by Kris Schnee
He slipped into the shallow water and felt the sea welcome him as a native, for the first time.
Aldous and the Rain of Coins
Aldous crept down marble stairs from the floating throne room of the Generous Cloud Lord. Aldous' superiors from the Company were too pleased with their cleverness and the fairy lord's hospitality to notice their accountant leaving with a barely concealed look of horror. It wasn't every day that you could sell a village into slavery and eat a meal in a flying palace, without the little drawback of being cursed to stay forever for accepting a fairy's gifts.
Though the rooms above were balloons, miraculously lifted by air, the two slave pens were solid, chilly marble buildings on the ground. The one Aldous reached had a baroque brass gate that let him peer into a room of fountains and vines. The people there were dressed in thick, coarse wool. One father rushed to grab his boy, who'd come dangerously close to eating from the bowl of exotic fruit in the room's center.
Aldous whispered to an old man, the village elder. The man hobbled closer and hissed back. "Slaver!"
The blood had drained from Aldous' face, making him more aware of the cold in this holding pen. "Maybe so, but I've come to get you out."
"Your friends have decided it's time for the fairies to eat our souls, have they? Are you proud of yourself?"
"No." Aldous hung his head, avoiding the frightened eyes of the other villagers he'd helped kidnap. "Get everyone ready. I saw how the lock works. It's simple."
The elder paused, stunned. "Why help us?"
"Never mind that." Aldous bent over the beautiful combination lock made of brass and gemstones, and imitated the elegant little motions he'd seen a fairy guard perform to open the other slave pen. The lock didn't open. Stupid of him to assume the combination was the same for both rooms. He sweated and tried again, then let out a breath of relief as the door clicked open. Aldous stepped in and gathered the two hundred or so kidnapped men, women and children. "I know the way out."
"And then what?" said one woman holding a toddler. "We'll freeze to death out there."
Aldous hadn't thought that far ahead. Having ideas wasn't his job. In fact the Company had wanted him specifically because his dullness would make it hard for fairy lords to dazzle him, to feed on him. They way they'd done to the other batch of slaves. He shuddered. "We'll hurry back to your homes. You'll just have to endure the cold. Don't you people live with it all the time?"
A young man said, "What a solution! You high and mighty idiot, didn't you notice it's not ordinary winter out there?"
Usually the Company traded peacefully with the villages bordering the madlands, a zone of magical chaos that could not be mapped or conquered. This time the Company and its victims had gone deep beyond the border. "I know," said Aldous. "There's no time to steal supplies, just you. If we're lucky we'll find an easy route back to reality."
"Walk out of here and trust luck that we won't all be crushed by a snowflake the size of a house, or eaten by a crystal troll? I'll take my chances with the fair folk; it's warm here at least." The man turned away.
The elder told that man, "Fool. Staying here is worse than freezing or the other fates out there. The madlands themselves are random and dangerous, yes, but this place has actual malice."
"As opposed to pleasant company like this bastard?"
Aldous had been fidgeting, looking over his shoulder for fairy guards or his human employers. "There's no time to argue!"
"Yes!" said the old man, rapping his walking-stick against the marble floor loud enough to make Aldous wince. "We go."
Around half of the villagers swarmed toward him and the exit, leaving space in the middle of the room. There, Aldous had a clear view of the stubborn young man who met his gaze and took a big bite from a delicious-looking arctic melon.
"Gods help you," said Aldous. "You were a slave at heart before we took you."
Aldous led those who were willing. They went past the gate and down a marble hall, directly into the path of a guard in silver armor. The watchman stared as though this sight were only slightly unusual. He was probably a phantasm, a prop for the actual fairy population of this palace.
Aldous could only force his way onward. He grabbed a brass statuette from an alcove and swung it at the man's face. The elegant guard shattered into ice that swirled away. Aldous recoiled. When his Company attacked the village, he'd personally done little more than hold a club and try to look tough. Now, he didn't let himself stop moving.
They avoided another guard patrol, then crept out through a tangle of silk curtains to the biting cold. Aldous now had around a hundred hangers-on, fleeing from the palace of marble and balloons, across an icy land far from where mortals belonged.
* * *
Time lurched along as they traveled. They followed a barely-visible sun that wavered vaguely southward. The ground underfoot was purple snow for a while, then literally glass and set with upward spikes that fell into the sky, then a giant icy chessboard where man-sized pieces slid in slow pursuit. The madlands were a patchwork of random dreams except where under the control of a fairy lord.
"Why?" said the old man. He and Aldous were at the back of the group, herding more than leading. The land had become a warm, furry white pelt like the back of some enormous creature. They didn't dare stop but this moment was a respite.
Aldous sighed, shivering. He'd given his coat to one of the women but still had his Company-issued warm shirt and pants. "I work... used to work in the city, seeing the financial papers on the madlands trading expeditions. You know how you people dart into the madlands and back out, to collect the little wonders there? Imagine city-dwellers like me who only saw those treasures and heard vaguely about the dangers. I saw the blocks of unmelting ice, the living stags made of frost, the bottles of wind. The Company thought I could be more useful if I learned to negotiate with the fair folk myself."
"Fat lot of good you did your Company," the elder said. The cold was getting to him too.
"I did what I was told, until today. I won't ask for your forgiveness. But here's why I betrayed them: while my colleagues were talking their way into having a rich cargo to take home and a safe feast to celebrate it, the fairy lord showed us the last load of slaves. He wanted us to buy them back."
The old man spat. The water froze and flew away like an insect. He shook his head and said, "He didn't care for them?"
"He ate them! If you'd seen those dead eyes they had...!" Aldous stopped and grabbed the man by the shoulders, trying to make him understand. "The fairies aren't just otherworldly tempters lurking beyond your village. They set people's emotions afire with dazzling magic and beauty, to consume like firewood! And then, when the wretches are too burned out to feel anything, they're sold back and used as mindless labor in a salt mine." Aldous waved one arm around at the landscape of subtly shifting mountains and birds made of cloud. "I had to do something, to get you away from this senseless wasteland before you could become the fairy lord's new toys."
The elder watched his fellow ex-slaves stumbling along the white ground. "We still might freeze. Or will the landscape turn tropical any minute? I've never been so far past the fringe."
"It's possible. These lands run more on intent and dream-logic than on geography. So long as we're trying to get back to the lands of men, we might get there."
Soon there was a shout from the stout man leading the group. Aldous strained his eyes, and the cold bit a little deeper into him. The pillar far ahead wasn't one of the old marking-stones at the edge of decent people's reality, but a fairy tower.
It emerged from the cold mists. Taller than any tree Aldous knew, and not quite solid. The tower's sides were a broad cone of glittering coins that hung in midair as though freshly spilled from the treasure-chest at the top. This was no random madness produced by the land itself, but a work of art. The product of another mind that dined on souls.
"Press on," he said. The sun hung eternally low in the sky, marking the way south and out.
/> The villagers shouted at him. "You think we're still your property? Do you want us to freeze to death?"
Aldous thought again of the last batch of slaves. "Stupid! If you go in and start accepting their food, their warm coats, whatever cursed lures they offer you, you'll be worse off than if you froze!"
"Then what's your idea?" said the old man. "The children..." He trailed off, not wanting to openly say that they'd soon die, but it was obvious.
To plod onward was the best plan. Just like Aldous' whole career, which had led him here. He shuddered. He'd been a fool. Even so, the Company had seen something in him: he was level-headed enough to start learning how to negotiate with the fae. Since he'd already betrayed the Company to lead their merchandise out of immediate danger, he might as well try not to get them killed by simple cold.
Aldous said, "I'll go in first, and see if I can amuse the monsters enough to help you."
The refugees huddled near the tower, escaping some of the wind. The walls of coins shifted constantly, giving everyone glimpses of a sort of palatial tent inside. Handsome guards warmed their hands by braziers and beautiful bakers fed them steaming bread. It was torture to watch. The village elder told his people to turn away and not look. Still, they watched Aldous take a deep breath of dry, cold air and walk up to the ice-clad soldiers who guarded the gate.
They said in unison, "What business do you have with the Lady of Coins?"
"I seek shelter for the people with me."
A woman's voice called, "Come in, little mortal!" The guards uncrossed their spears.
Aldous set foot inside the tower of coins and wondered if he'd get out.
The floor was heated black stone, and the coin-walls created ever-changing rays of light. The wind couldn't touch him, and neither could the smiling servants offering him bread and cider and a warm bed to share -- without his permission. Aldous refused them all.
The Lady of Coins parted the crowd of lesser fae with a wave of her hands. She stood tall, ice-pale and elfin, wearing a dress of golden scales and long nails that gave her the impression of a dragon. "So, mortal, you know better than some travelers. That's slightly interesting. Now why would I offer hospitality to the pawns freezing outside my walls, unless it's on the terms you know all too well? What if I buy half of your people in return for protecting the rest? Think of the children!"
Aldous had little to offer in trade. He thought back to what little training he'd had, and the opening round of negotiation he'd watched before he decided to sneak away and free the slaves. He said, "If you'll give these people a chance to rest and recover, then let them go safely -- and myself -- I'll tell you the story of how I stole them."
"A story of a mortal taking the property of some fellow mud-dweller? Not interested."
"I took them from the palace of another of your kind. One called the Generous Cloud Lord."
The Lady clapped her hands in delight. "Now that's worth hearing! For that I will send warm drinks and clothing to your chattels, with no strings attached. Oh, and to you. You may take these safely." The servants returned to offer Aldous a chair, a white fur cloak, and a steaming mug.
Aldous took the last two but stood, not sure the chair was included. Servants brought similar gifts (with no chairs) out of nowhere and streamed out of the gate to rescue the villagers.
Warmed by cider and slightly more confident, Aldous told the Lady about his journey. In hindsight it seemed too easy. Maybe the Cloud Lord had let him do this because it amused him to be outraged.
The Lady's smile grew broad. "You struck a blow against my dear, hated foe. I will help you and your people get home safely, if you murder him for me."
Aldous stared. "Killing him? Why?"
"Don't you feel righteous anger at his desire to drain souls? A thirst for adventure, to strike down a monster?" Feed me your feelings, was her real meaning.
"Only relief at having escaped," he said. He saw nothing wrong in theory with killing soul-eating monsters, but that was no job for accountants.
She pouted, tapping her chin with sharp-nailed fingers. "You and yours may go in peace if you like; you've amused me. But I doubt you'll make it back to your dull, static world with just the help I've given you. There are rivers of frozen fire, even tribes of the Mist Folk. They are less... kind than me."
She was trying to scare him. He said, "We might avoid all of them."
"Oh, but you've only had two dangerous encounters in the madlands on this trip. Haven't you heard, little negotiator, of the rule of three?"
Aldous didn't know whether she was lying, but with a sense of weight settling on his shoulders he realized it didn't matter. He'd invited her to play the role of a wise woman offering aid, and the madlands would react by making her words true. Now, the people he'd tried to help would face another disaster -- unless he did it for them. Her offer would, if he understand the power of the madlands correctly, also make it possible to succeed.
He told the Lady, "I don't know much about fighting. If you want me to have any chance, I need an edge."
"True. Give me an idea." The Lady's eyes shined with hunger.
"For what?"
"A weapon, of course! It wouldn't do to hand you some ordinary sharp object with no spark to it."
"I haven't got any ideas for random magical tricks."
She laughed at him. "None, mortal? How would you slay the Generous Cloud Lord, if you had the power?" She leaned toward him, with a husky voice and a deep breath. "If you could shape the world to your dreams and turn your dull, dirty reality into a tale of your glory, what would be your style?"
Aldous looked at the impossibly elegant courtiers, the inner rooms made of tents within the larger coin-tower -- each made from exotic hides or silk -- and the scents of a feast somewhere just out of sight. If he wanted to lose himself in such a place, the Company had warned him, he could become the lover or apprentice or honored guest of any high-ranking fairy. They'd show him all sorts of wonderful, terrific, captivating things, in the literal sense of each word. He swiped one hand through the air. "I'm not interested in your games. I want to cut down whatever illusions your rival tries to snare me with, and get this over with."
"So that's not entirely lead filling your heart," said the Lady, and snapped her fingers. Her minions brought her an orange crystal, an utterly black fruit, and other improbable ingredients. She summoned a cauldron from raw magic, congealing like smoke, and turned away from him to begin some work of arcane crafting. "I will give you a weapon. It will take some time to prepare. Enjoy my home for the evening and morning, without price or danger. My people will tend to yours on the same terms. You may go."
It seemed that his audience was over. Courtiers whisked him away to a tent that bristled with gems and hothouse flowers, with a bed large enough for three. Aldous prodded the bed as though it would swallow him, then lay there with his eyes wide open, refusing all the offers of company. As soft and curvaceous as the second fairy maiden to visit him was, to say nothing of the third, he looked into each one's eyes and saw the same emptiness that had been there on the soul-eaten batch of slaves.
* * *
He woke after dreams of glorious battle, feasts, and happy trading expeditions, all with a faint scent of rot. Songbirds made of ice hovered near the bed, holding a white fur coat. Aldous hesitated, remembered the promise keeping him safe from trickery, and dressed in the coat and other fine, warm clothes prepared for him. Any human nobleman would have loved to own such an outfit, but to the fair folk it was just another prop.
The Lady greeted him from a throne of living rose bushes, beckoning him forward. Thorns pierced her pale arms as she offered him a sheathed sword. "I give you this gift with a bond: that you will use it to seek and slay the Generous Cloud Lord. I give you this bond with a gift: that until you abandon your quest or return from it, and for one day more, the people under your care will be safe as my guests. On your success I will also show you the way back to your homeland. Will you accept, mortal?"
Aldous had walked into the trap of becoming this fairy lord's agent. Her hangers-on whispered and tittered as though every action had deep significance to some intricate political game. These weren't humans, and he and the refugees were only safe here because his hosts found it entertaining to play with mortals by rules. He looked around anxiously for the refugees and saw the crowd clustered around a set of tents nearly as fabulous, awesome and bewitching as his own. Their faces still showed fear, which was entirely right. He nodded in their direction and said to the Lady, "For their sake, I accept."
He took the sword and drew its frost-cold hilt to discover a blade of black ice, with wisps of dark vapor coiling off of it.
"I'll thank you not to draw that blade, the Veil-Piercer, in my presence." The Lady's relaxed pose on her throne of thorns hinted that she'd find it quite entertaining if he did, and the lesser fae attending her looked eager for a shocking betrayal.
Aldous shook his head and buckled the sword-belt around his waist, not feeding them with more satisfaction than necessary. There was work to do, a debt to balance out.
* * *
Some time later -- the sun flickered high and low in the sky when his thoughts wandered, as though in a dream -- Aldous found himself crossing the icy wasteland back the way he'd come. Sometimes the wind was a ghostly dragon howling high above, and sometimes an aurora reached all the way to the ground like streamers. In time, he came again to the marble staircases and colorful balloons of the Generous Cloud Lord's fortress.
He was at the foot of the main stairs without remembering crossing the last mile to reach them. A pair of sneering footmen looked at him like a salesman.
Having lost the chance for stealth, Aldous drew his sword. "I come to challenge your master."
The guards gasped. One of them turned to run up the stairs. Aldous told himself these were only dream-spun puppets, and ran that one through. There was a spray of frost and then the body was gone. Heartened, Aldous attacked the other creature. This one drew a hatchet and clanged it uselessly against Aldous' blade. The "Veil-Piercer" shattered the guard's weapon, then the man himself. Aldous found himself alone again, breathing the sharp cold air, and free again to approach the problem by stealth after all. He hadn't killed anyone real.