
“No,” Marco said, without having to think about his answer. “What do I do?”
“The glamour will invoke as soon as you leave the grotto. Leave by the normal exit to the Mundane. Take a left out the door and keep walking until you see a building with the sign Midtown Community Centre. Go inside, then up to the second floor. Look for the number 208, and go in. Others will be there. Say nothing except to the one who introduces himself as ‘Tom.’ Tell him you have come for help.”
“Is that everything?”
“You must be in the room before eight. I’ll tell you when to leave. Do not tarry in the Mundane.”
Marco made him run over it again, just to be sure he had everything, then Alphrein wandered off into the forest.
***
Marco trembled as he stepped out onto the street. He had never visited the Mundane before. Noise hammered uncomfortably at his ears, and he was jostled by the press of people before he had taken two steps from the door. Yet for all the mass of humanity, he had never experienced a place so dead. Nothing connected to anything else, except for brief angry flashes that made him even more nervous. Everybody on the pavement seemed to be pushing at each other, and in the opposite direction that he needed to travel. He kept close to the wall as he tried to swim upstream.
Cold, hard stone surrounded him, breaking his contact with the earth—the very thing that kept him grounded in the world. Stray emotions floated in the air around him, battered him when they drifted too close. The farther he got from the door, the greater the desire grew to turn tail and run back to the grotto, to drown himself in wine, no matter what the cost.
He stopped, breathed deeply, until he clawed back a small measure of control and stepped forward again.
Finally he stood beneath a sign reading Midtown Community Centre. His heart hammered in his chest and he felt profoundly alone. Even the scorn of his clan-mates was beginning to seem preferable to this.
He prevaricated in front of the double glass doors, jiggling gently from hoof to hoof and making a staccato tapping on the sidewalk. As he turned away to run back to the grotto, a hand touched his shoulder. He flinched and turned to see a human standing uncomfortably close, hands raised in a non-threatening gesture.
“Don’t give up now, man. You’ve made it this far.”
Marco cocked his head slightly to one side. “How would you know why I’m here?”
The human offered a wry smile. “You have the look.” He nodded, then walked toward the glass doors, which hissed aside and allowed him through.
Marco stepped away in surprise, but not far enough to put him back in the river of humans on the sidewalk. Doors that slid sideways were a novelty to him. He almost turned away, but the human had a point: he had come this far.
Was there any harm in finding out what this Tom person had to say?
He walked hesitantly forward, flinching again when the doors slid apart before him, and on into the lobby.
It took him a few minutes to find the stairs, and he tried not to clatter too much as he trotted up them. Glamour or no, his hooves were still there and still made a sharp racket on the hard tiles.
Once he reached the second floor, finding the door with 208 on it was relatively simple, and he paused outside for only a moment before pushing it open and walking in. As he passed the threshold, a tingle of fear ran up his spine.
The room was ten paces along each side. Flat walls battered the sound of people talking from side to side. Four windows were shuttered against the night by some slatted material. Most of the furniture was pushed out to the sides, apart from a circle of twenty chairs.
A group of people huddled outside the circle, and Marco saw a face he recognized—the human who had spoken to him outside. Marco started to panic as the man walked over, smiling broadly.
“Glad you made it. I’m Tom. That was your first step, and almost the hardest. We have another new recruit today. I’ve already spoken to her, so we’ll let her start. You just wait till I call on you, then you say the same as she says, okay?”
Marco nodded and made no protest when Tom pushed him gently toward one of the chairs. The rest of the group took that as a cue and soon all were seated. Marco looked around at them. Each pair of eyes offered him a level of acknowledgement; sometimes an encouraging smile, sometimes a sharp nod and a haunted stare.
Tom sat next to him and, next to Tom, an overweight woman who looked as though she had been weeping. Tom raised a hand and silence slowly fell, replaced by an expectant hush and rapt attention aimed toward their side of the circle. The woman stood, spoke, and Marco’s throat dried up. Was he expected to do this?
There was ecstatic applause and catcalls as the woman sat down. She looked flushed, but happy. Marco realized Tom was looking expectantly at him. He swallowed hard. Tom nodded an encouragement and Marco made it to his feet. He looked around the circle of faces, all waiting on him, anticipation in every one. He drew a deep breath.
“My name is Marco, and I am an alcoholic.”
Nobody moved. He had said the same as the woman, he was sure. Had he done something wrong? Then he realized that nobody had blinked since he had spoken, and his stomach began to churn.
Tom stood up and walked to the middle of the circle. He was chuckling, then he coughed and harrumphed and pulled himself together as he put his fingers between his lips and made a piercing whistle. He started to laugh again, his form slowly rippling like heat haze on a summer road, shrinking and solidifying into something very different, and Marco heard a noise from the corridor.
Alphrein started laughing again. “Don’t look so surprised, Marco,” he said.
“But . . . ?”
“But what?”
There was another sound, like distant thunder,
coming from the corridor. Marco almost recognized it—enough to shift from upset stomach to bowels of water.
“You said these people would help.”
“Did I? I said they can help with situations where people have a problem with wine. I didn’t say they were going to help you.”
Marco realized the tingle he had felt when he had entered was not fear, but his passage through a faery portal. The room was in the Unreal, or at least connected to it. He had been set up.
“Leonides loved the idea when I suggested it to him,” Alphrein said, still hiccupping giggles. “He paid me even more than I’ll inherit from you.”
Marco suddenly recognized the sound outside the door as thundering hooves. A second later the door burst open, and the clan he had just betrayed rushed in.
Fair Weather from that Crimson Land
By S. J. Hirons
My troubles began on paper, as they always seem to do.
The satyr I had been dealing with emerged from the back office once more. He wore that blank automaton look I have come to know and loathe every time I see it on the faces of the clerking classes as I travel. Among all the peoples and creatures of our many, mighty, miscellaneous, and mixed-up nations, that look is the one trait shared by all alike, from faun to faerie, from minotaur to man. It is the look that signifies one has passed all reasonable point of appeal. It is the look that tells you that you are about to embark upon a tour of those machines of bureaucracy any creature sane enough not to work for government agencies abhors.
He trotted back to the desk, his half-moon spectacles—hanging from his neck on a dainty chain—sitting at the very tip of his nose, pretending to put great consideration once more into the documents I had handed to him over an hour ago, pretending he wanted to find in those pages of invitation, recommendation, transit, and port-passage the detail that would enable him to enable us.
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