by L. K. Rigel
“Not yet.” The young gob blushed. “She’s going through a difficult time right now.”
“Well, may your skill be worthy of her.” It was the customary good wish for a happy courtship. Max moved on, but the young gob kept up with him.
“That’s my goal, Max. I want to have worthy skill, skill like yours. Skill worthy of a queen.”
“What are you saying?” Was Morander mocking him? Had he guessed at Max’s feelings for Cissa?
“I’m asking to be apprenticed to you. Sun and moon, didn’t think you’d be angry about it.”
“You never.” Max stopped. He hadn’t seen that coming.
He reexamined the copper sheet. It really was good, fine work, but… with a shock—and with no small disappointment in himself—Max realized he had no desire to mentor. Who knew? Maybe some of Dandelion’s solitary tendencies had rubbed off.
“I’m a hard worker,” Morander said, and Max recognized the agony of hope on the gob’s face. He’d felt it once himself, long ago, when he’d begged to be Vulsier’s apprentice.
“No doubt, no doubt. Go to Vulsier. Tell him I’m of the opinion you’re ready to be assigned to a journeyman.”
“I want to be assigned to you,” Morander said.
“Forget it, kid. I’m no teacher.”
“And I’m no kid,” Morander said forcefully, then backed off in tone but not in desire. “I have my own tools. We could start now. Tonight.”
“Didn’t you hear in there? I’m busy with the Blue Vale’s present for the gifting.”
“Can I help you then? I’ll do anything.”
“Hmph.” Max eyed the eager gob. “There is one thing… but you won’t like it.” Max did need help with something. Something he wouldn’t even wish on Barkar.
“Anything. I’ve said so.”
“You can come with me to my place, now. Try to get my sister to go out to the dancing and keep her company tomorrow while I’m gone.”
“Boadicea.”
“Sure,” Max said. Suddenly he really hoped Morander would agree. It would be a relief not to have to worry about her for a time. “See if you can cheer her up. She needs to see that her life isn’t over because of the curse.”
“Don’t worry about a thing, Max.” The young gob turned bright red, but to his credit he didn’t run from the task. “You can count on me.”
Max grunted. The gob was willing and earnest, and no denying he had talent. But it was still nowhere in Max’s plans or desires to take on an apprentice. He opened the door. “You can help me load my wagon, too. I’d be obliged.”
Boadicea didn’t like to be left alone, though Max had many times assured her she was safe. Idris was locked away forever at the center of the Bower of Elyse. Intellectually, she understood. But a millennium of captivity and virtual torture at the regent’s hand had left her emotionally fragile. She needed to reestablish friendships in the Vale. A night of dancing would do her much good.
“When I return from the gifting...”
He had intended to say when I return, you’ll see Vulsier about a proper mentor. But as they walked outside there was a parting in the clouds, and a ray of sunlight hit the young gob just so. The copper in his hands shone.
Was it a sign from the high gods?
Sweet nostalgia pierced Max’s heart. He remembered his own eagerness and hope and fear and zest at Morander’s age. The overwhelming longing to get on with the business of living. All the feelings that had churned inside him when he made this same request so long ago.
“When I return from the gifting, then we’ll see.”
If there was such a thing as sarcastic applause, that’s what Max heard now. “What a tender scene,” said a familiar voice. “I feel a real bromance coming on.”
A deranged-looking fairy sat sprawled on the ground outside Vulsier’s cottage. Max and Morander had walked right by the sot braced against the wall below the front window. He held a turkey leg in one hand and a bota bag in the other. His straw-colored hair stuck out at all angles, his loose trousers were ripped and dirty, and his bare feet were filthy. An ornate tether clasped around his throat cascaded down over his perfect, smooth bare chest, its sparkling jewels accenting his beautiful physical form.
“Not staying for the dancing?” He washed down a sloppy bite of turkey leg with whatever was in the bota bag and looked up at Max with striking lavender eyes. “I suppose not, since you only dance with the queen these days.”
“What are you doing there, Aubrey?” Max said.
“I heard Vulsier was hosting yet another celebratory luncheon in honor of his heir apparent, the mighty Maxim, jailer of Idris, forger of Mistcutter, the mystical sword in the stone.” Aubrey waved the turkey leg in the goblins’ direction. “I stopped by to see if Vulsier’s daughters would dispense their usual tender mercies with the leftovers.” He chomped on the leg again, and wiggled his eyebrows. “One of ’em likes me.”
Aubrey was fae non grata in all Dumnos these days. It was highly unlikely one of Vulsier’s daughters would show him any kind of mercy, tender or otherwise.
“It’s the ugly one, in case you’re wondering.” Aubrey giggled at his joke.
“I don’t have time for this.”
“Of course you don’t, My Lord So Very Important.” Aubrey struggled to stand but only made it up on all fours. One fist still grasped the turkey leg, and he lurched forward toward it to take a bite, only to lose balance and fall on his face.
“Great gods, Aubrey. Have you no pride left at all?” Max jerked his head at Morander. “Let’s go.”
The two continued down the walkway, but they weren’t allowed to leave in peace.
“I know what you’re about, you know,” the pathetic fairy said. “You gobs are loud enough to be heard the next realm over. Hey, I’m talking to you!”
Morander scoffed, and Max’s only response was a grunt. But of course Aubrey wouldn’t pass up a chance to taunt someone who despised him and to entertain himself at the same time.
“Maybe I’ll go to the party,” the fairy called out through drunken laughter. “Maybe I’ll show up with a gift too.”
« Chapter 7 »
Memories
En route to Faeview
“Good girl, Mavis.” Max urged his pony through the portal to the human realm. The stalwart Shetland deftly brought the wagon out of the cool, dry goblin tunnel and onto the hard-packed dirt path that wound about the wooded hillside north of the Ring road.
To the southeast, the morning sunshine on the dew made stately Faeview fairly shimmer. Hmph. Max gave himself a silent grunt of approval. On his recommendation, the house’s doors and windows had been recently replaced, switched out from rectangular to round where possible, and rounded where not, to make the place more hospitable to the fae—specifically to fairies, who never could abide hard angles.
Faeview had been home to the earls of Dumnos since creation of the first, Ross Bausiney. Influenced by the wyrding woman Elyse, he’d abandoned Tintagos Castle to build his hall there on sacred fae ground, though sun and moon knew why. Max absently clucked his tongue. The course of wyrd-fae relations never did run smooth, and Elyse had done them no favors there.
He’d put a lot of thought into Faeview’s redesign. Through every remodel and rehabilitation over the centuries, the house had purposely been made fae proof. Far worse than all the right angles were the countless windows and doors framed in non-Dumnos steel, cold steel installed by the man Morning Glory had seduced precisely in order to repel the fae. And now the current Lord and Lady Dumnos were both faelings.
Max chuckled. Sometimes the high gods had a sense of humor.
It had been a pleasure to eradicate Faeview’s plenitude of hard angles. Simply ugly! How could even full humans stand so many square corners, rectangular doors and windows—forget headaches. What about the blight on all esthetic sensibility?
His changes so far had proved good enough for the faelings. Lily’s headaches and Cade’s achy joints had for the
most part abated. But Faeview was still unfit to host a full-fae gathering. Morning Glory was there often and said the place still made her ill. No wonder she’d lobbied to make gifting a picnic at the lake of the Small Wood.
The sacred lake had an added benefit—its proximity to Mudcastle. The ideal place for Beverly to test her new glimmermist bodysuit, only a finger snap away from the safety of the enchanted cottage.
Max noticed the fading scent of lilacs, and Mavis nickered questioningly. He looked up to see they had already passed long-deserted Kaelyn’s cave and were nearly upon the Temple of Joy and Wonder.
“Let’s avoid the picnic grounds for now, sweet girl,” he said. There was no point in being waylaid by the brownies and pixies likely to be there decorating the temple, getting the venue ready for the big day. Once a brownie got to chatting, it was impossible to get away without insulting their tender feelings.
The morning mist had rolled in from the Severn Sea, crept through the ruins of Tintagos Castle, over the village, past the Ring road, and burned off. It was a lovely sunny day, and Mavis easily found the fairy troop trail which lead through yew, ash, and oak trees and on to the mansion.
Max brought the wagon to a halt beside Lilith’s Mini, parked in the front courtyard, and fished a couple of carrots from his pocket. “There you are, girl. I’ll be out as soon as I can.”
He shuffled around to the back of the wagon and took hold of the carved headboard with one hand and the footboard with the other. Gobs didn’t use magic willy-nilly, but it would be ridiculous to haul the heavy piece up to the third floor nursery when a spell would do the trick in the blink of an eye and lessen the risk of damage in the bargain.
He popped up to the nursery with the child’s bed. While it was still contracted, he cast his eye over the room and took in all the furnishings and decorations. Suppressing all opinions, he clapped his hands twice. The room was immediately rearranged with optimized feng shui, as they called it these days. He extended the new bed into the space now provided just for that purpose.
“Oh!” Said a familiar female voice. “Hello, there.”
Lily stood in the middle of the nursery, a cheerful-looking ginger-haired toddler straddled her hip. The mother’s hair was even lighter than when Max had seen it the past winter, the day Boadicea had been set free from the glimmer glass. Lily’s quest to free his sister had taken her to Avalos, the sacred island of the wyrd, where she’d pulled Mistcutter from the stone, then used the sword to destroy the abomination, Boadicea’s prison.
Lily had been born in fae, and though her mother had hidden her for over twenty years in a human desert half way around the world, her short time in Dumnos had already affected her and accelerated her metamorphosis. She was becoming more fae than human. Max needed no further indication of this than the pale blue gossamer wings which spread up and out above her back, lazily undulating as she hugged her daughter close.
A memory jumped into Max’s mind of a terrified fairy carrying a child, running away from Idris. That fairy was Morning Glory, and the faeling child had grown up to be this woman with blue wings, now protecting a babe of her own.
“Lily,” Max said. “Er… Lady Dumnos. Please excuse the intrusion. I meant to come and go unseen.”
“Which would make the intrusion acceptable, I take it?” She raised an eyebrow, and her fairy green eyes twinkled.
He felt his face redden.
“Max, I’m teasing.” Lily’s smile broadened. “You’re always welcome at Faeview. I’d love it if you rearranged all the rooms.”
She shifted the infant on her hip, and her wings contracted somewhat. “Oh, drat. What are those doing out again?” As she put the child down in her cot, the wings contracted, folded, and slipped inside her back. They tucked themselves under her scapulae, and then the fabric of her blouse rewove itself.
“Cade’s gone to the Temple of Joy and Wonder to help Morning Glory and Goldy set up for the party,” Lily said. “It’s just me and Lexi, I’m afraid.”
The toddler was instantly on her feet, grasping the side of the cot and bouncing on her feet. She looked like a little cherub—the romanticized, human version found in paintings by Raphael—with her curls, pink cheeks, and alert, twinkling blue eyes.
“She’s growing fast,” Max said. “Fairy-like. Soon she’ll be big enough for her new bed.”
“As I feared.” Lily looked past him, over his head, and walked over to the bed and ran her fingers over the footboard carvings appreciatively. “So lovely.”
“It’s from the Blue Vale.” Max allowed his pride to puff up. He was confident in his craftsmanship, but compliments were always nice to hear. He’d carved the sleigh-style bed of yew wood and inlaid the headboard and footboard with fanciful designs of birds and butterflies and rabbits and foxes and fawns. “The pillows are stuffed with goose down and dandelion florets, as is the coverlet. The fabrics are woven of cotton, silk, and glimmermist to keep Lexi safe as she sleeps.”
“Beautiful,” Lily said absently.
Max hadn’t waited for a formal excuse like the gifting. He’d begun work on the bed when the child was born. “I’m glad you like it.”
“I’m sure it will give Lexi sweet dreams.”
“Guaranteed,” he said. “Lexi is an interesting name. Alexandra. Most fairies of Dumnos are named after flowers or vines. Growing things. But not all. There’s Idris and Aubrey.”
“Oh, dear. From what I hear, those two are not very nice.”
“No, they’re not.” Max’s short laugh came out mixed with a grunt. “Aubrey has somewhat of an excuse though. He’s brokenhearted. He was never right in his head after Idris banished his daughter, Elyse, from the faewood.”
“What’s Idris’s excuse?” Lily said. “Why is he so evil? I mean, it’s so out of character to the other fae I’ve met. I want to keep Lexi out of the fae realm, but that’s because I’m afraid she’ll come back a hundred years out of time, not because I think anyone would hurt her, not even Aubrey. But Idris sounds more like the Sarumens than a fae of Dumnos.”
“He wasn’t always bad,” Max said. “Ages ago, when Queen Sifae’s trooping party was ambushed, Idris stepped in front of a crossbow’s shot to save Dandelion’s life. The shot grazed his shoulder. The queen and her consort weren’t so lucky. Enchanted, poisoned quarrels found their hearts.”
“Great gods, who would do such a thing?”
“The attackers were human. Everyone believes it was the wyrd.”
“But you don’t.”
“For over fifteen hundred years, I did. Now, I’m unsure.”
“I always forget how old… I mean how long… for how many years you all have been alive.”
“It was Mischief Night. Fairies were flying all over the place, crashing into each other. Terrified. Idris called them together, organized them, calmed them, and somehow herded everyone back to the faewood safely. Because of his bravery, they begged him to become regent. Dandelion was too young then to sit on the Moonstick Throne, and the fae were too afraid. Idris agreed. He liked the way the moonstick crown looked on his head.”
“If my mother’s vanity is any indication, I’m not surprised,” Lily said.
“But after a while, Idris changed. He suggested Brother Sun and Sister Moon should sanctify his regency. The goblins didn’t like it, but the other fae, the fairies, the brownies, the leprechauns, the pixies—definitely the sprites—they were still afraid, and they agreed to it.”
“What does that mean?” Lily asked. “Sanctify?”
“When a fairy monarch is crowned, as they chant the words and drink the dandelion wine from the court’s fairy cup, a binding spell is cast over all the fae of that court. All members of the court are compelled to obey the monarch’s commands. It’s the one device we have against chaos.”
“I can understand that too,” Lily said, perhaps thinking again of her mother, Morning Glory. Her smile, and something about the look in her eyes, reminded Max of a wyrding woman he’d known long ago, t
he shapeshifter Igraine.
“As the time approached for the sanctification,” he continued, “a windstorm ripped through the Blue Vale. Brother Sun and Sister Moon sent me a message in the winds, delivered by Aeolios.”
“I remember him. The god who loved the woman whose spirit was trapped inside Igdrasil.”
“Well… minor god,” Max said with a chuckle.
“Into the mystic…” Lily shook her head wondrously. “Dumnos is a land of mist and rain—and the mystic.”
“And proud to be so,” Max said. In his mind Lily’s association with Igraine grew stronger. She couldn’t be the wyrding woman’s descendent. His friend Kaelyn, who knew her, had once said Igraine never had children.
“And what was the message from the high gods?” Lily said.
“I was to protect both children from the sanctification so they would retain their free will, unbound by Idris’s commands.”
“There’s your sign right there that Idris was trouble,” Lily said. “How did you do it?”
“I created a fabric from Dumnos iron, starlight, and lost wishes—you know the dandelion florets people wish on? Sometimes they reach the realm of fae too late to grant. We call them lost wishes.”
“That’s so sad.” Lily said.
Max shrugged. Nothing new in that. Human existence, being mortal, was permeated by sadness. “I imbued the fabric with a charm.” He might as well say it. Besides, he didn’t get many chances to talk about his successes.
In the glimmermist no charm shall find you.
In the glimmermist no charm shall bind you.
“That seems so simple—but of course there was more to it than that,” Lily said.
He just grunted.
“But why did the high gods choose you, do you think, to be Dandelion and Cissa’s protector?”
It was a hit to the pride to even hear the question. Who else in all the faewood or all the vales could have attempted such a thing? But in truth, Max had never asked himself the question. And now, a surprising answer occurred to him.
