The Underland

“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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