by Richard Swan
To Melody, walking in Faërie was a wonder of its own, and if she had been at peace she could have spent days just wandering and marvelling. Everything was alive here, obviously so, and she would have loved to stop and listen to the trees and the birds and the water, for everything had a voice that she felt she could understand if she only had the time to pause and listen. Time was different here too, richer, more part of the land and the woods and the sky, less separate and measured than her own time. She felt herself ageing in different ways as she moved, and wondered whether the ancient legends were true, whether years were passing back in her own world as she took each step across the grass of Faërie.
She couldn’t linger, though. She made her way straight towards the figure who seemed to be waiting for her. She knew this was the king of Faërie, although she couldn’t have said how she was sure. There were no signs of kingship, no marks of distinction, yet she was certain who he was. He was tall, very tall, and beautiful in her eyes, with finely detailed features and pale, pale blue eyes that seemed to see to the ends of the world, but there was nothing in his dress or manner to mark him out. He wore a long green gown flecked with blue, and he stood calm and still while he waited for her.
As she came within a few feet of him she stopped and dropped on one knee, bending her head almost to the ground. She did it not because she thought it was the right thing to do, but because she felt it natural to show respect for this regal figure. When she raised her eyes she found he was holding out his hand to her, and as she took it he gazed at the ring on her finger.
‘Welcome,’ he said. ‘Do you know who I am?’
‘You are the king of Faërie,’ she said simply.
The king smiled softly. ‘That would be too great a task for anyone, I think. I am king of the feys, the people who dwell in this land, and I have charge over them, but only them. The other creatures and beings here are not mine to care for, or to command. We only live here. But you are a stranger to this place, even if the ring you bear is well known to us. What brings you here?’
‘I came from the land beyond Faërie, and would ask leave for trespassing here, yet you say it is not you of whom I should ask leave.’ Melody found herself speaking in a formal manner, the way she thought it was proper to speak to a king. It wasn’t natural to her, but it felt appropriate.
‘You need ask no permission for entering Faërie. That is your own choice, and you are welcome for as long as you choose to remain. But few humans come here willingly, for this land is perilous for them, and they do not know to what they will return. None should come here without great need, or great desire. Which is yours?’
‘Both, My Lord,’ said Melody. ‘I come because I follow a great need, although I do not know what it is, and I come because I follow a creature that led me here. I seek a unicorn.’
The king stood motionless, surprised once more. He knew now why the grass had drawn back from her feet, and he knew that he had been right in supposing that the surprise of grass was always worth attending to.
‘No mortal has sought a unicorn in these woods within my lifetime,’ he said. ‘Your need – or your desire – must be strong indeed. What do you hope from a unicorn?’
Melody wasn’t sure whether there was warning or scorn in his voice, and she faltered.
‘I don’t know, My Lord. Only a unicorn passed me out there, in my world, and I knew I had to follow it.’
‘And how did you know it came this way?’
‘I sensed it. I can see its track, even as we speak. It passed here a little while ago, and has moved on into the woods. May I follow it?’
The king paused, thinking.
‘As I said, it is not for me to give or withhold permission. I do not own the land, and no one owns a unicorn. Yet what you seek is most dangerous. You cannot understand the nature of your peril.’
‘I don’t know about peril, My Lord. I only know what I have seen, and what I must do.’
‘You are brave beyond thought, then. Follow your unicorn. But do not look into its eyes, and do not speak to it. If you do you will be lost, and will never return to the lands you know.’
‘How will I learn, if I don’t speak to it?’
‘I do not think you will need to speak. And you have learnt much already. You have learnt to recognise a unicorn, and you have a ring which has brought you into Faërie. Few mortals in all your history can say as much. Many have travelled here over the centuries, but whether they found what they sought I do not know. My thoughts will go with you as you journey.’
Melody smiled uncertainly, and thanked him. Then she turned away, following the unicorn’s track as it wound among the trees. Behind her the grass watched and the trees leant aside a little, but the king remained motionless long after she’d gone.
For a measureless time Melody walked among the trees, certain of her path, although there was none on the ground. Most of the trees were types she recognised, but here and there were unfamiliar species, slender and graceful with soft shimmering leaves. She would have loved to pause, to linger among the enchantments and examine these strange woods, but she sensed that if she did she might never return to the fields she knew; or if she did, a thousand years would have passed and her world would be in ashes. She walked on, alive to the unicorn’s track and shielding her mind from the temptations around her. Many creatures came to stare at her with wide eyes and wondering gazes, but she ignored them and held to the thread which took her ever deeper into the forest.
She was so intent on her purpose that to start with she didn’t realise she was being followed. She was walking in a glade, rejoicing in the way that the sunlight dappled through leaves of trees that were like those of home, but subtly different. The grass still leant in towards her and then sprang back, but she was growing used to that. It was the alarm call of a bird like a blackbird that alerted her. At home that would mean the presence of a predator, or a cat, and she stopped and looked around to see if she could determine what had drawn the bird’s attention.
Half hidden in the shadow of a tree, perhaps thirty feet behind her, was a boy. Melody looked at him curiously. She didn’t feel any fear, or apprehension. She simply wondered who he was, and how he had got there, and whether he was deliberately following her or just happened to be in that place.
‘Hello,’ she said, as he showed no sign of moving towards her. He stood there, watchful, and remained absolutely still.
‘Hello,’ she said again, encouragingly. ‘Who are you? I’m Melody.’
Did a faint smile cross his face, or was it a shadow as the branches swayed above him in the gentle breeze? He waited a moment longer and then, seeming to come to a decision, walked out into the glade.
Melody saw at once that he wasn’t a boy. He wasn’t somebody who had strayed into Faërie by chance, or entered it deliberately as she had done. He lived here. He was a fey. The resemblance to the king was obvious, even though he looked like a child. She couldn’t guess his age, but if he’d been human she would have thought he was nine or ten. His short and stocky body was topped by a head that was large by comparison, with sharp features: intelligent eyes set close together, a pointed nose, a small slit for a mouth. His whole face was angular in contrast to her own, his eyes were a weird greenish colour, and his mop of unruly hair was deep, chestnut brown, nothing like hers. But the hair wasn’t long enough to cover his ears, and it was their appearance that struck her most forcibly. They were slightly pointed at the top. As with the birds and the trees, it was as if she was looking at familiar species, but all of them were slightly but noticeably different. He was part of this Otherworld, she was sure of that.
‘Hello,’ she said for the third time. ‘Were you following me, or did you just happen to come this way?’
When he spoke, his reply didn’t make any sense to her. ‘Nobody ever ‘happens’ to go anywhere here. Didn’t the king tell you that?’ He wasn’t being rude, but Melody was surprised by the abruptness of his speech. He had a pleasant, light voice, and s
he hoped he would be friendly.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘I don’t understand what you mean. And how did you know I’d seen the king?’
‘Everybody sees the king. It’s obvious that you’re new to Faërie, so he would have greeted you as soon as you crossed the border. He did, didn’t he?’
Melody was puzzled. ‘Yes, he did. But how did he know I was coming? I didn’t know myself until seconds before.’
The boy did smile then. ‘He doesn’t need to know in advance. He senses as soon as somebody new arrives, and so he came to meet you.’
‘But how could he know where I’d come in? Faërie must be huge, and that can’t be the only entrance.’
The boy’s reply confused Melody even more. ‘Faërie may be huge but it’s small as well.’
Melody wasn’t sure if he was making fun of her, or just trying to baffle her. ‘That doesn’t make sense.’
‘It does when you know how things work here. Didn’t the king explain?’
‘No. Not at all. He just said I was welcome here.’
‘How strange. He didn’t tell you about following your own desires?’
‘No.’
‘Well, that’s how you find your way around. There are no directions here. There’s only towards. Here all that matters is what you desire, and so a direction is always towards.’
‘What if you change direction?’
‘You can’t. If you were to change direction, it would only mean that you’d changed the object of your desire. You would want something else more than you wanted the original thing, so you would still be travelling towards.’
Melody tried to understand what he was saying. She could see a kind of logic to it, but she couldn’t see how it related to his previous remark.
‘Why did you say that Faërie is both big and small?’
‘Because it depends on what happens to you as you pursue your purpose. If you can keep directly to your task your objective may not be far away. But if you get distracted, or if the desires of other creatures interfere with yours, you may wander for ages and never reach your goal.’
‘So how do people meet? I wasn’t travelling towards the king, or towards you.’
‘No, but the king had decided to meet you, and as his is the strongest will, of course he met you very easily, and very quickly. I wasn’t looking for you, but when I saw you I knew what you were and decided to follow you immediately. When you looked back, it was obvious that we were destined to meet.’
‘But not everything’s ruled by destiny, is it?’
‘Not exactly. But very little is ruled by chance, either. I don’t think it’s an accident we’ve met. Although I don’t know why it’s happened. Perhaps I’m meant to go with you.’
Melody eyed him uneasily. She wasn’t at all sure about that, and she was finding the situation perplexing. It had all been so clear before she’d crossed the boundary into this Otherworld, but since her arrival she’d already been distracted by two encounters she hadn’t anticipated or looked for. If the boy was right, she could be deflected from her purpose again and again.
‘I don’t know. I’m not sure that’s a good idea. What’s your name?’
The faint smile that Melody thought she had detected earlier was definitely there now. ‘I don’t have a name. Does that surprise you?’
‘Of course it does. Everybody has names. I’m Melody, like I told you. What’s yours?’
The grin grew broader. ‘No, really. We don’t have names here. That’s another difference between your world and ours. But if you like you can call me Erec.’
‘Erec? That’s a weird name. Where did it come from, if you don’t have names?’
Erec shrugged. ‘It’s a long story. Do you want to stay here for hours and listen to the whole thing, or do you have other business to attend to?’
His words reminded Melody of her purpose. ‘No, I want to get on. I’m in a hurry.’
‘A hurry? That’s another strange word. If you know what you want, you just go to it. You can’t just be in ‘a hurry’ about nothing. You’ve got to be absolutely sure what you want to travel towards.
‘Well, that’s easy, because I know exactly what I’m travelling towards.’
‘What’s that?’
‘A unicorn.’
Erec stared at her. For the first time, she felt she had him at a disadvantage. He had been so sure of himself, distracting her and confusing her with these strange rules about Faërie, which were all so unfamiliar to her. Now she had confounded him.
‘You see?’ she said, with a touch of smugness in her voice. ‘I do know what I’m doing, and where I’m going. I don’t need any of this ‘desire’ stuff. I’m just following the unicorn’s track. It’s a straight line.’
‘What track?’
‘There!’ Melody pointed ahead. There weren’t any physical marks, but she could detect the path that the unicorn had taken as if it had been painted on the ground. ‘Can’t you see?’
‘No,’ said Erec, and shook his head. He sounded sad. ‘I’ve never seen a unicorn. I’ve always wanted to, but I never have. How do you know where it’s been?’
‘I saw it, back in my own world. Then I simply followed it here.’
Erec was amazed. ‘Really? You saw one? And not even in Faërie? I wonder what it was doing. I didn’t know unicorns went into your world. Oh, I wish I could see it.’
He sounded so sincere and so sorry about having missed it that Melody took pity on him. It occurred to her that Erec might be a useful companion, at least for a while. He was a fey, a native of Faërie, and would be able to tell her more about this world, even if she didn’t need him to guide her towards the unicorn. In that regard, she would be the leader. She was cautious, however. All the stories she’d ever heard told that that feys were tricksy, and enjoyed fooling human beings. She hadn’t had that feeling about the king, though, and Erec sounded sincere enough. She would keep a sharp eye out in case he proved awkward.
‘Well, you can come with me if you like. I don’t know what’ll happen when we find it, but you can come along and discover.’
‘Oh, may I?’ said Erec, and he sounded so like an ordinary little boy that Melody smiled. It made him seem completely human, not some alien creature that she’d encountered.
‘Yes, all right. But is it that simple? Weren’t you on the way somewhere else?’
‘It is that simple. I want to go with you. That’s become my desire. So I follow you, unless something else interferes.’
Melody was doubtful, but didn’t want to argue. It sounded a haphazard way of proceeding, and as if he might leave her as soon as something more interesting turned up. Perhaps he would. She’d leave that to chance.
‘OK then, let’s go.’
Clíodhna
Melody led the way, following the straight track of the unicorn that only she could sense. Their path led them through a wood, and Melody paused to examine the trees. They were mainly oaks, but not any species she recognised. She knew that species tended to vary between countries, and she wondered whether that was the case here, that entering Faërie was like travelling to another continent. It was a comforting thought because it made her adventure seem less daunting. The woodland birds were similar too, and she could hear songs that must be some kind of finch, and she thought she saw the bright colours of a jay flashing among the branches.
As they walked on they chatted, and Melody found Erec to be a charming and entertaining companion. He wasn’t at all like Tamar, and she thought it was odd that she could be more relaxed with this new friend, who wasn’t even human. They discussed all the differences they could think of between Faërie and her own world, and were both amazed at what was familiar and what was totally alien. The feys were few in number and lived in small groups, he told her. They didn’t have permanent homes, although they built shelters when they needed to, particularly during the winter. They had seasons like hers, but years didn’t mean anything to him. She couldn’t find out how old he
was, although he was evidently a young fey. Erec didn’t seem to find that puzzling, or interesting.
The same happened when they tried to deal with other numbers. Melody made a brief attempt to describe London, but none of it made any sense to Erec, and when she said millions of people lived there he looked blank.
‘What’s ‘millions’?’
‘A huge number. Hundreds and hundreds of thousands. Like the number of leaves on a tree.’
Erec looked up happily at the oak-like tree they were passing. ‘Oh, you mean lots.’
Melody didn’t argue, because she saw that the idea didn’t convey anything to him. Small numbers were OK, but anything beyond that was meaningless. The fey numbering system appeared to go – one up to ten, twentyish, lots. It was things like that which made her understand how truly alien he was.
The feys were mainly vegetarian, she discovered. They gathered food from the forests and the meadows. Fruit formed a large part of their diet, and this was what they ate as they walked along. There were bushes dotted here and there covered in large fruits that looked like plums but tasted like blueberries. They were slightly sour, but refreshing and surprisingly filling. They satisfied her thirst too, although they also stopped to drink from a clear stream that crossed their path.
As they continued she tried to make more sense of what Erec had said about directions and encounters.
‘So did you see the king too?’
‘No. I didn’t want to meet him, so I didn’t. My path avoided his, and then I saw you.’
‘What’s wrong with the king? He was perfectly kind to me, and not at all fierce, although I did find him rather overwhelming.’
‘Exactly. Overwhelming. You’ve got it. If I’d met him he would have overwhelmed me. He would want to know where I’d come from, where I was going, and he would have changed my desires so that they suited his own purposes. I didn’t want that.’
‘I think I understand. He realised how important it is for me to find the unicorn, and so he let me get on with it. If he’d wanted something else, though, he might have been hard to resist. But you said you chose to avoid him. What if he’d chosen to meet you?’