Once Upon a Dreadful Time

by Dennis L McKiernan

  “What did he have to say for himself?” asked Borel.

  “Just that Faery is the one place he can come and simply be himself,” said Luc.

  “Ah . . .” said Valeray, and they all fell to silence, each lost in his own thoughts, and the fire in the great hearth crackled and popped and was the only sound heard.

  Finally, Valeray said, “I still do not understand how it was that Duran was able to set us free, for he had no special amulet, nor did he have any—”

  “We can answer that,” came a voice, amid the sound of looms weaving. And of a sudden the Three Sisters stood before the family. Urd cackled and turned to warm her hands before the blaze, while both Skuld and Verdandi faced the gathering.

  Valeray and the men got to their feet and bowed, and Saissa and the ladies stood and curtseyed. Verdandi waved them back to their seats, and Skuld looked at Camille and said, “Your son Duran could get out because he yet has that which each of you has lost”—Skuld fixed Valeray with a darting glance—“some more than others.” She turned back to Camille. “Oh, Duran will lose it, too, yet at this time of his life he is truly an innocent, hence the Castle of Shadows could not contain him. You see, it is the lack of innocence that confines one therein and makes escape impossible, unless an innocent leads you out. And when Duran grasped your hand, he could set you free. Lack of innocence kept Orbane imprisoned for many long seasons; and none could come and rescue him, for he had no one in his life who was blameless—certainly not him nor any of his acolytes.”

  “What of my amulet?” asked Luc. “It allowed a wicked person to lead Orbane to freedom.”

  “Your amulet, Prince Luc, confers an aura of innocence upon the wearer, but only to the semisentient Castle of Shadows does it seem so, for those who crafted the castle foresaw that one day such might be needed, though they didn’t anticipate someone as vile as Hradian would let an even more wicked person out. Regardless, that’s how Hradian set Orbane free.”

  “Oh my,” said Camille, “and here, Lady Urd, I thought you might have meant Duran when you said in your rede ‘the least shall set you free,’ and at the time I thought it applied to that prison. But now I know it to have been meant for the linn at the River of Time and applied to my Scruff.” She turned and looked at the wee bird perched on a stand at her side.

  As Urd cackled, Skuld said, “Your Scruff, Camille? Do you forget who gave you the sparrow?”

  “Oh, non, Lady Skuld. It was you in your guise of Lady Sorciére who did so.”

  Skuld nodded, as if to say, Just so.

  Roél smiled and looked at Lady Doom.

  “Well, young man,” snapped Urd, “what have you to say for yourself, grinning at me like a village idiot sitting on a welcoming wall?”

  Roél barked a short laugh and said, “It’s just that when I was trying to resolve your rede, I thought that, in addition to Duran, Flic or Fleurette or even Buzzer could have been the ‘least’ who would set us free. It never occurred to me it might be Scruff, a sparrow.”

  The wee bird chirped somewhat querulously and cocked an eye toward Roél.

  “Oh, Scruff, I did not mean to ruffle your feathers,” said Roél, and then he laughed.

  “Scruff is the reason we are here,” said Verdandi.

  “Scruff?” asked Camille, alarm in her voice. Tears came into Camille’s eyes. “You said one day you would come to reclaim him.”

  “Oui,” said Skuld. “You see, he was cursed by the Fairy Queen, and to break the curse he first had to perform three deeds of heroism ere he could be set free.”

  “Scruff is cursed?” blurted Céleste.

  “Did you not hear what my older sister said?” snapped Urd. “Perhaps you need to clean out your ears.”

  “Oh, Madam,” said Céleste, abashed, “I was just surprised.”

  “Heh!” cackled Urd, grinning a toothless smile.

  “Three heroic deeds?” asked Camille.

  “Oui,” said Skuld. “Can you tell me what they were?”

  Camille thought back. “He did fly for aid during the battle with Olot at the castle on Troll Island.”

  Skuld nodded, and Verdandi said, “Now called L’Île de Camille.”

  “Too, he is the one who caused Te’efoon and her daughter Dre’ela to plummet to their deaths during that same battle.”

  Skuld and Verdandi nodded

  “The third one, of course, is when he flew into the face of Hradian and somehow set us free.”

  “Oui,” said Skuld. “He broke the link between Hradian and Orbane, and that set some of you free.”

  “But, my lady,” said Liaze, “it has been six moons since he accomplished the third and last deed; why have you waited so long to come and remove the curse?”

  “Heh!” snapped Urd. “Such daring, or mayhap impudence. Question us, would ye?”

  “Lady Urd, I meant no disrespect, but I do want to know.”

  “Because it is now spring,” said Skuld, “and time for ‘Scruff,’ as you name him, to accomplish one more deed.”

  “And that would be . . . ?” asked Alain.

  “The whole family is impudent,” said Urd. “Heh! I like that.”

  “Orbane’s Sickness left desolation in its wake,” said Verdandi. “It is an abomination, a scar on the world. ‘Scruff’ will heal that.”

  “Scruff? My sparrow? Or rather, your sparrow, Lady Skuld,” said Camille. “How can a wee bird do such a thing?”

  Skuld said, “Take him up and cast him into the fire.”

  What? all blurted at once.

  “They’re all impudent, and hard of hearing,” said Urd.

  “You must cast him onto the fire,” repeated Skuld.

  Camille broke into tears and said, “I cannot.”

  “But you must, I have seen it.”

  Camille stood and stepped to Scruff’s perch and, sobbing, managed to say, “Lady Skuld, you yourself told me the future is not fixed, that great deeds can change what you have seen. And Scruff has performed great deeds, hence his future must be changed. Surely we do not need to burn this wee bird.” Camille’s tears then came without stopping, and Alain embraced her, and the family gathered ’round and grimly faced the Fates themselves.

  Urd looked on, her own black eyes glistening, as of tears unshed.

  “But you must,” said Skuld. “I have woven it into the Tapestry of Time.”

  “And I will weave it into present events,” said Verdandi.

  “But I will not bind it therein,” said Urd, a tear streaking down one withered cheek.

  “Oh, Urd,” said Skuld, “if you do not, then—”

  “Silence!” cried Verdandi. “We cannot reveal what will happen should an event remain unbound.”

  In that moment, Scruff cocked his head and looked at Camille and quietly peeped. Then he hopped into her hand and peeped again.

  Camille, weeping, stepped to the fire, but she could not bring herself to cast the wee bird into the flames. Instead she raised him to her lips and kissed him. Scruff pecked her on the cheek, and then swiftly took to wing and arrowed into the blaze. The fire caught at him and roared up, and Scruff burst into flames and blazed brightly and fell into the furious conflagration. Camille turned away, for she could not face the death of her companion of these many seasons.

  Alain, Borel, Roél, and Luc all clenched fists and glared at the Three Sisters, and Valeray spat an oath.

  Of a sudden the fire died, as if all fuel had been spent, and in that moment, up from the glowing coals, a splendid bird arose. Large as an eagle it was, with scarlet and gold plumage, and it voiced a melodious cry. Saissa gasped, and Camille whirled around and there she saw a Phoenix.

  “Oh, Scruff,” Camille cried, “is it you, is it truly you?”

  And the Phoenix bowed as if to say, Oui, Camille, I am truly your Scruff. Then the Phoenix stepped to Camille and permitted her to do what none other had been allowed: to touch him and stroke the velvety feathers upon his crown just as she had often stroked those of a
wee sparrow.

  “You will have to let him go,” said Verdandi, “for we have much for him to do.”

  “Let him go?” said Camille. “Oh, Lady Verdandi, you misunderstand me. Scruff has always been free to go, for I would not imprison him whatsoever, in a cage or a manor or ought else. It has always been his choice as to stay or leave; he can come and go as he pleases.”

  “I imagine you will see him again,” said Verdandi.

  “I can guarantee it,” said Skuld, “for, as I have oft said, I have seen it in the currents of Time.”

  Urd cackled and squinted at the men. “It seems you five were about to assail the three of us. Heh! I said you were impudent, but I didn’t think you foolish.”

  With Urd cackling, the sound of looms swelled, and the Three Sisters vanished, taking the Phoenix with them.

  Their hearts yet pounding, their spirits soaring from the wonder of it all, the family once again settled, yet a look of puzzlement came upon Michelle’s face.

  “What is it, chérie?” asked Borel.

  “I was just wondering: what is it Scruff did, the Phoenix, I mean, that caused Gloriana to curse him?”

  They looked at one another and shrugged, for none knew the answer. And then Roél said, “I wonder if Coeur d’Acier would have done us any good had we indeed taken on the Fates.”

  Borel burst out laughing, and soon the entire family joined him . . . that is, until Valeray asked, “Anyone for échecs?”

  59

  Renemal

  ver the lands the Sickness had despoiled a wondrous bird Oflew and sang, and where he passed the world was healed, the scar being replaced by new growth and fertility. The animals who had succumbed he could not restore, yet others of their kind were fecund and soon offspring would once again run among the trees and undergrowth and fly through the air and fill the streams, for such is the character of nature.

  One of the lands he flew over was a small desolate demesne, where lived a rock creature named Caillou, who was mayhap an entire mountain of stone. And when the Phoenix had sailed on, Caillou gave a great shout of joy, and rocks cascaded down, for at last the land Orbane and his five acolytes had destroyed in a dreadful experiment was once again whole and fertile.

  And elsewhere in Faery and a season later, at a mound where sat a great dolmen, Regar and Lisane were wed, and in attendance were many, including Raseri the Dragon and Rondalo the Elf and Chemine, Rondalo’s mother, and many of the other Firsts, a tiny Twig Man among them. Too, in the number present were all the princes and princesses of the Forest of the Seasons, and King Valeray and Queen Saissa, and Duke Roulan, and Vicomte Chevell and his wife and newborn child, Avélaine and Amélie. Also, Sieur Émile and Lady Simone and their sons Sieurs Laurent and Blaise attended, as well as Flic and Fleurette and Buzzer.

  Regar’s mother, Mirabelle, had come from the Wyldwood for the wedding, but Regar’s grandmother, Alisette, had stayed away, saying, “I am yet in love with Auberon, and perhaps he is yet in love with me. It would tear my heart out to see him again. What it might do to him, I cannot say. And Gloriana? Well, ’tis better I stay away.”

  As for Gloriana, she seemed softer, more placid, since the death of her only son. A gentle sadness had settled over her, as if a great burden had been lifted. And she had come to see that neither Regar nor Mirabelle could be held responsible for the straying of Auberon. Even so, she was merely cordial to Mirabelle, but she did bless the newlywed pair.

  As to what the Phoenix had done to cause Gloriana to curse the magnificent bird, she did not volunteer, nor did anyone dare to ask.

  Both the wedding and the reception after were held outside in the open air, for none present wished time to hasten by if they were foolish enough to dine in the chambers below.

  But then who’s to say what might have happened had they eaten Fairy food and drunk Fairy wine in the Fey Lord’s Halls Under the Hill? Perhaps nought whatsoever; but then again ...

  60

  Fini

  In a distant swamp somewhere in Faery, a huge bloated toad waddled to the edge of the flet and fell into the turgid water, and, with ungainly kicks, finally managed to slip under the slime-laden surface. But just ere doing so, he emitted a monstrous belching croak, announcing to each and every thing within considerable hearing that—great bulging eyes, long sticky tongue, and beautiful warts and all—Crapaud was free at last.

  “Did they all live happily ever after?”

  “Perhaps, yet then again perhaps not, for who knows what next the Keltoi will tell?”

  Afterword

  Thus ends the fifth and final story in this series of Faery tales. Perhaps I shall return to this twilit land some day and travel once more through the shadowlight borders. What I might find there is unsure at best, but it is certain to be wondrous.

  Before I go, I want to thank Philip I of Macedon for creating the Macedonian phalanx by using sarissae—counterbalanced pikes about eighteen feet long. I also thank his son Alexander the Great for his tactics in the Battle of Issus. In this story I used, in modified form, both that phalanx and those tactics in the Battle at the Swamp.

  Too, I would thank Admiral Lord Nelson, whose brilliant but risky naval tactics in the Battle of Trafalgar I used, though again in modified form, in the sea battle of Vicomte Chevell and King Avélar’s fleet against the corsairs of Brados Isle.

  In any event I am ready to leave. But ere I vanish, some might ask: What of Faery? What has happened to it? Where is it now? Well, I assure you it still exists, side by side with the mortal world. It is still a place where curses are laid and glamours yet disguise, where red-sailed corsairs ply the seas, and Sirens sit on rocks and comb their hair and sing. And Pixies and Nixies and Hobs and Giants and other such still roam and tweak and hide in streams and practice other such tricky arts.

  One can get there in the blink of an eye if one so desires; all it takes is imagination—one simply must let it soar.

  What’s that? How does one physically get there? Well, now, that’s a bit more difficult, yet I am certain it can be done, though I myself have not quite managed to do so. Still, there must be portals that open in the silvery shadowlight of dusk and dawn. After all, it used to be thus, or so it is I’ve been told, hence surely it must be true. I think we merely need to keep searching to find that magical realm. After all, how could such a place not be?

  —Dennis L. McKiernan

  Tucson, Arizona, 2007

  About the Author

  I have spent a great deal of my life looking through twilights and dawns seeking—what? Ah yes, I remember—seeking signs of wonder, searching for pixies and fairies and other such, looking in tree hollows and under snow-laden bushes and behind waterfalls and across wooded, moonlit dells. I did not outgrow that curiosity, that search for the edge of Faery when I outgrew childhood—not when I was in the U.S. Air Force during the Korean War, nor in college, nor in graduate school, nor in the thirty-one years I spent in Research and Development at Bell Telephone Laboratories as an engineer and manager on ballistic missile defense systems and then telephone systems and in think-tank activities. In fact I am still at it, still searching for glimmers and glimpses of wonder in the twilights and the dawns. I am abetted in this curious behavior by Martha Lee, my helpmate, lover, and, as of this writing, my wife of over fifty years.