Everbright

by Ken Altabef

  Theodora’s confidence began to waver. When Dresdemona put it like that, she seemed a fool.

  Dresdemona pressed her case. “The truth is, you took the side of the English—our oppressors—because you thought you were one of them. You played your role too long, Lady Grayson. You fell prey to your own tricksy part. You were thinking like an Englishwoman, not a faery. And that’s the pity.”

  This line of reasoning shook Theodora to the core. It was true, she had been thinking like an Englishwoman because she was an Englishwoman. But now she was thinking more like a faery, like Dresdemona herself. Everbright had become an island locked in an unfriendly sea, and it was all her fault.

  “Let’s not dwell on the past,” Moonshadow said. “We have Everbright now, and it’s a good place. We must move things forward, not back.”

  “Everbright!” said Dresdemona with a wide smile. “So now we have Everbright. Believe me, I’m fully committed to making it work. I’m here to help. This is our place, a place for faeries. All faeries.”

  “We agree,” offered Moonshadow. “We’re just trying to understand what your place here would be, Dresdemona.”

  “I am Dresdemona no longer. There’s something you don’t know about me—many things, I’m sure. My name—my Effranil name—is Dryxlla Pendragon. You shall call me Dryxlla.”

  Theodora smirked. “How convenient. Of course you are aware that the British authorities have already publicized an arrest alert under the name Dresdemona. What is your plan? Really?”

  “To help where I can. I have much to offer. The ways off the Effranil—the pure faery ways—are well known to me. Their songs, their rites and sacraments, much of our birthright has been lost to you people forever hiding under ground. If Everbright is to be our capital city we should be mindful of our heritage. I have much to teach, much to contribute.”

  “That’s all well and good,” said Theodora, “but you’ve been the leader of the Winter Court for a very long time and we’ve not heard a whisper about the Effranil from you before. Why this sudden change?”

  “Why, because of you, my dear. You took the high seat from me, snatched victory right out of my hands. You did that.” Her tone struggled to remain cool but Dresdemona’s eyes shot daggers at Theodora. She took a slow, deep breath. “You did that, and suddenly I found myself humbled by defeat. I was forced into retreat—a new experience for me—back to the moldy confines of Deepgrave. I had plenty of time to think.”

  Theodora wondered how much of the defeated Queen’s rueful thoughts had been directed at her.

  “And something else was different,” Dresdemona added. “The baby. I have a baby. Little Oberon wasn’t grown in a mushroom; he came to life inside me. I carried him for nine months and enjoy a bond with him that no other faery can know.”

  “I carried two children myself,” Theodora pointed out.

  “Then you understand just the way I feel. You know how motherhood changes a woman, in profound and unexpected ways.”

  I’ll believe it when I see it, Theodora thought.

  “I want the best for my son, and that means the success of Everbright. I’ll do anything to achieve that. I want him to know the ways of the Effranil. It will be good for everyone.”

  “The Wild Hunt is not welcome here,” Theodora said.

  “Understood.”

  “And there is no reason for faeries to bear arms in Everbright,” Moonshadow said.

  “Where is your army?” Dresdemona sked.

  “Not allowed. The British protect us. There is a garrison of the King’s army stationed within our walls. We have to work with them, not provoke them.”

  “I see,” said Dresdemona gravely. “You’re surrounded, under a short leash and monitored from within.”

  Theodora’s cheeks burned. Dresdemona grasped their problems so quickly, problems that were all her fault.

  Dresdemona scowled. “And when the King sends his forces here to roll over you and dig up Barrow Downes? What then?”

  “We won’t let it come to that,” Moonshadow said. “That’s all.”

  Theodora pressed further. “Your people can’t prance around with swords. They can’t stir up trouble.”

  “I assure you. We will behave.”

  “Good,” Moonshadow said, seeming quite encouraged.

  “And your people aren’t to come down below,” Theodora added. “Barrow Downes is off limits to the Winter Court.”

  “That hardly seems conciliatory,” said Dresdemona, “nor fair.”

  “Did you abandon Deepgrave entirely?” Theodora asked. “Surely you left some forces there? In case things don’t go well in Everbright. A convenient fall back position?”

  “Yes,” Dresdemona said sourly, “A refuge if need be. For all of us!”

  “Funny,” answered Theodora. “We’d never been invited there before. As your people have Deepgrave as sanctuary, they don’t need to go down below.”

  “My people are your people.”

  “Not yet,” Theodora said. “Not yet, they aren’t.”

  Dresdemona shrugged. “As you wish.”

  “Fine. We’ll find suitable accommodations for you and your people in the West Tower. This office belongs to Eccobius, our chief administrator.”

  Chapter 29

  Threadneedle was surprised when the guard held him at the gate.

  The redcoat reached up and took hold of his horse’s bridle. “State your business, sir.”

  Threadneedle realized he’d forgotten to release his glamour of Richard Templeton, patron of the London theatre scene. The disguise had grown so comfortable for him of late. The identity was useful as he travelled London on his clandestine errands, seeking information for the faeries of the Summer Court. And Richard Templeton was also, quite famously, the lover of the renowned actress Nora Grayson. The two often made love after a night on the town with him still wearing the glamour of Templeton. Whether he appeared as Templeton or the Count D’Argent or as Threadneedle the swashbuckling faery spy, was of no consequence whatever. When their souls merged she knew him and he knew her, all the way down to their innermost core.

  He had known many women over the years among his many travels. There had been the sultry chanteuse who sang love songs in Broad Street, the women of ill-repute that plied their wares in Cheapside, and even a charitable nurse tending to the insane at Bedlam Hospital. He remembered a vagabond-wench who had entertained him in Amsterdam and a mysterious faery lass who had led him on a whirlwind and quite erotic tour of Prague. Over the past century, his romantic entanglements had been many indeed but true love, he knew, was a precious rarity.

  True love had made its presence known to him only once before, and that had been in the arms of his first love, Dresdemona. Through the many years, he had never felt that same white-hot intensity of passion until now, with Nora. With Nora, he felt young again.

  He shifted his appearance back to his natural state—reclaiming the olive green skin, the slender nose, long and slightly hooked, eyebrows pencil-thin and highly arched, ears sharply pointed and extending high beyond his temples. The guard found this look familiar enough and motioned for him to pass.

  Threadneedle nudged his horse and it walked briskly into the boundaries of Everbright. He had been away for over a month, visiting with Nora and then pleading leniency for Theodora’s case in the open-air court at Sessions House, and then visiting with Nora again. While he’d been gone Everbright had grown quite a bit, like an adolescent fast approaching maturity. Her ramparts were taller, her gardens greener and exotic wildflowers had sprouted here and there, decorating the ornate façades and cornices of the buildings with shimmering blooms of many colors. The municipal building had been completed at last, standing above it all now topped by an elegant spire. He glanced at the familiar balcony, hoping to catch a glimpse of his friend Eccobius gazing proudly across his grand design.

  He saw a faery standing on that ledge but it was not Eccobius. Threadneedle’s heart skipped a beat, then began to tick o
ff an excited quadrille. He could not fail to recognize that proud face with its high forehead, copper-toned skin and long dark hair. Dresdemona’s eyes met his own and a strange electricity sparked between them for a moment, as if the distance between the gate and the balcony had been rendered moot, as if they stood once again face to face on the point of an embrace, the intervening years nothing but a meaningless wisp of time. Dresdemona quickly turned away.

  Threadneedle was suddenly thrown back across the tapestry of time, to a moment that happened eighty years ago. He’d just brought his opponent to his knees with a sweeping attack. Bristlebane desperately swung his battle axe upward, slicing the air beside Threadneedle’s neck. Threadneedle spun around him, moving faster than Bristlebane’s sluggish eye could follow. Suddenly behind his opponent, young Threadneedle struck the back of Bristlebane’s head with the hilt of his sword. The sword was little more than a dagger now, the blade having broken off during the fight, leaving only a few inches of steel protruding from the hilt in a ragged point. Dazed and reeling from the blow, Bristlebane fell full to the ground.

  Threadneedle leapt atop the burly faery’s chest and drove his dagger into the middle of Bristlebane’s throat, cutting him a broad new smile. As Dresdemona had promised, the leader of the Wild Hunt had fought poorly, his responses fatally sluggish and inadequate. How she had brought him to this state, whether through poison or some odd sort of magic, he did not know. But as the defeated faery’s life burbled out through his slashed neck, Threadneedle gazed into the emerald green of his eyes. Despite the deficiencies of his body, those eyes burned brightly as ever and their message was stark and simple: betrayal.

  Had he really seen that message there, Threadneedle wondered. Or did he just imagine that in retrospect? It was all too easy to romanticize one’s memories, to rewrite them after the fact. It was a moment he had never been proud of. He fought for Dresdemona because he loved her. Yes, they had cheated, but only in order to set things right. All’s fair. At least that was what I told myself that day. Like all despots, we convinced ourselves of so many sordid incongruities. From his current perspective, it all seemed wrong, that first pyrrhic victory a harbinger of doom. The foolish things we do for love. He didn’t want to remember sitting astride the leader of the Winter Court, as Bristlebane’s life’s blood sprayed into the air. He did not want to, but he had little choice.

  He remembered their lovemaking that evening. Dresdemona was in a heightened state of ecstasy. She had achieved her dream. They had wrested control of the Winter Court from the grip of faeries who were legendary for indomitable strength and fighting prowess. Og-Sethoth, Greenier, Crow, and now Bristlebane. One by one they’d fallen to Dresdemona’s schemes. She sat astride him, thrusting so passionately against him it hurt. As they merged, Threadneedle felt her every emotion, knew her every thought. She was perhaps less excited by his technique than by the situation. She had won! Her orgasms flowed so freely, so uncontrolled and wild he nearly lost himself in their power. As she shuddered and rocked atop him, he glimpsed something better left unseen. He saw Bristlebane and his love Dresdemona locked together in a passionate embrace, not long ago. Bristlebane’s slobbering face pressed close to Dresdemona, his lips pulled back as he experienced his own orgasmic release. He knew also her complete and total revulsion. He practically gagged on it.

  Threadneedle pulled out, staring at the face of his beloved. For a moment it seemed he hardly recognized her.

  Their minds still fresh from the link, she knew exactly what he’d seen.

  “What did you do?” he asked. “Tell me now. What did you do to make him lose?”

  “Don’t ask.”

  He pushed her away.

  “It was just a means to an end,” she said.

  “Really? And here we are.”

  “It’s not like that with us. I’ll show you. I’ll show you everything.”

  This surprised him, as he’d thought just a few moments ago that he had been seeing everything. It was extremely difficult to keep secrets during a sexual merge. Dishonesty during sex? Such behavior was the only taboo the faeries maintained. Why would she want to?

  “I’ll show you,” she insisted.

  He wanted none of it, but she pushed him down on the bed. He shrugged her off.

  “Trust me,” she said. “Please darling, you have to trust me.”

  “Impossible,” he muttered.

  “It’s not.” She climbed atop him again and though he was a strong man, she seemed possessed of a desperate strength now that overpowered any resistance. She pressed down on his chest with preternatural tenacity, and he was reminded once again of the scene just a few short hours ago when he’d sat on Bristlebane’s chest, his dagger thrust in the soft meat of the faery’s neck.

  Dresdemona persisted, practically forcing the merge on him. Her spirit enveloped him in its pleasant warmth, her soul touched his and the feelings were so beautiful and rich he could not turn away. Though they had merged many times before Dresdemona opened a secret door this time, a back honeycomb he never knew she possessed. She showed him Avalon, shining Avalon, land of myth and legend and indescribable beauty. The beautiful landscapes, the warmth of its people, an immersive ocean of love and, best of all, its incredible music. She gave him only a taste and perhaps that was for the best because he didn’t think he could handle much more. He pulled her tight, clinging as a desperate man drowning in a sea of newfound pleasures.

  When he was done she rolled him and nestled cozily against his bare chest. “You see?” she whispered. “Think to the future. We’ll build something like that here. Just like that. Something wonderful. This is our chance.”

  He should have left then—he damn well should have left then--before the rest of it happened, before she made him kill again and again. He damn well should have left then, but he didn’t.

  Chapter 30

  “How can you possibly think this plan is going to succeed?” Theodora had asked.

  “Because it has to,” Eric said. “I’ve tried everything else. There’s nothing for it but to take a chance. When the King sees that you’re the Green Man, the hero who has saved so many people, when he sees faeries for what they really are, for what they could be—when he sees you for what you really are—it will all come together. He’ll have to grant your wish. Everbright. A place of your own.”

  “But how can we be sure that’s what the King will see?” she’d asked.

  Who am I really?

  She sat alone in her new house, the world spinning madly about her. Her walls were bare. She had not yet decorated them. James had suggested a living tapestry of vines and flowers, coaxed to grow up the wall in a delicate filigree. Other faeries had perfected similar projects, creating floral scenes as intricate as any royal weaver’s tapestry. But it didn’t feel right. She was used to mahogany wainscoting and crown molding, Grayson family portraits and a silver-framed etching or two. What belonged on her walls here? Did she belong?

  When troubled, she most often thought of Moon Dancer. She saw her mother’s face in memory as clear as if it had been stamped on a newly-minted coin. Her silver hair, her glorious wrinkles, her kindly smile.

  “You’ll have to marry him,” Moon Dancer had said. “It won’t be difficult. How can he not fall in love with someone like you?”

  Moon Dancer’s smile was reassuring as always.

  Theodora recalled her own face, in her earliest guise as Theodora Stump, reflected in the water of the fresh well in Graystown. Dirt-smeared cheeks, wind-blown hair, a pathetic waif dressed in raggedy clothes. That was pretend. That’s not who she was, a frightened girl of fifteen. Not hardly. She’d been old enough to be Eric’s grandmother.

  She remembered her wedding night, Eric lying atop her. She felt his passion filling her like a hot dagger. The whole of her concentration was fixed on one single objective—to maintain her human glamour, not to lose control and set herself free in the manner of the faeries, not to let him see who she truly was.

  F
or the first year she resented the role she’d had to play as she sought out the Grayson family heirloom to counter the Chrysalid. Then James was born and Nora and the children changed her as nothing else could, made her a proper Englishwoman. She thought she had it right then. She thought she was seeing clear. But the very next day she resumed her guise of chestnut hair and human form and lied to her children. She resumed her life as Theodora Grayson, not Clarimonde of Barrow Downes. She dined on croissants and buttered ham as she sat at the big Grayson dining table beneath the glowering portrait of her Grandfather-in-law Griffin Grayson, the persecutor of all her kind. She read Jonathan Swift and Daniel Defoe to the children at night. She listened to concerts of music by Bach and Haydn. She wore the guise of Lady Theodora like a finely-turned glove. Theodora not Clarimonde. The children—the children had changed her as nothing else could.

  Was it possible? Could a child change Dresdemona too? She thought of the toys on Eccobius’ desk.

  She remembered the night she’d finally revealed her faery nature to her husband. “You should see me as I really am,” she said. “Not Lady Grayson. Lady Changeling.” She remembered his kisses then, as thrilling as ever but even more precious because she had finally let go. This is who I am—green-skinned, golden-haired, pointy-eared. This is me.

  And now, living once again among the faeries Theodora felt more an outcast than ever. She thought too often of Eric, of arms that might never hold her again, of kisses and love and respect all washed away by some cataclysmic world-change worse than an earthquake or flood. She had not taken a lover, not even for an afternoon’s casual pleasure. She had watched their dances at a distance, a stranger among them, wearing faery form that seemed more like an affectation than a reality.

  Who am I really?

  A knock came so suddenly at her door as if it were the answer. It startled her. She had so few visitors.

  “Come in!”

  A tall, elegant faery crossed her threshold. He was dressed in fine English fashion all the way from a pair of gallant riding boots to a broad, feathered hat.