by Tad Williams
"Power. That's usually the reason for everything." Cumber sighed. "As to where you fit in, I can't even guess. I'm used to reading about these things in histories or hearing about them from survivors. I never wanted to be a survivor."
"Maybe not, but it beats the hell out of the alternatives." "True." The ferisher held his slender hands up to the warmth. "Well, whatever's going on, we can't stay. And we can't wander the streets, either. Most people don't like the Excisors, but they've got a firm grip on the City right now and there will be lots of folk interested in getting on their good side by turning in a couple of wanted fugitives."
Theo was thinking about werewolves now. He had already been thinking about walking corpses and wished he could have left it at just that, ghastly as it was. "God, it's cold. I can't believe you made me give away my jacket, Sedge. At least having fewer fingers wouldn't have made me any colder."
"That's gratitude for you." Cumber squinted at the lump in Theo's pants pocket. "What is that — if you don't mind my asking? I saw you take it out of the jacket."
"You already know what it is — my great-uncle's diary, notebook, whatever. I told you about it. I thought it was the reason that Hellebore's people wanted me, but now I know that's not true."
"You saved it?" Cumber brightened; he looked like a young boy holding his first Fourth of July sparkler. "That's wonderful news. Is there . . . do you think . . . would it be too much for me to ask to look at it?"
"Go ahead, knock yourself out." As Theo handed it to him, something small fell out and into his lap, a curl of white not much bigger than a receipt.
The ferisher stared at the book cradled in his lap with a sort of happy greed. "An actual record of a mortal's impressions of Faerie in the recent past! Mortal Studies is my specialty, you know — I've waited my whole life for something like this."
Theo lifted the piece of paper that had fluttered out of the book. He squinted, struggling to read it by the fire's flickering light. "Beneath the old Fayfort Bridge. What the hell is this?" Then it came back to him — the little bright-eyed creature on the bus. "Oh, right. A goblin gave it to me. I think it's some kind of mission or homeless shelter. Told me if I ever needed a place to stay . . ." He turned to Cumber. "Hey!"
The ferisher seemed more alarmed than pleased. " Who gave it to you? A goblin? Let me see that." He stared at the slip of paper as though he hoped to turn it into something else by force of will. "Fayfort Bridge — that's down by the Fenland, past Warstones, even — all the way on the other side of the City. And it's a terrible place, dangerous, full of poor people, criminals . . ."
"Are there werewolfs?"
"Werewolves." Cumber pursed his lips. "No, of course not. It's down in the wetlands near the city docks."
"Well, that's enough to recommend it to me — no werewhatevers."
"But . . . goblins!" "You know, you fairies have some real problems with prejudice." Theo even smiled, pleased to have some direction again, a destination. "No goblin has ever done anything bad to me. Why are you all so set against them?"
"I can't speak for anyone else," Cumber said primly, "but a group of them ate my great-grandmother. Surely that's reason for a bit of prejudice."
————— Theo woke to dawn and skies that were still black with smoke, fouled like a mountain pool trampled to muddiness. Cumber Sedge was building another small fire. "About time you woke up, considering you slept the day away yesterday," he said. "I've already been up and visiting some of our fellow nature lovers." He held up something that looked like a coffee can with the words "Wing-Kleer" on it in big white letters. "I brought back some water from the stream." He produced a wrinkled bag from his pocket. "Oh, and got us some bread, too — here, break your fast."
Theo hadn't realized how hungry he was until he put the heel of crusty bread into his mouth. He barely chewed before swallowing it down, then took his time with the second piece. "How did you get this? You said you didn't have any money." He looked at Cumber more carefully. "Hey, where are your shoes?"
"I don't really need them. In fact, a lot of people in Daffodil House thought it was pretty funny I even wore them. Among the Flower-folk, there's an old expression for tarting things up in a vulgar way — 'You might as well put shoes on a ferisher.' Eat up. It's better than walking across the City on an empty stomach."
When Theo had emptied his bladder and they had put out the fire — fastidious Cumber insisted these be two separate activities, which Theo thought was a waste of water — he discovered that he actually could walk fairly well if he ignored the fact that he felt as though he had been run through some kind of industrial laundry-folding machine. "If I hurt this much, your leg must be killing you," he said to Cumber, wincing as he tried to get circulation into various suffering muscles.
"I'm not doing too badly. We ferishers heal quickly and we work hard without much complaint — that's why the nobility regard it as such a waste when one of us wants to use his mind instead. Come, let's get going. Luckily, we can go some miles through the park without having to go near a public street." Cumber seemed to have shed some of his civilized pessimism along with his footwear — he seemed almost cheerful as they set off through the trees. The ground was still wet, steaming with mist; it was hard to tell where the hilltops left off and gray sky began.
"Explain to me again how your grandma got eaten by goblins. I kept nodding off." Cumber sighed. "I wish you'd quit going on about that — it's not a particularly pleasant story. I told you, she was mostly unlucky. And it was my great-grandmother. She and her husband were . . . what would you call them? They wanted their own land, so they made a farm in a very wild area."
"Homesteaders, that's what we'd call them back home. Pioneers." "I suppose. Anyway, it wasn't all the goblins' fault. They were wild and it was their land, I suppose. This was just before the last goblin war. The local clan got into a dispute with my great-grandfather and he shot a few of them."
"With a gun? One of those . . . beehive things?" "This was centuries and centuries ago, Theo. They didn't have modern weapons. It was an old-fashioned crossbow. Anyway, the goblins came back and attacked them. My great-grandfather got away but my greatgrandmother was killed. So they ate her."
"Yeesh." Theo made a face. "I can see why you don't approve of them, I guess."
"Well, to be fair, they ate their own as well, if they were killed in a battle. Sort of an honor, I suppose. Perhaps they were even trying to show respect for old Great-Grandmother, by their lights. But my great-grandfather didn't take it that way."
"Wow. That's like one of those Old West movies or something. So why are there all these goblins in the City now? Do they still eat people?" "Only as a mark of high honor, I'm told. And only their own kind." Cumber led Theo over a ridgetop where they had a fleeting glimpse of some of the City's highest towers, gold and rose in the smoky morning light, before they made their way down into cover again.
The highest towers that are still standing, he thought. His lighthearted mood evaporated. "After the last goblin war," Cumber resumed, "when we had well and truly defeated them and the City began expanding out onto what had been goblin lands, there was a lot of argument about what to do with the goblin tribes. Some of the Flower families just wanted to do away with them, kill them all, but some of the more farsighted suggested that there would be a growing need for cheap labor. So the goblins were put to work. A lot were brought into the City itself in the last couple of centuries as the expansion began in earnest." He made an awkward gesture. "Now that things have slowed down, what with the energy shortages and all, there's not enough work for all of them, but they don't really have anywhere to go back to. It's a problem."
"But there are still some living wild, right? I saw some on the train, in Great Rowan."
"Grims?" Cumber looked surprised. "You saw grims in Great Rowan? Are you sure?" "Yeah. Applecore saw them too." He pushed on past the moment's sad silence. "They looked like, I don't know, Genghis Khan's Mongols or something. Wild. Fierce."
"So your family were settlers, then? Country folk?"
Cumber laughed, a touch bitterly. "Oh, yes. Still are. Rustic as dirt."
"But you're, like, a college graduate or something."
This time he didn't even laugh. "You saw my back, Theo. Do you think the trade was worth it?"
"Good God, is that really the entrance requirement for fairy universities? And the kids back home think they've got it tough." "It's not that straightforward, of course." Cumber shook his head, watching his own bare feet crunch through the undergrowth. This shoeless stuff didn't seem to bother him at all. "My mother came to the City from the Jonquils' country place — she was a favorite of Lady Aemilia's, kind of a pet. When she had me, well, of course she raised me here around her mistress' children, and Lady Aemilia indulged her. But I wasn't the same as the Flower children, and one of the most obvious ways to tell was that I had wings. They haven't had wings in the Daffodil Clan for several generations now, not even rudimentary throwbacks. So Mum saved up her money — she wouldn't even let Lady Aemilia help out! There's pride for you, won't even take charity to help mutilate your son. And I had the operation. But you know something, Theo? Even the ones who didn't see my back, even the first day I was at the Academy with Zirus and the rest, the other students knew. I was a ferisher, wasn't I, and ferishers are supposed to have little wings. They thought it was funny. Well, the nice ones did. Some of the others thought I was getting above my place and let me know it, regularly and forcefully."
Theo couldn't think of much to say. Except for occasional run-ins with the jock crowd, his cheerfully stoned high school days back at Hillsdale High didn't really compare.
"It's just the way things are," Cumber said. "Not much use complaining. They'll be worse, now, with Hellbore and his lot in charge."
"So I guess even before this, some folks weren't too happy with the way things are around here." Theo had barely ever considered Fairyland before winding up as an unwilling guest, let alone the real possibility of class warfare.
"All too true. But it hasn't always been like this. In the old days, things were a lot simpler. Everyone had his or her patch, and everything just sort of went on. Boring, maybe, but you didn't see gnome children begging on street corners. Things began to go bad when the king and queen died. That was really the start of the whole thing. The seven most powerful families — six now — got into power and began changing things right away." The sudden realization was painful to see. "Three families now. And probably before long it will be down to one. The Hellebore Empire."
Theo supposed that some things weren't that different from his own world. The people in power were always trying to get more of it. It wasn't enough to be eating the best meat while the rest of the population chewed old bones. The big dogs all seemed to have the same secret goal, each one dreaming of the day when he alone would be the one biggest dog, eating sweet bloody flesh until he was full to vomiting while others starved.
"Did it hurt? Having your wings cut off?"
"Hurt? No, no, of course not. This is the modern age. They can cut away your entire life and you'll never feel a thing."
————— It took them most of the morning to make their way across Rade Park. The intervening day had made his emotional wounds a little less raw, and Theo was at last able to talk about Applecore, although neither he nor the ferisher could bear to speculate over what might have happened to her. Theo found himself telling Cumber at great length about her bravery and the deep well of kindness guarded by her exceedingly sharp tongue, and was surprised to discover how much Cumber already knew about her — the ferisher and the sprite seemed to have had a few long talks during the time in Daffodil House. The conversation began to feel like a wake — Cumber seemed at least as miserable as Theo about the fact that they had lost her, and that it was probably forever. At last, in frustration and sorrow, they fell into silence.
They stopped to rest about an hour past noon and Cumber produced the rest of the bread he had acquired that morning. Theo was astonishingly hungry and happy to have it, but he was beginning to want more. Real food. A real bed. Safety.
But you're not going to get it, are you? Not anytime in the foreseeable future. So live with what you've got. Complaining was more than useless, it was a display of foolish ingratitude. He had survived what should have been certain death several times with nothing worse than a bruised, aching body and miserably crusty lungs. He had a companion — a friend, perhaps — who was risking his own life to help him. Theo was fairly certain that even though the City might not be a safe place for Cumber Sedge right now, there were spots in the countryside where even a wingless ferisher could find shelter and aid, yet here he was, patiently answering questions so basic that he must have felt like a kindergarten teacher at the end of a long, long field trip.
Speaking of questions, Theo was still having trouble getting the hang of the local chronology. "So you said the seven families took over, what, a few centuries ago?"
Cumber gave him an amused look. "Are you planning on taking a test? I don't think it will be your uncertain grasp of history that will be the biggest strike against you for citizenship at the moment."
"No, I'm just trying to figure things out — mostly where I fit into all this. Hellebore and his cronies want me, so the reason I'm here has something to do with him. But he certainly didn't need anything I could give him or tell him to launch his little Flower War." Theo frowned, struggling to think and keep up with Cumber at the same time: the barefooted and apparently revitalized ferisher was proving an exhausting hiking companion. "I know I keep saying this, but I'm not anybody. I'm just an out-of-work musician. It doesn't make sense."
"No, it doesn't."
"Right. Well, there must be something I don't know yet. So help me out. I'm supposed to be a fairy, okay. My only other connection with this place is that someone I thought was my great-uncle was here about thirty or forty years ago. That's in my-world time. How much is that here? How long ago?"
Cumber shook his head. "It's not that simple, I'm afraid. The time flows differently in our world and your world, and often it seems to flow faster here — but not always. You're combining two unstable systems. And there are geographical effects to factor in as well, which won't make much sense to you. I've studied your world enough to know that places that are proximate in your world stay proximate."
Theo considered that for a moment. "Yeah," he admitted. "Generally, if a train goes from San Francisco to LA, you don't wake up one day and find out that suddenly it stops at New York between the two."
Cumber smiled. "What amazing names. I never get over them. The pictures they make in my head! San Francisco! Like a name from a dream."
"Yeah, you should see the fair folk dancing down in the Castro on Hallowe'en." Theo snorted. "It's something out of an old folktale, all right."
"Time to be walking again. We're moving along the edge of the Twilight District now, but we still have a very long way to go and I'd like to get there before nightfall."
Their path began a long descent. The hills were more and more sparsely covered with trees and now Theo could see glimpses of a great expanse of silvery water to their right.
"Ys," said Cumber. "The islands of Hy Breasil are just out of sight beyond the horizon to the east there. I've often thought I'd like to go there. Get away from this terrible city . . ."
"So is it an ocean? Or a lake?"
"It's just the water," Cumber said, and shrugged. "If you go out far enough, it's the ocean. But here it's a lake — well, kind of a bay in places. I don't think I can explain."
Theo could also see vast stretches of urban housing and industrial blocks between the park and the water, but the district below them had little in the way of the high towers that
dotted the city center. "Is that where we're going?"
"No, that's Eastwater. We'll go through one end of it on our way. Mostly warehouses and very, very cheap flats for very poor people. Farther north — see out there, where there aren't so many buildings? That's the edge of the Fenland. It's a sort of swamp between the City proper and the dockyards. The Moonflood River lets out there, and the old Fayfort Bridge is one of the last bridges across the river. Hardly ever used now, I think, because the railroad and the main highway bypass it and come in through Eastwater."
"I still can't get used to hearing the word 'railroad' used to describe something in Fairyland, let alone 'power plants.' When did all this happen?"
"When the City expanded, after the Seven Families took over. Lord Hellebore may hate mortals, although I can't think of any reason he should, particularly — they say he used to visit the mortal world regularly, before the Clover Effect was in place — but he and his kind certainly love all the things that mortals have come up with. It's one of the reasons we have so many power problems — the Flower families have built so much, so fast. It used to be that the power for all the charms and cantrips and spells of Faerie could be provided by the king and queen — well, by what the king and queen did."
"What exactly did they do?" "I don't know, really. Provided the power, or perhaps channeled it — they simply were, and somehow that was enough. But with them gone and the City growing so fast, the Seven Families and the Parliament had to find other ways to provide power to make everything work. So they developed the plants."
For a moment, Theo was confused, imagining some utopian scheme of deriving energy from soybeans. "What kind of plants?" "Power plants, of course. Where they make the scientific energy that runs the lights and the coaches and the trains and . . . and everything. And so Parliament passed the Power Generation Laws and they began the conscription."
