The Underland

“Food” was virtually unrecognizable. Martin wandered into the room Thrushsong had indicated absent-mindedly looking for a refrigerator. His confusion when he didn’t find one only lasted a moment, and he chastised himself for the mental slip. He shook off the fuzz that had been collecting in his mind since arriving in Underland and learning that fantasy was reality and used the food puzzle as a distraction.

Martin consciously widened his perspective on food storage and began to look around the room. It had a low table, like the ones in the Elders’ nest, with a few cushions on the floor around it for sitting on, though little extra padding was required when the floor was made of springy moss. He began looking for cupboards, or something like cupboards, and managed to find some irregularly shaped panels in the wall that seemed to be made of different material from the rest of the wall. But no handle or grip-groove seemed evident. He reached out and tentatively touched one of the panels. Instantly, the panel stirred and Martin jerked his hand away as an opening appeared in the center of the panel and then quickly grew like the opening of an iris. Martin peeked inside and saw small cubby hole containing a few bowls. He was about to reach out and take one when he realized the panel might close up on his hand. The edge of the opening didn’t look sharp or even hard, but Martin had no idea what kind of force it would exert if it found something blocking its action. He put a hand on the wall near the panel and leaned, thinking. The panel closed slowly. Hmm… Martin touched the panel again, opening it, then he touched the wall beside it, and it closed, this time more quickly and decisively, just as Martin had been. It was fascinating! But Martin was hungry. He opened the panel and grabbed a bowl, then closed the panel again, seeing no actual edible material inside.

Martin opened the other panels, one by one, and found only spoons, jugs, cups and a few more bowls. He collected a cup and a spoon. I might as well be prepared just in case the impossible does happen and I actually find something to put in my mouth. Then he saw a little section of the wall that jutted out, like a counter, with a long, trough-like basin in it. Above the basin were several of what could only be described as the faerie version of beer taps! Martin yipped a short laugh of triumph and hurried to the taps. They were made of some sort of plaster-like stuff, not brass, but he was sure something edible or at least potable would come out of them. He reached out to touch the first one, the one farthest from the drain in the basin, and instantly, he tasted, no, more than tasted, he felt the sensation of water in his mouth. When he took his hand away, the sensation was gone. He tried touching the other taps and the same thing happened, though the taste and feel was different for each one. Some were very sweet and syrupy, like honey, and some were thick and almost buttery, like cream, others were nearly paste-like and had various nutty flavours. He placed his bowl under one of these and tried squeezing a little knobby protrusion on the tap. A thick paste oozed into his bowl like ice-cream from the soft-serve machine at Dairy Queen. He supplemented that with a bit of the thinnest sweet syrup, then filled his cup with water, and sat down at the table to eat.

The food filled Martin up quickly, and he felt healthier after just a few mouthfuls. Even the water seemed more refreshing than Martin was used to. Not a moment after Martin had taken the last draught from his cup of water a voice called out from the main room.

“Martin Bentbrook!” It was not Thrushsong. Martin placed his dishes in the basin hoping that was where they were meant to go when used, and hurried into the main room. The surly guard faerie stood in the doorway. “You are summoned by the Elder Council. Come with me.”

“Where is Thrushsong?”

“Your host’s immediate duties are not your concern, human. Your only concern is not keeping the Elder Council waiting. Come with me.” The faerie stepped to the side of the entrance, giving Martin room to pass through. Martin sighed and obliged. He nearly fell out of the nest.

“Where are the steps? How can I go the the Elders’ nest if you don’t make a path for me?” Martin was about to round on the faerie when he felt two strands of rope snake around his torso, one at the top and one at the bottom, and tighten. Without another word, the faerie pushed Martin out the entry-hole.

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“A pixie?” Martin’s face was a mask of confusion. “Aren’t pixies and faeries the same thing?”

Thrushsong sighed, looking, if anything, more perplexed. “No.”

“But no folklorist I’ve ever read has ever distinguished one from the other. All the pictures show them with wings.” Martin floundered. “Tinkerbell –”

“Martin. You are not making sense to me. You truly saw that the pixie had no wings?”

“Yes! Yes of course, why shouldn’t I?”

Thrushsong lowered himself gingerly into a comfortable seat and indicated that Martin should do the same. After a long moment, Thrushsong inhaled sharply, hesitated, then began to speak. “Martin, it is commonly known among the people of the Underland that pixies are naturally mischievous. They are tricksters, not evil, as such, but they often do much more harm than they do good. Faeries do not travel to the Overland unless there is great need, we prefer to keep to ourselves. Pixies, however, take great pride in their ability to meddle in human affairs and do so on a continual basis. It is a right of passage among them to travel to the Overland and create as large a disturbance as is possible.”

Martin wondered how many times he’d been the victim of a pixie. He wondered what the limits to their effects were; what large disturbances were they responsible for? Accidents? Marriages breaking up? Elections? Wars? He found himself putting pixies to blame for many of his personal complaints in life. He found himself disliking pixies quite a bit.

“It is much to my people’s chagrin that every pixie has a charm placed over him at birth,” Thrushsong continued. ”The effect is that to human eyes, a pixie will always appear as a faerie, with wings exactly like ours. That way, we are blamed for their mischief. Long ago, we were an equal target for their pranks. They were so disruptive that my ancestors actually declared war on the pixies. As far as we are told, no battles were fought, but a treaty was signed that dictated no pixie was to interfere with faerie affairs. The penalty for such interference is one thousand moons of servitude. The pixie you saw in the elders’ nest is serving his punishment.”

“I see. So, why didn’t I see the wings that all humans are supposed to see?”

“That is what puzzles me, and I’m certain it puzzles the council as well. Perhaps it is because you are here, in the Underland, perhaps the charm only works in the Overland. So few humans come here and so few faeries go there that such knowledge has never been uncovered to us. Two other possibilities are left to us, one is that the pixie’s charm has failed him for some reason, although I find that extremely unlikely, pixie magic does not fail. The other is that you are special in some way. I believe the latter explanation is the true one. There is something special about you, Martin Bentbrook, what is it?”

Martin had no desire whatsoever to discuss the possibility that he was special in any way. He wanted only to be seen as a human being who had stumbled mistakenly into a strange land, worth only the effort of sending him home. He left Thrushsong’s question unanswered and changed the subject. “One thousand moons of servitude, did you say?” He did some quick arithmetic, That’s more than eighty years! ”That seems an awfully long time, how long do faeries and pixies live anyway?”

“Some longer than others. All much longer than most humans. I have seen one thousand, four hundred and seventy-three moons. The eldest faerie, who lives far from here, has seen over five hundred-thousand moons. Some say she has discovered the secret of eternal life. Pixies live much shorter lives, typically, because they are so reckless in their ways. Most pixies live only to see ten thousand moons.”

Martin’s mental calculator worked in overdrive to keep up with the figures. Thrushsong was one hundred and twenty-two years old, pixies’ average life expectancy was over eight hundred, and the eldest faerie was well over forty thousand years old. Martin found himself so overwhelmed by the scale of comparison to human life-expectancy, that he had to get up and move around. He walked again to the window that looked out toward the ruined castle. The sky had darkened and he could see no trace of the stones, yet he stared anyway.

Something struck him about what Thrushsong had said. “Thrushsong you said that faeries and pixies live longer than most humans. No human lives longer than one hundred years and change. What did you mean by that?”

Thrushsong opened his mouth to answer but another voice interrupted him.

“Thrushsong!” The voice came from a faerie, hovering outside the entrance to Thrushsong’s nest. It was the guard from outside the elders’ nest. “The council summons you immediately. Leave the human here.”

Thrushsong turned to Martin, “I must go now. You will be safe and comfortable here. Seek out food in the room yonder if you grow hungry.” He pointed through a doorway and was gone without another word.

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The walk back to Thrushsong’s nest had been silent. Martin stewed in his own nerves and embarrassment. He’d made a braying ass of himself in front of the council of elders and he knew it. But it was shocking, and, Martin hadn’t fully decided how he felt about it, but probably inexcusable for the faeries to keep a human being as a slave. And if he was not a slave, if he was merely a hired servant, why parade him in front of Martin like that? Were they meaning to intimidate him, to give him a glimpse of what was to become of him if he made a wrong step? Martin grumbled, frightened and appalled. Thrushsong walked along a few paces ahead, leaving Martin to his own internal discourse.

News, apparently, traveled fast in Ciltandoor. Every window and doorway of every nest Martin passed, a pair of faerie eyes stared out at him. Martin was still embarrassed by his outburst in the elders’ nest, but even though he knew he didn’t know all the facts, allowed his outrage to boil over his shame and he glared back at as many faces as he could as he and Thrushsong made their way home. Thrushsong remained oblivious to the stares and Martin’s reaction to them, or at least, he pretended to remain oblivious. There was no way to tell.

When they arrived at Thrushsong’s nest, the faerie seemed almost relieved, as if a difficult ordeal had been surmounted. He stood to the side of the entrance and let Martin go in ahead of him. Thrushsong followed quickly, and once they were both inside, took a deep breath and began, “Martin, I –”

“What kind of people are you?” Martin rounded on Thrushsong almost as soon as they were both through the doorway. “You keep humans as slaves? Is that it? Was that man a slave? What did he do to your people? Is that what will happen to me?” Martin stopped when the look of bewilderment on Thrushsong’s face finally registered with him. “What? What’s the matter?”

“Martin, I do not know what to tell you, except that,” Thrushsong fumbled with his thoughts for a moment, something faeries rarely do, “the servant you saw was not a human being.”

Martin stared for a moment. “What do you mean ‘not a human being’? He certainly looked nothing like a faerie, from what I’ve seen of you people. He was pale and dark-haired and he looked nearly ill, with sunken eyes. Every faerie I’ve met has looked tan and fair-haired and the picture of health. Oh yes, and let’s not forget the complete and utter lack of wings!” Martin’s passion was picking up again, “how do you explain that?”

Thrushsong furrowed his brow and blew some air from his lungs, as if he were confronting a tricky puzzle. “You really saw no wings?”

“Don’t patronize me, Thrushsong, you know he hasn’t got any wings. What is he then if he’s not human?”

“He is a pixie.”

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Martin expected to come face to face with a tribunal of hoary, wizened and stern looking faeries, all lined up at an enormous table, or perhaps arranged in a circle of throne-like chairs. He did not expect what he did come face to face with when he entered the elders’ nest. There was no tribunal, no panel, not even a circle, and the only tables in the room were low coffee-table-like pieces. The whole place looked very much like the common room of a posh college dormitory except with that springy moss floor and a lot more flowers. The elders (Martin assumed they were the elders, anyhow) were scattered about the room on very comfortable looking chairs in groups of two or three, chatting and drinking from simple wooden cups. Although most of them did have hair in various shades of gray, they were neither wizened nor stern-looking; there were twenty-one of them.

Martin softly stepped a few paces into the room (an easy feat on the mossy floor) and quietly cleared his throat. His cough drew a glance from the nearest faerie elder, a woman dressed in a pale green linen garment cut just as simply as Thrushsong’s clothes had been. She excused herself from her little group of three and stepped gracefully toward Martin, her rice-paper wings waving lazily with each footfall. Her hair was short and colored a dark shade of gray, shot through with streaks of lighter gray. It was arranged in a feathered up sort of do, which gave the impression that she’d frozen a roaring fire solid on her head and it had turned gray. Her face gave Martin no clue as to her age. She might have been forty, or four-hundred, though Martin suspected it was more toward the latter. Her deep, chestnut eyes betrayed her centuries of acquired wisdom, and along with it, a deep sadness, though her face was bright and smiling.

“Greetings to you, Martin Bentbrook.” Her voice was clear and musical. She took Martin’s arm and wrapped her own around it before he could offer his hand to shake. “I am called Willowbreeze. Welcome to the Underland, and to our village, Ciltandoor.”

Martin found he was being led to a small sofa, built for two. Willowbreeze sat him down and then seated herself beside him. She held up a hand showing two fingers, and Martin saw a younger faerie (Ha! That could mean he’s only three-hundred, for all I know) emerge from a shadow near the wall and dart out of the room. There was something different about him, but Martin couldn’t place it. He let the thought leave his mind. “Thank-you, Willowbreeze. It’s an honor to be received with such … familiarity by the elder council of a faerie village.”

Willowbreeze laughed, a sound like little silver balls tumbling across a xylophone. “I hope you are not offended. We do not stand on pomp and ceremony here in Ciltandoor.”

“Oh no, I’m not offended at all, in fact, I was terrified that I was going to have to face some sort of faerie tribunal!”

“Well, in a way, you will face a tribunal. I will be your host and guide you among the several groups of elders. You will tell your story. You will tell how you came here and why, and the elders will ask their questions of you. You will have to repeat your story several times, but I’m sure you’ll find this preferable to addressing twenty-one utterly foreign beings all at once, mmm?”

“Most likely,” Martin admitted, though he saw through the scheme. Each repetition would bring different details to light, especially if the faeries were asking tricky questions. Willowbreeze would hear it all, and though she had mentioned no judgment, he was sure there was to be one, and he was doubly sure it rested primarily with her. He smiled at her, a knowing smile, the kind an easy-going and rich gambler gives the dealer when he knows the house has rigged the game. Martin was worried about what they might discover, worried that his story would land him in the faerie version of prison or worse, in the faerie army or something equally as deadly, but he wasn’t about to let anybody see that he was worried.

At that moment, the young faerie appeared before them and offered them each a wooden cup. Martin took his and so did Willowbreeze. “It is a mixture of nectar from various fruit blossoms,” she explained.

Martin looked at their server closely but still could not find anything specific that was odd about him other than darker hair and paler skin than he’d seen on any faerie. But then again, he hadn’t see very many faeries at all. The problem stuck with him this time, and nagged away at the back of his mind for the duration of the meeting. Willowbreeze, true to her word, never left his side as he was paraded around to each little knot of elders. She did everything she could to make him comfortable and easy, she smoothed conversation where it became confusing, broke ice wherever it formed, and introduced him cheerfully to each faerie that he met. He remembered only one of their names, however, Oaknut. Oaknut was the only elder that was not attached to a group. He was alone, sipping his nectar, with a slightly sour look on his face. “He is called Oaknut,” Willowbreeze had explained as they approached him, “because he is hard, like and acorn, and, also like an acorn, bitter inside.”

The sour look had only increased its intensity when Martin and Willowbreeze approached. At first Martin had left the banshee and her prophecy out of his story, saying only that he’d gone down to try to get rid of the druids and had been accidentally drawn into the ball of light they had created. It was Oaknut who had asked him what could have possibly provoked him to rush into the middle of a group of druids, was he really that stupid? Martin objected, foolishly, to Oaknut’s choice of words and before too long the sour faerie had extracted the greater portion of the truth from him. From that point on, Willowbreeze had been a little less friendly, and Martin just told everyone the whole story, including the bits Oaknut had missed. This made Willowbreeze a bit happier.

Finally, Martin had spoken with the last of the elders, and Willowbreeze took him back to their original seat. It took Martin’s last bit of energy to avoid collapsing heavily onto the sofa. When he did ease himself into the seat, he felt every muscle melt into jelly and he sighed.

“It was a trying ordeal, was it not?” said Willowbreeze. “Every tribunal should be. I am glad you told the truth. Things do not go well for those who lie to the elder council of Ciltandoor.”

Martin smiled weakly, aware that she had just been mocking him. He was also aware that everyone in the room was talking about him in whisper soft voices.

“Do you have any questions of me?” Willowbreeze said.

“I have a lot of questions. But I’m too tired to ask all of them. What’s going to happen to me now?”

“You will go back the Thrushsong’s dwelling and stay there with him for the night. We will decide what is to become of you and you will be summoned here again in the morning. Is there anything else?”

“Yes, actually, is it possible for me to have another cup of nectar? I think I might need it to get me safely to Thrushsong’s nest.”

“Nest? Ah, you have given our dwellings a name. It is a good name, fitting.” Willowbreeze raised her hand and raised her index finger. The pale faerie emerged from a shadow and went to fetch Martin his drink.

Martin shook his head, trying to clear the tired fuzziness from it. He wanted to get a very good look at the pale faerie this time. The drink was brought, and Martin’s eyes never left the server. This time, he watched as the faerie bowed and walked away.

“He’s got no wings!” Martin blurted out. The server glanced back and shot Martin a scowl. All the conversations in the room ceased abruptly, then started up again, the whispers even quieter and more intense than before. Only Oaknut, still alone at the edge of the room, peered at Martin with a new, amused interest.

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“Martin!” Thrushsong said for the third time, raising his voice a little to see if that would have any effect. His wings fluttered in agitation. “What is wrong?”

Martin was staring out the window at the ruin of the castle, his castle, the one he’d rented out for the previous night. It had been in pretty good condition then; a long way from the jumble of fallen stones and creeper vines that it was now. Something tugged at Martin’s brain and the last minute or so of auditory information (which had been stored in some sort of memory buffer) came streaming in. He realized that Thrushsong was practically shouting at him. His trance was broken and he turned to the faerie, embarrassed and more than a little worried.

“That castle wasn’t a ruin last night. It wasn’t brand new, but at least it was in full form. What happens when a person comes to the Underland? Do they travel forwards in time?” Martin’s voice shrank, “can they go back?”

Thrushsong sighed. “I do not know the answers to your questions, Martin. I am sorry. No one has visited us from your world in my lifetime. I am but a youngster, you see. Perhaps the elders will have better answers.” Thrushsong put a hand on Martin’s shoulder and turned him away from the window. It was an awkward gesture for the faerie, as if he did not know how to handle a human, though he was slightly more comfortable now that the sword had been put away safely. “I am sorry that the view disturbed you so greatly. But put aside your fears, there is great power in the Underland. I am sure all will be set to the curves of the flow.”

Martin’s brow furrowed. “You mean ’set to rights’, don’t you, as in right angles, plumb and level, like in a house?”

“No! To wish such a thing would be to go against nature.” Thrushsong shook his head, horrified at the thought. He led Martin back toward the door. Martin glanced around the room again, and noticed that there wasn’t a single right angle in the place. It truly looked as though it had been grown on the side of the tree.

“Of course,” Martin muttered, it was his turn to shake his head, he’d once again reminded himself of how alien he was in this place.

Thrushsong leaned out the doorway and placed his palms on the bark of the tree once more. The creaking sound returned, and so did the stairs. Martin waited for Thrushsong to lead the way, but instead the faerie took flight. “I must go ahead and prepare the elders to receive you,” he said. “Go, now, follow the steps, they lead only to one place.” And with that he fluttered off.

This time, the journey was a more lateral one. Martin followed the stairs around one of the tree’s trunks and on to a branch. He tried very hard not to look down. Thrushsong was not there to catch him if he fell this time and although Martin was a fairly sure-footed man, the utter lack of any railing made him a little uneasy. He settled on a steady pace, and noticed that the stairs disappeared behind him at the same slow rate. He slowed down even more, and so did the stairs. Martin shook his head ruefully, Thrushsong had played a joke on him. Payback, Martin thought, for creeping out the locals with my “iron”.

In a few short minutes, Martin saw that the stairs ahead of him had reached their destination, which Martin hoped was his destination as well. After the stunt Thrushsong had pulled with the magic stairs, Martin didn’t trust him not to send him on a direct path into some woman’s bathroom while she was bathing. As Martin approached the nest (he’d decided to call them that) – it was a large nest, larger than most of the others – to faeries came out of the main entrance. One of them was Thrushsong, who looked a little bit uncomfortable and nervous, and the other appeared to be some sort of guard. Whoever he was, he wore a short weapon at his side. It looked to Martin like it might be a sword, but it was wrapped, rather than sheathed, so it was impossible for him to be certain. The armed faerie glared at Thrushsong, then at Martin, then back at Thrushsong. Thrushsong seemed to shrink a bit where he stood. Martin, however, squared his shoulders and kept walking toward the nest. He knew he would have to walk right by that guard, but he had done nothing wrong. He let that fact spread confidence through his mind and body. He had very little idea of what to expect.

As Martin stepped up to the entrance, the guard shifted one step sideways, to block Martin’s path. He eyed Martin up and down, then grunted dismissively and moved aside, clearly unimpressed with the idea that Martin might pose a threat. The guard’s last intimidation tactic didn’t shake Martin, however. He took a breath, squared his shoulders again, and marched into the nest.

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Up to this point, Martin had not felt like an outsider. He’d felt as though all that had happened had been happening to him, as though it was a dream that only he was experiencing. That all changed when Thrushsong led him into the faerie village. The village looked like nothing Martin would have conjured in his mind when he thought about the word. There were no quaint houses, no town square with old men smoking pipes and playing checkers or backgammon. The village was, in plain and simple terms, a tree. An old, twisted and gnarled oak, with a thick bole that split into many impressive trunks that were the bases of an uncountable number of strong branches. The tree was massive, too big to even guess what its relative size would be if Martin was his normal height. He recognized it as the faerie village immediately, not by sight but by a feeling. Before he saw any faeries, Martin felt their eyes, watching him. He could feel their wariness and distrust. The steel broadsword at his side began to feel like a burden, a weighty mark of an alien.

When they had passed a few feet under the oak’s majestic canopy, Thrushsong had told Martin to “Wait here,” and then flown up towards the center of the tree. Martin watched him go, and followed his course through the air. Then he saw the village. The bark of the oak was dotted all over with nest-like pods, completely enclosed. The pods, which were the faeries’ dwellings, looked as though they were made of scraps, little bits of wood and leaves, all held together and attached to the bark by an epoxy of tree sap and resin. Some were adorned with flower blossoms. Each faerie house had a few openings just big enough for a faerie to slip in and out of with ease. Nearly every single hole had a head poking out of it, looking at Martin with the type of guarded curiosity of a group of campers, watching a grizzly bear ambling toward their campsite. At that moment, Martin understood that this was all real, that he was, for the first time in his life, truly in a foreign land, out of his element, at the mercy of the natives. He nervously shifted the sword in his belt, trying to hide it behind his body. That turned out to be a mistake, he realized, as he watched many of the faerie faces flinch and turn a little more hostile than wary. He immediately removed his hand from the sword and folded them in front of him, sitting cross-legged on the ground. The faerie faces relaxed, but only slightly.

After what seemed an eternity, Thrushsong returned. Martin saw him flying back down toward him with a large bundle in his arms. Thankful for something other than the staring faces to focus on, Martin turned his attention to Thrushsong and stood up to meet him as he alighted a few paces ahead of Martin. Thrushsong held out the bundle for Martin to take and Martin saw that it was a scabbard for his sword, with a twine peace-bond, and a bulky length of cloth to wrap it in.

As Martin sheathed and wrapped his broadsword, Thrushsong filled him in on the result of his scout into “town”. “The elders have agreed to let you stay with us and help you go back to your world. However, I am responsible for you, and you must remain with me at all times. It seems the timing of your arrival is unfortunate; nine other human men passed by our village several minutes before we arrived. They failed to notice my people or our homes, but it was very clear from their, shall we say, demeanor, that they intended no good towards this land. If you know anything about these men, it would be wise to discuss it with the elders. I will take you to them as soon as you have stowed your iron in my house.” Thrushsong said this last bit in a way that made sure Martin knew the personal sacrifice he was making by keeping iron in his home. He continued in a voice that was slightly colder, “You may want to explain in a little more detail just how you came to ‘fall into a light’.”

Martin nodded humbly, and his heart sank a little. He had hoped to avoid the topic of the druids and their plan. He wished to leave Underland quickly and without any more notice than was necessary. Now he was to be questioned by the faerie village council. This is not good. I’ll have to tell them about the banshee and what she said to me.

Martin followed Thrushsong closer toward the bole of the towering oak. When they reached it, the blond faerie put both hands against the bark and whispered something Martin could not hear. What Martin did hear was a loud creaking sound, not high and squeaky, but deep, like big pieces of lumber shrinking or expanding in spring or winter. Martin’s eyes nearly popped and his jaw dropped as he watched a perfect staircase grow against the side of the oak’s trunk. He watched it form all the way around the curve of the tree, out of sight.

“Climb,” said Thrushsong, “the steps will not last long.”

Martin climbed, and Thrushsong followed. Several times, Martin looked back and saw that the steps behind the faerie were creaking back into the tree, the only way was up, and they had to move quickly. There were no turns or forks, only one stairway formed, and according to Thrushsong, it would lead them straight to his house. Martin now saw several faeries fluttering from house to house, somewhat less nervous now that his sword was peace-bonded and wrapped, spreading the word of who the strange visitor was and what the elder council had determined to do with him. Who needs mobile phones when you can fly to your friends’ house and chat? Martin thought, with more than a touch of envy.

As promised, the stairs led to a large faerie house, adorned with several yellow blossoms of a flower that Martin didn’t recognize; he did notice, however that they were the same hue as Thrushsong’s hair. Thrushsong led Martin through the entrance, conveniently located near the edge of where the pod was attached to the bark. The interior was beautiful. The floor was covered in a springy moss that made Martin want to take off his shoes and wriggle his toes. Tiny flowers of all colors grew in clumps near the rounded walls; faerie sized flowers, Martin noted, that would be too small to see if he were his normal size. Cloth of all colors was draped in a swooping pattern, criss-crossing along the walls. The light seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once, but then, upon further examination, Martin discovered tiny glowing orbs embedded in the walls and the floor and the ceiling. They glowed a soft blue-white, then all changed to green-white, then purple-white, and went on cycling through the entire rainbow, and all the bits in between.

“Here, put your iron inside.” Thrushsong was holding the lid of a large chest open in the corner of the room. Martin pulled himself away from marveling at the fantastical decor and stowed his sword obediently. Thrushsong closed the chest, never touching the bundle, and pushed it into the wall, apparently where it had come from.

“We are due for an audience with the elder council in a few minutes,” said the faerie, “but we have time enough for me to show off the view from my windows.” He led Martin to one such opening, and the lights in the room seemed to dim automatically, making for a clearer view out the window. There was no glass, but the round portal was sealed by some transparent membrane that Martin could not identify. He was about to ask what it was, and then go on to ask what the lights were, and how the flowers could grow so small, but what he saw out the window took the questions from his mind.

There, what Martin guessed was a little under a mile away, was the castle he’d been spending the night in. He recognized it, barely, for what had been a well maintained relic of times past, was a ruin, stone walls crumbling as if it had been untended for centuries upon centuries. It was overgrown with ivy and other plant life, and most of the towers had fallen. Martin closed his eyes, unwilling to consider the implications of what they told him.

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