by Adam Golden
“No fair!” Meical laughed, swatting playfully at Jogah’s shrunken form. “No flying, that’s the rule.”
Jogah’s human-shaped body shrunk to the size of a humming bird and zipped out of the way of Meical’s half-hearted strike with the same darting effortless quickness. “The rule, as you well know, only applies to the game,” Jogah called as he started buzzing around the boy’s head again, orbiting closer and moving faster than before. “The game ended when you stumbled, blindly and by the sheerest of luck, into me.”
“Luck? Why you . . . I never . . . !” the boy sputtered indignantly as he leapt and tried to snag Jogah out of the air in cupped hands.
“Too slow, boyo,” Jogah called merrily as he zipped behind Meical’s head, his tiny body hanging in the air, apparently completely at ease, as his double set of thin dragonfly wings beat furiously to hold him aloft.
“Meical! Ach! Meical O’Broin, you get yerself movin’ lad! It’s market day!”
Meical spun at the sound of Catriona’s voice and watched the plump, matronly housekeeper bustle toward them, red-faced, with her ever-present, exasperated smile fixed in place. “Come now lad, stop messin’ about with the bugs and such. We’ve got to getcha cleaned up . . .”
Meical waved to indicate that he’d heard and started racing back toward the courtyard.
“Come on, Jogah! Market day. We’re going to town, maybe we’ll see that piper again, or a juggler. Hew Camran said he heard tell of a juggler come down the south road not two weeks back. He might still be about—”
“Go with you? To town?” Jogah asked, snorting a laugh. “Oh, I think not, boyo. After the morning I’ve had fleeing you brutes? I’d just as soon have an afternoon’s peace and quiet in the glade, I think. Besides . . .”
“Pyski-folk don’t like towns or cities. Too many people, too much noise. I know, I know.” Meical said, “You always say that.”
“Full points for memory lad.” Jogah laughed fondly as he dropped to the boy’s shoulder. “You’re a wonderful lot, you humans, but so chaotic and boisterous, and the more of you as gathers together, the worse it gets. It’s like bells.”
That brought the boy up short and he came to a halt, looking at his right shoulder quizzically. “Bells? People are like bells?” he asked
“To a Pyski,” Jogah confirmed, nodding. “See, people vibrate with energy. You can’t feel it or see it, it’s too fast for that, but you do, all the time. The Pyski are sort of . . . tuned to that vibration. We don’t see it, but we can hear the sound it makes. You, my lad, hum with a sort of tinkling trill. Like a little crystal bell always ringing just in earshot.” Jogah smiled as the boy’s face screwed up into a look of concentration as he tried to hear the sound his friend described. “Point is, everyone’s vibration, their bell, is a little different. Imagine being in a room the size of Killyleagh village and imagine the room filled with hundreds and hundreds of bells, all ringing their own rings in their own rhythms, all the time. Quite a clamor, wouldn’t you think?”
“But the stories say . . .” Meical started and yelped as Jogah tweaked his ear.
“The stories! Pah! Nonsense babbled by old biddies too blind to find their hats, more often than not. Now stop troubling me and hop lad.” Meical opened his mouth to say something else and Jogah flicked his earlobe again, harder this time. “Hop!” he cried as he sprang into the air and stood hovering, watching as the boy raced back toward the low drum shape of the O’Broin tower house with his beagle pup retainers in tow.
* * *
“. . . and then Ailbe Bryse hit him right in the eye! Sent him sprawling right there in the square.” Meical hooted with laughter. “And she’s just a wee thing, she’s only seven! You should have seen Bak’s face. The great dumb stump, eyes wide as moon calf and stammering. Of course, now he’s telling any who’ll listen that the Bryse girl’s a witch, ensorcelled him and all that. He’s being careful not to say so where Goodwife Bryse can hear though. She’d take a strip off him for tanning,” Meical said, his speech devolving into wild laughter again.
“I should think he’d be careful of saying so around young Ailbe as well,” Jogah quipped. “Witchcraft indeed.” He grumped, setting his wings back at an angle for a dive and throwing his shoulders over hard to corkscrew as he fell. “What would that ox of a boy know about magic?” He pulled out of the dive with a hovering somersault and a wide lazy arc, twisting back over his course and spinning in a tight series of loop-de-loop maneuvers. Jogah was allowing the Light to bleed through him just enough to make his flight form shimmer gold in the darkness of the small hillock where Meical and he had wiled away the evening after dinner. The complex pattern of his flight left shimmering traceries of golden light hanging in the air, a series of elaborate designs that melted away to make room for the next. The game was one of their oldest. Jogah had performed this trick over baby Meical’s crib to soothe him to sleep as an infant, and such was the boy’s love of it that it never went away. For his part, the precision and control that the acrobatics required appealed to Jogah’s ego. All Pyski were quick and agile, but he thought not many would do his Light dance trick as well as he.
He spun upward in another rocketing corkscrew and banked right, slightly twisting and twining above the spot where Meical lay, hands behind his head, in the grass of the hillock. The pattern taking shape was one of his more complicated, an elaborate series of entwined Celtic knots.
“Jogah . . . ?” Meical asked in the dreamy, fuzzy voice of a child being lulled.
“Yes, my lad?” the Pyski asked, twisting into a lateral roll.
“Earlier,” the boy asked, his voice taking on a tentative note, “when we were speaking about why you don’t come to town . . . ?”
“I recall,” Jogah said, negotiating a tricky hairpin turn.
“You said Pyski don’t like the clamor we give off, but the stories say—”
“Meical the stories are . . .” Jogah started with a sigh as he came to a halt, hovering in front of the dozy boy’s face.
“I know, I know they’re mostly nonsense, but they can’t all be made up, right? I mean, Ma and Pa say Pyskis aren’t real, they say you’re imaginary. What about Brownies and Goblins and Sprites and Spriggans? Some of them must be real too, mustn’t they? And there are lots of stories of them in cities . . . if they’re all Pyskis.”
“Spriggans are not Pyski.” It came out sharper than Jogah meant it to, sharper than Meical could remember Jogah sounding. In fact, one of the beagle pups dozing at the boy’s side raised its head looking for a threat. Jogah let out a long sigh and summoned the Light. His flight form melted away and he sat on the grass facing his Familiar as a human of his own size.
“You’re right lad, there are others than just Pyski. What I told you about my kind is true, but there are other creatures in the world, and some of them don’t mind the discord of human societies. Some even thrive on it, most of those are Unsaelig.”
“I know that word,” Meical said. “Something one of the tutors said. It means damned or cursed or something, doesn’t it?”
“No, not exactly,” Jogah said. “You humans have gotten many words from the Sidhe tongue over the centuries, but you rarely use them correctly. In Sidhe ‘Unsaelig’ means ‘dark’ . . . but there’s more to it.” The Pyski male paused to consider and then continued, “I suppose it would translate to ‘dark by choice.’ It is used to describe creatures who chose banishment from the Pyski Court rather than agreeing to live by our laws.”
“So, the other Fae creatures are evil then?” Meical asked, all signs of the drowsiness of early gone from his voice.
“Ney lad, most aren’t, though many Unsaelig Fae are troublesome, tricky and unpleasant to those they feel have crossed them. Some have been known to steal, or to trap an innocent in an undesirable bargain, but not often. Mostly they’re just loners and malcontents who give very little trouble if left alone. Most never even know they’re around.”
“What about the Spriggans?” Meical st
arted to ask, but Jogah’s face changed, growing hard, and the boy trailed off.
“Spriggans are dangerous, deceitful and have no honor,” the Pyski said fiercely and then, seeing the wide-eyed concern on his young charge’s face, Jogah forced his own stern visage to soften. “But fear not, there are no Spriggans about. There haven’t been for a very long time. If there were I would know.”
“You would?” Meical asked. “How? How would you know, Jogah?”
Jogah opened his mouth to respond when a loud whistle cut through the dark and removed the need. The two friends both looked back toward the kitchen yard and saw the tall broad shape of Master O’Broin silhouetted in the kitchen door.
“Time for bed my lad,” the Pyski said and raised a small fine-boned hand as a shrill whine started from Meical. “None of that now, your Da will be growin’ impatient. Take your mongrels there and scamper along. Time I was about my own tasks anyway.”
“You always say that, as though I didn’t know you’re the very worst sort of layabout,” Meical said with a laugh.
Jogah gasped melodramatically. “Ach! There’s a rough cut!” he exclaimed. “If you were any more than a smart-mouthed lad, I’d have me satisfaction in the dueling ring, I would.” The boy-shaped Pyski leapt to his feet and executed a comedically overblown parody of fencing parries and ripostes before thrusting his hand forward to jab his friend in the cheek with his index finger. Meical boiled over with laughter, and the sleeping puppies bounded to their feet ready to play.
“In the morning, then?” Meical asked as another long whistle burst from the kitchen doorway.
“With the sun,” Jogah said solemnly, pressing a small hand over his heart.
The boy grinned and then he was gone, bounding through the dark grass, his four-legged minions in pursuit.
Jogah’s boy shape melted away, leaving the tiny humanoid shape of his flight form hovering, watching until the boy passed under his father’s arm and the kitchen door was tightly closed behind.
The Pyski shot upward like a hard-shot arrow, streaking toward the thin wisps of cloud that marred the otherwise brilliant sparkling of a million stars. After a few moments, he pulled back and looked down at the entirety of the O’Broin lands stretched out before him. Jogah gathered the Light to himself and shifted its flow into his eyes. To his Light-enhanced vision, it looked as though the O’Broin lands were ringed around by an elaborate ornamental fence formed of pure white starlight. Hundreds of complex geometric designs, spell glyphs, runes, and wards all entwined in an unbroken chain of magical protection which ran for half a square mile, surrounding Meical’s ancestral home.
The Pyski let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding and then barked an embarrassed laugh at himself. The wards held. Of course they held. The ward net around O’Broin tower hadn’t ever faltered, and there was no reason to expect that it ever would. It was Meical and his talk of Spriggans and Dark Fae; the boy had him jumping at shadows. The war was long over, and the détente held. Jogah shook his head and started to push the Light back out into the Aether.
Wait, no something was wrong. He couldn’t see it immediately, but there was something like an itch in the back of his mind, small but persistent. Carefully, he scanned the ward net again.
There!
One of the smaller glyphs in the northeastern quadrant was dim. It was still intact, the net held, but its Light was definitely taxed. The Pyski Guardian streaked toward the damaged glyph in a blur and stopped a bare inch from the mysterious taxed spell-form, leaning in close to study it. The ward itself was as complex and intricate a work of weaving as he’d ever seen. It was simple compared to some of the grander constructions of the net, but this one tiny sigil made even the most complex of Jogah’s ‘Light Dance’ creations look like a clumsy child’s stick figures. The shield wards were masterworks of magical craft, the likes of which very few could conceive, let alone actually create. Jogah often wondered how many elders it had taken to create these webs, and how long they’d worked. It was foolish that the Elders even considered his post necessary. What could he do if such an impressive edifice of magic were to fail? But he loved Meical and would have chosen to be here regardless of his duty, so in the end he supposed it didn’t matter all that much.
The Pyski reached for the Light to infuse the dimming glyph, and gasped when it didn’t come easily. Drawing the Light was like scooping a handful of water out of an endlessly full barrel, the result of even a half-hearted attempt should have been as guaranteed as his next breath. He pulled harder, and slowly a dribble leaked through the Aether into him. Jogah was shaken; whatever was affecting this ward was affecting his connection to the Aether as well, and that shouldn’t have been possible.
The Pyski was hesitant to release what little Light he held, it was his most potent weapon, but his first duty was to protect Meical, and the net did that far better than he ever could hope to. The affable, gentlemanly little Pyski warrior opened himself slowly and directed the Light stored inside into the dully shimmering spell-form in front of him. Like the Aether resisted his drawing the Light, the ward opposed his efforts to infuse it too. Jogah had never had to push the Light away before, and it felt strange to be forcing a thing that always came as naturally as thought. He gritted his teeth and shoved with all the strength of his will, forcing the power from his body into the damaged sigil. Gradually the darkened rune grew in radiance, flickering and guttering as though struggling against the intensifying illumination.
When he was drained of Light and felt as though his tiny form had been wrung through a mangle, Jogah forced himself up into the air and away from the section of the net that held the strangely toxic glyph. He’d been in the air no longer than a ten count when the Light slammed into him with a physical force that nearly knocked him from the sky. He’d been straining to pull it in as desperately and automatically as a fish gasping for air on the shore.
Once clear of whatever toxic influence had poisoned that section of the spell-form, the Light responded to his desperate unconscious call with a flood of power and strength which hummed through him so strongly the young Pyski thought he might rattle to pieces. Every muscle in his spare, athletic frame was taut as a bowstring at the draw. His joints popped with the strain of the raw force flowing through him. He couldn’t siphon it off fast enough; he was going to burst. Jogah threw back his head and screamed a long, wild, animal scream.
A column of blazing white force exploded out of his wide-open mouth, streaking up into the sky like a beacon. Despite the blazing brightness around him, Jogah’s vision went black, his body sagged in the air and he fell, limp and tumbling through the sky, his body and mind utterly spent. The slight flight-form of the Pyski hit the ground hard and bounced.
Consciousness came back slowly and brought wave of after wave of blinding hideous pain with it. His mouth was full of blood. He couldn’t move his left arm. Ribs were broken—four, five, perhaps as many as seven. His right leg wouldn’t bend at the knee, and he thought his left hip might be shattered. The Pyski tentatively reached for the Light, just a thread, just to see, and flinched when a minute tendril of power seeped into him. He was hurt, but he could get help, after he reported what had happened. Something was very wrong, and someone had to be notified.
Gulping down a knot of apprehension, Jogah pulled in more of the Light and focused it, weaving the complicated glyph in his mind, drawing a thinness between the place he was and the place he had to go. The Light surged in him; the prone, broken form of the Pyski Guardian flickered and then was gone.
Chapter 2
“There is something very wrong here, Rion.” The soft raspy sound of someone trying to speak emphatically without raising their voice invaded the numb emptiness Jogah floated in. “The injuries were serious, and his reserves of Light were depleted to a nearly mortal amount. If he hadn’t arrived when he did . . .”
“Yes, yes Gawen. I understand all of that,” said a tired sounding voice that he knew. “As I did this morning
, and twenty minutes ago when you last sang this refrain. The thing I don’t understand is what happened to the boy, and I cannot understand that until I am allowed to speak to him . . .”
“Rion Niamh,” the raspy man’s voice said, more strongly and somewhat crossly, “I have been Master Meddyg for a long time, and I had thought that my judgement in the areas of my office had been established. The Daiu’s system is in deep shock. The risks involved . . .”
Jogah stopped listening. Gawen. Niamh. He’d made the crossing then, and he still lived; despite the sense of foggy, weightlessness that pervaded him, he wasn’t dead. He knew who he was. He remembered what had happened, though he understood it no better than he had before the Light had nearly burned him to a cinder. All of the facts were there in his head but disjointed, confused, as though he were looking at paintings of the events rather than remembering real things. There was something very wrong with the ward net around his charge, and something very troubling had nearly killed him. He had to get himself together and prepare. Niamh would be here soon. The young Pyski smiled faintly at that. Rion Niamh was not one to be dissuaded by a small thing like the ire of the Master Meddyg. Gawen might rule the healers of the Pyski Court, but Niamh was Niamh. The last of her generation who had not gone back to the Light; she was one of only a few Elders regularly afforded the title Rion, even when no Court was sitting. She was a legend, a legend who did not suffer being balked gladly.
Jogah twisted and found he could move easily. He blinked and saw his surroundings for the first time. He was floating suspended in a hazy green thickness. There was no ground, no air, no water, no break in the vaguely sickly looking green at all. It was soothingly warm, clingingly comfortable and made no effort to restrain him. He could move as he would, and each movement made a small cascade of rolling ripples in whatever it was.