by Phil Parker
I held my breath. They were planning someone’s death, a person already in the human realm. That worried me, I had to hope that my journey wasn’t connected to such a dreadful thing. It disappointed me that my first reaction was to consider my situation rather than the poor victim’s, but I was dealing with Lady Mab and protecting myself always had to come first. When she spoke it was just as light-hearted, as though she was planning a party.
‘Oh he will die. You see, I manipulated him into making a gross error of judgement. He went looking for someone in the human realm. Stirred a sleeping lion you might say.’
‘Who?’
Mab sniggered. I found it impossible to picture her making such a sound, it couldn’t come from the severe, humourless woman I knew.
‘So, my lord, when the sad news of his death is announced, and you are hailed High Lord, will you return me to my rightful position as Commander in Chief?’
I had to put my hand over my mouth to stifle my horror. They were talking about the current High Lord being murdered by someone Mab knew, an act she had arranged. Now my bowels really did present a problem, what if I got drawn in to this treason? I felt trapped in more ways than my position beneath the bookshelf.
My movement disturbed layers of dust, it tickled my nose, the need to sneeze suddenly became all-consuming. I concentrated on the man’s reply to distract myself.
‘I do not make promises I cannot keep, my lady. Until the crown is placed on my head…’
Mab’s voice was tight with exasperation.
‘Very well. But if…’ and she emphasized the last word and then repeated it, ‘… if you’re crowned, you will grant my request?’
My nose was twitching like a rabbit’s, I held my nostrils tight and tried to breathe through my mouth.
‘We make a good team, you and I. Between us we will change the fortunes of the Dark Court, for this you have my guarantee. That idiot has weakened us but we will rebuild. Having removed the adult generation of Knights, I foresee no difficulty in killing their spawn. Then, with the Knights’ Protocol equally as dead, we can invade in force without offending the sensitivities of Nimue and our Light Cousins.’
I was going to sneeze, I couldn’t stop myself. The man turned and made his way to the door. I hoped with all my heart Mab would follow quickly because I was about to be discovered by two traitors who wouldn’t hesitate in killing me too.
‘Let me know when the deed is done.’
Mab joined him, I heard their footsteps tap along the stone floor of the library and then onto the corridor floor, the sound quickly receding.
My sneeze, held back for so long, exploded and echoed around the library, it was quickly followed by another and another. I kept perfectly still in the horrific expectation the two conspirators would return but after a minute of holding my breath, there were no footsteps to be heard.
I crawled out from beneath the bookcase and stretched my cold and aching muscles. I had to do something. I had to report the crime I’d just overheard. Except that wasn’t so easy. I was Mab’s page, a lowly servant. No one would take my word against hers, not after my history of devious behaviour. What was even worse, Mab wouldn’t hesitate in using her clever, strategic brain to find a way to have me killed. If she could plan the death of the High Lord then mine would be easy.
I hurried along the corridor, away from the library, I didn’t want to visit the place ever again. I’d find a way for my lessons with Master Darragh to happen somewhere else. Which was when I realised I’d forgotten my study texts. I needed them to memorise the sayings he’d insisted I learned for our next lesson.
With my heart in my mouth and pounding like a drum, I sprinted back to the library, collected my book from off the table and ran back out.
Straight into Mab.
It was so sudden, so unexpected I let out a strangled yelp as I staggered backwards to fall on my arse. She watched me with an unreadable expression but I noticed how she looked from me, to the library and back again. I knew what she was thinking.
‘What are you doing here?’
I held up Master Darragh’s book like a trophy, hoping it provided a strong enough alibi.
‘I forgot my book. I left it in the library. I study there with Master Darragh.’
Her eyes bore into mine, searching them for lies.
‘How long were you in the library?’
I tried to look bewildered by her question. ‘Seconds. Just seconds. Not long.’
I was blabbing. I should have just answered her question simply. I sat on the floor, aware I was sweating and shaking. There was a very real danger I’d shit myself where I sat. I tried to smile nonchalantly but it only made me look more suspicious, my mouth froze in a rictus of regret.
‘Then why are you so nervous?’
She reached her hand out to help me up. My palm was hot and sweaty, it would make me look even more frightened. I wasn’t certain she intended to help me up, there were stories of her wrenching limbs off people. My hand went to meet hers, shaking like it was in a high wind. She helped me to my feet.
‘Because you scare me, my lady.’
She grinned and looked vaguely satisfied by my answer.
‘Fear keeps you sharp. You will need all your wits about you when you travel to the human realm to rescue your wyvern.’
Her eyes stayed riveted on mine, they hadn’t shifted the whole time.
‘You won’t let me down, will you? I don’t tolerate failure. Too much rests on your mission young man. Lives depend on your success. Do you understand?’
I nodded and, with black leather cloak swirling behind her, swept down the corridor like a huge bat.
I hurried to find a toilet, urgently.
Chapter 11
Another night spent in a barn, this time tied to a wooden pillar which held up the leaking roof. Oisin and I quickly learned not to tug too hard at our bonds, the wooden pillar held up the roof, we ran the risking of bringing the whole place down on our heads. Had I been on my own I’d have taken the gamble but I wasn’t going to try my luck with the twins’ lives. I felt sure we could escape these idiots.
Things inevitably got worse when Brea woke up. They’d tied her hands behind her back so if she tried to blast herself free it would be at the cost of her brother, who was bound behind her.
‘Happy now!’ Her voice edged towards hysteria. ‘This is fucking diplomacy, is it? You should have let me blast them like I wanted. We wouldn’t be in this fucking mess then.’
‘That’s right,’ I said, trying to stay calm. ‘We’d be dead.’
‘Like we’re not going to be any time soon?’
I could just make out her face as the first rays of dawn tentatively entered the barn. The bluster was only a thin disguise; I could see real terror on her face. I had a go at doing the reassuring uncle routine, it was rusty but I hoped it might work.
‘We’ll be OK. The one-eyed guy is the real power here. I’ll get him to listen. Persuade him he can help us. He’s a military man. He’ll understand.’
‘Are you fucking listening to yourself?’ she screamed.
The routine was rustier than I’d thought. I tried a different approach.
‘You said you’d made progress with releasing your energy, that’s good news. Moya would be proud of you.’
I knew how much Brea had worshipped her aunt and I wasn’t above using emotional distraction to calm the girl down.
‘Fuck off Robin. I don’t fall for that kid stuff anymore.’
I gave up. This was why I kept these kids at a distance. Finn cleared his throat, there was a huskiness to it that told me he was near to tears, even though I couldn’t see him.
‘You think we can escape, don’t you?’
‘Of course I do. I’ve been in far worse situations than this.’
I’d deliberately screened my thoughts. I didn’t find it easy, it usually gave me a headache but I knew he’d be inside my head.
‘Really?’
I kept my v
oice light. ‘Yeah. Have I told you the time I was captured by a seventeenth century Balkan chieftain who caught me with his son? I’d had to leave Venice rather urgently and finished up in Croatia…’
‘Someone’s coming,’ Finn said in a husky stage whisper.
Moments later, as the sun’s rays entered the barn with more vigour, so did a deputation of pathetic, filthy and half-starved men. They were probably the same ones who’d brought us here but the light didn’t do them any favours. Nor did it improve Joe Purdy’s features either. His injury hadn’t just taken out one eye but also one side of his nose and gouged out a part of his cheek so his mouth looked like it was set in a permanent sickly grin. Behind him were his two comrades, like minders.
At his side, with a manic smile so wide it looked like he’d dislocated his jaw, was the religious nutter. His grip on his Bible hadn’t lessened any but now his wild eyes gleamed with the kind of joy that told me he wasn’t going to be open to rational debate.
Standing with Joe Purdey, his face and clothes spattered with mud, was a man I vaguely recognised. Tombstone-like teeth protruded from a thin face with an abnormally narrow jaw and chin, he reminded me of a rat. The image triggered my memory into action.
At some point in the past I must have offended Trevor Ratner because the guy did everything he could to cause me trouble. He hadn’t been religious before the war but since then he’d embraced it with enthusiasm, becoming a vocal member of The Morality League, no doubt abusing the power it gave him. He glanced at me, realised I’d recognised him and gave me a buck-toothed grin.
We were so deep in the shit now it was piling up around our eyes and ears.
Purdey might only have one eye but he noticed my recognition too.
‘Mister Ratner’s visit couldn’t have been more timely it would appear Mister Fellows. You two are familiar with one another I understand.’
‘I found him in a rat’s nest, where he’d been abandoned.’
The buck-tooth grin vanished while Purdey’s lop-sided mouth formed half a smile.
‘So you’re not friends?’
The man with a badly-crafted crucifix around his neck stepped forwards.
‘God waits for us to purify this place Joe Purdey, enough of this pantomime.’
The manic face glowered at Oisin and I as he raised a hand to heaven, his voice doing the same.
‘Lord, we purge this world of the scourge that caused you to bring us such calamity. We know you love us and want us to cleanse our world of the heathen, those who seek to forget thy existence and especially those degenerates whose lewd practices abase the institution of love and marriage.’
Around him the senseless morons chanted ‘Amen’.
Brother Whelan, so deep into the throes of worship he appeared to stand a foot taller, strode towards the edge of the farm buildings, beckoning in the process. While some of the men unfastened our ropes, the rest stood with knives and guns ready for any attempt at escape. Oisin’s face was white, he looked terrified as he looked at me with the expression of someone who expects a miracle to be performed. With guns levelled at my head I was fresh out of miracles.
Joe Purdey stepped closer to me, his voice a whisper.
‘Don’t worry, the kids are safe. I persuaded the villagers that your sins were greater than young demons. When Mister Ratner told them how you’d invited the fairies into your house, I convinced everyone we were doing the kids a favour by rescuing them.’
‘But I didn’t invite…’
He placed a finger over twisted lips.
‘They’re going to come in handy. We can use them to pay our tithe to Chief ColdIron. We’re late and don’t have the money so your arrival was well timed.’
Brea was screaming hysterically now and I struggled to hear what he said.
‘The Taunton Gang control everywhere around here now. Things get unpleasant when a village doesn’t pay its dues. I think he’ll appreciate how powerful these two kids will make him. Me too perhaps.’
Half a dozen of the strongest men grabbed me and frog-marched me out of the barn, the remainder doing the same with Oisin.
‘You’re stopping us from beating the fairies!’ I screamed as I fought and kicked my security guards. ‘We can end this war! Don’t you understand? Don’t let these morons wreck humanity’s chances!’
I heard Brea’s screams, Finn’s calls for help and felt Puck stir. For once I was glad of that feeling until, as I thrashed arms and legs wildly, something heavy hit the back of my head and everything went black. Again.
I woke with a marching band in my head and every muscle in my body complaining about their mistreatment. Somewhere nearby a discordant rendition of a hymn was waking God from his slumbers. I opened my eyes and the morning light encouraged the percussion section of the marching band to join in. The sun’s rays also showed me how branches, bits of wood and assorted rubbish lay piled at my feet. It took my addled brain a few seconds to realise where I was, a discovery helped by my arms being tied to a wooden pole which pressed into my back, making my shoulders ache.
We were going to be burned at the stake like witches.
I’d seen enough ritual burnings in my time to know that a quick death was down to the quantity and quality of fuel. It all depended on the faggots, an ironic term given our crime. In medieval times there was an art to their construction so they burned quickly and fiercely. The few items that barely covered my feet proved it was a lost art, though I doubted they probably had a shortage of things to burn. The result would be the same; a very slow, painful death.
That realisation tempered the pounding in my head so that I became aware of Oisin’s voice, he was tied to the same pole, his back against mine.
‘If you’re calling for help I don’t think anyone is available.’
I heard him let out a deep sigh.
‘I thought you were never going to wake up.’
‘You know me, never a morning person. What are you doing?’
‘Trying to stop us from dying. I’m calling the wyvern.’
I surveyed the farmyard, a place that was so badly neglected it looked like a strong wind would blow it down. The only building that looked reasonably well maintained was the huge wooden barn filled with hymn-singing maniacs. We were positioned on the edge of the farmyard, far enough away so flames wouldn’t reach rotting timbers. Across the square farmyard were the tottering remains of the old barn where we’d spent the night, leaning drunkenly against it was a stable where they’d tied the wyvern to a pillar. It nodded its head from side to side at Oisin’s call.
‘How can the wyvern help?’
‘Their saliva is an acid. If she licked our ropes she could burn through them.’
‘Right. And does she understand the words for ‘lick’ and ‘ropes’ then?’
I could hear his exasperation. ‘No, but she’s clever.’
As the hymn ended I heard the voice of Brother Whelan rise up to instil in his flock the need to purge their community of evil and to seek God’s forgiveness. Everyone from the nearby hamlets had to be in the large barn, no doubt seeking permission from a greater power than their religious leader to commit acts of murder.
‘She needs to be fast then. From experience of these kind of community get-togethers, we’ve probably got one more hymn.’
‘Help me call her then, unless you’ve got a better idea?’
I whistled, I used to have a horse that came when I did that, I didn’t know if it worked on wyverns.
With a loud cracking noise and a huge amount of dust, the wyvern galloped out of the stable dragging the pillar behind it. The stable and adjacent barn, folded in on itself in a loud crash. It took her only a few strides to stand in front of us, head once again turning from side to side to understand why the strangers had tied themselves to a tree without branches.
In the huge barn the congregation began to sing Nearer my God to Thee.
Oisin, using a series of pantomime-like gestures, drew her attention to the rope su
fficiently that the creature lowered its head and sniffed it. He praised her, encouraging me to join in. I reverted to distant memories of training my horse, repeating ‘Good girl!’ with as much enthusiasm as I could muster.
Reptiles use scent to help make sense of the world around them, Oisin explained at one point. They have narrow nostrils but much of their olfaction is derived from their tongues so, to understand our bonds, she needed to touch them. Thin wisps of smoke formed as her snake-like tongue came into contact with rope fibres, to rise into the air, our encouragement rising with them. Soon she was licking more energetically as we provided the motivation and the wisps turned from white to grey as the smoke thickened.
I couldn’t help but feel we were wasting our time, the ropes were thick but when I mentioned this I was told to tug at them as hard as I could.
In the big barn, God was uncovering his ears as the hymn ended.
‘We’re running out of time!’ I gasped as my arm muscles shrieked their complaints as I pushed and strained against our bonds.
Our calls to the wyvern moved up the encouragement scale quickly, from motivational to desperate. Even I began to think the animal appeared to understand what we wanted her to do, as her snake-like tongue wrapped around the ropes, in places I could see some of the fibres turned dark red and small sparks appear.
Across the farmyard, the large wooden doors of the barn were flung open with evangelical zeal by Brother Whelan, he took one look at the situation and screamed for God to smite the sinners with his holy wrath. Clearly God was too busy, or ethically opposed to the murder of two men whose only crime was to enjoy other men, and chose not to smite anyone. This disinterest didn’t deter Brother Whelan, he raised his arm like a general leading his men into battle and marched across the farmyard, Bible held aloft and with his villagers behind him, somewhat awestruck by the spectacle.
Our own chanting increased as we begged the wyvern to lick the rope for all she was worth. Then, as heat in the rope reached my wrists, I felt them give enough for my weary arms to slide out. I dropped to untie the ropes around my ankles and realised that I wasn’t going to have time to free both of us and get away.
