Everbright

by Ken Altabef

  Beyond the moat, the faery farms extended in every direction. From the ascending lift they looked like painted squares in vibrant patches of yellow and green. Human laborers worked the land under the supervision of a select group of faeries, those who had the strongest link to the green world and the ability to enhance the growth of the crops on a large scale. The moat was the only physical barrier separating the farmlands from the city proper but at the southern approach, where the carriage road entered the city, the faeries had posted a massive and quite beautiful gate.

  The cage ended its ascent with a jolt that jostled both its passengers. Theodora opened the door at the far side and they traversed the slim hallway to Eccobius’ office. He was seated, as usual, behind his great desk. With its rows of bookcases and dark wood paneling, the room looked like a typical human study straight out of an English manor house. And yet it suited Eccobius’ character perfectly. He was bookish and refined and overly interested in human affairs, especially in the realms of mathematics and music. He was a student of history, with little interest in frolic and trickery. He looked ever forward. “The future is integration,” he often said. “Humans breed like rabbits. They’re expanding all over the world. We can’t keep fighting them. Opposition is not the way.”

  He sat at his desk, quill in his ink-stained hand, working at an architectural sketch. Another unique feature of the old stalwart—he was one of the few faeries who could read and write.

  As he noticed the two women approaching, Eccobius rose from his seat and offered a gentlemanly half-bow. He wore fashionable human clothing—a tailored jacket and matching cravat. The coat was a bright yellow, tightly fitting, and cut away at the rear to form a pair of slender curving tails. His shirt was elegantly frilled at the cuff and around the neck. At two hundred years old, most faeries among the Summer Court regarded Eccobius as a kindly elder statesman. He had allowed his hair to gray, and patches of his skin had hardened with age to the consistency of tree bark along his cheeks and brow. He wore little glass ovals in front of his eyes, set in thin metal frames. As such he was the only faery Theodora had ever met who required spectacles. His manner was exceptionally mild and he had long since lost interest in sex. On the other side of the question, his tastes were so orderly and organized no faery woman was particularly interested in merging with him. He did not have any wild fantasies.

  “Ladies,” he said, greeting them warmly. “Surely it’s a fine morning for a visit, but our appointment is not scheduled until this afternoon, I believe.”

  “We had a problem at one of the construction sites,” Theodora said.

  “Nothing we can’t handle, I’m sure.” Eccobius nudged a pair of small wooden armchairs in front of the desk and urged them to sit. “Please be comfortable.”

  He rushed back behind his desk and sat, planting his elbows on its polished surface and steepling his long thin fingers in front of his face in a pose of sublime concentration. “Tell me all.”

  Theodora was already growing tired of his affected genteel mannerisms. She spilled her story breathlessly. “Workers on Broadhollow Street. Digging some sort of a trench, a pit of some type—for plumbing I suppose, or drainage or whatever—and soldiers came nosing about, insisting to go down. They had practically entered the caves when I caught them and tried to shoo them away, but they gave me a hard time and refused to listen.”

  “I see.”

  “Do you?” Theodora blurted. “We can’t have them entering the caves beneath Barrow Downes.”

  “Of course not.”

  “Perhaps we could establish a constabulary of our own?” suggested Moonshadow.

  “That is expressly forbidden, by order of the King,” Eccobius remarked. “In any case, there is no need to be confrontational. Tell me Theodora, did they relent?”

  “Well, the officer of the day arrived—I think his name is Simms. Let me tell you, if sneers could kill I’d not be standing here today, and he does have a way of pronouncing the word ‘m’lady’ that makes it sound as if he were addressing Elizabeth Bathory or some other infamous murderess.”

  Eccobius chuckled softly, “I see.”

  Theodora continued, “They have no respect, for me or for anyone. I thought about putting on a suitably monstrous glamour but there’s no point to it—they’d know it was only a glamour. We’re losing our edge. In the end, I popped some faery lights behind my head. At least it hurt their eyes. And they shuffled away.”

  “You need to talk to Captain Abercrombie,” suggested Moonshadow. “We can’t have soldiers in the down below. All of our secrets are there.”

  Eccobius rubbed his chin.

  “We agree on that?” Theodora asked. Just repeating the story had made her angry again. Eccobius was a faery. He was supposed to be on their side.

  “I think what we need here,” said the scholar, “is a simple matter of achieving the proper degree of organization.” He thought for a minute, gently stroking the bark-like skin at the side of his face. “The workers require access to the area below street level, for all the reasons you described Theodora—drainage systems, water pipes, that sort of thing. Instead of fussing with the humans, how about a work gang of faeries to do the construction underground? It will delay my schedules a trice, that’s for sure, what with the training and everything, but this should be acceptable to the Crown. We aren’t allowed a police force but there’s nothing to say we can’t have a squad of workers to handle certain sensitive details if we so choose. I’ll need five or six volunteers from you Moonshadow, faeries who won’t mind getting their hands dirty and doing hard work.”

  “You’ll have them,” she said.

  “Fine. And I will deliver a suitable admonition to Captain Abercrombie.” He smiled at them with ancient, yellowed teeth. “All well?”

  Theodora nodded noncommittally. She trusted Eccobius but didn’t think the matter would be so easily settled. The soldiers were here to spy on them, that was certain. And Abercrombie was as tough as nails. She didn’t think an admonition from Eccobius would really dissuade him.

  “Fine,” said Eccobius. “Well then, I might as well deliver my report and save you the trouble of coming back this afternoon.” He shuffled some papers on his desk and adjusted his spectacles as he gazed down at them. “Very well, I won’t bore you with all the tedious calculations but suffice it to say that production at our southern fields has risen another twenty per cent. That includes wheat and sorghum. The corn shall be laid in soon at the eastern fields and I expect similar results. There’s a good chance we might even extend our growing season part way into the winter months. No human farm can match those results, I’ll tell you. And so revenues are up, if you care about such things.”

  Moonshadow shrugged.

  “I didn’t think so,” remarked Eccobius.

  “We’ve enough to finance the new construction?” Theodora asked.

  “Oh yes. All that and more,” Eccobius assured her.

  She wanted to suggest a stipend be paid to Eric out of the profits but realized any such cheque would never be redeemed. It would only be sent back to them unopened.

  “On the negative side of the ledger,” added Eccobius, “the Crown has raised our taxes another fifteen per cent. There seems no valid reason for this that I can see, but I’m sure if pressed King George will be able to manufacture some excuse worthy of validation by his courts. I can’t really see any point in contesting...”

  “Let him have it,” said Moonshadow. She shrugged again. “It’s only money.”

  As they exited the lift at ground level, Theodora and Moonshadow were met by Gryfflet and James. Despite James’ best efforts, Gryfflet still appeared as an elderly woman, tall and thin, wrinkled and pale. Either he could not restore her to her former beauty or she simply would not allow it. It pained Theodora to see her friend in such a sorry state; they were in fact the same age—just a little over a hundred years old.

  At first Theodora assumed the pair were simply taking their morning constitutional bu
t James approached them with great urgency.

  “There’s a problem at the front gate,” he said to Moonshadow. “I think you’d better come right away.”

  “What now?” Theodora huffed, as he led them toward the gate. It took a few minutes to get there, as they passed through a shifting maze of streets which twisted and turned in random and illogical ways.

  The huge gate posts had been shaped by faery artisans from pillars of rich red mahogany. At once imposing and elegant, every panel was covered in carvings that gave the texture of living vines and roots which indeed seemed to shift and writhe as the onlooker’s angle of vision changed. At the top of one post was a broad representation of Herne, the Lord of the Forest. A smiling Mother Moon topped the other. Arching between the two stately faces was the name ‘Everbright’. The gate had swinging archways of shining brass which stood twenty feet tall, tall enough it was said, to allow the giants of old to pass through upon their return to England’s verdant shores.

  The gate was never closed, but a pair of Captain Abercrombie’s redcoats were permanently stationed at a small pillbox beside the entrance. Their exact duties weren’t clear though their main purpose seemed to be to harass any and all visitors attempting to pass through. Theodora found the soldiers arguing with a trio of very unexpected and strange-looking visitors. Faeries.

  “What’s the problem?”

  1st Lieutenant Simms, the same officer who had provoked the confrontation with Theodora earlier that morning, frowned at her. “Beggars at the gate. And a rather pathetic sort of greenie rabble at that.”

  Aside from the racial slur, the lieutenant’s description seemed appropriate enough. They were a sorry sight indeed. A young woman with a blackened eye and half her face swollen with bruises, a young child of ten or eleven cradling what appeared to be a painfully damaged arm, and a short, round-bellied faery all dressed in rags.

  “They’re from the Winter Court,” Theodora surmised.

  “No, we’re not!” said the little man. He had a shaggy mop of bright green hair and an unkempt beard to match. He seemed well fed but had the saddest eyes Theodora had ever seen. He shifted nervously from foot to foot. “We’re not from the Winter Court! Not no more. We’re lucky to’ve escaped. And we’re never going back.”

  “Escaped?” asked Theodora. “Does the Dark Queen keep her people prisoner, then?”

  “Well, not prisoner exactly… but you can’t leave.”

  “How then did you escape? You don’t look much the hero.”

  “I’m no fighter,” he explained, “but I am clever. By the way, you wouldn’t have any little thing to drink perhaps?”

  “Anon. Tell us your story first.”

  “Story? It’s no story.” He straightened his tattered collar in an ineffective show of refinement.

  “Some say there’s no way out of Deepgrave except in death,” said James. “And even then…”

  “Oh, there are ghosts there aplenty. But a clever faery may find a way out. Clever, like me. I says to myself—the Hunt. The Wild Hunt, they must’ve a way out, don’t they? Hmm? Two years ago. You remember. They rode wild across Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Well, I watched ‘em go. There’s a certain crypt they use. It’s the way out!”

  “And a way in if we want one?” asked Theodora.

  The little faery waved away an invisible gnat. “Ahh, blecchh! Who would want one?”

  James was not amused. “Do they have a faery there named Arabelle?”

  “They do.”

  “Not now, James,” said Theodora. She pointed an accusatory finger at the little faery. “What is it you want here?”

  “Weasel’s the name. And these here are Pease-pye and Deelia. What do we want? Well, no more than you, or anyone. Freedom. Prosperity. We want to live here. To join up, so to speak.”

  Theodora shook her head. “I don’t think—”

  “We can be useful!” said Weasel. “Look, I’m a cobbler myself. Take a look! I made these with my own two hands.” He indicated his odd footwear, a pair of curly-toed Arabian slippers. They were made from a garish red fabric that sparkled in all the wrong places.

  “I’ll make you a pair,” Weasel said to James.

  “No!” said Gryfflet, pushing to the front of the group. “You can’t let them in. We don’t want them here.”

  Theodora put a comforting hand on her friend’s shoulder. “Do you know them? Have you anything against them?”

  Gryfflet shook her off. “No, I’ve never seen them before. But we can’t have them. No. Just no.”

  “The little girl,” said Moonshadow. “She’s hurt. How did it happen?”

  Weasel groaned slightly. “Ach, there you see? The Queen had her banshees do that.”

  Moonshadow knelt down and addressed the child softly. “How did this happen?”

  “The banshees…” Deelia said.

  “But why? Why did they do it?”

  “No reason,” said the child, sniffling as the tears came.

  “No reason,” echoed Weasel.

  “We can help you get better,” Moonshadow told the girl. “Our James is very good at healing. At least we can do that.”

  “But can’t we stay?’ said Pease-pye. It was the first time she had spoken and the words came out slightly garbled as if her jaw might perhaps have been broken as well.

  Theodora shook her head. “I’m sorry but it’s not a good idea. I just don’t…”

  “They can’t stay!” said Gryfflet. “They absolutely can’t.”

  Theodora looked to Moonshadow for some sort of a decision.

  “Well, I may be a little thick in the head,” said Weasel, “but I don’t understand this at all. This is the place for faeries, isn’t it? A place of our own? To live free and unharmed, aboveground and proper, right? A place for all of us. That’s what we heard. That’s what gave us hope, as it were, and courage to make our run. So you tell me. It either is or it isn’t.”

  “Yes,” said Moonshadow. “This is the place for faeries. We will let them stay.” She glanced up at the gate and said, “Welcome friends, to Everbright.”

  Chapter 12

  The first thing James noticed upon entering Trask’s lab was his friend Roderigo sitting on a chair in the corner. He looked so much like a wayward schoolboy caught misbehaving, James had to smile. And then he noticed the leeches.

  Two huge leeches lay along Roderigo’s forearm. They were unlike anything James had ever seen, fat and round-bellied and glimmering in a phosphorescent orange color.

  Roderigo noticed James’ entrance and offered a feeble wave of his unencumbered arm.

  James crossed the room, weaving between a series of workbenches scattered around the cavern. On each lay a disorganized jumble of well-worn alchemical equipment—flasks, tubes, cracked mortars and crucibles rimmed with colorful stains and residues from previous experiments. Several spirit-burners were still in operation, burning with odd flames in yellow and green and discharging malodorous fumes into the air.

  “Roderigo, how are you my friend?” James asked.

  The mute, dog-faced Changed Man answered by way of a series of hand gestures the two had worked out over the years. He indicated he felt well enough and the leeches were causing no discomfort.

  “Well, you’re a game fellow, at least. I half expected never to see you here again after what happened the last time.”

  Roderigo shrugged. A few weeks ago, something Trask had seen in his microscope suggested the affliction of the Changed Men was a manifestation some new strain of malaria. In his efforts to cure them, Trask had dosed Roderigo with liberal amounts of quinine. The poor man had suffered a very negative reaction.

  “Ah, James!” said Trask as he entered from the next room. “I wasn’t expecting you.”

  “And I wasn’t expecting to find this,” James chuckled. “Leeches! Are we reverting to methods from the seventeenth century now?”

  “Not just ordinary leeches—fey leeches!” said Trask. His entire face lit up with excitement. H
e wore a stained smock over simple clothes. His hair was an unkempt mess, a wild mixture of gray and white. His age was impossible to determine from his appearance giving to various alchemical preparations he used in order to stay the hand of time. When he smiled he seemed a man of no more than thirty, but when caught in a pensive mood his features were as wrinkled and time-worn as a septuagenarian.

  “Faery leeches,” said Trask. “Raised in the mushroom caves beneath Barrow Downes. I discovered them a few days ago. Miraculous little devils! I have access to so many things here no other alchemist has ever even dreamed of.”

  “But bloodletting? You really think this will work?”

  Trask steered him a little bit away from Roderigo. “It is far from certain,” he said in a low voice. “But I have great hope. The answer, I think, must reside in the blood. Of the three vital organs—stomach, heart and brain—two are unaffected. The Changed Men eat the same foods as ever, and with the same appetites. They think the same thoughts. But the blood—the blood must hold the key.”

  “But their thoughts are changed, Trask. Surely you’ve noticed how many of them have developed a newfound affinity for music and the arts, not to mention a penchant toward tricks and whimsy.”

  “Bahh! We don’t know any such thing. You just don’t have a scientific mind, James. Those behavioral changes are merely a reaction to the alterations in their appearance. If you suddenly looked in the mirror and saw a faery face, you might begin to act very differently indeed. You see? You might suddenly sing and dance and go cavorting all around the place. A response to the change, not a root cause. An expectation, so to say.”

  “Well, I can’t argue. I’m no expert on mental philosophy.”

  “Never matter. The answer for these poor souls lies not in the mind, but the bodily humours. This is entirely a physical ailment, James. I am sure of it. Caused by the Wild Tyme.”