by O. J. Lowe
Two.
Sometimes I think about the boy I once was, back to the nights growing up in Stoller’s Shanty in the Novisarium, a place so rough even the dogs walked around in packs and believe me, I don’t say that lightly. They needed to. Any hound in a pack numbered less than three was in danger of being eaten by vagrants. I should know, I was one of them. I had nothing, less than nothing if the truth be told and that was just the way it was. I’d grown up with something, guess I lost it.
My fault? Perhaps. It usually is. Nobody ever sets out to be homeless, to live rough and experience nights on the streets, especially in the Novisarium where the dividing line between the haves and have-nots feels closer than ever. It’s that sort of city, the city between cities if the truth be told, the sort of place where excess and vulgarity go to live a charmed second life. Every bit of every city across every dimension has had a door to here at some point or another, some of their worst bits broke off and fell into it.
It also became a jail for every single supernatural being in known creation, a melting pot for them to get along nicely. That’s the theory anyway. Throw them all together, see what happens, like a chemical reaction. As long as they’re out of the way, it gives humanity a chance to develop, to do stuff under their own steam without the influence of supernatural overlords controlling their every move and whim.
What does that mean for those of us who aren’t blessed with magical abilities or shapeshifting powers or have the benefit of a benefactor? Absolutely fuck all is the truth, we’re second class citizens of the highest order. Normal humans have no place in the Novisarium, they come for the sin and stay because the city broke them, didn’t let them leave when they had the chance. And nothing gets worn out quicker than a welcome when you can’t pay your way.
Did that happen to me? You betcha it did.
Well, it goes something like this. Once upon a time there was a man named Donald Frazer and he thought he was a top fucking dog. He hailed from the real world, the world beyond the city between cities, a man who thought the tables favoured him. He thought he was a legend, just simply because he was the sort of man who if he saw two flies climbing up a wall, he’d bet on which one of them would make it first. Big spender, not all of the money his. It’s the sort of attitude that doesn’t make you many friends, at least not in the long term. He had to do a rapid runner to keep his kneecaps in the place nature intended them to, wound up in the Novisarium as a means of escaping the mob.
You could argue that he made a bit of a minor miscalculation. In the world outside, he might have been hot shit. In the Novisarium, he made the rather rapid discovery that it’s even crueller and harsher than anywhere else when losing money is concerned, that a fool doesn’t keep what they have for very long. He wandered into the biggest casino in the city, the Lucky Dragon, asked for credit, offered up his damn soul for it. Don’t think he ever believed in it, couldn’t lose what you didn’t believe in, right?
Wrong.
The strange thing was, he won when he first got the Novisarium. Got his soul back and then some. Even hooked up with a stream of cocktail waitresses, one of whom ended up with me. Yeah, I know what you’re thinking. Don Frazer sounds a stand-up guy, right? Father of the year material? Pfft. And as the saying goes, what goes up has to come down. Everything that has a beginning has an end. The winning didn’t last. Some said that it only lasted as long as it did because the casino was fattening him up for the kill, lulling him into a false sense of his own invincibility. When you believe you can’t lose, the bitter pill of defeat tastes even worse. And there’s some that get off on that feeling of despair. When he lost, he lost bad, not just his money, his possessions, his soul, he gave up my mother’s as well.
Funny twist, the Lucky Dragon is actually owned by exiled fae. Weird coincidence, right? They’ll trade anything they can, being honest. Someone once told me that demons don’t place as much of a premium on human souls as believed, but there are those out there who still view them a good form of currency.
About the only saving grace was that he couldn’t put me up as collateral. But it didn’t bode well, I was a fucking child who suddenly ended up with nothing. Okay, we didn’t have much before, but something is better than nothing, apart from mild heart failure. I kicked around on the streets of Stoller’s Shanty for a good ten years and then my life changed.
“I don’t like this.”
Was that concern I caught in Elionora’s voice as she stared at me, watched me check my sword over with a sort of fascinated revulsion. The iron does that. It’s like a child staring at the fire, wanting to touch it and yet knowing at the same time it’ll burn them. Part of them can’t resist.
“I’m pretty sure I’m not supposed to either,” I said, giving her a grin. “But Queen Leanna will do what Queen Leanna does. She calls the shots, right?”
“She’s going to put you in front of a firing squad?” Her eyes went wide with shock, I didn’t doubt her concern for what it was. If I was put to death, she’d probably be close behind for aiding me.
Sometimes the fae don’t get human expressions. It’s the cause of much amusement. You know, when I’m not being sent on suicide missions.
“I don’t want you to go out there and not come back,” she said, her eyes wide. “The things from the Untamed Lands are—”
“Vicious, vile killers of the highest order,” I replied. “I know, I know. And you think I’ve gone soft hanging around here eating grapes?”
“I think you underestimate them,” she said. “You cannot hope to tackle these things and live.”
“I helped kill one of the andah recently,” I admitted, her brow shot up in surprise at that revelation. The andah are huge, ape-like beasts, desperately hard to kill, but I’d put one down. Well, Libby had. I’d helped. A lot. “It can’t be worse than that.”
“The andah are dangerous,” she mused. “Perhaps you are ready for this.”
“I trained long and hard to be ready for this role, Ellie,” I said, giving her a smile, moved over and kissed her on the forehead, her bark-like skin rough against my lips. “I take it very seriously. Anything out there that wants to kill me is going to have to be nastier than me.”
“And you think that doesn’t happen? You know what they call you?”
“All sorts of insults I imagine, that means I’m doing my job right.”
“They think you’re too soft for the job of enforcing the will of the queen. Some of them heard how the exiled fae got the drop on you at the den of iniquity.”
“It was a casino, Ellie. And it wasn’t that simple.”
“It doesn’t matter, and it doesn’t matter,” she said. “If it happened once, it can happen again. You need to be better.”
“They were punished,” I said. “Retribution was taken. Wan-King-Sung lost his prize sword for that attempt.”
“Rumour has it a mortal interceded on your behalf.”
“Yes well, friends are important.”
She cocked her head, gave me a bemused look. Too late I remembered the fae didn’t have a word for friend in their language. There were allies and there were co-conspirators, but actual friends? Nope. Nothing. Nada. Not a sausage. “An ally I have strong personal connections with,” I explained.
“And what did you offer them in exchange?” See, they never get this idea out of their head of nothing for nothing, that in order to do something for someone you need to get something of equal or greater value from them beforehand. Hey, maybe they’ve got the right idea, maybe humans are the ones who are dumb enough to make friendships and offer it all up without reward.
Or maybe, that’s just me spending too damn long in this place. If I said I hadn’t offered her anything though, I’d look weak or strange.
“Helped her kill the andah,” I said. “And killed a hydra for her.”
“Seems to me that she got much the better out of that deal.” She might only have been a wood nymph, but the look of disapproval on Elionora’s face was palpable.
“I value my life very highly,” I said. “I can’t put a price on it.”
“What’s a hydra?”
“Beast from the Greek pantheon,” I explained. “Many heads. Cut one off, two more will take its place.”
“Sounds impractical.”
Well, she was right.
“If you’re that worried, you fancy coming with?” I asked.
“What’s in it for me?” Even there, straightaway, no hint of hesitation. I’d asked her to do something outside her original parameters and she’d immediately wondered how it could benefit her. Just because they looked vaguely human, it didn’t mean they were. Your average fae has more in common with a toaster when it comes to human ethics and decency.
“Alleviating your worry that I might get hurt or killed,” I said with a smile. “Just a thought.”
She hesitated for the first time, skittered on the spot as if debating whether to follow me or not, finally she let her legs give out beneath her, dropped into a seated position. “Sorry,” she said.
“Think nothing of it,” I said. “I didn’t know if you’d do it because you wanted to or not.”
Her look of bemusement genuinely threatened to break my heart, I forced myself to brush it off and move towards the exit. “I’ll see you when I see you, Ellie. Don’t miss me too much.”
“Farewell, Sir Knight. I hope you return, but I’m already preparing for the worst.”
“Have a little faith,” I winked at her. “I got this.”
“I await the chance to see whether you are right or not, or whether that confidence is horrifically misplaced.”
On the surface, you wouldn’t think High Hall is a big place. I mean the city itself is grand, the sort of place that rivals the Novisarium for sheer scale and grandeur, if perhaps in a different way. Whereas the Novisarium looks like what it is, a thousand different cities jumbled together in a big smoky, neon mess, the main city of High Hall still had an old-world rustic about it that I imagined didn’t exist anywhere touched by humans. Their towers were made of silver and bronze rather than stone and steel, the streets thick with the scent of magic rather than fumes. No smoke, the air clean, the inhabitants marginally more pleasant. Some rode carriages pulled by various beasts enslaved to the will of their masters, the more exotic the better. Some had summoned them through their own use of beastmancy, others had broken the native creatures to their will, eight-legged horses, giant rams with jewelled horns and even oxen that shit sticky gold nuggets. There were less people living here too, the streets not as cramped, enough room for those passing each other by to ignore those they didn’t particularly like which happened more than you might think. Slums didn’t exist in High Hall; they’d long decided that anyone too destitute to live in the city could either fuck off to the Novisarium or live in the woods beyond the walls that surrounded the city.
It’s a strange scenario really, considering these folks once did live in the trees, they now look down on those that do. And there is an awful lot of forest surrounding the city. It’s the same as the Novisarium in that respect, the genuine difference being that at least in the sunlight, you can appreciate the greens of the forest. Once you leave the forest though, you end up on the Silent Plains, an endless expanse of long green grass and beds of innocuous-looking yellow flowers for as far as the eye can see. Sometimes you might spot a patch of red, remnants of some horrific act of violence or another, but before you can fixate too much on it, it’s gone, sucked down by the very soil beneath it.
The further you go across the plains, the closer you get to the borders, to the Untamed Lands, to Andah, someone even told me there’s a road to Asgard here if you know where to look, but I’ve never seen it. Shame. I’d love to go have a beer with Thor. Assuming he’s in Asgard anyway, some gods are, some choose to give up their godly mantles in order to live in the Novisarium as mortals. They’re under the impression that it’s a more fulfilling existence though I don’t have a buggering clue who gave them that idea. I mean, you’d think being godly would have more about it than those who have it wanting to give it up first chance they get.
I don’t know. Maybe it’s not all that it’s cracked up to be. I know being mortal isn’t. While I’m Queen Leanna’s knight, I do get the benefit of ageing more slowly. It’s not been switched off completely. I’ve looked mid-twenties for about ten years now. I think. Time doesn’t function in the same way in here as it does out there and it’s never in the same way. I’ve given up trying to work it out. That’s why mortals don’t normally come here. You pop in for five minutes, come back out and a dozen years have passed. Plus, there’s always a good welcoming from the locals. I know one portal comes out near someone all but the most hardened fae avoid, a very old, disturbed individual known as the Chewer. He made that nest a long time ago, largely to snare travellers from the Novisarium. He eats human entrails, can make one long string of intestines last a good year or so. Sometimes he hangs the skins up to decorate his clearing, paints them with the blood of his victims, some quite intricate designs. Strange that so much beauty can come out of death. It’s more appealing than modern art, I know that much.
I once needed to have a chat with him, I wouldn’t do it again without an express order from the queen. When I say that he’s disturbed, I’m not exaggerating. Those eyes are dead, the lights are on but there’s nobody home, any hint of compassion snuffed out the way you’d extinguish a candle flame. Don’t get me wrong, most fae couldn’t give a shit about human suffering, save maybe to enjoy a quick fondle of their private parts at the sight of it, but the Chewer couldn’t even bring himself to do that. Not so much sadistic as emotionally disconnected entirely.
Enough about the Chewer. Not when I had those bastards from the Untamed Lands to worry about.
Three.
Did the young me ever dream he’d be in this position one day? I wasn’t sure. Looking back, I think I’d have been happy with a lot less than I’d ended up with. An estate in High Hall. A servant. An emotionally satisfying job. More wealth than I guessed I could ever spend, not that the High Hall economy ran on cash. They wouldn’t dare dream of running their economy on something as vulgar as paper money. Gems are always good. You can get a surprising amount of services rendered for a bag of diamonds. And the exchange rate is always exceptional back in the Novisarium when I return home. Magic is better. Some of them have these little injector things that can siphon natural magic out of a donor. Think they’re banned outside High Hall, the reason you never see them in the Novisarium.
Just on a side note. I went back to that slum in Stoller’s Shanty where I’d spent most of my childhood once. They’d burned it down. Can’t say I’m surprised. They always say never go back, it doesn’t just apply to old girlfriends and things that you used to think fondly of. Never again. The only time I’d hit the Shanty these days is to go to Kongo, the best bar in the Novisarium. Plus, it has a treasured memory of my throwdown with an andah. Even if Libby helped.
The only money that ever came to the Shanty back in the day was dodgy, stolen or downright dirty, the sort of coin you give to people to do the jobs nobody else would. They conscripted the children into factories, I cleaned machinery at a Santiago Industries plant, was lucky not to lose a finger or two. If I did, there was no way in any known hell I was having it fixed. At the end of the day, they’d kick us all out, some of the kinder workers might toss us coins and watch us scrap over them, teeth were broken, and noses bloodied over those meagre coins. The crueller workers tossed buttons over and, in our frenzy, like hungry piranhas, we went for them in the hope they could buy us something to fill our bellies. Were we good kids? Hell no. We did what we needed to in order to survive through it all and I’d damn well do it again.
Whatever else it taught me, and those lessons were few, it was how to survive through bad circumstances. You learn to sleep with one eye open, to follow your gut, that if something looks unusual, you don’t wander blindly into it.
If only I’d followed tha
t instinct back then, I wouldn’t be here, and probably dead. Now if that wasn’t worth thinking about, I didn’t know what was.
I travelled three days and nights atop the back of a majestic ram, grey-brown fur and the sort of horns that’d take your eyes out if you weren’t careful, they glittered with the tell-tale sparkle of diamond dust. The royal stables specifically bred them for times of war, for the cavalry to use. They considered them superior to horses, I wasn’t going to argue, it wasn’t in my remit to get into pointless debates with so-called experts in their field. I didn’t bother with a saddle, simply rode him bareback. I’d deliberately not named him, the fae considered it a sign of weakness. Hell, half of them didn’t name their children until they’d survived so long. Best not to form attachments you don’t have to, just in case. Sometimes, I can’t think of a sadder way of living, but I suppose you get used to it. Life is cheap out here in High Hall. It can be given; it can be taken away in a heartbeat.
Riding a ram is an unusual experience, not at all like being atop a horse, a lot jerkier and quite crucially, horses don’t have horns. Well, I guess unicorns do, but I’m far too much of a man to ride a unicorn. That’s more a girl thing. I know Libby would freak out if I took one back for her. Mind you, they’re only supposed to be pliable towards virgins, the kinky bastards, and I’m pretty sure that ship sailed for Libby a long damn time ago. I don’t want to use the phrase, ‘banged more times than a shithouse door in a storm’ but…
I digress. Sometimes it’s easy to think about my life outside High Hall and what happens inside it as the acts of two different people. Mortals weren’t meant to live here, it’s only the mantle of Leanna’s knight stopping me from going completely nutty, I reckon. Or maybe thinking of myself as two different people depending on wherever I am is the act of a crazy person. It feels natural, but what do I know? No doubt a therapist would have a field day with me.