The Faerie King

by Ash Fitzsimmons

  I kissed her again, long and deeply. “Aiden might come by.”

  “Bull. Kid’s going to be asleep until noon. Now lock the damn door and show me what you’ve got.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I replied, and we tumbled onto the sofa together, eager and needy and burning in each other’s arms.

  It was over all too quickly. We’d barely made it through the preliminaries when someone rapped at the door, and I groaned into the cushions. “Tell him to get lost,” Meggy whispered, guiding my face back toward hers. “Come on, I don’t smell smoke.”

  I shifted to the realm’s omniscient view and spotted Valerius outside the door, holding my open phone. “I’ve got to take this,” I muttered, sliding off of her, and quickly redressed. “Hold that thought, I’ll be right back.”

  She sighed and sat up, wrapping herself in her sweater while I cracked the door open and poked my head into the hallway. “Problem?”

  “It started making noises,” Valerius replied, holding the phone out. “And she’s most insistent. Is, uh…” He craned his neck to see around me, and his eyes widened in understanding. “Ah. I’ll come back later—”

  “No, let me get this over with,” I said, taking the phone from him. “Hello?” I said as I ducked into the hall. “Who is this?”

  “Morning, sunshine,” the woman on the other end replied, and I wrestled to keep my promise to Meggy.

  “Ms. Stowe.”

  “Eh, call me Vivi,” she chirped, obscenely perky for the hour. “And your priest buddy let me borrow his phone, if you were wondering.”

  “I was about to ask,” I muttered, leaning against the wall. “What’s the emergency?”

  “Nothing super-pressing, but I figured I’d catch you early while you weren’t busy.”

  “The sun isn’t even up, and I am rather busy.”

  “Then I’ll keep it brief, Mister Buzzkill.” I heard the sound of a keyboard on the other end, and my aural intruder cleared her throat. “Okay. So the guy who sets off all my alarms—you remember, I told you about him two games ago? And that reminds me, I didn’t see you there last Friday. Lost faith in the Buccaneers already?”

  “Can’t lose something you never had to begin with, and yes, I remember. What about him?”

  “Ooh, you’re cranky in the morning.” She tapped rapidly, then said, “Right, my mystery man. So there’s this weekly after-party on Fridays, yeah? Beer, pot, the usual. Sometimes Hal and I stop by—he’s not a stickler, and I don’t care what the little dumbasses do as long as no one throws up on me.”

  I sighed, thinking of Meggy waiting on the other side of the wall. “Was there a point I missed?”

  “I’m getting there! Anyway, I saw the guy again at the party last Friday. He rolled up with two cases of Bud, and I got a closer look at him while he was making out with your kid.”

  “What?”

  “Thought you’d be interested,” she replied with a smirk in her voice. “And my first impression was wrong—he’s definitely not a student. I’d say he’s college-aged, but he wasn’t wearing a sweatshirt or anything, so for all I know, he’s waiting tables somewhere in town. Showing up with that much beer, even with the Shop ’N’ Save’s see-no-evil policy…hell, he’s got to be legal. I don’t think he’s quite my age, but he’s probably at least twenty-one.”

  “And magically gifted?” I pressed, beginning to fret yet again about the integrity of the bind holding Olive’s power in check.

  “Can’t say for sure, Chief,” she said, sounding almost apologetic. “I didn’t see him do anything, and all I get is a weird feeling—fae, wizard, enchanted, spellbound, or other, don’t ask me which. But speaking of that, I meant to ask Rick—there was another new kid there Friday, had this cooler rover following along with him. I didn’t get a name, but the defensive line kept calling him ‘Octobong.’ Makes me all tingly. Know anything?”

  “That would be my brother, and if you wouldn’t blow his cover, I’d greatly appreciate it.”

  Vivian perked up. “Oh, that’s Aiden? Rick mentioned him, but I didn’t know he was lurking around. Hey, in all seriousness, if he needs to talk to someone, the Fringe is here. It’s what we do. You tell him, okay?”

  “I’ll pass the message,” I replied, “but back to the other—”

  “Yeah, that’s all I’ve got,” she interrupted. “I wanted to pick your brain.”

  I turned around as the door creaked open, and Meggy gave me a questioning look. Just a minute, I mouthed, then turned my attention back to the phone as Valerius mumbled pleasantries. Catching Meggy’s expression, I remembered too late that no one had yet given her Fae, but I figured the two of them could sign without killing each other while I finished with Vivian. “Aiden says he’s called G, but that’s all he could give me,” I told her. “And you said you saw him and…”

  She waited while my voice trailed off, then asked, “How much detail do you want, exactly?”

  “Broad strokes,” I muttered, rubbing my forehead.

  “Clothed, but there was some tonsillary exploration going on.”

  “Great, thanks. I’ll look into it,” I said, and hung up before she could get another word in.

  When I turned back to Meggy and Valerius, they were regarding each other with frustration. Suddenly, he snapped. “Ah. Buongiorno, signorina. Capisci…no? No, that doesn’t work, either,” he mumbled, drumming his fingers against his arm.

  “Little souvenir from your holiday?” I asked him in Fae, then looked at Meggy and shook my head. “There’s a linguistic barrier here,” I told her, switching tongues once more. “I can fix it for you painlessly, or you can keep letting Val try out his new Italian. Your call.”

  She eyed him suspiciously. “That’s Italian?”

  “That’s Italian by a native speaker of some variant of Latin who’s spent two millennia speaking Fae. The syntax and vocabulary come instantaneously, but the accent’s on you to figure out. Interested?”

  “You know what? Sure.” She closed her eyes while I touched her head and concentrated. A few seconds later, she relaxed and asked, “Did it work?”

  “That’s it, I’m out of ideas,” Valerius muttered. “What does she—”

  Meggy whipped around and grinned. “Hey, I got that! Oh wow, this is weird,” she said, holding her temples. “All right…no one say anything, let me process…”

  “It’ll pass,” I told her, and switched to English once more. “But while things settle, we need to talk about Olive.”

  “What about her?” she asked, suddenly on edge. “She’s fine. Sleeping when I left.”

  It was painfully obvious by then that I’d blown any chance we’d had of a physical reconciliation. “Let’s get out of the hall, and I’ll tell you. Valerius,” I said, switching yet again, “who’s going with me?”

  “I am,” he replied with a smirk. “And how long can you keep up this back-and-forth, then?”

  “Not much longer. Later,” I said, and shepherded Meggy back behind closed doors. When we were once more alone, I lowered my voice and told her, “I’ve got it on good information that Olive’s seeing someone.”

  “O…kay,” said Meggy, taking a seat on our abandoned couch. “She’s sixteen. That’s pretty normal.”

  “Agreed, except there’s something magically off about him,” I continued, sinking down beside her. “And no, I’m not being paranoid—have you met any of the Fringe folk?”

  Her forehead wrinkled. “Rick mentioned it…”

  “Well, one of them just called to pass along some intel. She’s not sure what’s wrong with the boy, but something is. Ever hear Olive mention someone named G?”

  Meggy shook her head. “No, she’s been growing more distant of late…but so what?” she asked, crossing her arms. “She’s still bound. If all it took to break the bind was proximity to, you know, you or me or whoever, it wouldn’t have lasted a day. Why worry about some kid?”

  “For starters, what if he’s fae and decides to bring her across?”
I said, ticking off a list on my fingers. “That’d break the bind. Or what if he’s some sort of wizard, tries to magically enhance her chest or whatever, and figures out there’s something already at work on her? And furthermore, he’s not even a high school student. My source thinks he’s at least twenty-one—”

  “Oh no, don’t even start that,” she interrupted, giving me her best look of disbelief.

  “He’s just old enough to be creepy.”

  “Says the octo-centenarian.”

  “Touché,” I grunted. “But I’m serious, Meggy—Olive dating anyone unusual isn’t likely to end well. Can you make her break it off?”

  Her disbelief turned to disdain. “You’ve heard of Romeo and Juliet, I trust? They’re all convinced they’re living it at that age.”

  “So…no?”

  “Absolutely not. But I’ll see if I can weasel anything out of her.” She pushed herself off the couch with a little sigh. “G. What kind of a name is G?”

  “Probably something embarrassing,” I said, following her lead. “And since the sun is finally coming up,” I added, glancing out the window, “I should probably think about this meeting.”

  “With a merman.”

  “I’ll prove it! Want to come along?”

  Meggy began to speak, but her reply was cut off by a familiar screech as something dark and dragon-shaped flashed by the glass. “Not again,” I muttered, climbing out onto the balcony for a better view. “Joey!” I shouted to the dawn. “Hey, Joey! Georgie’s loose! Joey!”

  I scanned the ground for movement, then dropped just in time as Georgie made a low swoop by the palace, covering the balcony with her wing. I jumped back to my feet once she passed and tracked her across the sky, trying to determine her trajectory…

  …and then I spotted the figure straddling her back and whooping.

  “Holy hell,” Meggy murmured behind me as she slipped outside. “Is that…”

  “Yeah. Dragon. Juvenile dragon.”

  We stood there in stunned silence until Georgie and Joey were a black smudge on the horizon, and then Meggy whistled softly. “Colin, if it’s all the same to you, I’d like to get back to reality now, please.”

  Having spent most of my childhood by a secluded lake, I’d seldom had cause to acknowledge Faerie’s western sea beyond recognizing its existence. It was as nameless as every other physical feature in the realm, but then again, there was no other sea from which it needed to be differentiated. Nor, as far as I’d heard, was there a shore on the other side. Joey had made mention of exploring it—present an American with uncharted wilderness, and he’ll do his utmost to rectify the situation—but the thought of sending him out alone, even with a solid craft beneath him, sat uneasily with me. Navigation by Faerie’s unfixed stars is impossible, and it wasn’t as if Joey had GPS he could rely upon. I didn’t entirely like the notion of letting him roam the realm at all, but at least if something went wrong on solid land, he was unlikely to drown before I could reach him.

  That outcome wasn’t impossible, mind you, but I could live with the odds.

  But with Joey’s exploration limited, I was left to rely on what I knew: the sea was vast and usually placid, and there was a fixed gate to the northern Caribbean several leagues offshore and about a hundred feet down. The gate was modest, wide enough for no more than two people to traverse at once, which kept most of the larger denizens of each realm’s seas safely on their proper side. True, there was some bleed-through, but in general, the only beings larger than a tuna to make the passage were the merrow, and then only on rare occasions.

  Grivam’s talk of a monster in the Keys worried me more than I’d let on to my companions, especially given the merrow’s continued presence in Faerie. They hadn’t exactly been apex predators here, but they were close to the top of the food chain, and the things in our deeps capable of hunting them were few and well-known. For Grivam, old as he was, to fear a nameless monster led me reluctantly to the conclusion that something had washed into the Gulf from the Gray Lands.

  If my internal map of Faerie was rough around the coastline and bled off the paper, my conception of the Gray Lands was a crude circle in black crayon with a big X in the middle of the page. I’d read no firsthand account of the place, presumably because those who ventured over the border often didn’t make it back. The long-standing rumor was that Mab had camped there after her expulsion, but no one I knew could prove it, and I hadn’t thought to make the enquiry before dispatching her. My limited experience with that realm had taught me only that I didn’t like what came out of there and that fighting it on its own turf was next to impossible. Unfortunately, it was looking more and more likely that someone was going to have to deal with a beast out of the Gray Lands sooner or later—and I knew that if he could avoid getting his hands dirty, it wasn’t going to be Oberon.

  The root of the merrow’s problem is that both Faerie and the Gray Lands have fixed gates into the mortal realm. Picture a Venn diagram of three circles in which two don’t overlap each other, much like the logo of a certain rodent-obsessed animation studio. One can punch open a gate into the Gray Lands from Faerie if one is of a mind, but there’s no naturally-occurring connection between the two. The few races in Faerie that originated over there—trolls and dragons come to mind—came here by accident, having first passed through the intermediary realm. Why they stayed is beyond my comprehension, as any power they wielded outside of Faerie is useless here. Magically speaking, Faerie and the Gray Lands are yin and yang. Each produces a type of energy—a magic, if you will—that certain of its natives can manipulate to their own ends. These energies then spill over into the mortal realm, and in miniscule quantities, into the third realm.

  Most faeries and wizards sense magic as ribbons of light or flashes of color. The energy that comes out of the Gray Lands has been dubbed “dark magic” by those of us who can’t use it because it shows up as patches of shadow. And while there’s never enough dark magic in Faerie to cause a problem, both energies flow into the mortal realm to varying degrees, and wizards occasionally run into wandering nightmares and find themselves with their hands full, if not quickly dead. Verified sightings are somewhat rare, but let’s just say those monsters in the corners of old maps aren’t purely the result of cartographers’ fever dreams.

  As my boat sped out to our arranged meeting place that morning, I hoped whatever was troubling the merrow would find its way home without my intervention. The last thing the mortals needed was another cryptid to stalk. Florida already had a long-established population of beasts in the Everglades—fur-covered, vaguely hominid, magically unskilled omnivores—but they kept out of sight and had practically gone native. It was the newcomers that worried me, as I’d seen the chaos they could cause.

  I had been only two years in Manhattan when rumor started to circulate about a demon down in the Pine Barrens, and the beast ate five clergymen and nearly a dozen soldiers before I cornered it in the woods and fried its head off. The priest I was working with at the time was one of the victims, but the surviving minister, whose Oxford education had done little to prepare him for monsters in the colonies, was shaken enough to follow my instructions and take credit for exorcising the demon back to hell. He went on to have an uneventful career, while I camped out in New Jersey until I found the gate through which the creature had come and did my best to seal it off. And I thought I had succeeded, too, until reports started up again a few decades later. I trekked back into the wilderness, only to find that the gate I’d carefully blocked was wide open, my enchantment long since broken by the constant outflow of dark magic. Apparently, there’s a herd of the damn creatures in the Gray Lands, as they continue to make appearances close to that gate.

  As Joey had yet to return from the wide blue yonder and Aiden kept moping around the windows, I took him with Valerius and me, hoping the novelty would take his mind off the missing dragon and rider. To my surprise, it seemed to work—Aiden sat near the bow, letting the wind ruffle his unruly
hair, and clung to the sides every time we bumped over a low wave. Soon enough, however, we began to slow, and Valerius pointed to a golden light below the surface. “The signal, I think,” he said, pulling us around. “Shall I reply?”

  “I’ve got it,” I told him, reaching over the side to press my palm against the water. Light streamed down beside the glowing column, and I wiped my hand dry against my trousers. “And now we wait,” I explained to Aiden. “You can’t rush Griv—”

  A familiar gray head broke the surface, and Aiden yelped in surprise. “Young Coileán,” said Grivam, pulling himself against the boat. “I trust I’ve not kept you long.”

  “Not at all,” I replied, grateful for the aborted wait but fearful of what his speed boded. “Grivam, I believe you’ve met my captain, Valerius. The boy is Aiden, my brother,” I continued, nodding to each in turn. “Is their presence agreeable to you?”

  His eyes swiveled independently of each other, focusing on the rest of my party. “It does not displease me.” He gave Aiden a prolonged stare, then murmured, “Young Aiden…he has not been long in the realm?”

  “No,” I said, hoping the kid would relax. The merrow were predatory, true, but they didn’t usually eat prey as large as we were. “You wanted to discuss the situation?”

  He sighed deeply. “I sent an expedition of five back through the gate not two days ago. Only one returned. The beast lurks still.” He hooked his elbows over the side, drawing himself higher against the boat. “Your hospitality is appreciated, but I would take my people home.”

  “I understand.”

  “Then you will help us?”

  “Grivam,” I began after a moment’s hesitation, but he interrupted me immediately.

  “Name your price. Please, your price.”

  “This isn’t a matter of pricing,” I said, hearing the desperation in his voice. “Oberon has claimed that territory. If I were to intervene without his permission…we both know that would end poorly.”