by J M Robison
“All right.”
I utter the spell, and with a sound like displaced air, we arrive on another disc five miles from my castle. I intentionally avoided his question because I don’t know the answer. If the Illuminati are willing to coerce me by kidnapping my wife and son and taking them to the other side of Europe so I’d follow like a horse does a carrot, then there’s no telling what other wicked things they’ve done. Will do. I won’t be part of that. But I will get my family back. The desire to destroy them all warms my heart, but Fae Magic is restricted against being used directly to kill–unless it’s a Faewraith, because it’s impossible to make them extinct.
Three more jumps and we reach the village, built by those who have no home in other realms or those waiting to be placed in a realm. We’ve gone twenty steps, and Eudora runs at me with a squeal.
“Fǽder!”
I drop to a knee and embrace her, patting her back as she cries.
“I want Modor,” she sobs into my shoulder.
I swallow hard. “I do, too.”
“Ye get those bad men! Set them all on fire!”
I look sheepishly at Jaicom, who quirks an eyebrow at her declaration.
“We’ve been working on fire spells,” I explain as if that’s a perfectly good reason for a six-year-old girl to threaten people with fire. I grip Eudora’s shoulders and push her away so I can look at her. Her eyes turn gold when in the Fae Realm. Just like mine. “I’ll bring Modor back. Whatever it takes.”
“I’m coming with thee.”
“No. I don’t know what to expect when I get to Rome. There’s a good chance I’ll get hurt.” I don’t say die, but that’s what I meant. “And we both know we can’t chance both of us getting hurt. Because the Faewraith might come.”
“I’ll be careful. I know the spell for fire.”
“I know ye do, and ye art very–”
“I’m coming.” She stomps her foot and folds her arms.
I sigh. “Ye can come with us to Dover.”
“All the way.”
“Dover.”
“All the way.”
“I’m not so certain it’s you running the household, Zadicayn.”
“With the magic comes a God Complex, I’m afraid.” I stand, grasping Eudora’s hand and guiding her along with me. She starts skipping as if my retreat from our argument is my admittance she’s coming with us.
“Why art ye not asleep?” I ask her.
“I was. I set a spell on the relocation platform to alert me when ye arrived.”
I’m starting to scare over Eudora’s ability to come up with spells on her own. Like spelling the leaf to find my boot. She’s explained to me how she does some of them, but clearly, the concept is so simple I don’t know how to word the spell for the Fae to understand. For spells to work, you not only have to say the right words, but you have to understand them yourself.
We walk through the sleeping village. I’m glad it’s dark. Jaicom is acting much more refined than Brynn did when I brought her here, and I’m not in the mood to rein in his astonishment if he were to see a centaur or mistfit. I already have to deal with his reaction when he sees the dragon.
Joseara is standing outside her house, alerted to my arrival the same as Eudora but likely not in the same way. She’s pieced together a black, body-forming outfit with a mask and hood to cover her burned face and bald head. As we approach, instead of a greeting, her gaze slides right to Jaicom and freezes there. Her body stiffens, hands clenching her arms where they’re folded across her chest.
I can’t believe Joseara still holds hostility toward Jaicom. Six years in the Human Realm translates to over three hundred years in Fae time. Three hundred years is a long time to hold a grudge. But I suppose if I were Joseara, captured by Aklen, held, bound, and sliced open while Jaicom watched, I might not forget, either.
“Joseara?” Jaicom’s tone lets on he’s happy to see her.
She doesn’t respond with the same enthusiasm. I spent the first three years trying to convince her Jaicom was against his father the whole time.
Her eyes flick to me and then back, clearly remembering those conversations. “Hello, Mister Whaerin.” Her tone lacks civility, but it’s more than I hoped for, anyway.
“Shall we be off?” I spread my arms toward them all. No need to give hostility the time to brew. I walk away, trusting them to follow, which they do.
We crest a hill and look into a deep, wide depression in the ground. Jaicom gasps. I count ten dragons inside, nested in earthen holes.
“Breathe, Jaicom.”
He inhales too deeply, pushing it all back out to say, “What are those?”
“Dragons.” I walk down the hill.
He doesn’t follow. “Did you spell me to sleep and put crazy dreams in my head?”
“If I knew the spell to do that,” I shout over my shoulder, “I’d make ye dream ye were wearing a corset and petticoats and making Clarissa jealous that ye look prettier than her.”
“…What?”
I walk up to the sleeping, green-scaled dragon. Eudora lets go of my hand and rubs her small palm along his nose. The dragon opens his dinner-plate-sized eyes. He yawns, sucking in a deep breath, and exhales it all on Eudora, making her dress and hair flutter. She giggles.
“We’re ready, Varlith.”
Varlith looks at me, then at Jaicom. “This is Jaicom?”
“It talks!”
Varlith snorts with a curl of his lips. “I was about to say the same about you.”
I lean closer to Varlith. “Say something about how he dresses like a woman.”
“And your clothes would be the envy of the princess of Malandore.”
I wink at Varlith, then look behind me at Jaicom. He holds his composure well. Unaffected, except by the slight narrow in his left eye.
I stand back, indicating Varlith. “New riders in the front.”
“Excuse me?” Jaicom looks me up and down, and then Varlith side to side. “We’re going to ride it?”
Varlith exhales, and I catch a mumbled, “It?” beneath his breath.
“Fly,” I correct.
“Fly!” Jaicom steps backward as if he intends to run. “What in the good Lord’s name are we going to do that for? You didn’t tell me my feet would leave the ground. Flying is for birds. God meant for us to stay on the dirt he made us from.”
“This is my shortcut to Dover.”
He continues backing up. “I’m not doing it. I’ll go back and take the train.”
At least when Brynn first flew, I was able to charm her with my dashing charisma. I fear I’ll have to knock Jaicom out. Joseara stands by with arms folded, sighing a lot.
Eudora runs to Jaicom and punches him in the leg. He’s so surprised he stops ranting.
“You are a whiteliverly vecke!” she shrills. “I’ve been flying dragons by myself for a full year now. And I’m a girl. My Fǽder needs your help. If you don’t help—”
I grab her shoulders and cover her mouth. An “I’ll set you on fire” mumbles through my hand. I hope Jaicom doesn’t hear it.
“That’s enough, Eudora,” I warn. “You have to remember no one else has been to the Fae Realm and it’s all confusing for them. Sorry, Jaicom.”
“No, no. She’s all right. I suppose that since I’ve had the title Lord shoved upon me, that comes with certain responsibilities, like challenging the Illuminati to get your wife back, and flying a dragon.” He marches forward as if to uncertain doom.
Varlith crouches lower, and Jaicom elbows his way onto the slick scales. Seated, he stares forward, not certain where to put his hands. Joseara slides on next, hesitant to touch Jaicom, but that’s the seating arrangement I made last night when we discussed it. I’m not about to sit that close to another man, Joseara’s hesitations be damned.
I get in behind her with Eudora in my lap. “We’re on, Varlith.”
Careful of the virgin traveler, Varlith eases off the ground with careful sweeps of his wings. Jaicom d
oes not react to leaving the ground God made him from. He’s stiff. I think he’s in denial, with his eyes closed.
“Aren’t you going to open your eyes, you whiteliverly vecke?” Joseara punches the back of his arm.
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t know,” Joseara admits. “But it sounded right coming from Eudora.”
“She called ye a cowardly old woman,” I call up to him. “In Old English.”
“You teach her these things?”
“I teach her the language God initially wanted us to speak. She puts the insults together herself.”
“If God wanted us to speak Old English, he wouldn’t have given us the dictionary.”
“God gave us the Bible, not the dictionary. I doubt ye have read the Bible, but if ye had, ye’d see they speak a form of Old English with ye’s, thou’s, thine’s—”
“Will you both stop talking over me?”
“Sorry, Joseara.”
Conversation stops immediately since it’s clear Joseara has no interest in God or Old English.
She punches the back of Jaicom’s arm again. This is going to be a long ride. “You had your eyes wide open when your father sliced into my arm.”
I see Jaicom flinch, but nothing else. Either he knows he deserves the insult, or he’s doing his level best not to aggravate her further. He must have jammed his hat tight on his head because it sits resolutely against the air currents Varlith cuts through.
Temperature is consistent in the Fae Realm, doesn’t matter if we’re over hill or vale. It doesn’t rain or snow or blow. I’m surprised it even has night and day, but there are Fae who like to sleep in the dark. Air slides in the long sleeves of my blue robe, fluttering my clothes, so I almost think I’ve grown wings. I wish I had wings. I could have reached Rome already.
Varlith flies through relocation loops hovering in the air, and we appear above the sheer white cliffs of Dover, waves crashing against them, froth curling back. Varlith aims toward the castle looming against the cliff’s edge. The sun rises and casts gray light against the stone. He lands. Jaicom is the first to slide off, and I think he only doesn’t kiss the ground because he’ll stain the knees of his pantaloons.
We follow after. I turn back to look at Varlith who’s in deep concentration, muttering to himself.
Varlith is a wizard. He says the amulet is a permanent fixture inside his body–some new experiment the Fae are trying, which I wholly believe was triggered by what happened to my kin in the Human Realm and amulets being stolen.
The Fae had every intention of replacing humans with dragons until I showed the Fae my devotion to save my race. So being, the Fae already had ten dragon wizards ready to go. The Fae have since been prepping another realm to house the dragons. The Fae Realm is a permanent home to very few.
A transformation sweeps over Varlith. His body shrinks, creamy skin replacing green scales. The process is slow. He mutters the whole time. He finally arrives in a form that stands upright and is no taller than me. His arms were two different lengths with talons barbing the tip of each finger, horns on his head, and knees bending the wrong way are another matter.
“I don’t understand what just happened.” Clearly, Jaicom’s disbelief has worn out because he sounds tired.
“He’s trying to look human,” I say. “Is that the best ye can do?” I ask the dragon.
He studies his four-fingered hand. “It’s taken me three hundred years to get this much.” He closes his fist. “It will have to do.”
“We shall find thee a long robe in the castle to wear.”
I turn to see Joseara’s back to us, and she’s not admiring the view. She must not have expected Varlith to transform. Or be naked.
“Sorry, Joseara.”
“It’s fine.”
I lead the way next to Joseara, who makes it a point to stay ahead of Varlith. Eudora watched the whole thing. I imagine Jaicom’s daughter watching a naked Varlith and how I’d go out of my way to shield her eyes. Now I’m not certain if I’m a bad father for desensitizing Eudora to such sights, or a good father for not shielding her from that which her magic might have her need to know. Varlith is a dragon, after all. Not a human. It’s different.
A muffled roar far below the cliff heralds the breaking waves. I avert my gaze away from the castle. The Fargones used to live there. Their father and son were killed the same way my father and I were. His wife and remaining children left the castle, where it has been and will remain vacant. The Fae won’t allow anyone but a human wizard to live in it.
The castle looks as if it were masoned yesterday. Nothing ages in the Fae Realm. That’s not saying the same thing for the Human Realm side of the castle.
I pull open the door, and it swings wide on smooth hinges, entering the Grand Hall where two sunburst banners still hang from the mezzanine. Birds swoop in and out of the high windows, dust spinning in the rising morning like glitter.
Funny. The things I remember. I still know the way to the Fae Arch but not the spell to relocate the broom to sweep around my Grand Hall.
We stop inside the first room we come to. It appears the Fargone family took only what they could carry. Furnishings for a castle won’t fit in a single-room peasant house. The massive bed and iron-strapped chest still remain. I flip open the lid and pull out a black night robe–something quick to throw on if clothes were needed in an instant. It has long sleeves and ties in the front. I hand it to Varlith.
He looks at it for a long moment. Right. Varlith has never worn clothes.
“Jaicom, would ye demonstrate to Varlith how to put it on?”
Jaicom sets his bag down and throws it on nice and tidy as he must do for the one he has at home. He hands it to Varlith, who holds it with a motionless, wide-eyed stare.
“Do ye need another demonstration?”
“Yes.”
Jaicom grumbles and snatches it from his hand.
“Slowly,” I tell him.
Jaicom does so, taking an exaggerated time for each sleeve, and makes an overelaborate flare with tying the sash around his waist. He somehow feels the need to bow after, so I clap.
“Congratulations. Ye can dress thyself.”
Jaicom shrugs out of the robe and tosses it to Varlith. “One more reference to my clothes and I’ll bring up how you went eighteen years without bathing once.”
“That is false. I bathed the day of my birth. And every time I played in the river. And when it rained.”
Joseara stands up from where she had sat on the straw-stuffed bed. “Can we go now?”
I look at Varlith. His arms spread out to both sides; he looks down on himself as if he’s wearing new skin.
“He needs a hat,” Jaicom says.
“He needs something more than that. He doesn’t have visible ears.” I dig in the chest, unearthing a winter fur device that covers the sides and back of the neck. I demonstrate how to put it on, and hand it to Varlith. He repeats what I did, looking remarkably ridiculous. At best, he could pass for a Russian shaman.
“What do ye think?” I ask Jaicom because he seems to care the most about clothing. I’m wearing something dredged up over three hundred years ago, and Joseara threw on a black ensemble like a Japan ninja.
“Fine. As long as he keeps the hood on and doesn’t smile too much.”
Varlith smiles, showing two rows of fangs.
Jaicom looks at me. “Why are we bringing him along?”
I shut the lid to the chest and stand. “Because burning the Pantheon to the ground is a possibility.”
“Am I to be involved with that?” Varlith scratches his head through the wool hat.
“Thy ancestors could blow fire out of their mouths.”
“What is fire?”
I ignore Jaicom’s mournful gaze. “Let us be off.” I walk out of the bed chamber.
The Fae Arch is in a high tower room with no windows. I take hold of each person individually and walk them through one at a time into the Human Realm. Jaicom ex
hales a heavy sigh. He puts his cane back to use at his side. Eudora walks herself in. I grab her arm and march her back into the Fae Realm.
“Fǽder?”
“I’ve already said ye are not coming with me.”
Where hostility failed to work in her favor earlier, the tears welling in her eyes now might overthrow me. “I want to rescue Bellibone and my baby brother.”
She’s taken a pike and hammer to my heart, striking thrice with the three words that command my breath and drag my resolve to my knees without a fight: Bellibone, which is the endearing pet name I’ve given Brynn; and my baby. Damn. She’s only six. She’ll have my heart on a fork before she’s ten.
Jaicom will be wondering where I’ve gone, stuck in Dover with the woman his father almost killed, and a dragon. He’ll think I just played a terrible joke on him, which would be funny if it wasn’t actually delaying me from getting to Rome.
I hug Eudora to me. “Ye can’t, dearest. T’will be dangerous for me. I shan’t live if ye get hurt.”
“Ye can’t stop me from going.”
“Please respect my wishes and stay here.”
“I’m going!” Her tears have dried back into hostile demands. That I can fight against. Tears crumble me.
I turn my head away from her and whisper the spell. I turn back and kiss her cheek, standing and stepping back. “I loveth thee, Eudora. I shall bring Modor and Levi back, safe and sound.”
She attempts to step forward, her eyes widening when she realizes I spelled her little boots to the floor. I’ll break down and take her with me if she starts crying. I hold my breath.
She clenches her fists and makes a funny attempt to stomp her foot. “Fǽder!”
I’ve trusted her with a lot of responsibility, letting her be on her own. Easy to do in the Fae Realm where nothing gets hurt or dies, and she knows the way home. She can be defiant, and though she scares me with her determination, I know she won’t try to follow me after the spell breaks. So long as I’m out of sight and she can’t tell what direction I’ve gone.
“I loveth thee.” I step backward into the Human Realm, walking around the Fae Arch so she can’t see me. I listen to her shouting the entire time it takes me to walk down the stairs and out of the tower.