by Edward Aubry
Claudia made a so-so gesture with her hand. "Jake puked a little while back." Harrison looked at the boy, who was still pale and a bit green.
"Shit. When?"
"About ten minutes ago," Claudia said. Harrison had somehow not noticed, for ten full minutes, that one of his people was vomiting. It was hard to concentrate here. He would have to try harder.
The palace guard was two male faeries wearing tiny silver swords on straps, plus a big ugly brute with an axe. All three stood aside as Glimmer and party approached.
"Well," said Apryl. "That was easy."
They entered the palace.
It was far more beautiful on the inside. The canopy roof let in a great deal of natural light, which was fortunate for the abundant plant life within. The first chamber inside the palace arch was enormous and landscaped like an extraordinary park. There were paths of moss leading past shrubbery grown in the shapes of chairs and benches. Two of these chairs faced each other across a grown table, and Harrison guessed it was some sort of board game, but wondered if that was just because he was trying to attach a familiar paradigm to the completely fantastic. A fountain in the middle of the chamber led to a network of little streams that irrigated the furniture. As he walked, Harrison could feel his feet pressing down into the moss, and he looked back at his footprints. Fey folk evidently did not leave any. He hoped the damage was easy to repair, and not too great an offense.
He walked past a bush adorned with fat, pale purple berries. They put off a smell like butterscotch. He fought back an urge to pluck and eat one. "You're doing very well," Glimmer whispered, and he took pride in the praise.
She took them to the throne room. Along the way, all though the palace, they saw one botanical wonder after another. Everyone they encountered moved aside for them to pass. This nagged at Harrison, but he accepted it and wondered how much of what he was feeling was caused by his altered state of mind.
The entrance to the throne room was guarded by a squadron of faeries and completely covered over by a web of ivy. As Harrison approached, the hovering faeries regrouped into a pillar formation, then split into two vertical groups, which moved to either side of the door. He wanted to applaud, but he was sure no one would find it amusing. The ivy barrier began unweaving itself, and the tendrils peeled back and waved, like delighted fingers. They entered.
It was a long walk down a runway of pansies. Harrison worried about crushing the little flowers, but these were heartier than the moss and sprang back, undisturbed. At the end of the hall, resting on a wide platform hewn from a great tree stump, were two colossal chairs, grown and molded from countless vines and blossoming shrubs. Small streams, fed from tiny waterfalls cascading from the high ceiling, flowed on either side of the thrones, nourishing the elaborate root system, then turning and flowing through mouse hole-sized openings in the side walls. The sound of the water rippling carried the length of the long room, and Harrison found it endlessly soothing. The thrones were magnificent.
One was empty.
The six guests and their little host arrived at the foot of the platform. "Kneel," whispered the pixie, and all seven of them did so. Harrison bowed his head.
"Hello, Little Light," said Titania, Queen of the Fey.
"Hello, Milady," Glimmer replied. Harrison had never heard her do humble before. She was better at it than he would have guessed.
"You've come a long way to look at Our pansies, Harrison Wallace Cody," said the queen. "We would think We might merit a glance as well?"
Harrison looked up. Sitting before him was a woman not unlike Glimmer, but easily five times as tall. She wore a gown of purple, pink, and white, which spilled down over her feet and quite a bit beyond. He was close enough to the hem of her gown to see it clearly. He did a double take. The fabric was made entirely of tiny flower petals that had been sewn together. The stitches were all hidden, of course, but he could see where the petals curved under at each seam, and he imagined impossibly fine thread. Whatever kinds of flowers they had been, he could still smell them, and it was a happy, loving scent. His eyes moved further up, and he saw two fair hands enshrouded in wide bell sleeves. Each finger bore a unique and elaborate silver ring, and each nail was decorated with a landscape or portrait in exacting detail. The cut of her gown exposed a cleavage not to be trifled with, and it was all he could do not to linger on it. Her hair was golden, and silver, and copper, and cobalt, and the strands rotated whimsically through these colors. On each side of her head, the point of an ear peeked out from her hair. She had a perfect chin, a perfect nose, and amethyst eyes that could suck a man in and drown him utterly. Behind her, waving absently, were the tops of two proportionate, translucent wings, multicolored, not quite butterfly, something entirely original. She was breathtaking. And she was smiling at him.
"It's lilac," she said.
Harrison wasn't sure how to respond to this. He gambled on respectful confusion. "Milady?"
Her smile broadened. "The fabric. You were wondering what it is. It's lilac petals. Stand up." The order came abruptly, and politely, and he struggled to obey swiftly and gracefully. His companions stood behind him. "What are you thinking, Harrison? Take care," she said coyly. "We'll know if you're telling the truth."
"I was thinking that you're even more beautiful than Michelle Pfeiffer," he admitted. He had not even realized that was what he was thinking before he said it. He was entranced by this Faerie Queen. He had foolishly expected her to look old, ancient. Matronly. Instead, she was the woman of his fantasies, to the last detail. Every man's fantasies.
She batted her eyes. "You flatter Us, sir! The human actress is lovely. We will confess We were pleased at the casting." She gazed off wistfully. "We had been hoping for a Kenneth Branagh reading, but We were pleased enough with the Michael Hoffman work. He took his share of liberties, but then, so did the Bard."
Harrison was stunned. "You saw A Midsummer Night's Dream?"
She looked at him, and he suddenly feared that blurting questions at the Faerie Queen was simply not done. "We see everything," she said.
"Milady?" said Glimmer.
Harrison turned around. For the first time since Titania had addressed him, he became aware of the other people in the room. They were all staring at the queen, or at Harrison, and clearly they had no idea what to make of their conversation with its allusions to movies. Apryl, in particular, was looking at Harrison with something like fear or worry in her eyes. Even Glimmer was uncomfortable interrupting their banter. But Harrison's experience with Glimmer had led him to believe that banter was probably a vital component of faerie life.
"Little Light?" Titania replied gracefully.
"We've come to beg a favor of the King," the pixie said nervously.
"We know."
"Milord?" asked Glimmer desperately. By now, everyone could see where this was going.
The queen closed her eyes. "Is no more."
Chapter Thirty-Two:
The Courage
No one said a word. No one asked a question. There was no need.
Unable to think of anything more appropriate, Harrison bowed his head in respect. After a few seconds, he looked sideways at Glimmer. Her head was not bowed. Her face had gone completely dead. This was a worst-case scenario.
"Glimmer," he whispered as gently as he could. "Honey, we have to keep going."
She was in shock, but the sound of his voice and her comprehension of the words, the idea, were enough to bring her back to the surface, though not all at once. Her stunned look cycled briefly through outrage and terror, then she covered her face. After a minute, she pulled her hands back, carefully examining her nine fingertips. "You're right," she said. "We do." Gathering herself together, she said, "We've come to beg a favor from the Queen, then."
"That took brass," said Titania to Harrison.
Harrison immediately feared he had made a miscalculation. What he had said might easily be interpreted as a dismissal of the queen's loss. A trivialization of it. Desperate
not to show disrespect, he threw himself to his knees again. "I'm sorry, Milady."
"It was a compliment," she replied. "Get up. Bring Us your friend."
Harrison stood up slowly. "My friend?"
"The one who keeps abasing himself," said Titania. "That's why you're here, yes? You need a remedy for the curse on him?"
As Harrison nodded, Alec stepped forward, needing no further cue.
"I'm not his friend," said Alec. "He hates me. They all do."
"Shut up," said the Faerie Queen. "You're making a fool of yourself." Alec shut up. He waited for further instructions as Titania spoke to Harrison. "Are you sure you want this one cured? He doesn't seem to think you like him."
"He's our leader," Harrison said.
"Indeed," and she gave a Mona Lisa smile that Harrison wondered if the others noticed. "And," she said, "what boon would you offer Us in exchange for returning your leader to you?"
Harrison hadn't thought about that. He had assumed, if they got this far, that he would only have to ask politely, and the faeries would do the right thing. He looked at Glimmer, but she was already looking away, deliberately avoiding his eyes. So. She had seen this coming. And said nothing. Probably some sort of screwy faerie rule. He was on his own.
"What boon would you require?" he asked, trying to buy time. He couldn't imagine a single resource they would have that would be of any use to the Faerie Queen.
Titania was smiling now. It was a sinister sort of smile, and it ought to have put him on guard, but it was also a radiantly beautiful smile, and he basked in its light. As he struggled to imagine what he could possibly have to offer her, a realization slipped in through the cracks. The Faerie King was "no more." The king was out of the way. She was smiling at him, ladling her silent approval on him, and perhaps more than that. A pleasant sort of optimism brushed the back of his mind. He began to sink into her eyes.
"It has been far too long," she murmured, "since We have had a human slave."
At first, he thought she was just reminiscing. Then he connected her statement to the question about the boon, and suddenly she was talking about him. Her slave. Perhaps it was the effect this place was having on his perceptions, and his mood, but slavery didn't sound half bad. He could imagine what being slave to the Faerie Queen might, at least in part, entail.
"What would you say," she continued, "if We asked you to stay here in exchange for the favor?"
Harrison seriously weighed this offer. It was tempting from several angles. Certainly, Alec was more vital to this mission than he was. The sacrifice seemed appropriate. The fact that he would stay in Faerie was an upside, surely. He looked at Glimmer again, but she was standing with her back to him. He wondered what she would say if he asked her advice. She nearly always had suggestions, even when they were clearly unwelcome. That thought was what finally tripped the alarm switch in his brain. She wouldn't advise him, even if he asked, because she would never dare contradict her queen. And she would most certainly contradict the queen's proposal that Harrison trade himself into slavery, no matter how pleasant said slavery might be. As he thought this, he remembered why he was there, and who had come with him, and that they had trusted him all the way here.
"I would say," said Harrison, speaking to the pansies, "that I can't offer you that. I would ask you to ask me for something else." He looked up again. Her smile had faded somewhat, taken on a less devious quality. "Or," he said, "I would apologize for wasting your time, and I would go."
He turned to face his people, expecting to find expressions of relief. Their faces did not look as dramatic as he hoped. Of course, he thought. They wouldn't know what I'm thinking, only what I said. How strong he must have appeared to them. How ironic it was.
"Well said, sir." Titania's smile was a trifle more open. She gave Harrison a quick once-over, then studied him more deliberately. "Perhaps you don't need Our help half so much as you think." She seemed to find his puzzlement amusing. "Very well then. We shall ask you for something you do have to offer. We would like Our pixie back."
It took a second for her words to register with Harrison, and his reflex response was to say no for the same reasons that he would not offer himself. But then he remembered that Glimmer's staying here was already a done deal. The queen wasn't asking him to offer up one of his own people as a slave; she was asking him to return one of her own who had decided to return, anyway. Surely the Queen knew this. In effect, she was offering them something for nothing, without losing face.
He looked at Glimmer. She was facing him now, but she gave no sign of a reaction to being used as a bargaining chip. He had been reserving a sliver of hope that she would somehow change her mind. He paid that sliver as the price for healing Alec. He felt badly cheated.
"Done," he said, and choked on the word.
Someone gasped. He had no idea who it was.
"Excellent," said Titania. She leaned forward toward Alec, the better to inspect him. "Let's have a look at you, shall We?" She looked him over, up and down, pausing a noticeable length of time on the leopard print underwear. He stared straight ahead, still obeying her previous order of silence. Her hand darted out to his face, and she held his chin as she stared into his eyes. For several uncertain seconds, no one spoke or moved.
"Well, this is queer," she finally said, her eyebrows rising slightly. "There's hardly any damage here at all." She removed her hand from Alec's face and turned to Harrison. "Do you all hate this man, as he says?"
He had been hoping she would not ask that. There was no comfortable answer. They needed him, certainly, and he did not want to say anything that would jeopardize the mission. Unfortunately, she would know if he were lying, so he did not dare lie. The truth was that he did not get along with Alec. He would not describe his feeling as hatred, but they certainly were not friendly. He turned to face the others. None of them offered so much as a nod, except for Claudia, who made an awkward face and shrugged. She had been very tight with Alec when they had set forth from New Chicago, so long ago, but the incident in Texas had deflated that friendship. No one else had truly been friends with the spy. Harrison supposed he could give a half-truth answer. Jeannette and Hadley never seemed to have a problem with Alec: Apryl and Jake did not know him well enough to have an opinion. He rolled that thought around as he looked back to the queen. As he looked into her eyes, it dawned on him that she was not really asking about the team. She was asking about him.
"We don't get along very well," Harrison said.
"Hmmm," she replied. "You have a very kind heart. You all must."
Harrison did not quite take her meaning. They were bringing him to her for help, yes, but clearly in their own self-interest. "Milady?" he said, once he realized that she was waiting for a reply.
"You say this man is your foil," she said. "He has lain naked before you his most secret, frightened heart. Did you not taunt him?"
That took Harrison by surprise. "Well, no," he said. He wondered how she knew. He wondered why it mattered. "We tried to take it easy on him, because, well, we felt sorry for him."
She made a little clucking sound with her tongue. It managed to be musical. "You probably saved his life. Your pity has certainly saved his mind. This curse rendered him highly susceptible to mockery. A battery of well placed, unkind words might have broken him beyond even my ability to heal him."
Harrison looked at Glimmer. She seemed as surprised as any of them. So, he thought, she doesn't know everything. It was a sobering revelation.
Titania stood up. Her gown fell to about three inches above the floor, in a circle around her bare feet. It flowed in waves like a microcosmic floral ocean. Harrison could see detailed painting on her toenails, and what looked like an ivy tattoo around one ankle. As the gown lifted at the end of a wave, he could see better that it was actual ivy. It seemed to be growing out of her flesh. She stood delicately on her painted toes and kissed Alec on the forehead. Harrison flushed with jealousy and tried to think of a way to fake some magical il
lness.
All at once, the light in Alec's eyes ignited. "Oh, no!" he cried. He turned his head to the others. They could all see it, plain as anything, all over his face. Shame. Wretched, pathetic, miserable self-hatred. It was awful to see, and yet, as one, they heaved a sigh of relief. He was back. They would work the personal problems out over time. He could not know that yet, of course, but Harrison knew his people and he knew their capacity to forgive, move on, console. He caught himself thinking of them as his people, and mentally corrected himself. Your people, he thought to Alec. At your command.
"I-" said Alec. He choked on a sob.
"Shhhhhhhh!" said the Faerie Queen, and she reached over to put her finger on his lips. Harrison tasted it vicariously. Alec's crying and exclaiming were cut short. "Hush now, Director," the queen said. Her tone was nurturing, motherly. "You'll be all right. Shhh." His eyelids went halfway down, and he swooned.
"Is he …?" said Harrison. "Is that it?"
Titania nodded. "Physician," she said, looking over Harrison's shoulder.
"Yes, Milady," Jeannette replied. Without missing a beat, she came up to Alec and held him steady.
"He'll need plenty of rest," said the queen. "Until he feels confident, let him nap as often and as long as he wants. He won't be able to speak, either. We've put a Hush on him." She looked directly at Alec, who had barely made eye contact with her, and said, "Director, it's for your own good. You'd just go around apologizing and wearing yourself down. No one needs to hear you're sorry. They know." She turned back to Jeannette. "He'll develop a fever in a few hours. It will last for at least a full day."
"No Tylenol," said Jeannette. It wasn't a question.
"No Tylenol," confirmed the Queen. "Let it run its course. He should be completely back to strength in three days."
Three days. Harrison shrank a little. He had been sure they would have Alec back right away, and that he would have them safe and sound back in New Chicago, somehow, by this time tomorrow. Three days.
