Chapter 9
Tat—tat—tat . . . The rain dulled to a thin staccato on the roof of the fairy keep, and around the main hall, fairies crept from their crevices to revel in their freedom from thunder. Randiriel watched them with a vague sense of disdain. She hated herself for the feeling, hated herself for so quickly condemning what she had only recently been. But the knowledge of her own prior weakness only increased her disgust. As the other fairies began to laugh and sing once more, she left, flying out to the roof to watch the rain clouds thin.
It was late, and the sky overhead was dark save for a few tiny gaps in the cloud cover where stars dared to peek through at the world below. The mountains of Gath were visible in the distance, darker pyramids in a sea of near-black. Randiriel loved the sky. It was one of the few traits she remembered sharing with the other fairies. They all loved to watch the sky. Only now did Randiriel begin to understand why even this similarity had in some ways set her apart.
The others had loved the sky for seeing it, enjoyed it as it was given to them. They watched the sunset, tasted the rain, and felt the wind as it played in their hair. They seemed so content with experience as it came, so naturally receptive to the bounds of their five senses. But Randiriel longed for something more from the sky, from the dim shapes on the horizon. She wanted to experience beyond sight and hearing and touch, beyond smell and taste. She wanted to wrap together all of those experiences at once and somehow be one with what she saw. When seized with these desires, she would often fly out into the clouds or valleys she was watching, flash as fast as she could from point to point and take it all in at once, every detail of sensation that her body gave her. But even this fell short of truly experiencing what she saw.
Was this what it meant to be real, to be haunted by a phantom desire for more than what was immediately real, to be ever in need of something further? Or had it been only an aberration, a symptom of discontent with her lot as a fairy? She knew that it could not be the latter. For, as she stared out at the night sky, already matured past her idyllic fairyhood, she still felt that haunting need for more.
She sat for several hours on the roof, watching the still forms of the Gath mountains in the distance. She wondered how Ariel was faring there, how close she was to regaining the Tear. Then her thoughts turned to the west of the mountains, to Gath Odrenoch where the Iris flew, and she thought of Geuel and wondered whether he had reached his precious city. Just then a flutter of wings sounded above and Brylle landed beside her. “Thought you’d be up here,” she said.
Randiriel nodded. “Quiet is hard to find below.”
They sat silent for several minutes, just watching the slow dissipation of the clouds. Then Randiriel pointed toward the Gath mountains. “What’s that?” she asked, “do you see it?”
Brylle nodded. “Lights of some sort. They’re coming out of the mountain. Surely not a fire?”
Randiriel shook her head. “No, they’re . . . flying, I think. They look almost like,” she paused, struggling to find another comparison but failing, “fairies.”
Brylle shuddered, an unnatural revulsion coming over her at the comparison. She could barely see the distant cloud of lights, and she could definitely not identify them. But somehow the comparison still struck her as wrong, as twisted and vulgar. “Surely not,” she said. “They’re all below.”
“The Tear,” Randiriel said suddenly, “what else could it be?”
Brylle felt her stomach churn. “You think the goblins—”
“They’re headed north. The only city there is Gath Odrenoch,” Randiriel said, leaping off the roof and flying back down toward one of the windows, calling over her shoulder, “Round up the council members and gatherers. Meet me in the throne room.”
Randiriel spent the next half hour racing through the halls and corridors of the keep, seeking out every fairy who had shown independence. When she finally reached the throne room, about four hundred fairies had gathered there, all whispering excitedly among themselves in tense anticipation. Brylle sat, ashen and pale, with the rest of the council members in their thrones. Randiriel ignored the thrones and stepped in front of the assembled fairies, raising her hands for silence.
“Brothers and sisters,” she said, “listen to me. In the last few days, we have learned many things. We have traded the innocence of childhood for understanding. We have discovered self and free will and pain. But tonight we must learn something new. We must learn to fight.”
Behind Randiriel, several council members stood to their feet. “Silence!” cried one, a tall male fairy in a silver tunic. “Randiriel, Ariel told you to care for our people. But you overstep your authority. We are born of the Tear, and our people live through the cyntras of Innocence. They cannot fight. It violates their nature.”
Randiriel turned on him. “The Tear is gone!” she cried, “And yet here we stand, all of us. We are more than simply vessels of the Tear’s power. We are complete in ourselves. And I believe we can do as we will with the power we have left.”
A female council member spoke. “All of you who do this, you sacrifice all hope of becoming one with the Tear again. You will be alone. Forever.”
Rylen, the fairy in gold, stepped toward Randiriel. “I don’t want to go back anyway,” he said. “I don’t want to forget. I’ll follow you, Rand.”
Randiriel turned to the others. “And you?” she asked. “I saw a cloud of lights tonight, like our own in migration. But they were darker and foul, headed for Gath Odrenoch. The goblins have taken our power, our very form, and now turn that form against our friends. Reheuel and his sons bled to protect us. We owe them our aid. And if not them, we owe ourselves. Do you not want vengeance for our fallen brethren?”
The male council member clutched a staff of light now, formed inside his hand. He slammed it down upon the floor and silenced the crowd of fairies with a deafening boom. “We have no ties to the outer world,” he said. “We cannot afford to form them now. What happens in the world of men is the business of men.”
“And what happens when that business is finished?” Randiriel asked. “What happens when the last of the men in Gath Odrenoch die? Will the goblins fly back to their caves and cower once more? They’ve attacked us once. They will finish the task. Let us unite with man while we can. If not for honor, then for survival. Perhaps none of you here care for man or the Iris. But I know you all love the City of Youth. For the hope of her restoration, join me.”
Brylle stepped down from her throne and stood beside Randiriel. “I will fly with you,” she said. “Those creatures are a mockery of all that the Tear preserves.”
Seeing one of the council members with Randiriel, several more fairies stepped forward. Gradually, as the group increased in size, more began to step forward. And finally, all but a few dozen of the fairies in the room had joined Randiriel. She turned to Brylle and Rylen. “Thank you,” she said.
Rylen placed a hand on her shoulder. “You set us free,” he said, “and we do this freely.”
“See you both after,” Randiriel said. “Perhaps after tonight there will be time for brighter things.”
“There’s a whole world out there to see now,” Rylen said, “and where’s the joy in seeing it alone?”
Moments later, the windows of the fairy keep glowed as hundreds of tiny suns filtered out into the night. The dew on the fields glistened beneath their sunlight, and dozens of small night creatures scurried for cover away from their effulgence. Occasionally brighter glints flashed about these suns as fairies practiced forming weapons. Spears of light and silver daggers glittered in their fists as they flew, their eyes filled with a noble fear. For the first time since Ariel’s Tear struck the Faeja, the fairies were going to war.
* * *
Hefthon woke to the smell of ashy smoke, the kind of smoke that curls from a bed of dying embers doused in water. He sat up quickly and searched the woods around him, his first thought flying to a forest fire. But the ground was still soaked. Water squelched in his woolen blanket as he turned, and he shivered with the chill of his wet shirt. The woods were dark and silent save for the drip of water from heavy branches.
He sniffed again, wondering if the scent had been some clinging remnant of a dream. But still his nostrils burned with ash. He looked upward then and saw them, hundreds of orange lights flickering in the darkness about fifty feet above. They were too far distant for him to see them clearly. Most merely looked like glowing embers. Several, however, held grotesque forms in their light, dark shadows of long-limbed figures. They hissed and winked as they struck moisture and straggling raindrops in the air. All of them, even the brightest, were wreathed in a kind of haze, as if half their composition were a cloud of smoke.
Hefthon crawled over to Veil and placed a hand over her mouth. She awoke with a start but remained silent, her eyes turning wildly in fear. Hefthon placed a finger to his lips and nodded upwards. Veil rolled over to look at the sky, and Hefthon released her. He crawled over to Tressa and gently shook her awake. Together, the three of them lay and watched the passing lights.
“What are they?” Veil whispered.
“I don’t know,” Hefthon replied. “Goblins maybe? Ariel never said what the Tear would do.”
Tressa nudged Hefthon into silence, and they lay quiet till the lights had passed over. After the last fiery glow had disappeared, she turned to her son. “How long did Geuel say it would take him to reach home?”
“He should be there already,” Hefthon replied, squeezing her hand. “I’m sure they’ll be fine.”
Tressa nodded. “Well, I’m not sleeping again tonight. We should get moving.”
Together, they rolled up their blankets and set off again into the woods. Hefthon tried to tell himself that Gath Odrenoch would be fine. After all, the goblins scarcely looked any more threatening than fairies now. But still a dull unease undergirded his thoughts. He knew the creative power of the fairies. If the goblins had unlocked an equal power, he shuddered to imagine what they might destroy.
* * *
Wagon wheels creaked in the darkness around Gath Odrenoch. A long stream of carts and pedestrians jostled their way through the gatehouse, horses whinnying and children mewling in their mothers’ arms. Inside, a group of deputies assigned sleeping quarters and issued commands regarding food distribution. The blacksmith stood beside a table of his wares, welcoming the frightened farmers to purchase their sense of security.
Geuel stood in the watchtower at the wall’s southeastern corner. Behind him, in the center of the tower, the fortress’s flagpole scraped at the night sky, its pale pennant rippling in the wet wind. A new broadsword hung at Geuel’s side, a plain piece unadorned and slightly loose in the handle. Around the wall, his fellow guards stood silent and watched the stir of nothing through night’s shadows. Beside Geuel, Toman leant on the haft of his spear, an oversized iron helmet drooping over his right brow.
“You can get some sleep, you know,” Toman said. “You’re not actually on duty.”
Geuel nodded. “Maybe later. I just want to watch for now. At least until everyone’s inside.”
“So, did you kill any?” Toman asked.
Geuel glanced over puzzled and then realized what he meant. “Oh, yes, I suppose I killed several.”
Toman’s eyes glittered in the dark. “They’ll worship you in the barracks tomorrow. No one’s killed a goblin since the founding.”
“I suppose,” Geuel said.
“Tell me about the fight. What was it like when you found them in the city?”
“I don’t really remember the fighting too well,” Geuel replied. “It’ll probably come back after I think about it. I know I killed two at least. All I remember clearly is a leg. There was a little fairy leg lying on the stairs. It was so—clean, so whole looking.”
“Oh,” Toman replied.
Geuel shuddered. “I don’t know why I keep thinking about it.”
They were silent after that, and eventually Geuel lay down in the back of the tower to sleep. He awoke to Toman shaking his shoulder.
“Geuel, Geuel!” he said, “you have to see this.”
Geuel stood and looked to the south. Hundreds of dull orange lights filled the sky, like dying embers from a distant fire. The passing breeze tasted of smoke.
“Are they fairies?” Toman asked. “They must be fairies.”
Geuel narrowed his eyes. He wanted to agree, to smile and rejoice that the fairies were once more flying the night skies; but he couldn’t. There was something wrong about the light, something off. Not only was it dimmer but it seemed also somehow fouled, malicious. “No—no,” he said slowly, “I don’t think those are fairies. Toman, sound the alarm.”
“They’re fairies,” Toman said laughing. “What else flies that way?”
Geuel ripped away the sentry horn that hung on Toman’s belt and blew three short, sharp blasts. Instantly, the fort came alive with shouting soldiers and running feet. Women cried for their children and dragged them into whatever shelter they could find as the guards came rushing from their barracks in full force, mail shining in the dim starlight and faces set with the confused courage of men who have never seen war.
Soon the walls were lined with a hundred soldiers. Groups of farmers and laborers armed with an assortment of weapons and tools crowded in the fort’s main square. Hounds in their kennels howled at the excitement, anxious to enter the coming fray.
Kezeik came beside Geuel and laid his hand on the younger man’s shoulder. “What are they, boy?” he asked. “Do you know?”
“No, but they’re not fairies.”
Kezeik turned to the men on the wall. “Archers! Prepare for a volley!”
Geuel’s dreams came rushing back: Gath Odrenoch burning, the blacksmith’s son alone in the gate, Deni dying, his face frozen in a strange half-smile. He cast a silent prayer to Curiosity and braced himself for the coming destruction.
* * *
An eerie silence reigned in the goblin city, broken only by the scattered splashes of water from Reheuel’s clothing and the distant echoes of droplets from the stalactites above. “I don’t like this,” Reheuel whispered as he crept through a narrow alley. “It’s too quiet.”
“Would you prefer opposition?”
Reheuel ignored the question and then asked, “How much farther?”
Ariel flew upward over the surrounding buildings and came back down. “Not far, maybe two hundred yards.”
Reheuel slipped an arrow back onto his bowstring. “At the very least they must have left guards with the tear,” he said.
They emerged then onto a wider road and Reheuel saw the tower which they were approaching. It rose nearly fifteen stories, a surprisingly slender building, terminating in a flat, bowl-shaped structure. A stone chalice fit for Faeja Himself. A heavy oak door opened onto the street where Reheuel walked.
The windows on each side of the street were still and silent, but still Reheuel felt watched as he approached the tower. He walked with a perpetual flinch, ready to turn and fire in an instant. When he reached the base of the tower, he paused to admire its construction. The entire surface was indeed one stone, but it was carved all around in murals and reliefs of old battles. Men and elves stood side by side, the men resplendent in their gilt armor, the elves wild and fierce in their leathers and tattoos. And, pressing them back, always locked in combat but with a slight upper hand, were the minotaurs. Great, hulking beasts with hooves as large as a man’s head, they bellowed and tore their way across the mural, obviously idealized by the artist but still representing an unimaginable ferocity.
“The artwork is so intricate,” Reheuel said in awe.
Just then a shriek rang from high above and a rock about the size of a man’s fist crashed into the cobblestones near his feet. He flipped his bow upward and fired instinctively. The arrow clattered harmlessly off the sill of a sixth floor window, driving a goblin back into the tower.
Reheuel dragged heavily on the door of the tower and felt it slowly give. His arms bulged and strained at the exertion, and he wondered briefly how many goblins it must take to open this same door. A shaft whistled down over his shoulder as he stepped out farther from the wall. He ducked quickly in through the door and drew another arrow.
Shrieks rang throughout the tower’s stone passages, dozens of high pitched nickerings followed by the scrabble of clawed feet on stone. Reheuel found himself in a kind of wide entryway, three passages leading off into the tower. At the end of one he could see a staircase.
“Through there,” Ariel called. “It’s near the top.”
Reheuel ran forward several steps and then heard the skittering of claws in the hallway behind him. He spun around and let an arrow fly, striking an oncoming goblin in the chest. Its sickle-shaped sword fell to the floor as it went down writhing. He jumped the stairs six at a time, often nearly falling as his booted feet struggled for a grip on the narrow ledges. Ariel flew along at his side, her light burning brightly with excitement.
As they climbed higher, the sounds of their enemies flooded the tower around them. Claws skittered on the stairs below and doors slammed in the distance. Snarls and yowls echoed through the hallways. Halfway up the spiral staircase, Reheuel stopped with his back to a closed pinewood door. He braced himself there and drew his sword. “Watch above,” he said to Ariel.
Seconds later, a mass of long slender limbs shot around the bend of the stair and the bodies of four goblins dragged themselves into view. Reheuel swung downward once and ground his blade along the edge of a stair. Rock powder and shards spattered into the goblins’ faces where they hung near the floor.
The group of them recoiled quickly, scrabbling over one another back against the wall. One overbalanced and fell screaming down the stairs. Reheuel lunged forward quickly and caught another across the shoulder, neatly severing its trapezius. The remaining two screeched and ducked down low, sweeping out their sickled blades at Reheuel’s ankles.
He backed up the stairs slowly, swinging his sword but struggling to reach them. Their long, snaking bodies clung to the steps far below him as their sickles sought for his ankles. He stumbled twice on the narrow steps, and then one of their sickles caught his boot. The rusted blade barely bit into the thick leather, but the force still dragged Reheuel off his feet. He crashed heavily to his back and dropped his sword. It clattered uselessly down the stairs. He felt his bow snap beneath him.
In a moment, the goblins were on him, struggling to reach his vulnerable throat past his heavy cloak. He put up his arms and batted at them, knocking aside their reaching arms and blades. Twice the flesh on his arms tore on their swords, but his heavy sleeves took the brunt of the damage. Finally his grasping right hand took hold of one of their throats. He swung its body across his chest and knocked the other goblin into the wall. They snarled and spat, the one he held biting deeply into his wrist. He kicked out at the other one with his boot and sent it flying down the stairs into the round wall. With one hand freed, he slid his dagger out of his belt and plunged it into the goblin he held, pumping the handle until the writhing ceased.
He struggled to his feet then and saw the three living goblins on the stairs, two bleeding and the other favoring its left arm. He lifted a sickle-sword from the stairs next to him and threw it, a short, half-rotation throw. The curved blade sunk into the farthest goblin’s chest, and it dropped down the stairwell.
He tossed his dagger back to his right hand and crouched over the stairs, waiting for another attack. The remaining goblins, however, turned and scurried back down the stairs, their frustrated chunnering fading with their footsteps.
Reheuel sheathed his dagger and turned back to Ariel. “Maybe some help next time?” he said as they started climbing.
Ariel shrugged. “You didn’t need it yet.”
As they neared the final floor, Reheuel heard the sound of claws once more on the stairs below him. A large, studded oak door stood closed at the end of the stairs. Reheuel grabbed the iron ring set in its edge and dragged it open. Passing the door, he found himself in the cup of the tower’s chalice, a massive room with bowled walls and a ceiling of latticed stone and transparent diamond wood panes.
The first thing he saw was the Tear, a stunning white gem the size of a plum—it lay on a kind of altar carved up from the floor in the room’s center. The second thing he saw was the minotaur. It stood at the far end of the room, nearly seven feet tall and breathing in long, snorting drags. Heavy strands of mucus ran from its dark, bovine nose, and its matted black fur hung in ragged dreadlocks over its human shoulders. Its hooves were cracked and infected, jagged from constant wear. Pussy bubbles and sores stood out on its mangy shanks.