“Am I, then, the fairest of queens?”
(“You are fairest of Queens,” said the host.)
“Majesty, I cannot see your face.”
“Am I the fairest?”
(“You are fairest of Queens,” said the host.)
“Majesty, what I behold of you is fair indeed, but I cannot truly say if you will not reveal your face.”
“The beauty you seek is of such magnitude that it should be apparent through any mask or veil.”
(“Of such magnitude,” said the host.)
The mortal stayed silent.
“Plainly, you cannot perceive what lies behind my mask,” said the Black and Crimson Queen. “Plainly, you are blind to true beauty.”
(“Plainly, he is blind,” said the host.)
The Black and Crimson Queen extended her open hand. The circle of black and crimson soldiers advanced a single pace and raised their swords. “Plainly, you deserve a harsh and ignoble death.”
(“Death,” said the host. “Death, death, death.”)
The mortal found the magus’ weapon where it hung behind him. He brought it about, keeping the muzzle pointed at the ground.
“Cut him down,” said the Black and Crimson Queen.
The mortal racked the Uzi and looked up at the Queen. The host continued to advance. “Majesty, I beg you.”
“You are scum from the mortal realm. My only regret in slaying you will be poisoning the soil with your spilled blood.”
The mortal raised the Uzi to a firing position, braced the stock against his shoulder, and thumbed the fire selector to full automatic. “Please, Majesty.”
“No,” said the Black and Crimson Queen.
The mortal squeezed the safety grip and pulled the trigger. The weapon issued a staccato bray. Bright-light runes flashed in the air amongst ejected shell casings.
Black and crimson troopers fell and died as he swept the submachine gun before him. The Queen exploded into a mist that was more red than black.
When the magazine was spent, the forest fell once more to silence. The survivors of the Black and Crimson host had already fled.
The mortal lowered the smoking gun and went to the place where the Black and Crimson Queen had fallen. Carefully, he bent to remove her mask. Though the obsidian oval was intact, her face beneath it had been burned and smashed by gunfire.
He could not tell if she had been fair or not.
17. The Tree Queen’s Justice
Weeping, the mortal put the mask in his rucksack and fled into the forest. He staggered amongst the trees, the stink of powder harsh in his nose, his eyes raw from gun-smoke and tears. He shambled on, bumping into low-hanging limbs, tripping on the underbrush, stumbling and then rising and then stumbling again.
He did not get very far.
A band of soldiers in wooden armour fell upon him. Or perhaps it was the trees themselves that accosted him--his stinging vision made it difficult to be certain.
The mortal did not resist when they beat him down. He did not struggle when they bound him with vines as strong as electrical cables. He gave no fight when they hauled him away, dazed and battered, with his boots dragging in the dirt.
There were no buildings in the Tree City, for its denizens made their homes in the trees themselves. There were no roads or paths. Communal places were recessed in the hollows beneath trees or nestled up in the canopy, twisted together from limbs and foliage. Even the largest of these structures had been cultivated into its shape. No wood had been cut in the construction of the city.
The soldiers sealed the mortal and all of his possessions inside a hollow oak that was barely wider across than his shoulders. They left him there in darkness for a measure of time he could not fathom; upright, with his face pressed up against the rough-grained walls; bound hand and foot.
When the holding period was over, the oak released him and the soldiers dragged him away, parched and dazed and delirious.
The mortal came to his senses in a small antechamber, which was lit by luminous mosses. There the soldiers cleaned him up and gave him water and carefully beat him until he was fully awake. Then they escorted him through into the courtroom.
The courtroom had walls of wet soil, held in place by a meshwork of root fibres. Worms and grubs of unnatural size crawled blindly amongst them. High windows made of hardened sap cast a hazy and impure light upon the proceedings.
The court waited in silence as the soldiers hauled the mortal into the open floor at the centre of the chamber. He observed them through bruised and puffy eyes: retainers dressed in silks and mosses; magicians in rough-spun cowls; soldiers with shadowsteel weapons identical to those born by the Black and Crimson Queen’s host.
The magicians chalked a circle around the mortal and warded it with spells. There were two other prisoners already bound within the chamber. A hunched, four-armed thing made of black chitin occupied the circle on his left. It had no hands or feet at the ends of its limbs, and its head was shaped like the blade of an axe. The circle to his right contained a pile of loose body-parts connected with loops of wire—more parts than could possibly have come from a single being. Hands and feet and legs and arms. If there was a head or a torso in the collection, the mortal could not see it.
The Queen of the Trees entered on the arm of her King. She wore a dress of green silk and high boots cut from supple brown leather. Her hair was the colour of oak leaves and her skin was as pale as milk. A string of emeralds glittered across her breast. The Queen’s features were delicate but her posture was haughty. She was as beautiful as any creature the mortal had ever seen.
The Tree Queen spoke a word, and the King stood aside. The magicians withdrew and she walked right up to the edge of the circle that enclosed her new prisoner.
The mortal fell to his knees. He could no longer stand without assistance.
“Do you speak?” asked the Tree Queen.
He opened his mouth, closed it. Swallowed to wet his constricted throat. “Yes.”
“A pity,” said the Tree Queen. “Now I must waste further words upon you.”
He nodded. It was a struggle to keep his head up.
“What manner of demon are you?”
“I’m a mortal,” he said.
“A mortal?”
“From the mortal world.”
“A demon,” she said. “As I thought.”
“I’m a mortal.”
“Name yourself as you will,” she said, “It will not change your true nature. Who summoned you?”
His head fell, and he did not reply.
“Who summoned you?”
“I was not summoned,” he said, addressing the dirt floor.
“Yet you reek of sorcery.”
“I…I used…I used an enchanted weapon…when…”
“You were given an enchanted weapon to wield against the Black and Crimson Queen,” she said. “Was this the same instrument you used to murder the Queen of the Sea City on the Plains?”
“I did not intend… I was forced to…”
“Who compelled you to commit these crimes?”
“No one. I…please, Majesty, let me explain…”
“No,” said the Tree Queen, and in that moment she was ugly. She was not the one he sought. “I’m tired of this dialogue. You will forever be bound to this circle, never to speak again, nor wreak your evil upon the Land, nor return to the hell from which you crept.”
The coven of green-robed magicians set busily about completing their spells. The Tree Queen rejoined her King and stood, watching them work, with her arms folded and contempt plain upon her face. The Tree King’s face showed nothing more expressive than wood-grain.
The mortal sagged forwards in despair. He didn’t know if he could be bound as a demon. He didn’t know if he deserved to be or not. But he was determined to pro
ve what he was, and what he was not…to himself, if not to the Tree Queen.
On his hands and knees, the mortal lurched to the boundary of the circle. He reached out to it, and the chalk-marks yielded beneath his fingers.
The magicians reeled as their spellcraft was torn asunder.
The mortal raised his head to beg his innocence once more, but he had not the strength. He sprawled out of the circle, and one of his splayed legs breached the markings that contained the severed-limb demon.
The court cried out in horror as the demon arose to its full twenty feet of height. It sorted itself into the shape of a huge and hideous thing: a head without a torso, but with far too many limbs; strung together with gleaming strands of metal. It laughed and whirled about and fell upon its captors; flying apart and spiralling back together, slicing to ribbons anything caught within its looping, spooling wires. It did not stop until the court entire—the magicians, the courtiers, the guards, the King, and the Queen—had been slashed into shreds.
He lay prone on the floor and watched the severed-limb demon reel itself back together. It saw him there, and came to crouch down beside him; its joints lolling on their wires. “Thank you,” it said. It stood up, made a rippling bow, and then swept out of the chamber, away into the day.
Somehow, the mortal managed to crawl out of the courtroom, through the moist piles of meat and entrails. In the antechamber he hauled himself up onto a low wooden bench and sat there, panting. He closed his eyes and tried to summon some further strength, but he had none left. The mortal drank every drop of the water in his canteen. Then he slid down to the floor and closed his eyes.
When the mortal awoke he felt well enough to stand, though he was still thirsty and unsteady. The stairs looked steep and taxing to climb, so he went back through the archway into the courtroom chamber in search of his belongings.
The butchered remains of the Tree Queen’s court lay yet upon the ground, still wet and reeking and fresh. The obsidian demon remained unmoving amongst the carnage, still bound to its circle. The mortal’s things lay in a pile at the far side of the room. He did not want to cross that floor, but his boots led him steadily across the blood-slick ground without regard for the viscera upon which he trod.
The mortal took up his rucksack and then went to the place where the Tree Queen had fallen. Her face had been sliced off in a single piece: forehead and brows, nose and lips and lashes. An emerald from her necklace had been embedded in her cheek. Her flesh was still warm beneath his fingers when he prised the gem from it.
The mortal turned his gaze upon the obsidian demon, which remained in its place, silent and unmoving. If it had perceived the events that had passed before its eyeless gaze, it gave no sign. He limped over to it and scuffed a gap in its circle, but it remained motionless. The mortal could not bring himself to touch it. He left it to discover on its own that it had been freed, if it still had the capacity do so.
18. The Storm
Front
He tramped through the woods until he found the river again. There he stopped to fill his canteen and eat the last of the food the farm folk had given him before he followed the river out of the forest.
For many weeks more he wandered the hill country, stealing food from any farms or hamlets he passed near. He avoided the cities and villages and company of any sort. He kept well clear of all but the merest groves of trees.
Late one afternoon a strange grey washed away the sky. The bright hot ball that served this particular Realm as a sun disappeared, although the light it shed remained, pallid and thin. Two great storm-fronts roiled over the hills, one from the direction the mortal reckoned to be east and the other from the west. Lightning crackled between the cloud masses and the thunder rolled like war drums.
The mortal stared up into the clouds and he saw that this was not weather, as he knew it; this was indeed a war. Each thunderhead was ridden by a squadron of storm folk, who piloted its course and cast its lightning and strove against their enemies. The mortal could not tell which side was which, once the battle was joined, but he was certain that he saw the same banners on both sides.
Surely these folk had a queen to command them. Were they fighting for her attention? Or had she set her own people against each other, for her own amusement?
The mortal considered the question, and found that he did not care. He had no desire to meet this Storm Queen, however beautiful she might be. He had failed in his quest and now he did not care to complete it.
“All you faerie folk be damned,” he said. “Your fancy queens and your whimsical beasts and your flesh-sucking monsters. All of you be damned.”
Rain from the storm trickled into his mouth as he spoke. It was sweet and a little salty, and left the taste of iron on his lips. He stood like that, letting it spatter against his cheeks, and found that he did not mind the cold of it as it ran down into his beard.
When the storm cleared, night had fallen. There was no moon, and it was dark but for the light of a strange rainbow, banded with purple and violet and indigo.
“Is that for me?” he said, addressing anyone or anything that cared to listen. “A night rainbow? Are you fucking kidding me?”
The mortal laughed and laughed until the effort of it hurt his face. By that time the rainbow had dissipated and there remained no light whatsoever.
19. The Black Thing
When the dawn came a stripe of black smudged the horizon to the east. A forest of bare, black-skinned trees stood there like an army forming up near a battlefield. Could he possibly have missed it the day before? Or had the black forest marched here to meet him under cover of night?
Regardless, he knew that the Tree of Indeterminate Species lay on the far side of the forest. That was his destination now. He was done with all this nonsense and it was time to go home.
He walked towards it all day, without stopping for rest, and by the time he reached the tree line the withered grey moon had risen to its place in the sky. The black forest did not look any more inviting by night than it had during the day.
The mortal built a small campfire to warm himself, but he ate his food cold. He did not pitch his tent. After the meal he sat before the blaze, sweating from the heat and staring into the flames. When he looked up again the moon had vanished, although the sky remained clear and the stars continued to shine.
A chittering drew his attention back to ground.
Just beyond the circle of firelight, a group of small, black-skinned beings crouched in the thickening darkness. As far as he could tell, they had congealed from the night air itself.
“Please, don’t be afraid,” said the mortal.
The chittering ceased and the black things vanished liquidly into the darkness.
“Damn it,” he said.
“You don’t say.” It took him a moment to locate the voice.
One of the black things had remained. It stepped brazenly into the flickering light and squatted down across the fire from the mortal. Flames were reflected in its blood-black eyes; in the sheen on its blood-black skin. The black thing’s clothes were fashioned from strips of blackened leather and fastened with black iron buckles.
The creature showed him its bloody black teeth and said, “Will you cross the black forest?”
“My destination lies beyond it.”
“And what is your destination?”
“Home,” said the mortal. “I’m done with this place.”
The black thing continued to grin at him. “Do you know the perils of the black forest?”
“No,” he said, “But I will face whatever foes the forest sends against me; navigate whatever travails.”
The black thing laughed. “There are neither foes to be faced, nor ‘travails’ to be ‘navigated’. Black soil and black trees are all you will find there.”
“And why is that?”
“Because,” s
aid the black thing, “No living thing can survive there.”
“Is there no way to safely cross the forest?”
“It can be crossed, but you must not allow the soil or the trees to touch your living skin.”
“And if I do?”
“If you do, your skin will live no more.” The black thing showed its teeth again and skipped back from the fire. “Enjoy the rest of your trip,” it said. “It will soon be over.”
He did not see the black thing depart, but he knew that it was gone before it had finished speaking.
20. In the Black Forest
The mortal stayed up all night, stoking the fire and staring into the flames. The moon did not return. At daybreak he packed up his kit and set forth without breaking his fast.
The ground turned black at the very border of the forest. The trees were blacker yet, and at first the mortal thought they had been burnt—but they were in fact perfectly healthy. They were uniform in their bareness and their size. There was no other vegetation, or even humus, upon the forest floor.
The sky above was blue and bright, though he could not locate the sun in it. The air was clean and sweet and still.
The mortal made his way cautiously through the forest, having care not to touch anything. He was worried that a wind would arise to blow traces of the soil or the trees upon him, but he soon abandoned that particular fear. In this forest, even the wind was dead.
He picked up his pace from a trudge to a stride, and before he was aware of it, he had begun to whistle. When he realized that the song he was whistling was Jimi Hendrix’s ‘Foxy Lady’, and finally he began to smile.
“Ha!” he said, and shook his head, and wiped the muck from his eyes. But he found that he was no longer alone.
The King sat upon his burnt-gold stallion in his smoked-silver armour; a battered old lance in one hand and a gleaming bright sword in the other. His warhorse was shod in platinum, though his own feet were bare in the stirrups.
Faerie Apocalypse Page 5
