The Fairy Gift

by J. K. Pendragon

  "What was that?" Draeden's voice was disapproving.

  "You!" I spat, sitting up and glaring venomously at the fairy perched lightly on the end of my bed, his legs crossed in front of him. "How long have you been here?"

  His dark eyebrows rose slightly, but he declined to answer my question. "Why did you let him go?"

  "What?!" My voice was as loud as I dared without raising suspicions downstairs.

  "Why did you let him go?" Draeden repeated, in a slightly clearer voice. "I thought you liked him."

  "I did. I do." My mind was a jumble. "You!" I shouted again, standing and striding toward him. "How could you do this to me?! Take it back! I don't want it!"

  Draeden leaned back on his arms, away from my invasive accusations, and smiled at me. "You don't?" he asked, the smile even more evident in his voice. "Seemed like you wanted something there."

  "Shut up!" I yelled, no longer caring if anyone heard. "Take it back, right now!"

  "I can't," he replied. "Learn to live with it."

  "No!" I leaned in to grab him, foolishly hoping that I could somehow physically bully him into doing what I wanted. But it was too late—he was gone, and all that was left in his place was a light sprinkling of deep blue, sparkling dust, settling slowly onto my bedspread.

  I let out a loud frustrated cry and struck at the bedspread, sweeping the shimmery powder to the floor, and then fell face first onto the bed. I buried my head in the hard, patched fabric and stayed that way, fuming, for the rest of the night.

  I hardly slept that night, so I had no trouble getting up before sunrise and packing my few tattered belongings into an old trunk. I took a last longing look around my room, and then shook myself. It was stupid to act as though I would never return. I would probably get to the capital, explain to the king that I had no powers, and be sent back home. The whole thing felt rather like a large nuisance. More troubling was the situation with Adam.

  I knew that the only thing that had kept me from sleeping with Adam was the knowledge that he naturally had no interest in men, and that I was forcing him to do something that went against everything he had thought about both of us. I wondered what he was doing then, if he was alright, if he felt guilty.

  But I had no way of speaking to him before I left. In the dim light before dawn, I bid my parents farewell. My mother cried and exclaimed about how proud she was of me, and how handsome I had become. If she only knew, I thought cynically. But I allowed her to kiss me goodbye and accepted a stiff hug from my father, and then we put my trunk into the back of Dante's cart. With a final goodbye, I lifted myself into the back of the wagon and found my way in the darkness to the hard, unfamiliar bed and, lying upon it, fell fast asleep.

  I awoke to the late morning light slipping through the dusty orange curtains. The cart was jostling and jolting over the uneven road, and now that I was awake, it was horribly jarring, and I knew that I would be unable to fall back asleep.

  I sat up and looked around. It was only a small wagon, made all the smaller by the presence of a cot and a writing desk. The space between the two was hardly large enough for one man to walk without turning, and every available space along the walls and on the floor was taken up by shelves upon shelves of books, complicated-looking devices, and stacks of paper. Everything was extremely dusty and worn-looking, and smelled of Dante. It was not pleasant.

  I stumbled toward the front of the wagon and pushed the curtain aside, emerging into the blinding morning light. Dante was sitting on a cushioned bench and loosely holding the reins of the old horse solely responsible for pulling the heavy weight of the wagon. It was a mark of my dislike for Dante that I actually felt worse for the animal having to be owned by the wizard, than for having to drag his wagon all over the country.

  "Finally up, eh, boy?" said Dante without looking at me. "You won't be able to sleep in like that at court."

  I opened my mouth to let out a retort, but found I didn't have the resolve to bother. Dante wasn't finished talking, anyway. "Since you're up, you can get a start on your magical education. There are several books in the back on the topic. Go and read one, and report back to me when you've finished it."

  He pulled out a book of his own (it did not look like one on the topic of magical theory) and proceeded to ignore me until I went back into the wagon. Inside, I pulled open the thick curtains that had previously been covering the opening at the back of the cart and let the sunlight spill in, illuminating the dust motes which were settled stagnantly in the air, despite the jostling of the cart.

  I went to the largest bookshelf, situated across from the writing desk. It was full of books with titles such as Advanced Magical Theory and Encyclopaedia of Influential Magic-Users. I was surprised to find myself actually quite interested in reading them. That is, until I took one down and attempted to do so.

  The prose was impossibly dense—it seemed to be the intent of the writer to fashion the most convoluted sentences possible and force the reader to attempt to decipher them. By the time I had gotten a vague idea of what the first few sentences meant, I had forgotten what I was reading about and had to go back to the beginning, repeating the process again and again, until I thought I was going insane or had forgotten how to read.

  To my dismay, the books were all exactly the same. I had thought my reading level quite decent when I had studied with my tutor, but this was completely beyond me. I threw the book down and flopped backward onto the bed. I hated the idea of admitting to Dante that I couldn't understand his books. But what was I to do? I realized that I genuinely did want to learn magic, but if reading these books was the only way to do so, then perhaps it was not to be.

  I lay on my back for a little while, hating everything, but soon became bored. The jostling of the cart was not conducive to thinking. I sat up and looked around again. Surely every single book in the cart couldn't be written in such a ridiculous, convoluted style? I turned to the headboard and noticed several black books there, bound in cheap leather with no titles on their spines. I picked one up and flipped it open.

  It was a romance. It started out innocently enough, about a young princess who was being courted by several dashing gentlemen. I felt a little guilty for enjoying the descriptions of the men more than the lengthy ones of the princess (which I mostly skipped), but I shoved it away—no one was going to lynch me for having thoughts about men, I reasoned. Besides, I couldn't help it.

  Then it came to a part where the princess (Isbetta was her name) was alone with one of the dashing young gentlemen, and I realized why the book had been untitled. It was not the type of book that would make its way through civilized circles. But I couldn't seem to stop myself from reading. I had been educated about intercourse before, of course, but it had never really appealed to me. The way the book presented it, however, made it seem very, very appealing indeed.

  I read until I felt absolutely too guilty to go on. Then, sufficiently disgusted with myself, I slammed the book shut and shoved it back onto the headboard. In fact, I felt so guilty that I went and got the book on influential magic users and managed to get almost halfway through the first entry before nightfall.

  The trip to the capital took nearly three weeks. During that time, my intense dislike of Dante was completely and irrefutably confirmed. He ignored me, except to instruct me on which books to read, and then to roughly quiz me to make sure I had read them properly. If I didn't answer all of his questions satisfactorily, I was made to read the book over again. Often, I never did find the answers to the questions he was asking in them.

  Dante also had absolutely disgusting personal hygiene and made me sleep on the ground outside at night. He kept bags of dried fruit and nuts with him at all times, but would never let me eat any. At night, we would eat fowl and small animals that he had captured and cooked with magic, but I always somehow ended up with a smaller portion than he, and sometimes, on days when he had gorged himself on snacks earlier, he neglected to catch or cook anything for dinner, and I went hungry. I kept c
areful track of all of these injustices in my head, intending to relay them in detail to my parents when I got back. I began to plan a way to get away from Dante once we reached the capital and make my own way home. I couldn't stand the thought of travelling with him for another three weeks.

  One night, though, after we had eaten a particularly satisfying meal of stewed rabbit, Dante deigned to teach me some magic. It was levitation, as he had promised. Fortunately, despite what I had read in the magic books, I found it to be all quite natural and easily picked it up, until I was levitating things all over the campsite. I thought it was quite similar to, or possibly the same powers which I had used on Adam in the forest—all about concentration and tightening my fingers, imagining the object as alive and moving toward or away from me.

  Dante seemed rather disgruntled about the speed at which I learned the trick.

  "Well, then, levitation must be your power," he muttered, getting up and climbing the stairs to the wagon. "We'll tell the king that when we get to the capital, and he might take you on as an apprentice low-class magician."

  I thought about that prospect as I cleaned up after Dante and extinguished the fire. It didn't seem all that appealing. Actually, it rather complicated things. If I was hired by the king, in any position, then my parents would certainly not take kindly to me wishing to come back to Rell. 'Low-class magician' didn't sound very glamorous to me, but I knew my parents would be extremely proud and practically force me to continue on there.

  I began to dread our arrival at the capital.

  By the time we arrived, however, I had decided that I didn't care if I was made the palace scullery maid, as long as it gave me a chance to get away from Dante. He had become increasingly snappish and rude to me as we got closer to our destination, and he seemed to be very nervous about something. I spent most of the time in the back of the cart, reading on my own and not talking to him. Sometimes, I read Dante's romance novels, but they made me feel sick to my stomach, partly because I felt I shouldn't be reading them and partly because they filled me with a dull longing for something that I knew I couldn't have. Not sex, of course, I knew I could have that, if I wanted it—but a woman. I knew I would never want one, and the thought made me sad. I had only ever wanted to be normal. I should have known I would always be anything but.

  In any case, although I was reading (and mostly understanding) the books on magical theory, some part of me instinctively wanted to reject a lot of what they stated as fact. Many of the theories given just didn't seem to mesh with my experience, however limited, of magic so far. For instance, the idea that the longer casting a spell took, the more powerful it would be. That didn't make sense to me at all. Magic seemed to me, in that respect, like any other task: if someone was slow at it, even after ample practice, it simply meant that that person wasn't very good at it. I could make things float to me quite quickly by then, with little thought, but it was rather pointless, because it caused me to exert at least as much energy as it would have had I gotten up and walked over to grab the object in the first place. Dante didn't seem to agree with me on this point. On the days when he was talkative, he went on about the benefits of being a magic-user, how one could use it to impress others and increase one's status in society. I tried not to listen to him too much, otherwise the insufferable arrogance in his voice might have caused me to snap and use my powers to do something awful, like make him impotent (if he wasn't already).

  At last, the day arrived when we came upon the capital. As we made our way into the city, I realized that I had been completely unprepared for the sheer mass of stimuli with which the sights and sounds of the city bombarded me. I had never seen so many people, so many buildings, or animals, or shops before in my life. And everything was so modern. The styles of dress seemed outlandish, almost. The men all wore high shiny boots, and almost all of them had short, styled hair. The women's dresses were overwhelming, all ribbons and embroidery and lace. They had a peculiar shape to them as well, straight up and down over the torso, and then bursting out like a bell from the waist down. I wonder what sort of contraptions they wore underneath to make them that shape.

  The carriages were all different styles, however, some wooden wagons like Dante's, some old covered carriages like the ones we had back in Rell, and some new and modern and sleek. Despite being very narrow, the streets were full to bursting with people, walking and on horseback, all running in between the slow procession of carriages, as if they cared very little for their own lives. The noise was deafening, and I turned to look at a man who I thought was yelling at me, but Dante grabbed my arm and ordered me to keep facing forward.

  We carried on that way for a very long time. The sights and sounds were becoming too much for me, and I mentioned to Dante that I should have liked to go into the back of the wagon and have a nap before we arrived. He hissed at me to stay put. He seemed to be extremely anxious, as if on the lookout for something. I stayed sitting on the bench next to him, as there seemed to be nothing else I could do. Looking around, I noticed with some satisfaction that the din seemed to be quieting down somewhat. Then I realized that this was not because we were getting closer to the palace, but rather because we were coming into a much older and dirtier part of town.

  People were much less outgoing there, keeping to themselves and glancing furtively around as they hurried about their business. The clothing was much darker and drabber, mostly in the older styles that I was used to, although the men still wore the high boots and the women's dresses were still bell-shaped. The shops and buildings on either side of the road seemed darker and older, too. I didn't like it here nearly as much. In fact, it put me more on edge.

  All of a sudden, there was a loud barking, and a dog ran seemingly out of nowhere in front of the cart. The old horse started and reared up. Dante yelled and attempted to get control of the reins, but it only served to frighten the horse more. He turned back and forth, as if assaulted by an imaginary force, and then turned too sharply for the cart to handle and bolted down a side road.

  I felt the cart tipping and stood as fast as I could, but it was too late to do anything. I heard Dante yelling at me to jump, and I did so, propelling myself as far as I could from the careening cart. I landed with a heavy thud and felt several of my bones instantly bruise, but I didn't think anything was broken. I whipped my head around, trying to orient myself, and then felt a sharp, warm pain on the back of my head. I reached my hand back and felt warm liquid. Then everything went dark, and I slipped out of consciousness.

  I awoke to throbbing pain. At first, I couldn't localize it, only knowing that it was constant and on my back. Then, as I began to regain some semblance of consciousness, I realized that something was dragging along my back. I awoke further to realize that it was, in fact, I who was being dragged along the ground by my arms, which seemed to be tied together.

  I moaned, and whoever was dragging me stopped and walked over to me. Opening my swollen eyes, I was able to make out two figures, all dressed in black. One leaned over me. He had a sunken, dark face and a short, scraggly black beard.

  "Oy," he said to the other in an accent I had never heard before. "He's awake."

  "So put him out again!" came the voice of the other man, and then there was a sharp pain on my forehead, and I was gone.

  When I awoke again, I was mercifully still and lying on my back. My hands were still bound, and I realized that my mouth was gagged, as well. I opened my eyes, even more swollen now, and looked around. It was dark and it seemed as though I was in an alley somewhere. I thought I could hear the ocean. The man who I had seen before was sitting propped up against some sacks. I stirred, and when he saw that I was awake, he smiled.

  "Oh, hello! Good morning! Or rather not." He had a cruel and slippery way of talking, and I disliked him greatly. "Hope you're comfortable," he continued. "Enjoy it. Slave ships are notorious for their lack of hospitality." He must have seen the panic in my eyes, because he laughed, and said, "You didn't know? You're to be sold as a
slave. There's good money for slaves, down south. And you're a prime specimen."

  I struggled, my mind whirling with panic, and he laughed again and looked away. I lay there, trying to think of some way, any way to escape. But my bonds were tight, and I couldn't move. I remembered the last time I had been unable to move and how different that had been, and then I thought of Draeden and his saying, "There is your gift. The Power of Seduction. It is immensely useful. Use it well."

  My stomach dropped, leaving behind an empty, curdling feeling. But I knew what I had to do. I blinked my eyes a few times, making sure they were clear, then, ignoring the disgust within me, I drew up the full extent of my powers and pulled on the repulsive man's consciousness until he looked at me, and I unleashed my power upon him.

  He started a little, sliding downward, and then caught himself. He was staring at me, his eyes wide.

  Come here, I tried to tell him, and although he couldn't possibly hear me, he obeyed. He got up and walked toward me. Then he knelt in front of me with a look of shock on his face.

  Take out my gag, I ordered, and again, he obeyed, although hesitantly. I could tell that he really wanted to see the rest of my face, because when the gag came loose, he smiled lecherously and touched a finger to my lips.

  "You want me," I said, ignoring the sick feeling that came with the statement, forcing it down as best I could—rather well, I thought, considering the circumstances.

  He nodded, his face a picture of greedy lust. His hands reached for me.

  "Wait," I said. "Untie me."

  But his hands were working at my waistband, struggling to undo the clasp of my belt. I realized that he didn't consider my hands being free a necessity at all.

  "Hey!" I exclaimed. "Look at me!" His eyes snapped up. "It'll be better … " I exerted my control, needing him to believe the words were true. "Better if my hands are untied.

  He nodded, and then stopped, shaking his head. "I shouldn't. You could get away."