Faerie Tale

by Raymond Feist

  Sean was fascinated by the display, wondering who these fabulous people could be, but his attention was pulled away by the sight of his golden guide vanishing over the horizon. Then Sean remembered Barney’s warning about not stopping lest he lose his guide. Feeling panic strike, he saw the guide was gone. He sprinted after the ball of light.

  He crested a hill and saw he had gained ground on the orb, but still he ran, fearing to lose his only hope of finding his brother. By the time he had overtaken the ball of golden light, he noticed the trees had closed in on both sides of the road and everything had grown darker. These woods were more oppressive, more somber, than those that stretched back from the castle to the hill with the green people. Sean gripped his dagger tighter. Forcing himself to calmness, the boy followed doggedly on behind the shimmering guide.

  29

  Phil glanced through the glass to where Mickey Bergman was examining Patrick one last time before leaving for Baltimore in the morning.

  The doctor left Patrick’s bedside and came out of the room. Bergman took Phil by the arm, steering him to where Gloria sat in the waiting area. She had left Phil’s side, unable to watch the shrieking creature that had once been her son struggling to bite and scratch the attendants as they held him down so Mickey Bergman could examine him. “Philip, I was going to call you if you hadn’t come in. There’s something I need tell you.”

  “About Patrick?” said Gloria.

  “Yes. I’m sorry, but his behavior is becoming more … extreme. He’s also … stronger, as if … I don’t know, a kind of hysterical strength, maybe. It’s getting more difficult to work with him. He … attacked a candy striper today.”

  “What?” said Phil in astonishment.

  Bergman sat down opposite Phil and Gloria. “The girl meant well, but she was being pretty stupid entering that room—she’s new. She said she saw Patrick through the window and he seemed so upset and frightened. It took two orderlies and a nurse to pull him off of her.”

  “What did he do?” asked Gloria.

  Mickey shook his head. “If he wasn’t only eight years old, I’d say he tried to rape her.”

  Gloria’s expression was eloquent, even if she couldn’t find words. Bergman continued, “He had the girl’s blouse torn half off and was holding her down on the bed.” Mickey’s face showed uncertainty. “He bit her on the left breast, a nasty wound. The girl’s going to have a scar.

  “Look, if this continues, I don’t know if that state hospital Wingate’s suggested is the best place for Patrick. I can get him into one of the psych research units at Johns Hopkins. I think I’d like to follow this case a while longer.”

  Phil said, “Thanks, Mickey. But why the sudden interest?”

  Bergman sat back, arms crossed. “I can’t tell you really. There’s just something about this one that bugs the hell out of me.” He looked at Gloria, finding her more collected than he had seen her so far, so he ventured an opinion. “I don’t know what’s with Patrick, but it’s unique. And … if we can find out what it is … maybe we can.…”

  “Help him?” said Gloria with little hope evidenced in her tone or manner.

  Mickey shook his head. “I can’t say that. I just think we might discover something important. I really can’t tell you why. Call it a hunch.”

  Phil said, “We’ll talk it over. How long before we can see Patrick?”

  “A while, Fm afraid. You’ll have to wait a bit. It’s taking more drugs to calm him, and longer for them to take effect. I’m thinking of changing what we give him so he doesn’t develop drug problems along with everything else. And … it’ll be a while before he’s cleaned up.” Looking hard at them, he said, “You realize he’ll be under restraints when you see him?”

  Both nodded, and Mickey rose. “Very well. I’ll call you tomorrow when I get to Baltimore.” Phil rose and stuck out his hand. They shook and Bergman said, “I’m glad I came. Not just for that outrageous bribe offer, either. This one’s unique. I just wish I could have done more.”

  Phil watched him leave and sat down next to his wife. Gloria seemed numb, off in her own world, while they waited for the nurse to tell them they could visit Patrick. Phil wished the sharp churning feeling in his stomach would go away. He’d been eating antacids almost hourly since all this had begun. And things seemed to be getting worse. Mark’s vanishing act had a strangely unsettling effect on everyone. And Sean seemed so moody and disturbed. Running a hand over a tired face, Phil said to himself, “Don’t make too much of this, old son.”

  Gloria turned slightly. “Huh?”

  He shook his head. “Just talking to myself.” Gloria returned to her own lonely world.

  Phil chided himself: Of course everyone was on edge and there was some general fallout from that anxiety. Mark was probably off poking around and somehow had managed to miscommunicate with Gary. And Sean … well, he’d had a brother—more than a brother—a twin taken from him. Of course he’d be moody and disturbed. Phil hoped the party tonight would make things a little easier for Sean.

  Phil felt exhaustion pull at him. Nervous fatigue, with its strangely electric numbing quality, caused him to drift into a twitchy half doze, one in which he was aware of his surroundings but also not quite awake.

  He thought of Patrick and could see his son just a dozen feet away, as if the walls between the waiting room and his bed had vanished. Then something odd occurred and somehow he also could see Patrick lying on … clover? The boy seemed to doze in some other place, asleep upon a bed of flowers and grasses. And near him rested something … black. Something … evil. Phil tried to warn Patrick, to shout to him to get up and run to Daddy, but his body wouldn’t obey him. He felt himself strain, but his arms and legs wouldn’t budge and his voice stayed mute. In his mind he screamed Patrick’s name. The boy sat up. Phil’s heart leaped as he saw his son look around, blinking in confusion. Then the boy saw his father. With a smile he stood and took a slow step toward his father. But the evil black thing rose up behind. Phil screamed to the boy to run and tried to go to him, but his body wouldn’t answer his demands. Patrick sensed the presence of the evil thing behind and turned to look over his shoulder. The boy’s eyes widened in terror at the vague black shape and he turned to face his father. He took an agonizingly slow step toward his father as the black horror reached out and encompassed the boy with long, sooty black arms. Opening his mouth, Patrick cried out. “Phil!”

  Phil jerked awake, drenched in sweat, his heart pounding. It took him a few seconds to gain his bearings and discover he had fallen asleep in the chair. Mark was kneeling before his chair. He said, “Are you all right?”

  “Ya,” said Phil huskily. “Just dozed for a second. A nightmare.” He wiped his face and took a deep breath, collecting himself.

  Then Mark’s presence hit Phil and Gloria and both started to speak. “Don’t ask anything,” Mark interrupted. His face showed he had been without sleep for some time. The area above his normally trimmed beard showed several day’s growth and his eyes were red-rimmed, set in deep, dark sockets, and his skin looked chalky. He was wet, as if he had been outside in the rain for a while.

  “You okay?” asked Gloria.

  “Never mind me,” said Mark. “Tell me exactly what’s happened since I left. I went to your place and Gabbie said you were here with Patrick.”

  Phil began and Gloria joined in, and after a few minutes Mark had a fairly accurate narrative of all that had occurred since his departure. He still knelt before Phil and Gloria, his hand held before his mouth as he thought. Then he said, “Christ, you were taken for a ride.”

  “What?” asked Phil.

  Mark’s expression showed something else wasn’t right and Phil said, “What’s wrong?”

  “Aggie’s been in an accident. She’s downstairs. Dr. Murphy said he thought you’d be up here with Dr. Bergman, Phil, so I came up to tell you.”

  Phil said, “What happened?”

  Mark said, “After I left your place, I passed the ac
cident. I recognized Aggie’s car.” He spoke without emotion. “She spun out on the road between your place and Lonny Boggs’s.”

  “Is she going to be all right?” asked Gloria, rising.

  Phil stood and made to move toward the elevator, but Mark held him back. “She didn’t make it.”

  “How did you know?” asked Phil.

  “I saw the cops pull her from the wreckage and put a tarp over her and her passenger. And she’s downstairs in pathology, not E.R.”

  “Goddamnitall,” whispered Gloria. Her eyes began to tear and she softly repeated, “Goddamnitall.” Phil stood silently, too numb to take in Aggie’s death. She had been like a member of his family and his closest professional mentor. Mechanically he asked, “How did it happen?”

  Mark spoke. “I can only guess. But details aren’t important now.” He glanced at the clock on the wall. “Time is.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Gloria.

  Mark pushed by Phil and stood right in front of Gloria. “On the night Patrick was taken ill, do you remember anything unusual, besides Sean’s screaming?”

  Gloria shook her head, then remembered faintly a dim image of a shadow in the corner. “Well, there was something.”

  “What?” Mark’s dark eyes seemed to bore through her.

  She explained what she had seen in the corner as best as she could, and Mark said, “How much has Gary told you?”

  “A lot of weird shit,” Phil answered. “He couldn’t seem to believe half of what he said himself, but he told me what you let him in on just before he left for Seattle. But he was holding something back.”

  All Mark said was, “It’s worse than he told you. I’m going to have to leave again, for two reasons. The first is that man with Aggie tonight. He’ll have friends, and they’ll be coming after him quickly. Some may be on their way here even now. If they find me, they might kill me.

  Gloria appeared on the edge of hysteria as she sat wide-eyed, holding a hard ball of crumpled Kleenex in her fist, pressed against her lips.

  Mark said, “We’re going underground for a while, Gary and I. Running will only delay the inevitable. They’ll find us sooner or later. But when they do, I hope we’ll be able to bargain with them.”

  “Who’s ‘them’?” demanded Phil.

  Mark ignored the question. “The other reason I’m leaving is to go someplace, Phil, and you have to come with me.”

  “Where?”

  “To a place where few men have ever gone, to prevent a great deal of harm to a great many people. I need help, but Gary’s got to do some things that prevent him from coming with me. I have no one else to ask, but I don’t ask you to come to help me. You have a very personal stake in coming.”

  “What reason?” asked Phil.

  “I’m going to the place your sons have gone. I’m the only one who can help you go after Patrick and Sean.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Gloria, her voice barely a whisper.

  “I went to your house and Gabbie said Sean wasn’t at the school when she and Jack went to get him. They’ve called the police, but they won’t find him. I know where he is. He’s gone to get Patrick back.”

  “What the fuck are you talking about, Mark! You come in here telling us Aggie’s dead and somebody’s after you and all sorts of mysterious bullshit, and then you’re on about Sean going off into the night after Patrick!” Phil’s voice rose as frustration and anger sought to fight their way out of that place he had bottled them up. “Now, it may have escaped your notice, but Patrick is over there in that ward, brain-damaged but otherwise intact!”

  Mark put his hand on Phil’s arm. His voice remained steady, but there was a hard edge in it as he said, “That’s not Patrick in there, Phil.”

  Phil pulled away from Mark’s grasp. “What are you saying? I know my own son.”

  Mark glanced at Gloria and suddenly pushed past Phil toward the ward door. Phil stood motionless a moment before springing after him.

  Mark walked in and glanced through one glass window and the next until he saw Patrick. He walked straight to the nurses’ station. Keys lay on the desk while the woman read a magazine. Most of the patients were quiet this time of night, asleep or watching television.

  Mark just took the keys, and before the woman could react, he was trying them in the lock to Patrick’s room. “Sir!” shouted the nurse. “What are you doing!” Before she was halfway to him he had the door open and was through.

  The nurse was rudely shoved aside as Phil and Gloria entered. “You can’t go in there!” she shouted.

  Phil entered to see Mark standing at the foot of Patrick’s bed. The boy lay tied by heavy leather restraints. He glared up at Mark, hissing like an enraged snake.

  Mark pointed at the boy, saying something to him in a foreign language. Patrick flinched and cowered, trying to pull away from Mark, as if terrified by the man’s presence. The boy’s restraints were stretched taut. Phil reached Mark’s side, but before he could grab him, something caused his heart to freeze. For the first time since the night of Patrick’s illness, there was a shrewd intelligence in the boy’s eyes. A keening sound issued from the boy’s mouth and he pulled at the straps, then he looked at Phil and spoke. “Daddy, he’s hurting me.”

  Gloria gasped and shrank back, clutching the door-jamb. Mark continued his chanting, and Phil recognized the language as something Gaelic, ancient Scottish or Irish. Then Patrick pulled and one of the restraints ripped. Three more yanks and the boy was free of the leather restraints. He crouched before Mark’s accusing finger, bending his head as if the words were somehow hurting him. He backed away until he reached the head of the bed, then he continued his movement and began to crawl backward up the wall.

  Mark continued to point at Patrick and began to shout at him in the strange language. Gloria screamed, and the nurse went ashen at the sight of Patrick climbing the wall. Two burly orderlies pushed past Gloria and the nurse, and stopped at the sight of the boy climbing backward up the wall.

  One of the two orderlies, a huge black man, said, “Holy shit! Fuckin’ Spiderman!”

  Then Mark’s voice rang out. “In the name of God give us back the bairn!”

  “Never!” hissed Patrick and his form began to shimmer.

  “Bring back the bairn!” commanded Mark.

  “The Compact is broken!” cried the thing that hugged the wall. “You may not compel me!”

  Mark turned and found a pitcher of water and threw it at the child. “Water cleanse thee! The glamour be banished! The spell be broken! Changeling begone!”

  The water spattered over the boy and suddenly Patrick was no more. Hugging the wall was a creature about the same size as the boy, a squat, fat thing with spindly arms and legs, huge belly, and enormous penis. But its head was twice the size of the boy’s and its face a frog mask of hate and rage, its wide mouth split in a hideous grimace. A long tongue lolled out between sharp teeth that could be seen even across the room. Frog eyes with yellows around red irises darted about the room. The creature’s skin was a dull grey, and ears like small fans or seashells rose up on each side of its head. Both feet and hands were tipped with black-taloned fingers and toes. It was a nightmare made real.

  The creature threw back its head, opening wide its mouth, and howled, a terrible sound like a claxon, echoing with a deep rumble. A stench of rotten eggs filled the room and the creature’s voice shot up in register, from bass to tenor, until it shrilled, “My master is great. You are his meat.” With a peal of laughter that raised goose-flesh like the sound of nails on a blackboard, the creature sprang from the wall, upon the bed, and bounced as if it were a trampoline. It hurled impossibly through the air, smashing through the window, sending glass flying outward as the thing fled into the night.

  Mark hurried over to the window; honking and screeching sounded from the road as motorists swerved to avoid the creature racing across the highway. The sound of several cars crashing into one another filled the night. One of the stunned order
lies looked across the room at the shattered window and said, “That’s impossible! That’s safety glass. You couldn’t break it with a sledgehammer!”

  Mark took Phil by the arm and half led, half dragged him past the man. Gloria was crying, hysterical with shock, and the nurse was trying to control her. Another nurse had arrived at the door and had fainted, and the black orderly was trying to revive her.

  As they made their departure amid the bedlam erupting in the psych ward, Mark took Phil by the arm and led him calmly through the visitors’ area. He ducked into the stairwell and continued to hold Phil’s arm as they descended the stone steps.

  Phil seemed to lose his stunned confusion and asked, “Where are we going?”

  “Erl King Hill.”

  30

  Mark herded Phil out the stairwell and through the relative calm of the main waiting room of the hospital. He motioned for Phil to move calmly toward the main door. “This won’t keep for long. As soon as someone up in psych starts yelling, this place is going to be crawling with nurses, orderlies, security types, and a couple of doctors. And they’re all going to be looking for the madman who broke into the kid’s room.”

  “What do we do?” asked Phil. He glanced over his shoulder. “Gloria.…”

  Mark kept his voice low, but his tone was intense.

  “Phil, someone’ll take care of her. All hell’s about to break loose. You and I have to do a lot in the”—he glanced at the clock on the wall as they crossed the room; it read eleven—“the next hour.”

  “Mark, what’s going on?”

  “We’re going to use magic to save the world. And get Sean and Patrick back.”

  Phil blinked. “Magic? Sure, why not. After what I’ve just seen.…”

  Mark said, “My rental car is out in the parking lot. There’re records of me having it. Gary has my car. We’ll take yours.”

  They left the lobby and crossed the parking lot to Phil’s car. Phil started up the engine and asked, “What’s Gary doing?”

  “Being my insurance, I hope.” Mark looked at Phil and there was sadness in his eyes. “The people we’re dealing with might think nothing of snuffing us all out.” Phil backed the car out and turned it toward the road. When another car turned into the lot, its lights playing across the two men, Mark glanced away, turning his shoulder so the other driver couldn’t see his face. As Phil pulled out into traffic, Mark said, “Over the centuries, thousands of people have died to protect some incredible secrets, Phil. Gary and I know those secrets now. We may have something to bargain with.”