Twelve Days of Faery

by W. R. Gingell

  “Althea?”

  “It’s fine,” she said, with something of a gasp. “I’ll see if I can heal it once we have a moment to rest. Now that we’re not lighting up the walkways or making too much noise we should be able to sneak about the passages more easily. Do you have a handkerchief?”

  Markon did. He pulled the ironed and scented square from his pocket, annoyed at himself for not having thought of it himself, and hastily tied it around Althea’s shoulder and under her arm.

  “Make it tight,” she said, chafing her left hand with her right. And then, in a rather different voice: “Did any of the spikes hit you? You’re bleeding.”

  “Only splinters,” Markon said, tugging his knot tight. “They shattered on the wall. Why?”

  “Never mind,” said Althea, curling her left hand into her skirts. “I’ll fix that when we get out, too. Let’s keep going.”

  They crept through the passages like blue ghosts themselves, stealing past rapidly forming glass men and dashing through intersections that held men from earlier skirmishes. It seemed that once the glass men formed and separated from the walls, they remained in the passages.

  They were both panting by the time they stumbled into a high, arched rotunda from which myriad passages spiralled into the navy darkness.

  “Found it!” said Althea, her laugh low and weary. Markon put his arm around her waist, staining his own shirt with blood, and drew her toward the low, glassy table that stood in the centre of the rotunda. On it was a small glass case with a small glass door that was shut by a complicated glasswork mechanism. Inside the glass case, innocuous and slightly dirty, was a sizeable shard of metal that looked like it had once been part of a great broadsword.

  “What is it?” asked Markon, his breath fogging the glass. “You can’t tell me he wants a simple scrap from an old sword.”

  Althea hung over the display, her hand gripping a fistful of Markon’s shirt for support. “I don’t know. It’s horribly powerful, but it’s benevolent– and oh! it’s connected to so many things! But it’s...shielded from me. Why would it be shielded from me? It’s human-made...”

  Althea’s voice trailed away, and Markon heard her say a soft, sorrowful: “Oh.”

  “What is it?”

  “It’s nothing,” said Althea, but there was a pinch of sorrow to the corners of her eyes. “We can’t leave this with Carmine. It’s not the sort of thing that should be in Faery.”

  Markon threw a wary look around at the passages that surrounded them. “We should take it and keep going. Will it attract them when we open the case?”

  “Probably,” Althea said, and opened the case. She snatched the shard from its bed of velvet and said to him: “We’d better start running now. It set off every magical alarm in the mountain.”

  Markon grabbed her by the hand with an exasperated look, but when he tried to pull her back the way they’d come, she said swiftly: “Not eagles this time! Apples!” and dragged him toward one of the other passages instead.

  “Why are we going back by a different way?” he said, catching sight of the tiny trio of apples that was carved into the wall.

  “Because it’s claws, then eagles, then apples!” said Althea. “Duck, Markon!”

  Three glass spikes zipped over his head and shattered at the end of the passage. Markon, bent almost double and close to stumbling, hauled Althea around the next corner and headlong into four of the glass men.

  “No!” said Althea, in a small, panting voice. Markon ruthlessly seized her despite her struggles, wrapping his arms around her and turning his back to the men. Then he ran, lifting her bodily from the ground, her head shielded in his shoulder, bypassing the intersection from which they’d come.

  He didn’t even feel the spikes when they entered his flesh. He knew they were there, because as he ran with Althea clasped tightly to his chest and the shard of the sword between them, blunt and heavy, he saw them in the wall reflections that flanked him.

  “Apples,” he said, when his heavy legs felt like they couldn’t go any faster. “Apples and then we’re out.”

  And he hoped with all his heart that it was so.

  Markon would never remember exactly how he got out of the glass mountain. There were myriad etchings of apples and even more appearances of the glass men, who despite the lack of Althea’s magic light, seemed to hone in on them with deadly accuracy. He ran further than it seemed possible for them to have journeyed already, and at last he was running in snow, under the ridiculously beautiful Faery sky with its high, full moon.

  He put Althea down rather less gently than he’d meant to, feeling a stiffness in his arms that was far from natural. She gave a little sob, the shard dropping to the snow, and Markon opened his mouth to apologise but found that it, too, was stiff.

  “Sit down,” said Althea shakily, one hand bearing him down into the snow. The pinky and middle fingers of that hand were hard and glossy and...glasslike. Markon tried to tell her so but his mouth wouldn’t move. Neither did the snow feel cold beneath him, and the cuts on his neck no longer hurt. In fact, nothing seemed to hurt.

  And then Althea began to remove the glass spikes one by one: ten or so of them. That did hurt, a hopeful, agonising promise that perhaps he could be stopped from turning to glass after all. She worked quickly, drawing and discarding in one motion, but it was a long time after she finished drawing out the spikes that Markon became aware that he could feel her hands on his back, and that he could move again. He turned to pull Althea into his lap despite the aching of his muscles, holding her close in relief that she was still there, still alive, still flesh.

  Althea suffered it for a moment that was far too short, then disengaged herself and set snow flurrying as she rose.

  Markon also climbed stiffly to his feet, while Althea picked up the shard again and slipped it into her pocket.

  She said: “Is that better?”

  He flexed his shoulders, relieved to find that the muscles stretched and bowed as they normally did.

  “Yes,” he said. “That is– yes, I think so.”

  Althea boxed his ears. It was quick, violent, and entirely unexpected; and it sprawled him back into the snow from which he’d risen.

  Entirely shocked, Markon said: “What?”

  “I was already poisoned,” Althea said. The words came out slowly, and it was borne in on him that she was so angry that she was finding it hard to speak. “I was holding it back enough to last. A few more spikes wouldn’t have stopped that. Don’t ever do that again.”

  “I was protecting you!” said Markon, scrambling to his feet once more.

  “I know,” snapped Althea. “Don’t do it again!”

  She hugged him fiercely, bloodying the front of his shirt as well, but before Markon could respond in kind she pushed him away and turned her back on him to ascend the hill.

  Markon stared after her straight, angry spine for a perplexed moment, then hurried after her.

  “I’m not going to stop protecting you,” he told her severe profile, when he caught up with her. Then, because she was as white and weary as death, he put his arm around her waist again.

  When he felt her arm go around his waist again, gripping a handful of shirt as it had done in the glass mountain, he couldn’t help the smile that spread over his face.

  “What’s this, sweetness?”

  Carmine’s voice was light, but Markon saw the swift step forward that the fae took, and was undeceived.

  “We had some trouble,” Althea said, her voice as light as his. “I take it you didn’t know about the glass men?”

  “Not a suspicion,” said Carmine, his fingers running over Althea’s damaged shoulder and then sliding down to her half-glass hand. “I would have stolen it myself if it wasn’t for fae law. It’s horribly restrictive in some ways. The human?”

  “I healed his wounds,” said Althea. “They were worse than mine. I almost lost him in the snow.”

  Carmine cocked an eyebrow at Markon and said to Alth
ea: “Shall I fix this for you, sweetness?”

  “Oh, why not?” Althea said tiredly. “Where’s the girl?”

  “The next room,” Carmine told her. He inspected her hand first palm down and then palm up; and at last placed a long, lingering kiss in the centre of it. “That should do it, I think. It’s the door on the right, if you absolutely must leave straight away.”

  Althea nodded and left the room with her hand curled once more in the folds of her dress, abandoning Markon to Carmine’s curious gaze.

  Carmine looked at him for a very long time before he said: “Well done, human.”

  “You don’t call Althea human,” said Markon, rather tired of Faery in general and this fae in particular.

  “Ah yes, but Althea is special,” Carmine said. His heavy-lidded eyes surveyed Markon for some moments longer before he added: “I don’t normally go in for this line of things, but I’m making an exception in this case. Treat her very well, human: and if I ever hear that you’ve given her one day’s sadness I’ll rip your innards through your throat and hang you with them.”

  “I think you’ve misunderstood the situation,” said Markon.

  Carmine gave him that crooked smile again. “Have I? I think not.”

  “Misunderstood what, exactly?” said Althea’s voice. She was in the doorway with a thin young girl that Markon only just recognised as Parrin’s first sweetheart, and she was looking distinctly suspicious.

  “Nothing,” said Carmine and Markon together.

  That only made Althea look more suspicious, but all she said was: “We should go now, Markon. Lady Milee would like to get back to her parents as soon as possible.”

  “Tch, tch,” chided Carmine. “Aren’t you forgetting a little something? I believe you have a bauble of mine.”

  Althea said: “I don’t think so.”

  “I distinctly recall it. I stood right here, and you stood right there. Handshakes, promises...does it begin to sound familiar to you, sweetness?”

  “I said we’d steal it,” said Althea. “I didn’t say we’d give it to you.”

  “Now then, neither you did,” said Carmine, with an odd smile that went all the way to his eyes. “Perhaps you’re more fae than you thought.”

  “Perhaps,” said Althea, and there was a touch of sadness to her eyes. “Goodbye, Carmine.”

  “Keep it for me, then. Until next time, sweetness. Until next time.”

  Day Nine

  “What do we know– absolutely know?” asked Markon wearily. His back had troubled him all of yesterday and through the night with ice-cold pain that was only now slowly passing away, and he had not slept well.

  “Our attacker is a woman,” said Althea, offering him a mug of hot chocolate. It was already too warm in the library but Markon accepted it anyway, and Althea sat briskly down beside him, her back very straight and prim.

  “She’s not a magic user, so she either bought the spell or someone gave it to her. Annerlee knew who she was, and the Doors have all been in the castle or the courtyards, so she has to be an inhabitant of the castle.”

  “What about the princess? She was attacked by bandits in her own lands.”

  “She was at the castle before that, though. All a fae would have needed is a cutting of hair or nails. They’d have followed that scent across the worlds if necessary.”

  “It’s a pity Lady Milee couldn’t tell us anything,” Markon said; though he did wonder if it was a case of couldn’t or wouldn’t. The girl had been terrified, hysterical, and determined only in one thing: to be sent back to her parents in the grasslands of central Montalier.

  Althea’s little mouth grimaced slightly above the rim of her mug. “I’m not sure we could have trusted anything she told us: she’s in a rather delicate state of mind. Some humans can’t bear Faery.”

  Markon, his thoughts skipping ahead, said: “You said the other day that Doctor Romalier was moved after he was murdered. Is there any way to find out where he was murdered?”

  “I asked Sal about that last night while you were sleeping,” said Althea.

  “Oh you did, did you?”

  “I couldn’t sleep,” she said, and Markon saw the unconscious flexing of her left hand on the seat, the fingers that had been glass. “Besides, I met him while we were both prowling the halls and he said he’d answer my questions if I answered his.”

  Clever Sal! thought Markon, in some amusement. He’d straight away picked on the best way to deal with Althea.

  “What did he say?”

  “Amazingly little,” Althea told him. “I’ve gotten more out of clams.”

  Markon couldn’t help grinning. “Sal has a talent for saying very little. What did you do?”

  “I repaid the compliment,” said Althea, but her eyes were amused. “He did tell me that there were scraps of combed wool all over Doctor Romalier’s body.”

  “He was wrapped in a sheepskin rug to be moved,” said Markon, pleased to find that he understood. “All the guest rooms in the castle that are away from the furnaces have them on the floors.”

  Althea nodded. “Yes, that’s what I found out as well. We had a lovely little walk around the guest quarters checking empty rooms and knocking on guest doors.”

  “Did you tell the guests what you were looking for?” asked Markon apprehensively. He could only imagine how furiously offended the Count and Countess of Doute would be if told that his seneschal was looking for a murder scene in their rooms. Not to mention Pilburn of Wyndsor, who was also quartered in the guest wing and whose nostrils would undoubtedly quiver with outrage at the slightest breath of suspicion.

  “No: Sal thought it would be best to tell them that some of the rugs had been contaminated with the sheep rot, and to take them with us.”

  “Did they believe you?”

  “The Count and Countess did,” said Althea. “They couldn’t get rid of them fast enough. They had the full amount.”

  “Pilburn?”

  “He had the full amount too, but I don’t think he believed us. He wouldn’t let us take them, at any rate.”

  “Was one of the rooms missing a rug?”

  “The guest room across from Pilburn was missing one of its rugs,” nodded Althea. “I thought that was very interesting, don’t you?”

  “Interesting but not very helpful,” said Markon regretfully. “Was Pilburn aware that you were checking the other rooms?”

  “He watched us from his doorway the whole time with his nose twitching,” affirmed Althea. She chuckled suddenly. “Sal was very...dour...about it.”

  “Dour enough to offend?”

  “Yes, but all under his breath.”

  “Well, I suppose we can rejoice in small mercies for that,” said Markon.

  “Pilburn did ask a lot of questions,” Althea added ruminatively. “He was very intent upon knowing what I knew– what Sal knew, too, for that matter. Oh, he was also keen to know when he’d be able to meet with you: apparently he’s asked to see you twice in the last few days and been turned aside each time.”

  “I’m living the day at the expense of the morrow,” Markon said, somewhat ruefully. “I don’t particularly want to see him. He’s been especially prickly since Doctor Romalier was murdered.”

  Althea looked rather thoughtful at that. “Perhaps he thinks he’s next. That might explain why he’s so interested in what I’m up to as well as what Sal’s up to. Maybe I should frame him for the Doctor’s murder just to keep him out of the way. He’s by far too inclined to poke his nose where it isn’t wanted. After all, it was Doctor Romalier who was supposed to be investigating the curse, not Pilburn.”

  “Honestly, if it wasn’t for the fact that we know we’re looking for a woman, I’d be tempted to think he did it. And if it wasn’t for the fact that it must have been someone with a talent for magic who made the spell for our mystery woman, I’d think he did that, too.”

  Markon sank into the brocaded seatback and met Althea’s amused eyes. “There’s no real foundat
ion for it, of course,” he added. “Except that Wyndsor was so determined to send him here with Doctor Romalier. And if our records are accurate, he was also here as an envoy in the first Wyndsor/Montalier meet and greet half a year before the curse began.”

  “The meet and greet was to signal the start of real peace for you, wasn’t it?”

  “We hadn’t had more than a few skirmishes for years before that, but it was the official treaty, yes.”

  “Well, if it comes to that, I don’t see why someone else couldn’t have given him the spell to carry with him. It’s just a matter of how high you think it could go, and of how knowledgeable you hold Wyndsor to be.”

  “Pilburn could have sniffed out a malcontent while he was here first,” said Markon slowly, beginning to sense a thread of real possibility in what had started out as an unreasoned suspicion. “His trunks were clear of magic when he arrived the first time, but a month or so after the team from Wyndsor arrived a few of them were taken on a tour of Montalier’s inner cities. None of them were subjected to security measures when they got back.”

  “Our mystery woman, then,” said Althea: “Do you think he found her by chance, or was he sent to find her?”

  “If we’re dealing in hypotheticals, I’d say that he found her by chance,” Markon said. He discovered that he’d finished his mug of hot chocolate, and since that didn’t seem to be an ideal state of affairs, he poured himself another. “We all but forced Wyndsor into the agreements: they were very bitter about it all. I don’t particularly like my borders being routinely raided and it seemed expedient to do something about it.”

  “I read about the campaign,” Althea said. Her eyes were distinctly amused. “I thought it was exceedingly clever.”

  “We were lucky that it rained when it did,” said Markon carelessly, but her appreciative amusement was sweet to him. “Things could have gone harder with us if it hadn’t.”

  “You went out with your men for the run, didn’t you?”