Humunculus paused, as if thinking, and returned to his chair. “Explain.”
“As you say, the firstborn boy is evil. My daughter then sought out a good man so that, through this second son, she would leave the world no worse than when she entered it.”
“Then why are both sons needed to aid my passage to the Brightworld.”
The old man shrugged. “I’m not certain, but perhaps her power has been divided between the two of them, so they must come together to release you. I’m sure they will arrive soon, and you will finally return to the Brightworld.”
The Faerie King sat back and thought. “Your explanation sounds plausible, but you’ll forgive me if I don’t entirely trust the word of one of those who trapped me here in the first place. But for you and your fellows, I would have been overlord of your world for the past forty years, and none of this would have been necessary.”
Getting up, Humunculus crossed to the door, pausing at the threshold.
“If you ever want to see your daughter again, I suggest you become more talkative. You are hiding something from me, and my patience wears extremely thin. If, when I next visit, you are not more forthcoming, I will have to consider bringing in the torturers and I really don’t want to have to do that. Of course, I’ll need to decide which of the two of you I’ll send them to first. You can avoid any such unpleasantness by simply telling me the truth - the complete truth. You never know, I might even forgive you.”
The king passed through the door and slammed it shut.
In the pitch blackness, the old man sank back onto the floor and wept.
Chapter 17
Bill was beginning to wonder if he’d ever get the hang of his powers. He’d gained some control over when his hands would go off, but his aim still left a lot to be desired. He could probably hit a barn door, he thought, as long as he didn’t intend to. The problem was that when he felt the fire flow down his arms and settle in his wrists, he couldn’t hold it back for long enough to bring his hands to bear on the target.
“It’s called premature conflagration,” explained Velicity to him, one evening. “We all experienced something similar when we first received the gift, except Mother Hemlock, of course. I’m sure she took to hers like a duck to orange sauce.”
Bill had developed the defensive tactic of not looking directly at her when speaking since it allowed him to be somewhat more lucid. “What do I do about it?”
Velicity thought for a moment.
“The main thing is to practice holding it back. That’s easier if you conflagrate regularly. Otherwise, you’ll get a big build up that’s difficult to control, and you’re a danger to the public.”
“Is that how you mastered your talent for wind?” he asked, risking a look and feeling his breath being ripped from him.
Velicity nodded, beautifully. “Yes. It was difficult at first. Like you, I would go off at the most embarrassing of moments, inconveniencing anyone who happened to be nearby. But, with time, I learned that by pushing out my wind little and often, I was able to control it. Then I was able to hold it back for longer and wait until I really wanted to let it go, all at once. Now, I have complete control, you’ll be pleased to hear. I could clear a city block if I had a mind to.”
Bill was indeed pleased to hear it, he imagined Velicity’s wind to be quite impressive, like the rest of her. He sat back in his chair by the fire and sipped at his beer. Velicity sat opposite, seeming, to Bill, to be surrounded by a faint glow like some elven queen out of the stories. Brianna was stewing, hardly noticed, in a chair between them.
Finally, Bill stirred.
“When is our watch over?” he asked Brianna.
“Dad’ll be down at around 12 bells.” she responded. “So, we’re stuck here for another couple of hours. Joy.”
“Look, I’m sorry,” said Bill, “I didn’t ask to have your bedroom - I’m quite happy to sleep in the barn.”
Brianna glared at him. “Do you seriously think I’m angry cos you got my bedroom, the room I’ve had since I was born, the room I was looking forward to enjoying after over a week on the road? Is that what you think?”
“Yes,” Bill replied.
Brianna shrugged.
“Well, that is part of it,” she said. “And thank you for the offer, but I’m reasonably comfortable out there, for now.”
“So, what does ail you, child?” asked Velicity with an expertise for pressing the right buttons to wind Brianna up that even Bill couldn’t match.
“I’m not a child!”
The look of poison that flashed from Brianna’s eyes would have been enough to make all but the least self-aware of people quail.
Velicity, however, simply smiled. “I’m sorry, my dear.”
“If you must know,” Brianna mumbled. “It makes me angry that he got his gift without paying any sort of price. It doesn’t seem fair!”
Bill was shocked. “What d’you mean? You want lethal hands? Seriously?”
“Of course not, my gift will be the talent of water that my mother has, but I’ll not come into it without paying the price,” she said.
“And what will that be?” asked Bill.
Brianna gave a grim shrug. “It could be anything, but one way or another, my mother will have to die before I receive the gift which is price enough, I think.”
“Can the bearer of the gift choose to pass it on while they’re still alive?” asked Bill.
“This is my mother we’re talking about, she won’t give it up while there’s breath left in her,” Brianna said.
“It is the normal way,” Velicity said, “for the gift to return to its vessel on the death of the previous bearer, at which point the successor picks up the vessel and receives it. This is almost always how it happens, but it’s possible for the bearer to elect to return the gift. However, this is very dangerous unless the recipient is at hand - if the vessel were to be destroyed with the gift inside, then it would be lost to the world. Indeed, it’s believed that there were many more gift holders in the past, but we four are all that remain.”
Bill’s heart swelled to think of himself as one of only four survivors of an ancient and excellent order. Mind you, so was Gramma. Then something occurred to him.
“Hold on, you said your mirror had been destroyed, so had Gramma’s. What happens to the gift when…” he paused, trying to think how to put it.
“When we die?” Velicity said, completing his thought for him. “Our magic will die with us, the art of building these vessels has long been lost. They were made at the dawn of civilisation to look like ancient, worthless, objects from the copper age and were given into the care of the first elementals. Perhaps they were made to be weapons in the wars against Faerie.”
Bill, who had been swallowing a mug of tea, spat the hot drink down his front. “What? Are you serious?”
Velicity look puzzled. “Nothing is more serious than the Faerie Wars.”
“But, I thought they were just fairy tales,” Bill protested.
Velicity laughed. “That doesn’t mean they’re not also true. The last war was fought some forty years ago.”
Now Bill was entirely at sea. “How come I’ve never heard of it, then?”
“Because we won,” said Velicity. “It was, indeed, difficult to cover up the evidence and, no doubt, some of the soldiers who fought and survived the wars remember them. My father led men into battle against the Faerie King, but it wasn’t by force of arms that he was defeated, it was by bringing the vessels together, containing the elemental powers, that the barrier between his world and ours was restored, with him on the other side of it.”
Brianna had listened intently to this, her jaw slowly opening like an amazed fish. “How do you know all this?” she said, finally.
“Why shouldn’t I?” Velicity countered.
Brianna shrugged, not knowing what to say.
Velicity smiled icily.
“Ah, you think I’m too vapid to know such things, that all I care about is beau
ty, wind and seedy publications. Well, my dear, we all have our burdens to bear. Mine is being constantly underestimated because of my looks, yours is to judge people without first knowing them. You’ve made that mistake with me, and also with your friend Bill, here. There’s more to him than you know.”
A compliment such as this would normally have warmed Bill to the gills but, in this case, he felt uncomfortable at the praise and embarrassed for his friend.
Brianna leapt up out of her chair.
“Well, perhaps you’re right,” she spat. “Since you enjoy each other’s company so much, I’ll leave you alone. I’m off to my bed. Of straw!”
She stormed out of the parlour and, moments later, they heard the slamming of the front door.
There was an awkward silence which was eventually broken by Velicity. “I’m sorry, Bill. I spoke too harshly to Brianna. She’s a good young woman and will make a fine elemental one day. She has studied diligently under her mother and has all the knowledge of these matters she’ll ever need. But her jealousy weighs her down, whether it’s directed at her mother, me or, indeed, you. I think she preferred it when you were just plain Bill.”
Bill chuckled. “I think, maybe, I did too. I sometimes wish…”
But Bill never got to complete his thought because a bell started ringing in the yard.
Bill and Velicity looked out of the parlour window into the lamplit darkness of the farm yard.
“What’s going on?” Bill said. “Can you see?”
“I think people are coming,” she replied. “And we must assume they’re after Mother Hemlock’s cup.”
“Well, they’re going to find out what ‘appens when they come on my farm uninvited.” said Mother Hemlock, who’d rushed in to stand beside Velicity and Bill. “Come on, let’s see them off.”
Velicity nodded, and Bill went to follow.
“Not you, lad,” Mother Hemlock said. “You wait in here, you’re too liable to go off unplanned, like. Wait in ‘ere - you can watch the action, see how the pros do it. You might learn something.”
Velicity rolled her eyes so Bill could see but didn’t argue so he was left, ashamed, to watch as the two women, joined shortly by a grumbling Gramma (he couldn’t hear what she was saying, but he was pretty certain it contained the word “buggers”), went to face the mob. He opened the window a tiny bit so he could hear what happened next.
“Get off my land,” said Mother Hemlock in a voice so calm it barely carried to the window where Bill listened, and yet so commanding that the entire mob took a step backwards. Except for one figure.
He was dressed in pale, washed-out grey clothes. Once, they might have been fine, but he now had the appearance of someone who’d been sleeping rough for a long, long, time. On his head, he wore a faded grey kepi which bore a shining silver badge, the only part of him that seemed well cared for. There was still a decayed nobility to his appearance, and he wasn’t cowed by Mother Hemlock, he simply stood where he was and looked down his pock-marked nose at her.
Bill cast his eyes over the mob shuffling in the dark behind their leader. They certainly weren’t soldiers of any sort he’d ever seen, most looked as though they were more at home in a ditch than the local barracks. They carried rusty spears, broom handles with knives lashed to them and, yes indeed, the odd pitchfork.
“Hand over the vessel, old woman, and we shall leave,” said their general, his voice surprisingly shrill but with unmistakable menace.
“Bugger off and take your friends with you,” Gramma said. “I see you, Stinky Willy, and if I catch up with you, you’ll get the leatherin’ of your life.”
There was a ripple in the mob as one fat shape moved backwards.
The pale man in rags ignored this. “I would prefer to achieve my objectives without violence but, as you can see, we outnumber you ten to one.”
“And we out-brain you a hundred to one,” said Mother Hemlock.
Several things now happened at once. Gramma knelt and pushed her palms down onto the soil while Mother Hemlock simply stood still and whispered under her breath. Velicity began dancing, looking for all the worlds as though she’d been born a fairy.
Bill could hear cries and a group of men fell to their knees, clutching their throats as pools of water accumulated around them. A few bent their faces to the ground to try and lap up the water as if they’d been wandering across a desert and had just found an oasis. Others simply keeled over.
With a rumbling and a creaking, a massive figure then strode into the yard. Bill had to look twice and rub his eyes to be sure he saw straight. Yes, indeed, it was an oak tree, walking on its roots. The oak burst through the fencing sending shards of wood scattering in all directions.
Gramma’s voice rose above all as she stood to face it. “By hacorn and hoak, I call on thee to backle. See ‘em off.”
For a moment, the tree paused then, having decoded the message, it set about the vagrants, who’d scattered when it had appeared. Except for the pale man who had simply vanished.
Velicity, meanwhile, had conjured up a mini-tornado which was chasing vagrants around the farmyard and, when it caught them, spinning them off into the turnip field.
It was mayhem, it was a rout, and Bill was enjoying it.
“Stop!”
Bill and the three witches turned to see the pale man advancing toward them from the direction of the barn. As he stepped into the torch light, they could see that he held a knife to the throat of Brianna Hemlock.
Chapter 18
The three witches stared at the pale man as their spells unwound behind them. The tornados puffed out of existence and the choking men (those that were still conscious) ran to the horse trough and gulped down water. The oak tree stopped where it stood and became immobile.
“You release my daughter, now, or I'll mummify you where you stand,” growled Mother Hemlock.
The pale man smiled. “I think not, at least not while I have a knife at her throat. Come now, you know me, do you not? We met many years ago though, I’ll admit, I was rather better dressed for the occasion.”
“I remember you well enough,” Mother Hemlock responded, her anger sitting just beneath the surface. “You were a small-time crook until you fell under the spell of the Faerie King. Now, you’re just Odius.”
There was a loud intake of breath from Velicity. “General Odius? You led the King’s forces during the last Fairie War.”
“We gave you a bloody good kickin’ back then,” Gramma said. “I’m surprised you ‘ave the bockle to show your ugly pale face around these parts.”
Odius’s face darkened a little.
“I would be more courteous if I were you!” he growled. “One false move and this girl dies.”
“Kill her and you’ll die a most unpleasant death,” Velicity said, her face set in a hard, icy expression Bill could hardly have imagined her capable of.
Odius laughed. “Your wildest nightmare couldn’t imagine what torture awaits if I fail in my mission so, I’m afraid, your threats mean nothing to me.”
“You’re a slave to the same master, then,” Mother Hemlock said, in a voice heavy with defeat. “You won’t achieve much by destroying the vessels, though. He’ll still be as stuck on the other side as he is now.”
“That is neither your business nor mine. My master has his plans, and one involves your vessel. Now, where is it? Bring it out or the girl dies.”
Bill glanced at Brianna. She looked white and half conscious. The fact that she wasn’t even putting up a struggle worried him the most, however.
Then he heard Mother Hemlock’s voice. “William? Are you there?”
Bill went to the window, and his eyes met those of General Odius. There was no hope of reasoning with a being whose soul had fled, whose only purpose was to do his master’s bidding. Bill knew this from a single glance.
Mother Hemlock saw him. “Go and fetch the vessel from my Flem. He’ll be in the cellar guarding it like I told ‘im. Tell him I says please and not to m
ake a fuss. Quick as you can, lad.”
Bill ran from the window, along the hall and down the steps to the cellar.
A voice echoed up at him. “Who goes there? Friend or dead man?”
“It’s me, farmer Flem, Bill.”
When Bill reached the bottom of the stairs, he found himself on the end of a rusty pike which was lowered when the farmer recognised him and saw he was alone.
“What’s goin’ on up there? I felt my Jessie letting out her power, so I knows it must be serious but all’s quiet now which is either very good or very bad,” he said.
“It’s bad. A rabble attacked, led by this pale looking man, General Odius I think he said he was called. Mother Hemlock pulled the water out of some, Gramma set an oak tree to moving, and Velicity spun up a tornado.”
The farmer’s face lit up. “Oh, I wish I’d ‘ave seen that - there’s legends about Gramma’s walking trees, but I’d have given anything to see one in the flesh, or in the wood, I should say. So, what’s bad about it? It’d ‘ave taken an army to stand up to them three together.”
“It was all a distraction, the rabble army,” Bill said, unable to look the farmer in the eye. “Odius has got Brianna, and he’s holding a knife to her throat. Mother says to give me the vessel, so he’ll let her go.”
Flem Hemlock had gone white.
“Oh, gods,” he said. Then, after a moment, doubt crept across his face. “Did she have any other words for me?”
Bill thought for a moment. “Well, she said to say ‘please’, but that was all.”
“That’s our code word. She never says please so if she sent it in a message I’d know it was from her. How is my daughter?” asked the farmer as he went across to a wooden cupboard and opened the doors.
“She’s alive and doesn’t look harmed but she isn’t struggling, and that’s not like her.”
The farmer handed over a small copper bucket.
“She takes after her mother,” he said. “But she’ll be okay. You take this to Jessie and mind you do what she says, exackertally, mind.”
Bill took the bucket and headed for the stairs. As he climbed, he heard the farmer saying to himself.
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