Everbright

by Ken Altabef

  It was Trask’s theory that the Chrysalid had somehow dosed the Changed Men with a new sort of chemical, one he had dubbed the Wild Tyme. It was this elusive chemical that had changed their appearance and bestowed upon them some of the remarkable regenerative capabilities of the faeries.

  “The Wild Tyme!” Trask repeated. “And these faery-born leeches may hold the key. I’ve seen indications they feast upon it, they can extract it from the blood of these unfortunates—in small quantities of course—offering not so much a cure but an opportunity for me to isolate the damn thing. Isolate the stuff and analyze it scientifically. Then work up a method to reverse the changes. It’s all about the blood, I tell you!”

  James imagined Trask stomping up and down across his lab, shouting, ‘The blood! The blood!’ like some type of deranged ghoul. “Still,” he laughed, “you can imagine my surprise at seeing leeches attached to my poor friend’s arm. Bloodletting is one thing, but leeches? In 1763!”

  “Bahh. You should talk. You yourself are a throwback to history, James. A man straight out of the seventeenth century. In those days everyone thought a physician was a mage charged with directing astral forces to heal the patient.”

  “That’s not what I do,” James said. “There’s nothing astral about it. Faery healing is just a mental link that stimulates the sufferer’s own natural healing processes, the same way some faeries urge the crops to grow faster and better.”

  “Mental links. Faery magic.” Trask pushed James aside as he went to fidget at the worktable. “Any man of science would call that notion barbaric and tell you it can not possibly be true.”

  “But it is true.”

  “Exactly. Which indicates there is more to science than just science. If I’ve learned anything in my time here down in these caves, it is that. Now, you haven’t stopped by just to pester me, have you?”

  “Actually, I was looking for Roderigo.”

  “Fine,” said Trask as he set about adjusting one of the burners. “You may speak to the patient. Just don’t bother the leeches.”

  “No worries,” said James. He approached his friend. There was an empty chair on either side of him. James sat on the side farthest from the leeches.

  “You’re of the Anglican faith, Roderigo, aren’t you? I remember seeing you sitting with the tenant farmers at Sunday services in the chapel at Graystown.”

  Roderigo nodded his assent.

  “When was the last time you attended services?”

  Roderigo indicated it had been quite a while. He gestured to question whether James was worried about his soul.

  “I’m not,” said James, “but Vicar Desmos is concerned for you, and the others. He’s the man who ministers to the congregation at the chapel here at Everbright. Well it’s a rather small group at that. Only a handful at best. But as I was starting to explain last Sunday, before Sergio kicked up such a fuss, the Vicar wishes you and the others to consider attending services.”

  A somber look crossed Roderigo’s eyes, which were the most human part of his face. His dog-like muzzle seemed to frown.

  “Why not?”

  Roderigo took a moment. Then he indicated that, unlike the faeries, each of the Changed Men had a name, a family.

  “You fear Abercrombie and his men. Is that it?”

  It was. The others felt the same.

  “I see. I’d like to say we could protect you but I can’t be sure of that. We’ve troubles enough as it is.”

  The Changed Men were no strangers to persecution. Prior to the emancipation of the faeries, the Changed Men had fallen under suspicion at Grayson Hall. King George had several times sent a squad of redcoats to apprehend them for interrogation and God-knew-what-else. The hybrids had taken refuge in the smuggler’s tunnels below the estate and now were forced to hide themselves belowground in Barrow Downes, ironically suffering the same fate the faeries had endured before their emancipation.

  “Best leave them be,” warned Trask. He also was a fugitive from the King’s justice forced to remain in hiding. He had not been born Trask. His real name was Leopold George Rákóczi, born the third son of Francis II Rákóczi, the Prince of Transylvania. Educated in science and philosophy at some of the great universities in Europe, Trask’s career had been cut short by an act of passion. In a fit of jealousy he had murdered his lover, a young man of dubious reputation he kept in a Brussels hideaway. He had been in hiding ever since, first sheltered by his mentor the alchemist Amalric Signi de Francavalla on the Grayson estate, and now hidden by the faeries, sheltered belowground at Barrow Downes.

  “Perhaps the Vicar could ensure your protection, Roderigo. He’s of the mind that all of us, humans and faeries, are God’s creatures. He says the powers of the faeries are actually manifestations of God’s will.”

  Roderigo indicated the faeries believed their strength came from the Moon.

  “Yes, that’s what the faeries believe. But the two theories are not entirely incompatible. The Lord above could be supplying the power to the fey folk through the moon as an intermediary.”

  “They’re both wrong,” said Trask without looking up from his experiment.

  “You’ve a theory of your own? An alchemist’s theorem?”

  “The moon is just a dead rock circling the Earth. This idea of a Moon Mother is poppycock. Does she exist, James? In your experience?”

  “Well, I’ve never felt any personal connection to her. Not yet. But that doesn’t mean—”

  “Bahh! The power of the faeries comes from the Wild Tyme. It’s in their blood too, I’m sure of it. It all comes from the Wild Tyme which came from the Chrysalid. You were exposed to it, too.”

  Indeed, thought James. I’m one of the Changed Men as well, though nobody knows it.

  He could never forget the night the Chrysalid appeared and called to him and his sister Nora. The monster had indeed changed them that night, bringing their suppressed faery nature to the fore. He supposed it had not warped him physically as it had the Grayson security men because of his half-faery heritage, but it had definitely activated something within him. He was a Changed Man too.

  “In any case,” James said, “the question of whether the faeries’ power comes from God or Mother Moon or a mindless chemical reaction will have to be decided another day. We’ve still got to find a solution for Roderigo’s immortal soul. I was thinking perhaps I could arrange for the good vicar to come down here belowground to minister to the Changed Men in private.”

  “You’d have to discuss that with Moonshadow,” said Trask.

  “Yes,” agreed James, “I suppose I would.”

  “Oh, bung it all!” exclaimed Trask as he inadvertently knocked over the gas lamp and set fire to a small pile of parchments on one of the work tables. “Now that’s your fault, James. All this talk of God and religion…” He beat the fire out with a spare linen smock. “Simply does not belong in the lab!”

  “Alright then,” said James, seeing that the minor emergency had already been put to rest. “I’ll leave you to your work. Good-bye, Roderigo. Perhaps we might share some time later to play a duet in your quarters after supper? Provided, of course, you survive your ordeal with the leeches.”

  Roderigo’s laugh was a sad sound, half bark and half whine, but it was a laugh just the same.

  And with that, James left Trask to his lab.

  Chapter 13

  Twelve faeries again danced the Spring Hitch beneath the great ash tree of Everbright. And once again Meadowlark watched from his vantage point a few feet away, high in one of the surrounding trees.

  The dancers lined up in pairs as the music drove them on. One of each pair rolled forward while the other rolled back, spinning faster and faster. Then they reversed course, swapping front rolls for back flips.

  One young girl, the faery who happened to be opposite Theodora, cried out as she turned an ankle and fell to the grass. The music stopped. After reassuring the others that it was nothing more than a simple sprain, the girl limped off to the sid
e. Theodora took a hesitant step to follow her, left without a partner and unsure of what she should do.

  Meadowlark saw his chance.

  He leapt down from the sycamore tree. After a couple of backflips he ended up right beside Theodora.

  “Need a partner, Clarimonde?” he asked.

  Theodora tossed him a phony half-smile. Phony, phony smile. He could hardly stand it.

  “Actually I’m a bit tired,” she said. “I might as well just call it a day.”

  “I need a partner!” he said, and her look grew more serious. Better. Yes, much better serious than that insincere sympathy. “Nobody will dance with me. Please?”

  “All right. But only if you call me Theodora.”

  They stepped back into the lines. The music restarted on a shrill note from the pan pipes. This designated a back-to-back spin. The partners in the lines turned away from each other and stepped together until their backs met. The fabric of Meadowlark’s red linen shirt and Theodora’s floral blouse prevented their shoulders from touching but their bare arms extended wide, skin contacting skin all the way along. Well, it was something at least.

  The drums beat and the couples began to whirl, doing cartwheels to the side, coordinated back-to-back. Each pair whirled around like rotor blades. The skin at the backs of their necks touched and Theodora’s long blonde hair swept across Meadowlark’s shoulders again and again. He thrilled at this coveted closeness. As he inhaled her sweet scent, a flood tide of erotic memories sparked to life. He forced himself to relax. He didn’t want her to feel him stiffening up. As they sped faster, the backs of their necks pressed together over and over in a strange sort of kiss. And then the beat changed again.

  “Shadowplay,” Theodora said, indicating the next phase of the dance. Meadowlark needed no reminder. He knew the Spring Hitch as well as anyone. He’d been performing the dance for eighty years or more. In the shadowplay sequence the couples mirrored each other’s movements face to face, one partner striking while the other receded. Theodora swept her leg under Meadowlark. He jumped over it. She pressed forward with one open hand and then the other. He stepped back, his palms almost touching hers but not quite. Her face came within an inch of his own. Her eyes locked on his. The music urged them faster, requiring such a tight coordination that a mild sort of mental contact initiated between them. Theodora kept her mind to the business of the dance but certain impressions seeped around the edges and Meadowlark enjoyed the fleeting tastes of her fierce personality and joyous spirit the near-contact allowed. For his part, he had to fight hard to restrain his lecherous thoughts. He made pains not to show his enjoyment. Too many thoughts. Too much distraction, the elegant lines of her face, the breeze flogging her hair—Meadowlark missed his cue and one of Theodora’s elbows blasted him in the ribs. He went down, the wind knocked out of his sails.

  “Sorry,” she said. “I hope I haven’t lost another partner so soon.” She seemed mildly amused and Meadowlark wondered if she might have actually enjoyed knocking him down.

  “Not at all.”

  They resumed the dance and Meadowlark’s difficulties continued. It was such a joy to be near her, touching even in this small way. The repeated distraction caused several more painful missteps. He was inadvertently slapped in the face, chopped at the side of the neck and kicked in the kneecap. Each time he just smiled and they went on. He could suffer these indignities all day and still be glad, but he sensed that Theodora was becoming slightly annoyed. He was an inferior partner, to be sure.

  The shrill toot of a police whistle interrupted the dance. The jarring sound repeated again and again as Captain Abercrombie came stomping across the park. Two other soldiers flanked their commander, each carrying a rifle, one of them with a bayonet fixed. Abercrombie kept puffing at the whistle until he reached the dancers and then, red-faced, he paused to catch his breath.

  “This activity is cancelled,” he said, “by order of King George the Third, King of England and Ireland.”

  Meadowlark couldn’t help but snicker.

  “What are you slagging at?” asked the Captain.

  If he only knew, thought Meadowlark, how I murdered George the Second with a kiss on the cheek or how his young heir Georgie looked with his britches below his knees shagging the royal mattress while I laughed. If he only knew. “Nothing, sir.”

  “Right,” said Abercrombie. “Now, all of you, terminate this activity and disburse.”

  Theodora stepped forward to argue. “What?”

  “You heard me. There’s to be no more of this military practice.”

  “Military? It’s a dance! A harmless dance.”

  Abercrombie smiled and shook his head. “Come now. By order of royal proclamation of the year 1763, the faeries of Everbright are prohibited from positing a standing army.”

  “It’s only a dance,” Theodora insisted.

  “I know military training when I see it.” Abercrombie tugged at his uniform jacket.

  Theodora stood firm. “A dance. Nothing more.”

  Abercrombie stepped closer. The two stood roughly the same height, glowering at each other. “Prohibited. You know that better than anyone, Theodora.”

  “That’s Lady Grayson to you, Captain.”

  Abercrombie stared wide-eyed at her for a moment as if trying to reconcile her green-skinned, pointy-eared form with that of what he considered Lady Grayson.

  “Stand aside and disburse, Lady Grayson, or I shall have to take measures to see that you do. Disburse!” This last, spoken with a heap of venom in his voice, was directed at the faery assemblage in general.

  All eyes went to Theodora. She did not blink. “Stay!”

  “Lady, in all my years in the King’s service I have never thrown a woman in irons. Nor have I ever struck a lady in anger, but with faeries they say you never can tell, sometimes a she is really a he, or the other way round, so maybe…”

  Theodora’s green complexion darkened even further. “Oh really? What makes you think I’d—”

  “Now, now,” said Meadowlark. He did a comical sort of a side flip around the back of the Captain, drawing his attention. Then he darted between two of the armed men, giving one officer’s breeches a hearty yank as he rolled along the ground to come up on the other side of the Captain. “Now, if I may interrupt...”

  “I can handle this, Meadowlark,” said Theodora.

  “I just want to ask a question,” Meadowlark said.

  “Leave it alone.”

  “What question?” said Abercrombie.

  Meadowlark straightened up. “Simply this, Captain: Why do the British soldiers wear red coats?”

  Abercrombie scowled at him, then turned away, no longer willing to play along.

  Meadowlark interposed himself again. “Answer: So they can hide among the tomatoes. Hahah!”

  Abercrombie wasted no time. In an instant his meaty fist swung for the side of Meadowlark’s head. Meadowlark ducked under the blow and in the same motion snagged Abercrombie’s ankle from behind with the toe of his own boot, sending the Captain flopping sideways to the ground.

  He couldn’t help himself from laughing, a distraction that half-closed his eyes and prevented him from seeing the other two soldiers lunging toward him. Before he knew anything else, a bayonet tip had grazed his ribs, leaving a smear of violet blood on his red linen shirt.

  He stepped back. The wound was not deep but it was painful. The soldier must have dipped the blade in garlic. They knew their business. And Meadowlark knew his. He devised the following plan: take two steps to the side as he took hold of the arm of the man wielding the bayoneted rifle, pull the arm forward to unbalance the man and strike him with an elbow at the back of the head. He would then immediately leap in the air with a twist to land behind the second guard, with enough force to snap his neck. As he escorted the guard’s body to the ground, he would draw the man’s short sword from his scabbard and run it through Abercrombie’s throat before he’d had the chance to get to his feet. And then he'd watc
h the Captain choke on his own blood.

  “Don’t do it,” Theodora said. Whether she could sense his plans through some remnant of the mental link they had just shared or could simply read the intent in his eyes, Meadowlark couldn’t tell.

  And so he relented.

  Then she yelled, “Hey wait—” and that was all Meadowlark heard before a blackjack hit the back of his head and earned its name. Everything went black.

  Chapter 14

  In the witching hour, just past midnight, Dresdemona walked alone among the elder trees. She knew this particular grove very well, having nurtured these trees with intimate care over the past hundred years. Three hundred strong, they grew tall and proud in the witch-wood to the west of the cemetery that housed her base at Deepgrave. These trees held unusual silhouettes in the dim moonlight. The gnarled, slender trunks sprouted branches at odd angles—thin, winnowy branches that drooped in the manner of the willow, dangling dangerously just overhead, sharp as claws. And the leaves. The triangular leaves resembled spearheads and seemed to have a light of their own, a silvery glow that outlined the veins along the underside.

  If the foul-smelling leaves weren’t enough to keep the curious away, these trees were protected by local superstition as well. For it was said anyone who burned a log of elder wood must meet the Devil himself before the night was through.

  Dresdemona paused in a tiny clearing that allowed moonlight to slant through the canopy. A nice moonlit night, no better time for a little spot of exercise. She raised her arms to the naked sky, centering herself within herself, drawing strength from the Moon’s sparkling radiance. A deep settling breath brought the pastoral fragrance of open woodsy air, a rare treat for one who spent her days belowground among the stones and bones of the dead. She wondered if this was what it smelled like along the arcadian avenues of Everbright. In time, no doubt, she would find out for herself.

  She stretched her mind wide, extending her consciousness throughout the grove, threading between the elder trees, touching each of them in turn. For they each had unique spirits, resting now in fits and starts, twisting and turning in their ever-restless slumber. As soon as she made contact with the whole of the grove, she drew upon a wellspring of inner strength and put out the call.