by Tad Williams
"She's faster to get ready than most." Fuzz leaned over the balcony, squinting, her hair dangling. It looked to be almost as long as she was tall. "So, are you really a Daisy? You don't look much like a Daisy."
"What would you know?" demanded Pit. "When have you ever seen a Daisy?"
"I saw one on the news talking about some parliamentary thing. Don't be such a gull."
"Saw one on the news." Pit shook her head. "Just ignore them both. They only came out to ogle you."
"What?" said Fuzz. "Are you saying it wasn't your idea? What a liar you are!"
"He'll think we're terrible," Ginnie wailed.
"See what I mean?" said Pit with grim satisfaction. "Farm girls. Fresh out of the branches. Still have pollen in their ears."
"Take that back!" Fuzz demanded. Fortunately, just as Theo was seriously contemplating making a run for it, Applecore appeared beside them with a small suitcase in her hand. She lifted off the balcony and began to descend toward Theo, then flew back up and hugged her roommates.
"Where are you going?" asked Ginnie. "We've hardly even seen you!" "Not certain," said Applecore. "I'll let you know. We just have some business to take care of . . . some Daisy business . . . and it's better we don't advertise ourselves."
"Does this have something to do with those fellas who were asking about you?" Fuzz wanted to know.
"What?" Applecore was clearly startled. "What fellas, when?"
"You mean you didn't tell her when she first came in?" said Pit. "What's wrong with you two?"
"You were in the next room, just watching the mirror-stream. You could have come in and told her . . ." "Shut up, the lot of you!" shouted Applecore, and the heat of her response was so unexpected that her three roommates all fell silent. "Tell me what you're talking about. Now."
"A couple of pixies we haven't seen before came to the door," Pit explained briskly. "They said they were friends of yours from back in Great Rowan, but they seemed nervous."
"Shite and onions." Applecore shook her head. "I don't know any pixies from back there. What did you tell them?" "That you were gone and we didn't know when you'd be back, what do you think?" Pit scowled. "I didn't like the look of 'em at all. Just as well I came home — these two probably would have had them in for tea and cakes and let them go through your room."
"That's not fair," said Ginnie, almost crying now. "And if you chased them away so well, then why did I see them just this morning? Sitting out on the front sidewalk, watching the comb?"
Pit glared at her. "You what?"
"Oh, Ginnie, why didn't you say anything?" demanded Fuzz.
"Because before I had a chance to remember, Core came back . . ." "You had time to eat an entire sesame cookie by yourself before she got here . . ."
"Enough!" Applecore quickly gave her roommates another hug. "Don't fight, you three. And if those fellas come back, don't let them in. In fact, call the superintendent and tell him the pixies are harassing you. Talk about it on the terrace, get some other folk paying attention to them. Chances are they'll get tired of watching for me, but for all your sakes I want you to make it uncomfortable for them to hang about here." Her wings hummed and she rose off the balcony.
"But where are you going?" asked Fuzz. "This doesn't sound good at all." "It's not, so it's better you don't know. Don't worry, dear ones, I'll be fine. I've got my big, strong friend Theo, after all." She settled on his shoulder, leaned into his ear. "Let's get going. The Trees alone know who's watchin' us right this moment."
Theo gave Applecore's roommates a distracted wave as he stepped out into the alley. "Go where?" he asked. "You never really told me." "I've been thinking. Walk that way, back toward the bus stop, and try to look normal, will ya?" When she had him facing the right direction, she settled on his shoulder again. "Is that your best normal? Then I'm sorry for you, fella."
"What are we worrying about — pixies? Aren't they little like you? But wingless? How the hell are they going to follow me, anyway?" "They can ride, y'know. Ratback. Birdback. And pixies may not have wings, but not all sprites are sweet and helpful like me, either, so let's keep moving and keep our eyes open. I think we're going to be okay if we stay out in the lighted areas. Even if they have poison arrows, they'd need a lot of 'em to knock you down and keep you from getting away."
"Poison arrows? What the hell are you talking about?" "But that doesn't mean they won't do their best to follow us, find out where we're goin'. So we've got to scramble around on the buses a bit, then get to a safe spot."
"But not Foxglove's place, right?" "No, definitely not. Hang on here a moment till I have a look." The bus stop was in sight. She lifted off his shoulder and buzzed away into the darkness. She was back hovering in front of him before he reached the empty bench. "Don't see any sign of anyone watching, but that doesn't mean much. A pair of pixies with the right charms . . ." She let it hang as though Theo would know about this sort of thing already. "As to where we're going . . . see, I'm not a Flower. Tansy and those other gentry types, they think they've got more in common with each other than with anyone else, so when times are bad he'd rather send you to someone in his own party. But Tansy's party, they're deal-makers, and like I said, I've already heard a few things I don't like about Foxglove. I'd rather take you to someone who's got something to lose — someone who can't make a deal because they're mortal enemies with the folks who are trying to kill you."
"You want to take me to the . . . the Creepers, right? The ones who wanted me in the first place." "But not the Hollyhock clan. Tansy's right about that — who knows how Hellebore and Thornapple and that lot found out about that young fella coming to the commune to escort you — the one who wound up with his heart in a box? But they did, and in times like this it's usually an inside job."
He couldn't help smiling at the phrase. "You're pretty hard-boiled, Tinker Bell." She scowled. "Call me that name again and you'll be wondering how your bollocks wound up lodged in your windpipe — from below. Just because we don't get to your side of things much anymore doesn't mean we don't know anything. 'If you believe in fairies, clap your hands!' If you believe in fairies, kiss my rosy pink arse is more like it. Now are you going to shut your gob or not?"
He shut his mouth. "That's good, then. So we're not going to talk about this on the bus — if a goblin can hear us talking, so can a lot of other folk. We're going to get on and off the buses a couple of times, but in the long run," she moved in close and lowered her voice to a whisper, "we're heading for Daffodil House. There's someone there who'll want to meet you, and luckily it's someone who doesn't like Hellebore and his Chokeweeds very much."
————— If it had been something past ten at night by Theo's reckoning when they visited the comb, it was approaching midnight when they got off the last bus. Theo stood shivering on the sidewalk beside a wide thoroughfare — the night air had turned sharply cold — while Applecore sniffed the breeze. "I don't think we're being followed."
"Followed?" He looked around at the silent walls and dark windows. Actually, he realized, there weren't that many windows, at least at ground level. "There isn't anyone here at all."
"This part of Gloaming District's like that. No restaurants, no night life, just government buildings and some of the bigger house-towers. Once everyone's in for the night it's pretty quiet. Let's go."
She led him down a street full of tall buildings that, like everything else in this city of alien shapes and colors, were both like and unlike what he knew. Many of the Faerie office complexes were squat structures like old castles, with walls around the outside that hid all but the tops of the buildings within, and although they were covered with bright spotlights and had quite modern looking guard stations in the massive gates, they did not look much different from the medieval districts of his world that were still inhabited. Theo remembered seeing plenty of similar arrangements during his one trip to Europe with Cat: museum-quality stonework with spanking new technology bolted right onto ancient structures.
The family compounds — the "house-towers," as Applecore named them, were a bit different. For one thing, while the office buildings averaged five or six stories, the house-towers ranged anywhere from twice to ten times that amount. One of the first they passed, a huge structure lit by upwardslanting footlights which Applecore told him was Snapdragon House, was a good example of the type: it was not cylindrical but polyhedronal, and although it had regular rows of windows on the upper floors, there were none at all within fifty feet of the ground, probably for security: the only entrance to the building seemed to be through a gatehouse set well back from the street, its massive doorway set deep in a thick wall. But although there were few windows in the first hundred feet, the tower was not without decoration: the windows were a number of different sizes and shapes, and most of the available wall space was covered with ornamentation as complex as the gargoyles and carved saints of a Gothic cathedral. Even in the glare of the spotlights Theo couldn't quite make out the nature of the carvings, but they seemed to run across the side of the tower he could see in slanted bands, as though the whole thing created a single picture spiraling around the structure.
He asked Applecore about the decorations. "Goblins gettin' killed, mostly," she explained. "Snapdragons made their names and their fortune in the last Goblin War. You should see Phlox House. They were big in the wars with the giants. They've got carved giant heads and shoulders built into the foundations — them big fellas look like they're not having a real good time holding up the building, either." Her voice took on a thoughtful tone. "At least I think they're carved."
She led him across a wide expanse of trimmed lawns and meandering paths, all quite empty in the pale, bluish light of the streetlamps. "Hoarfrost Park," she told him.
"Do we have to watch out for werewolves?" he asked nervously. "I think they've just planted the new wolfbane — you see those hedges? They take better care of downtown then they do the parts where us working folk live."
Keeping his ears open for the sounds of something lupine in the shrubbery — because who knew what you could expect from disgruntled gardeners? Theo could just imagine them planting ivy instead of wolfbane by mistake — Theo slowed to look at a statue. It was the first he'd been close enough to see. It was of some strange, silvery metal, and seemed to represent a fairy lord in full armor, holding his swan-winged helmet in the crook of his elbow. He looked out across the park in a heroic pose that Theo had seen on dozens of statues back in his own world.
"Who's this?" "How should I know?" Applecore flew in impatient circles. "The first Lord Rose, or maybe Speedwell, one of that shower. Come on."
Theo stared a moment longer at the sharp-featured face. If the subject of the statue was not one of the most arrogant creatures that ever breathed, the artist had done him a disservice.
". . . Cold," said a weary, infinitely mournful voice. Theo jumped. "So . . . cold . . ."
He looked around, heart pounding. "My God! That statue just talked to me!" The voice had seemed miles away and yet right inside his head.
"No, it didn't." Applecore was beside him now. "Come along."
"It did! It talked to me! It said 'Cold!' " "That wasn't the statue. See, when they cut down what was left of the forest that was here to make the park, the tree-nymphs . . . well, their trees were all destroyed. Some of them got into the statues as sort of a protest, but it didn't do any good. They're still in there." She shook her head. "Can't be nice for them."
"When did all this happen?" He was still shivering — the voice had sounded so lost, so miserable.
"Least fifty years, must have been, maybe a hundred. Nobody cared. It's sad, I suppose, but what can you do? Now hurry up." He could not help looking back over his shoulder at the gleaming, silvery figure. Fifty years or more! He might only have fancied it, but he thought he could still hear a faint, miserable echo as he caught up to Applecore. "How can anyone put up with that? It's . . . it's horrible!"
"Nobody who lives around here stands next to 'em long enough to hear. You just learn. Anyway, here we are." They looked down from the top of the grassy hill onto the edge of the park and a huge complex, the biggest he'd seen yet, perhaps four city blocks square, so wide that the whole of Hoarfrost Park was its front garden. The main tower was large, perhaps as much as thirty or forty stories high, but it was not the tallest he'd seen — the Snapdragon house-tower and a couple of others had been higher. However, three of the four corners of the complex also held towers that were each about half the main tower's height, so that the landscaped lot looked something like the gathering of Giza pyramids.
Like a cemetery full of monuments. The encounter with the dryad had upset Theo deeply — he could still hear its voice, the exhausted disbelief of an abandoned child.
"Daffodil House," Applecore announced. "Although really that's only the center tower-house. The other towers are Iris, Jonquil, Narcissus, and that low one's the conference center." The fourth corner, the only one without a tower, was filled by a sprawling complex of low buildings.
"Jeez," he said. "This is all one family's place? It's huge!" "They're a big, powerful family," she said. "In fact, they've practically been bankrolling the Creepers all by themselves, so if it weren't for them . . ." She fell silent; Theo realized she had decided against finishing her sentence.
"If it weren't for them, what? Your kind might be busily wiping out my kind?"
"I'm tired, Theo. Let's just try to get off the street before someone catches up to us. Wouldn't you rather be inside those walls than outside just now?" That was true. He had been out of Tansy's house less than twenty-four hours and felt like he had been on the run for weeks. He was exhausted, frightened, and had no doubt that he smelled pretty rank as well. One of those hollow-men could probably spot him from a mile away. "Okay, yeah. Let's go."
She led him to a tunnel barely higher than he was. It went all the way through a stone outer wall at least twenty feet thick. "The guard station's through here."
"Isn't this a bit of a weak spot in the defenses?"
"Have you ever seen a pastry bag?" Applecore asked. "You know, how you squeeze on it and this little stream of goo comes out the end?"
"Yeah?" "Somebody in Daffodil House or in the guard tower says a word and these walls slide together." She made a squelching noise. "Whatever's in here — goo."
He thought very carefully about turning around and running back out again. "Is it a word someone might say by accident?"
"Hardly ever happens."
"Oh, I feel much better. How do you know so much?"
"Been here before." The guard station, which was only the bottom floor of a large guard tower in the front wall, was an odd combination of medieval and modern: the interview room was mostly behind walls that seemed to be transparent glass or plastic. At this time of the night Theo and the sprite were the only people on the visitor side of the barrier, but that did not hasten the approach of the guards, a group of uniformed ogres who were playing some kind of card game on the far side of the room. At last one of them sauntered over and spoke to Applecore through a slot too small for even a sprite to get through, while Theo tried to look interested in the Daffodil — the Dynamic House! and Explore Historic Hawthorn Scathe brochures in a rack by the chairs. After a drearily long time the guard sauntered off, stopping on his way toward what looked like the communication center to kibitz on the card game.
"Aren't they going to figure out pretty quickly that I don't have the right identification — that I'm not really a Daisy?" Theo asked quietly when Applecore came back to him. He was almost too tired to be afraid. Almost, but not quite.
Applecore looked surprised. "Didn't Tansy give you anything?"
"No." She shook her head, troubled. "Well, no matter. While we were at the comb I called the person we're going to see. Those Jimmy Squarefoots are just double-checking. If she's coming, it won't matter if you're wearing your pants on your head and dancing a jig."
They were kept waiting long enough that Applecore buzzed to
the slotted window after a while for another exchange of ideas with the guards. The sprite's main idea seemed to be, "Get off your fat gray arse and call again." Theo did not really want to hear what the object of her disgust — a sevenand-a-half-footer almost as wide as he was tall, wearing something that looked very, very much like a wooden submachine gun on a shoulder strap (and with a dozen or more similarly sized and similarly armed friends ranged around the guardroom behind him) — might think about some of Applecore's more critical opinions, so he huddled on his chair by the brochure rack and tried to look as though he were just innocently waiting to get his work visa for Mother Goose Land stamped or something.
Even this tension couldn't last forever, and at last Theo found himself nodding. He was startled awake by Applecore hovering very close in front of his face, tugging cruelly on his eyebrow.
"Get up," she said.
"Stop it," he mumbled.
She leaned in close. "You don't know how lucky you are, boyo. Her ladyship came herself." Theo opened his eyes wider and staggered to his feet. Standing just inside the barrier was a slender, handsome fairy woman, indistinguishable at first from any number he had seen in the train stations and on the streets. This one had light brown hair with an actual streak of gray in it, and although there was little else in her features or posture to suggest she was anything but in the bloom of young adulthood, he suspected he might be meeting one of his first older fairies.
"Marvelous," she said, looking Theo up and down. "Just marvelous. We are so lucky to have you." Her voice was deep and fell into the category he would have labeled "no-nonsense" back home — she sounded like the kind of aristocratic woman who would stick her arm up a pregnant horse without a moment's hesitation. "Just think," she said to Applecore. "An actual mortal!"
