by Ken Altabef
Everbright:
City of Everlasting Change
EVERBRIGHT
Copyright © 2018 by Ken Altabef
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever, without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in articles or reviews. Contact the author for more information.
New York
This is a work of fiction. Except in the case of historical figures, all names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
ALSO BY KEN ALTABEF
ALAANA’S WAY
Book 1: The Calling
Book 2: Secrets
Book 3: Shadows
Book 4: The Tundra Shall Burn!
Book 5: The Shadow of Everything Existing
LADY CHANGELING TRILOGY
Lady Changeling
Changelings at Court
Everbright
FORTUNE’S FANTASY:
13 excursions into the unknown
GIANT SLAYERS
(with Jeff Altabef)
www.KenAltabef.com
EVERBRIGHT
By Ken Altabef
Chapter 1
April 17, 1763
Northern Durham, England
Theodora leaned forward to gently kiss the trunk of the old ash tree. She and Moonshadow had begun their day with a morning walk in Everbright’s garden park. As dawn broke all around them, the city of Everbright was aborning. And it was glorious indeed.
The day workers had already begun, hammers pounding, saws growling, metal clanging as construction proceeded on buildings surrounding the park. Faery workers had resumed their tasks as well—urging the garden features to grow in rapid order. Their efforts produced elegantly filigreed hedgerows, colorful banks of exotic plants and flowers, and enormous trees growing so intimately between the buildings it looked as if they had embraced them all their lives. The developing aesthetic was a perfect blend of the natural and practical. Streets branched from the park in a complex and irregular pattern, flowing out from the central hub like natural growth. Ivy and flowering vines crawled in decorative patterns along the façades. Orchids and wild roses dotted each ledge and edifice. Brick and mortar façades were painted with luminous streaks of faery light in intricate and beautiful patterns. At this early hour some shone brightly while others slowly faded, to be replaced with new and different compositions in another day or two. When it was complete, this city would be like none other in England, or anywhere in the known world.
Moonshadow’s task was the most daunting of all, for she must provide the element of change. In order to animate faery architecture, she had to trick the world itself. Her mother, Moon Dancer, had been especially talented at such things, having created the faery refuge below Barrow Downes, an expansive system of caves that were much larger on the inside than the actual space they occupied. Moonshadow had been trained in the art as well. She spent a great deal of time laying enchantments for Everbright each night under the light of the Moon. Although far from done, she had already created conditions that caused the streets surrounding the park to slowly shift and change position over time so that every morning the faeries might wake to a slightly different city. The city of everlasting change. It was a magnificent trick. Theodora couldn’t begin to understand how it was done.
Some degree of flexibility had been built into the buildings themselves, using creepers and vines to hold the joints instead of wood and brick so that the subtle movements of the buildings should not destabilize them. Needless to say, these magical alterations caused untold problems for the workers still trying to complete the brick and mortar portions of the structures. On occasion they reported to work in the morning to find their building-in-progress had crossed the street. And though it delayed progress of their city just a little bit, the faeries did so love a good joke.
But casting architectural spells was work for the dead of night when the Moon shone its brightest. For now, the two half-sisters paid their respects to the tree at the center of the park. Moonshadow patted the great ash lovingly. She stood several inches shorter than Theodora and her skin was pure white, as bright and luminescent as the Moon itself, in contrast to Theodora’s more common green hue. Moonshadow’s ears were gently pointed and her eyes radiated light and life in a unique combination of silver and blue. She was completely hairless, with the exception of long and luxurious eyelashes. She was dressed in a long sweeping gown of fine white silk. The fabric shimmered pleasantly in the early morning light. Theodora found it ironic that the young leader of the Summer Court faeries, who had always gone among them completely naked and unashamed, must now wear clothes. The faeries had at last been liberated from British oppression and now went freely above the surface of the earth, but consequently Moonshadow had lost her liberty to dress, or undress, as she pleased. There were too many human workmen about, not to mention the squadron of British military stationed at the heart of the nascent city, for her to roam bare to the world. The sight of a nubile young faery, and such an attractive one at that, going naked among them would either be too much for their higher sensibilities or overpower their baser urges. So, as they had been made free, the faeries now found themselves bound by human convention as never before.
To Theodora’s way of thinking, wearing proper clothes was only a small concession. Everbright was a dream made real, the culmination of a decades-long struggle that had torn her marriage apart and cost her dearly. She pressed her forehead against the great tree’s trunk and sighed. She knew that her mother, Moon Dancer, had merged spirits with this venerable old tree upon her death, but Theodora could no longer sense her presence within.
Moonshadow knew just how she felt. “She’s still there, I think,” the young faery said. “Moon Dancer, I mean. Even if we can’t feel her anymore.”
“My son James was able to contact her a few years ago,” Theodora said. “But afterward he said she had passed beyond reach. And if he can’t sense her anymore, I don’t think anybody could.”
“That boy is better at the merging than any full-blooded faery I’ve ever seen.”
“He’s quite a sensitive indeed. And as the only faery attribute he inherited from me, he’s taken great pains to develop the ability.”
Moonshadow smiled. “He must be quite a lover.”
“I suppose.”
“Of course I wouldn’t know,” Moonshadow said.
“And neither would anyone else. Arabelle was his first faery lover and the last. You could ask her if you were still on speaking terms…”
“The last I heard from her was a dagger in the back.”
“Exactly,” Theodora said coolly. Then, wanting to change the subject away from her son’s sex life, “It doesn’t matter. We don’t need a merging to know what Moon Dancer would have thought of this.” She spread an expansive arm at the work around them. “A new city, like a child raising up, a new beginning. Moon Dancer would have treasured this.”
“At last a place of our own.”
“Yes,” said Theodora, with less enthusiasm than she would have liked. Not quite our own. She glanced dubiously in the direction of the military compound. And then at the tiny chapel across the park. Both structures stood out in sharp contrast to Everbright’s natural architectural themes. The military barracks and offices stood as low buildings of red brick, all straight edges and flat surfaces, routinely stripped of any clinging vegetation. The chapel was an ugly little wooden shack with a tiny spire jutting above its ugly black tar roof. Another intrusion mandated by the King.
“If only that chapel weren’t sitting there in the middle
of the park,” she exclaimed. “It’s so ugly.”
“Don’t fret, Theodora. It’s only a small price to pay. King George insisted the chapel must stand where the ground does not shift under faery magic. Here, at the center of the park, is the only place for it.”
“It’s a finger in our eye, that’s what it is. And how long before he puts forth an edict that we must attend? He did that on his first day in England, you know—some dodgy proclamation ‘for the encouragement of piety and virtue’ which commanded his subjects to attend worship of God on every Lord’s Day.” She chuckled softly. “Of course most people ignored it.”
“And of course that edict can’t possibly apply to pagans like us.”
“Not yet. But a few faeries are starting to go anyway.”
“I think we’ll be alright, Theodora. They’re just curious. It’s their choice if they want to go. When you were pretending to be human, you attended church with your husband every week and it never affected your beliefs, did it?”
Pretending to be human. Theodora balked at the phrase. She had taken to the role so well she had even fooled herself. Now she lived among her own kind, but still felt as if she had one foot stuck in the world of British aristocracy.
Moonshadow took her hand. “I’m sorry Theodora if I—”
Her apology was interrupted by the crack of a whip. A group of men had gathered outside the army barracks. The redcoats stood in a crude line across from the whipping post. Theodora could make out the stocky figure of Captain Abercrombie wielding the whip. The sound of the flogging carried very well across the open park. Moonshadow winced at every stroke.
After administering five lashes the Captain paused to address the assembly. Theodora could not clearly hear his words at the distance.
Moonshadow asked, “Is that Lieutenant Davidson, there under the lash?”
“Yes,” answered Theodora, “caught fraternizing with one of us—a faery woman. Nerissa, I think it was. Abercrombie is very strict about that type of thing.”
“And very cruel. Five lashes?”
“A single-tailed whip without a barb. It looks worse than it is.”
“It’s just…” Moonshadow turned away. “Seems so cruel.”
“I’ve seen them do a lot worse.”
Moonshadow sighed. She had rarely travelled outside of Barrow Downes and was not conversant with the ways of human folk.
“We’ll never get rid of these people, you know,” Theodora said. “The workers will go when they’re done. But the soldiers won’t. And then traders will come, merchants, sight-seers…”
“We’re to be forever mixed with humans,” Moonshadow said, without joy. “But working together will create trust. And that’s something very hard to come by these days, after all we’ve been through at their hands. How many of us have they hunted down over the years? And killed? And they’ve suffered at our hands, too. This has to be. We have to come together.”
“I don’t trust King George.”
“And he doesn’t trust us. So the soldiers stay.”
Theodora grunted softly. “At the cost of our privacy. I had hoped we could eventually bring our dances out in the open again. That was the whole point. To be free to do whatever we want under the open sky.”
“Some things have to stay belowground. At least for now. Like I said, a small price to pay.”
A small price to pay. Theodora had been telling herself that for twenty years. But she knew very well how all the little concessions began to add up over time.
As they turned away from the tree Theodora gave a last thought for Moon Dancer. She sacrificed quite a lot for us to achieve this. And so have I. It has to work. it just has to.
“Are we doing the right thing, Theodora?”
“Oh yes. No doubt,” she lied. “It’s going to be glorious.”
Chapter 2
James Grayson sat cross-legged under the moonlit sky. He was, as usual, completely naked.
It was a quiet night in early April. A few faeries wandered among the trees in the park, giggling and carousing. Most of them still lived underground in their old homes in Barrow Downes as the new structures of Everbright rose half-finished above their heads. Across the park, a few late-night noises rang out from the military barracks where the men were not yet asleep. Most likely they could see him sitting out in the open in his state of undress. ‘The Loony Lordling’ they called him when they thought he could not hear. James didn’t mind. They were ignorant to the ways of faery folk and perhaps better they should remain that way.
James took a deep breath and turned his attention away from the barracks and toward the pleasant night all around him. He relaxed his mind, opening it up to whatever impressions might come. He’d perfected these techniques of mind expansion over many years, often merging with the consciousness of nocturnal animals as they wandered by. Even now there were a few squirrels puttering about the trees with their distinctive, curious mentalities. And he sensed also an owl perched overhead silently observing the Loony Lordling with detached interest. It had already dined on a pair of field mice and its well-fed thoughts tasted slow and mellow, like turtle soup.
But tonight James sought after much bigger game. As he had tried so often of late, he focused his mind on the silvery Moon. Its half-circle shone brightly in the sky even though so far, far away.
The Moon posed an irritating enigma. It was the source of the faeries’ powers of illusion. That much was fact. But its true nature could not really known. Humans, in their dull, unimaginative way, thought the moon merely a dead rock circling the sky, but that could not be true. It had to be more. The faeries held several differing impressions of the Moon. To some, like his mother Theodora, the Moon was a mother figure—Mother Moon—a benevolent celestial brimming with grace and beauty that shined her light and bounty down upon them as a mother nourishes her children. Though she held to this belief unshakably his mother could provide no direct evidence of its truth. It was simply a matter of faith, James supposed, no different than the tenets of the Anglican Church that had been drummed into his skull every weekend during his youth. Others described the Moon Maid, a more carefree and playful figure much closer to a friend and companion than a parent.
To others, the moon existed as an unknowable entity, cool and aloof, a primordial font which granted power by some automatic and otherworldly design. James still took the gospel every Sunday, either sitting in the parish Church at Graystown, or lately under the tutelage of Vicar Desmos at the little chapel in Everbright. Desmos reckoned that God had created heaven and Earth and the Moon as well, and therefore it was His power fueling the faeries. It seemed as likely an explanation as any other.
There must be a definitive answer, he thought, and I will find out for myself.
So, he sat in a state of calm repose, keeping his mind open to all vibrations around him, especially any that might trickle down from the half-moon above. A few strains of melancholy pipe music cut across the sward, coming from one of the unfinished buildings in the city. James ignored it. He must concentrate.
He heard something else. A whisper, carried on a wayward breeze. He forced himself to focus. It seemed very much like a message. He focused his attention on the sibilant sound, realizing it was not really an audible sound, but a stream of consciousness coming from far away. And yes, it was a communication meant for him.
The whisper said:
“A true heart is the sun not the moon,
For it shines bright and never changes.
Let me return what has been stolen, love,
In the dark morrow of Lethbridge stone.”
The message ended, leaving James completely spent. He felt dizzy and torn apart. He glanced skyward again but this message had not come from the Moon, he was certain. The message had left a familiar taste of coriander on his tongue. This message was from Arabelle.
Memories of his faery lover came rushing back in a flood tide of intense emotion. Her painfully beautiful face, her engaging smile, the touch of
her fingertips, the ecstasy of her tongue on his skin. The absolute bliss of their lovemaking, a union of mind and body. When they’d merged he’d felt her distinctive spirit wrapping all around him, even inside him, her joyous laughter mingling with his own, her pleasure stoking his own, an insistent breeze playing against his skin, making of it a sensuous mirror. And then the searing pain of betrayal. Arabelle had revealed herself as a spy of the Winter Court, had tried to murder Moonshadow with a dagger in the back, had left him without so much as a parting word. Two years had gone by. Why would she reveal herself now?
James glanced about the park. Arabelle in Everbright? No, she knew better than to show her face, or any false disguise, in this place. Not after what she’d done. She had fled with her Winter Court compatriots, most likely back to their stronghold at Deepgrave. James had not gone after her.
But a message now, after all this time. And a cryptic one at that. Return what she had stolen? She had stolen his heart. How could she return that? What the hell did that mean?
He didn’t know, but he had an idea of who to ask.
It wasn’t very hard to find Meadowlark these days. Just follow the sound of the melancholy pitch pipe. He never actually played a complete song, just little snippets of music here and there. Little thoughts, little bits of melody. But the emotions were clear. Loneliness. Longing. Sadness but not despair.
It was an odd turn for a faery who had always been a merry mischief maker. A prankster among pranksters. As lascivious as they come, as mercurial as the wind.
James followed the odd strains of music through the sleeping city. He entered one of the buildings on Feverfew Street and climbed up the stair. There he found Meadowlark perched like a gargoyle on the unfinished parapet of somebody’s new house. He slouched against the empty window frame, knees to chest, one leg dangling over the edge, rocking slowly back and forth. He was dressed in a rather plain sort of green shirt and trousers having eschewed the gaudy red velvet jacket he’d been known to wear in the past. His hair, black and luxurious, was left loose to fall in chaotic curls about his shoulders. He had a pleasant face with deep green skin, a slightly upturned nose and ears gently pointed and tilted slightly back, a little bit like a wolf’s. For all his hundred and ten years, he appeared only slightly older than James’ twenty-two. As he noted the Englishman’s approach he played a few off-key strains of “God save the King.” He ended the familiar refrain in a whirl of discordant notes.
