“I am sorry to have had to lie to all of you but it was necessary. When Beowulf defeated me I realised that I was wrong in my outlook so I walked away from that life. When the winds of fate whispered to White that he was to die he placed me into the dagger for this very moment.”
“But you’re White, aren’t you?”
“Yes and no. White was a part of me, a living mask imbued with part of my personality. He was, in a way, my child. I am sorry, I do not know how else to explain it.” He turned to the king and queen. Your Graces, I believe there were negotiations about to be discussed.”
“Not without us you do not,” came a booming voice.
Jenny turned with the rest of the Court. Standing in the huge open doors loomed two very large figures. They were a constant shifting mass of animals and plant features. Their crowns shifted from horns to antlers to branches.
“The king and queen of the Summer Court, but do not ask me which one’s which,” Softy whispered in Jenny’s ear.
Jenny understood what he meant. As she looked their sexuality shifted, the male becoming female and the female becoming male.
“Brother sister, why did you not let us know you were coming? We could have prepared a proper welcome for you. As it is I am afraid you have caught us in the middle of important Court business. Business before pleasure, no? If you will follow our domo he will show you to comfortable quarters. We will attend to you as soon as is possible,” purred the king in what sounded polite but also felt like he was raking you with his claws.
“Nice try, brother, but you cannot so easily brush us aside. You used one of your shadowy assassins to steal a human child, therefore causing the ambassador to rashly attempt to bargain with you. You did this in the hope you could corrupt him back to your side as of old. Do you deny any of this?” boomed one of the two currently Summer Kings.
“Why should we deny anything? Of course we did so. He was doing no good where he was. Our people are being slowly poisoned, the land destroyed. All of this is the humans’ fault. We need our greatest warrior back. Do not deny that part of you does not wish the humans put back in their place. They are far too many and far too few of us. Our kind would not survive a war with them.”
“Did not you have enough death of our people the last time?” growled both the Summer King and Queen together.
“May I please speak, your Graces,” came White-Grendel’s sibilant whisper. No word came so he continued, “Firstly, since the Graces of the Summer Court are here on foreign territory I suggest that we continue this discussion on more neutral ground.”
He let out a strange low sibilant growl. It was like a serpentine lion roaring, if you can imagine that. His shadow moved by itself and reached out to wrap around Jenny, Softy and two kings and queens. The world lurched in a way that Jenny was becoming familiar with. Herself, Softy, the two kings and queens and White-Grendel were no longer in the ice cave. They were in what seemed to be some kind of wood lined study. There was a large round wooden table in the centre of the room. It looked very old. Placed around it were wooden chairs.
“Are we back in the club?”
“No, we are not. Come here and I will show you,” called this strange creature that was White and was not White.
Jenny and Softy walked over to the wall to ceiling window.
“Look up.”
They did so. At first Jenny could not make anything out but then she could decipher what she was looking at. She was looking up through tree branches. On one branch rose a fortress carved from wood.
“Why would someone carve a castle on a tree?”
“To live in.”
“What do you mean, tiny fey or something?”
“Look down and you will understand.”
It sang-hissed and stroked the floor to ceiling window. Rather than open the window bulged out, forming a kind of balcony. Jenny was reluctant to put her weight on the glass but when she saw that it supported White-Grendel she stepped onto it and looked down through the transparent floor. Below them was a wooden wall that dropped down, going on forever.
“I can see something very, very far down but I cannot make it out.”
The Grendel thing sang another strange song. The window-balcony shimmered and what they were looking at became clearer as if magnified.
“They’re roots. We are in a tree.”
“Not just any tree, Ygdrasil, the world tree.”
“What?”
Suddenly something moved in front of the window-balcony, something icy blue, as big as a planet.
“It’s an eye?”
They felt that if that eye saw them the world would end. The window-balcony sprang back into a window shape and then was gone as if it had never been. The three of them were thrown a short way across the room.
As Jenny lay there, the wind knocked out of her, she saw that rather than falling to the floor like herself and Softy, White-Grendel landed on its feet like a cat.
“All the old powers are returning to me,” it hissed under its breath.
Because Softy was closer it pulled him to his feet first and manoeuvred him to sit down in one of the chairs. Then it came over and picked Jenny off the floor and carried her one handed and placed her in one of the chairs.
Despite being made of wood they were unnaturally comfortable.
“What was that?”
“Nithog, the winter dragon. He gnaws on Ygdrasil. Do not worry, it did not see us,” reassured White-Grendel, stroking Jenny’s shoulder comfortingly.
It turned and strode towards the round table where the kings and queens stood either side, glaring at each other.
“What gives you the hubris to carve a home out of the holy tree?” snarled the Winter King without taking his eyes away from his counterparts.
“I did not harm the great one, you know me better than that. Or at least you used to. I only found this place when I left your service. It sang to me. It called to me in a dream. All I know is that when I woke I found myself here. Now, enough arguing. Can we please sit down and talk like highly evolved and reasonable beings?” There was a bitterness and sarcasm in his voice that made Jenny’s blood run cold.
He sang another of those serpent songs and two of the chairs reshaped themselves into low platforms that the tigers could lie on. White-Grendel sat down. Without speaking the others also sat.
“I see both sides of your arguments. I believe a compromise is possible. I agree that the humans have to be checked, but the times when I could go on my rampages are gone. I will return as your knight of old, but it will have to be more secret assassinations of humans or groups isolated from the main herd. I will help, but it must be more secretly than before. This should be acceptable to both sides. Is this acceptable?”
“I suppose,” accepted the Winter King in a grudging tone rather than glad agreement. “What guarantee do we have that you or your masters will not endanger the great glamour?”
“You question our honour? I swear upon my true name that will not happen.” As he spoke there seemed to be an echo in his voice and the very walls vibrated. “I also swear by my true name that there will be a replacement ambassador.”
“Who?”
“You will have to leave that to me. I promise they will be worthy.”
“That seems acceptable. We wish to leave now.”
“Of course, your Graces.” He sang another song and a door in the air opened behind them. Bright sunlight blazed into the dimly lit room, the smell of hay and fragrant flowers lingering after the door had shut.
“We also wish to leave. We are eager for you to restart your old work.”
“Of course, but first there’s just the little matter of the stolen human child.”
“What about it? Oh, you want to eat it, do you?”
“I gave my word that it would be returned to her.”
Both tigers gazed at Jenny. She could feel her skin going cold. Ice started to form around her.
“You should slay them both.”
W
hite-Grendel stepped in front of Jenny. The air began to warm again. Softy wrapped her in his warm hug.
White-Grendel reached out and roughly grabbed her left wrist and held up her palm. “I have taken her under my protection. I gave her my word. If I break my word with her my word with you will also break.”
The conviction in his voice made Jenny understand that he was talking about more than just a promise of words.
“Very well, you may have the brat, but you will owe Shadow a prey in repayment.”
“I accept, me lady. With your leave I will see to my supporters and set my affairs in order. I need to return to my old hiding hole. There are maps and treasures there that will help me. I promise the time wasted will be to your benefit. In fact, I promise that I will return with many kills.”
The relish in his voice when he spoke of kills scared Jenny as much as the eye in the window.
“Very well, you have until the next moon rise. Now return us to our throne room.”
Another door opened. As the icy cold wind blowing through the door was cut off Jenny caught a last glance from the Winter Queen. It was as stabbing as an icicle. It said, I will have my revenge.
That serpent song rose again. White-Grendel’s shadow rose and opened up into a swirling door like a black hole. Jenny was not sure she wanted to go through it but before she could step back it swirled towards her like a tornado and swallowed her.
The Ambassador
The darkness was complete. There was no up. No down. She could not see anything. She could not feel anything around her except one thing. The only thing keeping her from going mad was the tight, warm, rough embrace of Softy.
Then abruptly the blackness was torn aside. Suddenly there was ground under her where there had been none. She staggered.
“Here, sit here and regain your breath,” came White-Grendel’s whisper near her ear.
Jenny was lowered into a chair. Despite the comfortable padding and seeming solidness the world was still moving. Then she realised that was because she was sitting back in White’s apartment in his rocking chair.
Jenny looked around her. After all she had been through it was strange and reassuring to see a somewhat normal room. Softy looked strange standing next to her, his muscles taut under brown bark like skin, but nothing was a more reassuring sight to Jenny.
Then she looked around fearfully for Grendel. The shadows in the corner of the room next to her moved and it was crouching there.
A heavy bundle was laid in her lap. Jenny only meant to flit her eyes down for just long enough to see what it was, and then stare back at this creature she had thought she had known but was now very afraid of. Once her eyes fell on what was in her lap she could not look away.
Peter.
Tears running down her cheeks she crushed him to her chest. He was wrapped in a raggedy but comforting woollen blanket, faded to white. She shook him but he did not stir.
“Why is not he waking? Why is his hand bandaged?”
He is under a very light enchantment to keep him asleep. He will wake in a couple of hours. I thought that was the best way to bring him. He has little understanding of where he was and who he was with. I thought it best to put him to sleep rather than let him see the portals. I am sorry, but I also decided that the best way to stop anything like this happening again was to place him under my protection as I did you. I am sorry if this upsets you. does it?” he asked with deep sincerity and sadness in those strange eyes.
For just that moment she saw White again under the monster. “I would have wished it some other way, but if this is the only way? Then no, I am not angry.”
“Good. I do not want our final parting to be an angry one.”
“Last time?”
“You only knew the nice side of me. From now on I am not going to be safe to be around. You do not know me like this. Already I can feel the uncontrollable hunger and thirst for human flesh and blood.” As he spoke his long forked tongue licked across multiple sharp fangs that Jenny could swear had grown in just the few moments they had been talking. Jenny pulled Peter even closer to her.
“I only came back to keep my promise to you that I would get Peter back and try to sort out a replacement for the ambassador.”
“Who are you going to get?”
Grendel closed those blacker than black eyes. Then it reached behind its back with its only arm and grasped something behind it. From within its shadow it pulled something from around its shoulders that had not been there moments ago. It held it out towards Softy. It was a grey cloak with the two entwined trees emblem on it. It offered it to Softy.
“Me? You want me to where the ambassador’s mantle?” Softy’s face went slack with shock.
“I would ask Jenny if I could, but our people will never accept a human ambassador.”
“I mean no offence, but I do not want this. I have never wanted it.”
“That’s why it must be you. Those who do not seek power are the best to be given it. You’re the sweetest, kindest being I have ever met. I can think of no one better suited.”
“But I know you have had to sometimes use violence to persuade. I cannot do that. I am sorry but I cannot.”
“I have returned Dawn and Gentle to their home. They have agreed to help you if you accept. Please, old friend, we both know that if there is not an ambassador all the little people will be squashed by the Courts. Please do not let all my hard work be ruined. Do not let me ruin it. Jenny can help you unofficially, can’t you?”
In shock, all she could do was nod.
“You can use this apartment for your base. There is a portal to the club in the flower room. Please, my friend. I know this is a huge thing to ask but I do not have anyone else to ask.”
Those strange eyes burnt in the darkness of the being's face. Softy stepped forward and reached for the cloak.
The black taloned hand grasped Softy’s. “Do you accept the responsibility of the ambassador of the fey?”
“I do.”
“You swear by your true name?”
“I swear,” answered Softy with a quiver in his voice.
Grendel placed the cloak around Softy’s shoulders and fastened the clasp which was in the shape of a tree. Then Grendel once again pulled out of its shadow a mask which it placed over Softy’s face.
“So that you can continue my work to heal the rift between fey and humans.”
As he placed it on Softy’s face his form blurred and changed. His skin softened, changing from hard bark to soft skin. The green mottling disappeared. His claws were nails and his fangs were now teeth. He looked like a very handsome, fit, normal man.
“It’s only a glamour, stare through it, Amazon.”
She did so, and there was Softy again.
“I wish you good luck and hope that I will never see any of you again.”
With that it hissed-sang and stepped back into its own shadow and was gone.
About the Author
Adam Boustead is a blind author living in Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, UK. This is his first long work. He has written three short story collections: Dragon Fireside Tails, Amber and Black Dragon, and four poetry collections, Mist Palace Halls one and two, and two fantasy poetry collections, Dragon Song and co-authored with his brother Christian Boustead Wizard Bound. He has also been very lucky to have one of his stories accepted in the Books Go Social awesome anthology Vizions of the Future.
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