Feast of the Elfs: The Green Knight's Squire Book Two (Moth & Cobweb 2)

by John C. Wright

  Feast of the Elfs

  Book Two of the Green Knight’s Squire

  A Tale of Moth & Cobweb

  John C. Wright

  Copyright

  Feast of the Elfs

  The Green Knight's Squire Book 2

  A Tale of Moth and Cobweb

  by John C. Wright

  Castalia House

  Kouvola, Finland

  www.castaliahouse.com

  This book or parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise—without prior written permission of the publisher, except as provided by Finnish copyright law.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used in a fictitious manner. Any similarity to actual people, organizations, and/or events is purely coincidental

  Copyright © 2016 by John C. Wright

  All rights reserved

  Editor: Vox Day

  Version: 001

  Little Ellie in her smile

  Chooses—“I will have a lover.

  Riding on a steed of steeds

  He shall love me without guile,

  And to him I will discover

  The swan’s nest among the reeds.

  And the steed shall be red-roan,

  And the lover shall be noble,

  With an eye that takes the breath:

  And the lute he plays upon

  Shall strike ladies into trouble,

  As his sword strikes men to death…”

  —Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1844)

  Contents

  Chapter One: The Red Cap’s Favor

  Chapter Two: The Man in the Black Room

  Chapter Three: Alone on Christmas Eve

  Chapter Four: The Hall Beneath the Mountain

  Chapter Five: The Revels of the Otherworld

  Chapter Six: In Fair and Noble Company

  Chapter Seven: The King of Elfs and Shadows

  Chapter Eight: The Green Man

  Chapter Nine: Fate of the Fair Bright Sword Foretold

  Chapter Ten: Training Ground

  Chapter Eleven: Sabbath Day

  Chapter Twelve: The Stone of the Polar Peak

  Other books by Castalia House

  Chapter One: The Red Cap’s Favor

  1. An Inauspicious Beginning

  The North Carolina police officers in Asheville took away the bright sword and silver armor, swan winged helm and knightly shield indight with his father’s coat-of-arms of Gilberec Parzival Moth when they arrested him. True, he had been covered from head to toe in blood, and he had burned down the giant pine tree that once had stood in the middle of the town square. And it was also true that no one else could actually see the elfin creature who had really kidnapped the baby, or made the other mischief blamed on Gil.

  It seemed an inauspicious beginning to his career as a Knight Errant.

  It could have been worse. A nurse practitioner, an old woman with a stern face, had been allowed to clean, sterilize, and bandage up his shoulder and stitch his leg wounds. And the police had given him this freshly laundered orange jumpsuit.

  Ruff was sitting outside the metal slats of the window of his cell, howling indignantly. “Let him out! Let him out! It’s not fair!” over and over again. How the dog had followed him along a ninety-minute drive down I-40, Gil did not know.

  Gil lay down on the cot, finding it oddly comfortable. He closed his eyes, glad his dog was near.

  2. Boon

  Gil woke on the cot. He did not remember falling asleep. It was dark. The metal slats covering the cell window prevented him from seeing the stars. He did not know what hour it was, but from the smell of the air, it was before dawn.

  He saw a firefly through the cell bars, wandering down the corridor.

  The little light passed between the bars and entered the cell. It was Thornstab, carrying a lantern in his hand.

  Gil sat up and put his feet on the concrete floor. “What are you doing here?” he said.

  Thornstab raised the lantern and peered into the cell. “’Tis the voice, if I hear aright, of the one who called himself the Swan Knight. Be ye he?”

  Gil scooted back on the cot to the corner, where it was darkest, hoping the creature would not see his silver hair. “It is I. To what do I owe the honor?”

  “You owe nothing to me. I owe you, that I do! Verily.” Thornstab held up a ring of metal as large, to him, as a Hula-Hoop. From this metal hoop hung various lengths of toothed metal as long as his miniature arm.

  Thornstab smiled his sharp-faced smile. “One of these is the key to your cell. I owe you a boon and would be quit of this debt soon. So take it! And all will be well!” And he tossed the keyring into the cell, where it tinkled on the concrete floor. Gil made no move to rise or pick it up.

  “Nope,” said Gil. “I would not sneak like a crook out from a place where I have been falsely accused.”

  Thornstab’s smile vanished, and a look of fear took its place on his features. He raised the tiny lantern and peered into the black cell, perhaps hoping for a glimpse of the face of the Swan Knight. “Are you touched by the moon? Ask of me another boon!”

  Gil said, “And if I do not? What then? You never get to wear your little red cap again, and you cannot turn invisible and weave the mist into delirium, can you? What happens to your place among the elfs and efts then? You have to clean toilets and wait tables, something like that?”

  Thornstab fell to his knees. His eyes had grown to twice their size, and he rolled them back and forth, as if straining for a glimpse. “Noble and gracious knight! I followed your brave dog all this way, and, aided by no invisibility, plain to see, I connived to enter this dwelling of men and took the key from the guard as he slumbered! This, because I knew you would be true and faithful in all your promises, even to your enemies! But how can I grant you your due if you will not ask it? Tell me your heart’s desire true!”

  Gil frowned. What was his heart’s desire? What he really wanted was for the elfs to stop stealing children. “Where is Erlkoenig now?”

  “I cannot foretell the comings and goings of the Lords of the Night World. But I know this: he will be present at the great feast of the fairy kings, when he and Alberec meet in solemn court and celebrate the nativity of Him we do not name and squires are knighted, lands and honors granted, and challenges given and taken at that time. And the elf maidens dance, which is a rare wonder.”

  Gil squinted. “If you are not Christians, why do you celebrate Christmas? It is the birth of Christ.”

  Thornstab rolled on the floor, emitting a high-pitched keening comical yet horrible to hear, clutching his ears and banging his head against the concrete. Gil stared in disgust and astonishment. Eventually, Thornstab, clinging to one of the bars of the cell where it touched the floor for support, climbed to his feet, trembling. “Would you have me answer those questions as the grant of your boon?”

  Gil scowled. “No. Tell me instead, as my boon, how and where to get invited to this feast of the fairy kings. You said they knighted people then?”

  “Erlkoenig has told his heralds to record your heraldry. The door guards must admit you, Sir Knight, if you appear. Whether the kings gathered in that place knight you or do not, that I can neither help nor hinder to happen. Who knows what is in the heart of kings, and fairy hearts are wilder then most, like harps with strings of fire! But I can show you the trick of finding the doors and forcing them open. Will
that satisfy the boon?”

  “Yes,” said Gil.

  “Before you go to Mommur, remove all cold iron from your person and garb and each crucifix, scapular, or holy medallion. Do not go to mass that day, or they will smell the host or the sacred wine upon your breath. Cut a wand from a willow tree from which no criminal has ever been hanged, strip off the bark, and say these words: from the straight track let me not vary nor tarry till I be carried to the doorway of the fay. The wand will point the path. Follow it. Smite the door with the wand and say these words: the golden doors of Heaven welcome all as do the iron doors of Hell. Delling’s Doors of elfin silver wrought ought to unhide and open wide as easily as well.”

  Gil wished his jumpsuit had come with a pencil and paper in the pocket. “Hold it. Say that rhyme again, so I can remember it.”

  Thornstab sighed a deep sigh. “Actually, you can just say, Titania is risen, and the doors will open just as quickly.”

  “Who is Titania?”

  “None of your concern. Now return my cap!”

  Gil said, “Fine. But you have to douse your lamp, cover your eyes, and count to five hundred. Don’t peek, or the spell is broken!”

  Thornstab did not argue, but blew on the tiny lamp. The eerie light winked out. Gil waited until he heard the little man counting. Gil picked up the keyring, felt through the bars for the lock, and found the key on the third try. Then, he quietly opened the cell door and tiptoed down the corridor. A second key on the ring opened the door at the end of it. Beyond was a large green-walled room where two officers were fast asleep. Gil had no doubt this was Thornstab’s work, a charm of his.

  Gil had seen the evidence room where they had confiscated his gear. It was behind a dark metal door next to a metal desk. One of the other keys let him in. All of his possessions were piled haphazardly in a large box. He picked up the whole box and locked each door behind him as he returned to his cell, which he also locked.

  Thornstab still had a large set of numbers to go, so Gil decided to shuck his prison garb, put on the leggings, breeches, and quilted tunic, and don his armor, sword and swordbelt, shield and helm. He winced and hissed at the pain which even simple motions caused his shoulder.

  “…five hundred!”

  Gil said, “Light your lamp.” And he came forward from the shadows of the dark cell and into Thornstab’s astonished gaze. The little red cap was still in Gil’s pouch where he had put it: Gil flicked it with his thumb into the miniature man’s happy hands. With no further ado, Thornstab pulled the cap on his head, and a swirl of mist appeared around him. Gil, however, could still see him, or, at least, see his silhouette. The little man gathered sparks around his ankles, jumped down the corridor, and bounded through a high window and out into the night sky in a single long leap. A trail of twinkling glitter hung in the air for a moment where he passed.

  The winter birds outside were singing, a few voices in a wide silence. One of them sang about the noble death of the Christmas tree in the town square and how that tree had been replanted in a land happier and higher than any human land by Saint Boniface. Gil decided not to go back to sleep.

  3. Release

  The officer found him a short while later, fully armed and armored, sitting on his cot in his locked cell, with the keys to the cell in his hand.

  Without a word, Gil tossed the keyring through the bars. The man caught them and stared first at Gil, then at the keys in his hand, and then at Gil again.

  He heaved a sigh and unlocked the cell. “Come on. There is someone who wants to see you.”

  Gil followed, shield on his back and helm under his arm, armor ringing as he trod. The officer led him into a smaller, darker corridor and then up a flight of narrow metal stairs.

  “Sir,” said Gil. “Who is it who wants to see me? I don’t have a lawyer.”

  “One of our top detectives with the force,” said the officer. “He said he could clear you of all charges if you would answer some questions. Don’t be alarmed. Just go through that door there.”

  He pointed to a dark, unmarked door. It was an oak door with no nameplate or number but with heavy triangular hinges of cast iron. There was a vertical band of dark iron running down the center, intersected by a band of equal width running horizontally at chest height.

  Something about this door was familiar, however. The top of the doorframe was arched, not flat. The knob was glass.

  Chapter Two: The Man in the Black Room

  1. The Long-Lived Ones

  Gil did not know what to expect, but he did not see any reason to hesitate. He stepped forward, put his free hand on the knob, turned, and pulled.

  Then, he stepped back. Whatever he might have expected, it was not this. There was a surface of darkness, as featureless as a pool of ink, standing before him, flush with the threshold. Gil stuck his hand into the blackness and pulled it back. The hand seemed unharmed, and the darkness did not cling to it.

  A voice said, “Come in.” It was not a voice he had heard before.

  Gil thought of two ways he could perhaps ignite his sword to act as an impromptu torch, but he did not want to draw the blade for a frivolous purpose. He stepped into the darkness.

  He expected a cool sensation as he plunged into the dark, as if into the surface of an inky pool, but there was not. He heard the door swing shut behind him. From the feel of the air on his brow, he sensed that he was in a room of modest size.

  “It is dark in here,” said Gil.

  “It is useful for ignoring distractions, illusions, and other rumfuddle, my good lad. I also find it terrifically concentrates the mind.” The deep voice was both cheerfully merry and gravely serious at once: an odd combination of tones. From the sound of the voice and breathing, the man was large. “The lack of light not only excuses me from the tedium of distinguishing truth from illusion in appearance, but I am also required to memorize the locations of all objects in the room. Your chair is two steps to fore and one step to your right.”

  “I would rather stand.”

  “You are a rational being with free will, so naturally that choice is yours, but nonetheless I might suggest seating yourself as the transposition might prove disorienting.”

  Gil stepped forward twice and once to the right, clasped his scabbard to move it aside, and flung himself down abruptly. His chain skirts rattled on the wooden seat he suddenly found beneath him, and his backplate clanged against the stiff chairback.

  The voice said, “You did not grope with your hand. How did you know the chair was real?”

  “I did not know, but I had no reason to doubt your word. Unseen things are not necessarily unreal.”

  “You took my instructions on faith. This is odd since you do not know me.”

  Gil said, “If you meant me harm, you could have come upon me as I slept, locked in a jail cell, unarmed. If you do not mean me harm, why lie about a chair? A liar would make sure the chair was there so that I would trust him in small things, that he might betray me in large things. Are you human or elfin? What is your name?”

  “If I asked you the same questions, would you answer?”

  “No.”

  “I thought not. Like you, I am someone who is aware of a universal system of deception and illusion that clouds the eyes and confounds the thoughts of all mortal men. In times long past, mankind knew it shared the world with creatures as rational as himself, either partly supernatural or wholly. They might be dubbed the longevitae, for they are longer lived than men, but not immortal.

  “There are three kingdoms and many kinds and clans within them. The oldest are wholly spiritual, and their physical manifestations are mere appearances. The laws of nature excuse them from nature, as immune as a visiting ambassador. Pagan men of old worshipped them as gods and performed impious sacrifices. Call them the Children of Old Night and Chaos. They can die, but not by human hands.

  “Next are the Lords of the Night World. These are called fay because their fates are not as those of mortal men. The bright sun of da
y, which counts the times and seasons so faithfully for men, has taken a dislike to them, and for this reason Paracelsus called them nocturnals or nightfolk. These are unearthly fair or foul, nymphs or night-hags, light-elfs and dark-elfs, or chimerical between man and beast. Oddly, the sun shines just as brightly on their parts of the world as on ours. The name refers to a spiritual darkness, you understand.

  “Four nobles among the elfinkind took the fair daughters of man to wife, as many as they wished, and from them spring the several kinds and clans of the Twilight Folk, neither fully of the day nor dark. These four clans are half human and half superhuman. Much of the glamour, power, and strangeness of faerie still clings to them like clouds about an unvisited far mountain. These Twilight Folk can dwell among men if they wish, cloaked, as predators or protectors of mankind. In time past, some threw their cloaks aside to do great works of wonder remembered forever in song or to wreak great evils never to be forgotten. Many inherit strange gifts and talents from their forefathers, elfish things, and by their nature can do what men cannot; others study unnatural practices, summoning aid from their cousins and uncles in the Night World, and are called warlocks.

  “Some Twilight Folk have only a drop of the old blood in them and are very much like men. They keep their youth and strength longer than other men but do not outlive them. A strangeness haunts them, for they see and speak of high, hidden, and far-off things neither feared nor understood by their neighbors. Some dance beneath the stars to music humans cannot hear; some walk by night on strange journeys part in dream and part in waking; some speak into the deep places of the world, and voices answer them.

  “And, at last, there are those who have but half a drop. These are called poets and visionaries and madmen, and the world scorns them and ignores them, for their dreams are not strong enough to bend fate or to mend the world. To them the fairy blood, watered and weak, is but a torment, for they yearn to hear the horns of elfland dimly blowing, yet their ears are too dull.”