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Ethine Ch. 01

By: TheWitcher



Quick note from the author: those aficianados of urban fantasy amongst you might recognise the shared universe with Holly Black's books 'Tithe' and 'Ironside'. The story was largely inspired by my reaction to reading both those books and feeling that one character in particular was rather hard done by. 

My apologies to Mrs Black for mangling her universe.

******

Rain lashed down in unending waves, sheeting across open spaces, turning the ground into an unending shallow lake chaotic with dancing ripples. She was soaked through, her flimsy dress utterly sodden, clinging to her like an icy shroud.

The alley was narrow and stank of garbage, the flotsam and jetsam of the storm plastered wetly to its gleaming surface, water dripping from the metal fire-escape that clung to the one wall like a bloated spider. Finally she could go no further. Unable to find any better shelter - shivering with cold and sobbing in utter misery - she crawled into the space between two large plastic dumpsters and curled into a ball, hugging her knees for warmth. Beyond her feeble shelter the rain came down in dirty, freezing drops - thick with the stink of iron, of rot, of decay. Close around her the smell of rotting food in the noisome alley was so overpowering that it was all she could do not to retch.

Leaving Faerie she had not imagined how quickly things would turn sour. She knew only that she had to get away - had to escape from the monster her brother had become, had to get away from the accusing glances, the hateful stares of her erstwhile friends in the Seelie Court.

She knew she deserved it, she knew that she deserved everything they did and more. She had killed the queen, had driven her sword through her heart and handed the Court into the hands of her fiend of a brother. But knowing this didn't make the spite any easier to bear - the myriad small cruelties from people she had thought of as her friends, each one hurting all the more because of who delivered it. If only they knew, she thought. If only they knew that she loathed herself more than they ever could; that for all they hated her, she hated herself more. 

In the terrible hours after the queen had died she had hacked off her hair, chopping at it maniacally with a knife until only a rough shadow of her former locks remained. For a while that was enough, the humiliation of people sniggering at her, pointing - even spitting at her. Her brother had been horrified but she hated him, too, and delighted in the look on his face.

After that she had taken to scratching herself, cutting herself, hurting herself whenever it got too much for her. Inflicting pain on her flesh to numb the pain in her head, to feel, strangely, the pleasure of not hurting any more once she stopped cutting. Like all fay, she healed quickly and didn't scar, but from that point on her arms were nearly always covered with red scratches and healing cuts and she had had to keep herself covered.

Even in this misery, there were still occasional kindnesses shown her - from Kaye who tried to make time for her but didn't have enough for herself; from an Unseelie knight with green eyes who'd faced down some of her tormentors, escorted her home. She hadn't even asked his name, had turned aside from him, from his attentiveness. She didn't deserve kindness, couldn't they see?

Eventually she couldn't face it any longer. She had to get away, away from Faerie - from all of it. Nobody cared about her, nobody wanted her there - how could they - she didn't care about herself. That she had nowhere to go, knew next to nothing about life outside of the Bright Court hadn't seemed so big a problem then. Now...

Ethine pulled her knees up, hugging herself. She felt sick, weak - barely able to maintain even the most token of glamours to hide her nature. She couldn't seem to stop herself from shivering. With a moan she allowed her head to fall against the side of one of the dumpsters. No matter how bad things were, they had to be better than they were back home.

She woke with a start, not certain when she'd fallen asleep, befuddled.

A rough hand the size of a shovel had grabbed her ankle, squeezing it so hard it hurt.

Before she could think to react the hand yanked her leg hard and she was dragged from her hiding place into the narrow rain drenched alley - her head hitting the floor with a painful thud, her slight body dragging along the soaking concrete. She had just enough time to scream before a second hand seized her hair - pulling hard enough to make her whimper - forcing her up onto her knees. Instinctively she clutched at the massive fingers - her hands fluttering like tiny birds against the rough skin.

"Pretty prize," a rumbling voice said. "Pretty fairy."

The fingers twisted in her hair and she was forced to look up into her captor's face - rough, green, skin like leather: a troll, his face enormous. A second hulking creature stood just behind the first, black saucer eyes glinting with malice.

"Please," she said, her voice weak with terror.

"Bring her," said a new voice, cultured, softer but no less brutal.

Before she could make sense of what was happening she was being dragged by her hair along the alley, stumbling and sobbing as she struggled to get off her knees. A grey van was waiting at the end, its rear doors gaping wide.

In the moments before she was thrown inside her hands were forced painfully behind her back and tied with brutal strength, a filthy rag was forced into her mouth, making her gag. Then, whimpering and petrified, she was handed like a bag of garbage from the troll to a green-skinned hobgoblin in the back of the van and dumped unceremoniously onto a tarpaulin on the floor.

******

The Night Court was practically empty as he picked his way through the hall, the wound to the roof through which the truck had come still obvious. He breathed in the familiar smells of damp earth, drink and, fainter, blood. Abandoned now; without the crowds, the music, the hall was somehow diminished - its glamour hard to see. It was an unusual location to meet, he thought. The hall hadn't been used since the fateful attack by the Seelie Court, so why here?

He reached the remains of the raised earthen dais, dropping to one knee in a graceful motion. On it Roiben, King of the Seelie and the Unseelie, was standing, speaking to a small goblin - its skin the green of moss - in tones too low to make out. He remained still - kept his eyes downcast - as Roiben finished whatever discussion he was having. It wasn't subservience that kept him thus, though, rather he was afraid that his distaste for his king would be too obvious to see if their eyes should meet. 

As the minutes ticked by, his mind wandered, his eyes drifting over the room, alighting on minor things - a discarded cup, a crumpled hat forgotten in a slough of earth - before flicking on. He barely noticed when the goblin left and Roiben's attention was turned on him.

"It's not pretty is it?" Roiben said, gesturing for him to rise. "I doubt that we can ever return to this place, now."

Calan looked about, shrugged dismissively.

"My Lord, you summoned me." Businesslike.

For a moment their eyes met, little warmth on Roiben's face. Then he seemed to collect himself, his face relaxing.

"Yes... I have a...a task for you."

"I am yours to command," he said, his voice even - though he struggled to keep the dislike from it.

Roiben stepped down from the dais, his silver shirt seeming to flow like metal, his eyes bright, like burnished silver.

"It is not a command I had in mind...more a request." His lips pressed into a razor thin smile, an unreadable look in his eyes. "My sister, Ethine, has gone - disappeared from the Bright Court this past week."

Unnoticed, Calan felt his breath hitch.

"When she left I had hoped that, given time, she would return. Or that word would come, at least. There has been nothing." He paused, looking once again at Calan. "I would ask you to find her."

Calan swallowed. "My Lord, forgive my impertinence, but I think we can both agree that I am not favoured in your Court." Roiben inclined his head slightly, inviting him to continue. "This is your sister. So why me, an Unseelie knight?"

For a time there was silence. Roiben looked about the hall with unseeing eyes.

"You were a changeling, were you not?"

"I was." Though now it seemed a lifetime ago.

"How old were you when you returned to Faerie?"

"Twenty." Old enough to finish school, old enough to serve time in prison. It was old for a changeling.

Roiben looked at him, his quicksilver eyes thoughtful. "You understand the mortal world - that will give you an advantage in finding her."

Calan knew that wasn't the reason, while changelings were not common amongst the gentry, they were hardly unknown. He nodded thoughtfully.

"She has gone Ironside, then?"

"Yes. That was the word the goblin brought me. We've tracked her so far, then she disappears."

Calan nodded. For a while the silence in the hall stretched. 

Finally, with a sigh. "That is not the reason I asked for you, Calan," he said quietly. "Understand that I have to know this before I see you leave." He paused again. "On Hart Island, when Ethine and I fought - when I had knocked her down and held my blade at her throat - I saw the look upon your face." 

Calan watched him closely and at last Roiben turned to look at him, his eyes intense. "You hated me - would have killed me, I think, if you had been able to."

Calan let his eyes drop, staring at the floor; he didn't deny it.

"Then, later, when Talathain tried to kill her - of all the Seelie and the Unseelie gathered there you were the only one who moved to try and save her," he said, his face distant, pensive. "I saw the stricken look on your face - your relief when I took that blow in her place. I have to know, Calan, am I right?"

Calan made no answer for a while. He breathed in the damp air, savouring its coolness, listening to his heart pounding in his chest - reluctant to admit openly how he felt. Briefly, voices could be heard in the distance. His mind replayed the scenes on Hart Island, his anguished shout, the knights holding him back as she fell - unnoticed in the chaos, useless - helpless to stop her being hurt. Then, after, the cruelties heaped on her - the look on her face, like she had died inside. His feeling of uselessness, his inability to make a difference.

He closed his eyes, swallowed a painful lump in his throat. "You are right," he said at last, his voice quiet.

"Does Ethine know?"

"What?"

"That you are in love with her," he said softly.

Calan laughed bitterly. "Of course not. She is -- was - a handmaiden to the Seelie Queen. I am a knight of the Unseelie Court. Who would support such a match?" he said, his eyes bitter, his voice catching slightly despite his efforts.

Roiben looked away, looked anywhere but at him.

"Exactly," Calan said, his voice as hard as his eyes.

"Will you find her?"

"Is that your command?" he spat.

"No. Not my command. Ethine hates me, my command would not help in this," he said. "I will merely facilitate your going if that is your wish - but you must seek her, or not, for yourself. Will you go?"

There was only a slight hesitation this time - Calan's voice quiet, lost. "Of course I will...for Ethine, always for Ethine."

For a long while, then, Roiben stared at him - his skin like pale gold, hair a stark white falling in waves to his collar, eyes green like a cat - a fay gifted or cursed with a talent for death, but not unnecessarily cruel - at least not by the standards of the Unseelie Court. Not so long ago he would have been horrified at the thought of his sister with an Unseelie knight - but when all her friends, her family, had used her so badly...

Finally he nodded. "It is strange, Calan, but you may be the one that has loved her the best of us all," he said. "For that I am grateful."

Not trusting himself to speak, Calan nodded once, ghosted a bow then turned and strode away. As he reached the end of the hall he heard Roiben speak again.

"Take care of her, Calan. Keep her safe...please."

Without turning, Calan paused. After a moment he nodded again. Then he was gone.

******

The floor beneath her was damp, its cold seeping into her bones. She was still wet from the outside, still shivering - but a new feeling had slipped in unbidden since her capture. Every part of her body was aching. Her skin felt hot to the touch, feverish, but still she shook as if frozen.

She couldn't tell if she had lain there for hours or days. Food had been brought, a thin gruel, but she didn't have the strength to eat it. She was dimly aware of the occasional presence of a goblin next to her, the feel of his cold, leathery hand on her forehead and barking words, but she was too far gone to know what was happening.

Around her she could see a number of other fay - all female, she thought - and on all sides of the open space were wooden bars. She assumed that they shared some kind of communal cage. None of the other women had approached her since she had been dragged here and dumped amongst them. She had lost track of how long ago that had been, slipping in and out of sleep almost continually.

She was vaguely aware that a number of others had been into the cage every now and then, seemingly taking one or more of the occupants away with them, before returning later. She thought she heard sobbing, shouting, but it was as if it happened in a dream, without focus, without the certainty of reality.

When she was next able to focus, when she felt a little more lucidity, it was to sense a presence near her. She tried to raise her head to see, but weakness overcame her - her body aching and shivering miserably.

"Hello dearie," said a fat old woman, plonking herself down on the ground next to Ethine. "I hear that you're sick, so I do. Poor love."

Ethine's eyes flicked up, stared up at her. Her face was round and jolly but her dark eyes seemed malicious and unkind. She was wearing a thick blue dress and a white apron, a similar white kerchief tied around her wayward grey hair. The woman felt her forehead - clicking her tongue loudly - made her stick out her tongue to more clicking. Ethine felt so weak, so miserable that she was content to allow herself to be pawed.

Eventually the woman spoke with another younger woman in a grey dress and dark hair who left, returning a short time later with a heavy wooden tumbler full of a liquid that resembled warm pitch. The younger woman helped Ethine to sit, holding her thin body up while the old woman held the cup against her lips.

The smell from the cup was disgusting, reminiscent of burnt insects. Ethine felt herself gagging, unable to force herself to drink. Seeing her reaction the old woman chuckled coldly reaching up with a podgy hand to pinch her nose painfully. Her grip was like iron, holding her still even as she tried to pull away, her eyes tearing with the sharp pain. She felt the younger woman's hands on her arms, holding them down. 

Although she struggled weakly she was drained, the fever leaving her almost helpless, and she was unable to escape their hold. Finally, when she could hold her breath no longer - opening her mouth to breathe - the woman poured the foul liquid down her throat as she had known she would, forcing her to swallow or choke. It was no choice and she swallowed convulsively, the liquid burning her throat. It tasted disgusting - pretty much as it smelt - coating her mouth and throat in foul tasting slime. With the cup drained they released her and she fell to the ground again, retching but unable to bring any of it back up, her body jerking and coughing. 

After a moment the women stripped her dress from her, rubbing her down with rough towels before dressing her quickly in warm, dry clothing.

"There dearie, Master doesn't want you dying on him. That'll fix you, so it will." The old woman, patted her cheek hard enough to make it sting. "Here, sleep on this - it'll keep the damp off you."

The younger woman stretched a filthy, tattered rug over the floor and the two of them laid her down upon it, stretching a thick woollen blanket that stank of damp and mould over her. Ethine clutched it to herself -shivering once again, though she could feel the warmth of the liquid seeping through her. She had never felt more alone or more miserable.

"Ah, good, good," said the old woman again, ushering the younger from the cage. "Sleep now, Old Mary'll be back to check you later, so I will."

The two moved off. She was alone for only a breath before a pixie appeared in their place, sitting down nearby. For a second Ethine imagined Kaye had come - though she couldn't imagine how that would happen - then the differences seeped in and it was clear that this was a stranger - her hair darker, brown; her skin a lighter shade of green.

"Hi, I'm Turiel," the pixie said. "You look cold, I thought we might snuggle together for warmth."

Before Ethine could protest or react the pixie wriggled into her blanket with her, curling around her back to lie like two spoons together. Although it struck Ethine that this was some kind of liberty, she was so miserable that she welcomed the extra warmth. Gradually she found herself slipping into a deeper, more restful sleep.

******

Reclining in the moth-eaten old armchair, his feet resting on a low coffee table marked with glass rings and scattered with well thumbed magazines, a dirty tumbler of warm elderberry cordial held in his hand, Calan had a profound sense of deja-vu. Opposite him the ogre, Terror, horns like a ram's curling back from his forehead, tusks protruding crookedly from his lower jaw above his greening beard- incongruous in baggy jeans and a blue sweat-top - sat in a similar stained chair, held a similar tumbler - tiny in his massive hand.

The room was small, grubby drapes hanging from the apartment's windows filtering the sunlight into dirty yellow tones. A torn and stained sofa in mismatched shades of blue completed the furnishings. In the small, equally grubby kitchen beyond he could hear Monster, the hobgoblin, moving about, mixing food or drink or drugs.

Before going to Faerie he had lived amongst these exiles, fay without allegiance to either the Seelie or Unseelie Courts, been a member of one of their transient courts - no more than street gangs in reality. Returning to that life now was like putting on old, familiar armour: everything was as he remembered it - it just didn't seem to fit as well as it used to. The life was grubbier, somehow, after the formality and rules of the Unseelie Court.

"So, tell me what you know?" he said at last, when small talk and reminiscence had exhausted themselves - swirling the cordial around the glass, watching it coat the sides and dribble slowly back into the foam. It tasted disgusting.

Terror sighed, his huge frame making the chair creak.

"Things have changed, Calan," Terror rumbled. "There's more violence, the exiles are really under pressure." He sipped his cordial. "A new guy - calls himself Sorrow - he's determined to unite all the exiles under his rule. He's taken the Bronx and he's moving in on Brooklyn and Queens. It's only a matter of time before he makes a move on the city. Truth is, he's the reason so many of us were happy to take Roiben's deal - for the protection it offers against Sorrow and his boys."

Calan chuckled, a day and a night of service for the protection of the Unseelie Court - he wondered if Roiben had realised the implications of the offer at the time. Not that he had a lot of choice, he supposed.

"There've been bigshots before, we know that," he said, grimacing as he sipped the sour liquid. He spooned more sugar into it from a dirty bowl in the table. "The exiles are nothing if not independent, what's so different this time?"


Ethine Ch. 01



Terror looked down as if searching in his glass for answers. When he spoke his voice was quiet, thoughtful. "Maybe nothing. Maybe everything. He's more organised than any I've seen before. More violent. He's got a lot of people scared." He looked up, meeting Calan's eyes. "And there's another thing, since the deal with Roiben there's been talk...maybe nothing, mind...but talk about Sorrow forging a deal with the Witch Queen."

"The Hag?" Calan said, watching Terror nod slowly. A bogeyman out of nightmare, Hafgan the Hag, queen of witches. Everyone knew the name, nobody believed her more than a legend. But Terror did, obviously. For a long while he thought on that. Then: "What kind of deal?"

Terror shrugged. "Who knows, nobody has ever dealt with the Hag as far as I know. But - if I was a guessing man - when we made our deal with Roiben, we changed the dynamic. My guess would be that he's after some kind of muscle to counter Roiben."

"And you think he's got Ethine?" he said. "Why?"

"Sorrow's been grabbing solitary fay off the streets for weeks. Nobody knows why...or nobody's telling. All I know is that near a dozen have gone in the last few weeks and none have been seen again. I'm sure you don't need me to draw you a map."

Calan gazed into his glass, his face worried. If he was taking solitary fay to trade with the Hag, Ethine was in more trouble than he'd thought.

"This Ethine, she someone special?" Terror said.

Calan looked up, his face pensive. What was there between them? He knew how he felt - how he had felt from the first moment he had set eyes on her. Sitting quietly at the feet of her queen. How from that moment on he'd been lost - pathetically looking for excuses to visit the Seelie Court just so he could see her, his heart beating faster whenever he caught a glimpse of her. But her? He doubted that she even knew he existed.

"Yes. No. Maybe," he said at last, smiling wryly.

"Ah, like that is it?" said Terror, chuckling. Calan found his own face twitching in response.

"So," he said at last. "How do I get to meet this Sorrow?"

"Oh, that's easy," Terror said, grinning. "Join up - he's looking for soldiers to fight the exiles. A knight should have no trouble getting himself hired." He paused. "But be careful, Calan, he's bad news."

"So am I, Terror, so am I," he said, swallowing the cordial in one gulp.

******

Ethine woke with a jolt, a sharp barb stinging her thigh. 

She sat up in time to see a spindly hob move on the next prisoner, poking her awake with a long pole topped with a wooden thorn. She rubbed her thigh and her hand came away with a small stain of blood on it. Turiel was sat next to her, rubbing her thigh in a similar manner.

"That hurt," Ethine said, feeling more than a little sorry for herself, though she had to admit that she felt much better following that vile potion that had been forced on her.

"I think it's supposed to," Turiel said.

When everyone was up the hob returned with bowls of gruel, pushing them beneath the bars of the wooden cage. Ethine looked about, the only illumination was provided by torches guttering in sconces on the wall outside the cage - the light they cast dim and flickering - and what it illuminated was entirely unprepossessing.

The cage was large, holding nearly a dozen fay comfortably, with an earthen floor. Its walls and roof were formed of a latticework of thick wooden poles, studded with cruel thorns to discourage anybody from getting too close. 

Beyond it, in addition to the hob and the goblin she'd already seen, she saw an ogre strolling slowly about - his face leering and demonic in the flickering orange light. In one hand he held a short crop, in the other a pole topped with a thorn. Fully awake now, she realised that they'd taken her dress, left her in a short-sleeved white shirt and a blue pleated skirt so short it barely covered her ass. Self-consciously she rubbed at the quickly healing marks on her forearms, saw Turiel notice before looking away.

"Where are we?" she said.

"Don't know. Sorrow's Court probably, but I can't be sure. I haven't been outside since I arrived."

Turiel grabbed a bowl of gruel, handing one to Ethine. 

"Sorrow's Court?" Ethine said, examining the bowl unenthusiastically, sniffing the thin unpleasant liquid uncertainly. Its smell turned her stomach.

"Yes." She saw the blank look on Ethine's face. "How much do you know about Ironside?" she said at last.

Ethine shrugged. "Next to nothing."

Turiel grinned, swallowing her gruel with a smile. "If you're not going to eat that, I'll have it," she said.

Ethine handed her the gruel, her appetite gone. Turiel spoke as she ate.

"Right, the exiles are fay without the protection of a court, either Seelie or Unseelie," she said. "You know that much?"

Ethine nodded.

"Good. Well those fay naturally group together - for protection from each other mostly, but I guess it's hard to live alone amongst all those mortals. Anyway, those groups they call courts, like the Seelie and Unseelie Courts. Sorrow is the head of one of these courts - the biggest in the Bronx, I think."

Ethine's mind ran with a dozen questions, but over them all was the slowly growing realisation of her predicament. She had run away from the only place she had known in her life, her only home. Nobody knew where she was, nobody was going to miss her - not after she'd driven them all away over the past weeks. She was utterly alone. A wave of self-pity rolled over her and, all of a sudden, she felt like snivelling. She choked it back, rubbing at her eyes furiously.

"Why have they taken us?" she said at last.

Turiel looked up from slurping her gruel. "I don't know. Only that it isn't good. Every now and then they come and take one of us away. When they come back..." Turiel shivered, glancing about warily.

"They're after our names," a voice said, a troll leaning forward. "When they come and take us, I mean. They want our names, our true names."

"What?" Ethine said, baffled. "Why?"

"Control, of course. Over us. As to why, I don't know. Yet."

"Why would anyone give up their name?" Ethine asked.

The troll chuckled. "Girl, nobody gives it up - they take it. They hurt us until we can't take anymore - eventually everyone gives in, everyone breaks."

Ethine shivered.

The troll was called Athinas. She'd been the first fay captured, had given up her name almost two weeks before. Slowly, some of other fay came forward, sharing their stories - an ogress called Elderbany had been captured more recently but told a similar story. Others huddled in lonely misery - eyes wary, hunted. A couple were snivelling, curled in fearful balls at the furthest edges of the space. Ethine saw a couple of other gentry, a troll, an ogre, a couple of goblins, a woman with the ears and tail of a cat, there was Turiel as well as a handful of others. It seemed that very few of the fay in the cage still had their names. With the revelations still heavy in the air, the fat old woman returned, puffing and panting as she slipped into the cage, shadowed by the younger girl. At her approach the cage lapsed into a brooding silence, the fay unwilling to talk in front of the new arrivals.

They were both mortals, she noticed. The old one wrinkled like an old plum, her superficial friendliness shallow and easily punctured. The younger one seemed as much a prisoner as she was - could she be a potential ally? For a moment she considered glamouring them, but it was obvious that they'd be expecting that - the guards vigilant against that eventuality - and she wasn't even sure that she was strong enough to try it.

"So, dearie, you feeling better already?" she said. Ethine nodded. "Good, told you Old Mary'd see you right, so I did."

The woman pressed her hand to Ethine's forehead again, squeezed her cheeks, looked into her mouth.

"Yes, yes, fever's gone, so it has," she said. "You're tougher than you look, dearie. Almost all better, almost just right, so you are."

She patted Ethine's cheek, a little overly hard.

"What's going to happen to us?" Ethine said quietly.

The old woman laughed; it was not a pleasant sound.

"You'll be getting sold, dearie. Good little slaves you'll be, so you will." Her eyes glinted evilly, looking about as if fearing being overheard. Ethine's blood ran cold. "But I shouldn't say any more, oh no. Old Mary'll be getting in trouble, so she will."

Chuckling at some inner joke, Old Mary gathered herself, clinging to the younger woman as she dragged herself to her feet. For just a moment Ethine's eyes met those of the younger woman and the horror she read there chilled her far more than any malicious taunting from Old Mary.

******

Calan did what any Unseelie knight looking for a job would do. Hurt people.

He smashed the head of the goblin to his left into the surface of the bar with a satisfying crunching sound, at the same time the contents of his beer glass were followed into the face of the tall fay to his right by the glass itself, smashing into shards as it lacerated his pale skin. Both of them went down, the keening shrieking sounds they made suddenly loud in the too quiet bar. 

In truth the bar itself, the overly grandly named Equator Lounge on Jerome Avenue, was entirely unimpressive. A classically fronted two storey building nestled next to a taller brick monstrosity, its neglected frontage of pale stone overtopped by a tattered blue and white sign. Inside was little more than a dimly lit seated area and a narrow bar with a scattering of stools. The walls were brick, the atmosphere artificial and the music was rubbish - but if Sorrow's boys liked it, who was he to say no.

Leaning on the bar shortly after arriving, a diet soda in his hand, he had glanced around the room, clocking near a dozen fay scattered about - drinking, lounging, making themselves at home. Maybe a dozen more mortals amongst them, some clearly little more than pets. From the way they were staring back, he figured he wouldn't have to wait long for a reaction.

The goblin had started it, the tall fay joining in. Thing was, he had known how it was going to end before it had really begun - which gave him the edge over the both of them. They had tried to goad him, to provoke him - the prelude to violence as much about working themselves up to it as getting a response out of him. He had just gone straight to the violence - no passing 'Go', no collecting two hundred bucks. He was ready, they weren't. 

Now he turned, straightening the cuffs on his dark suit, waiting to see who else would take him up on his offer.

At the back he watched a slim fay approach, his stance wary but not intimidated, his hair a slash of midnight against his white skin, his dark eyes like pools of hate.

"Well, what have we here?" he said, standing easily, hands loose at his side. He wore a nicely cut black suit not dissimilar to the one Calan had glamoured for himself. Clearly a pro, then.

"These two have had a little too much to drink," Calan said easily.

"So I see. But this is my bar, what are you doing in it, fay?"

"I heard that this was the place to come if you were looking to find work," he said. "Work of this kind..."

He nodded at the two faeries scuttling away towards the toilets. The black haired fay seemed to think about that for a moment.

"Maybe. But I don't like you, fay, so for you - no vacancies."

Calan nodded slowly.

"I thought as much. Tell you what, how about I make a vacancy for myself. What about your job?"

"As you can see it's taken."

"Indeed." He grinned maliciously, watched the same smile slide over his opponent's face.

"As you wish, fay."

The black haired faerie gestured and a finely curved sword in a sheath was thrown to him from the side, he caught it and drew in one quick motion - the blade shining like starlight in the dim bar.

"Ah. It seems you have me at a disadvantage," Calan said quietly.

The faerie laughed softly and advanced crabwise towards him, the blade dancing gently in his hands.

"I didn't say anything about fairness."

Calan picked up a barstool, saw the fay laugh as he watched him. He backed up, circling slowly about the open area near the bar, stool held defensively in front of him.

The fay lunged, slashing down in a vicious cut with the sabre - little more than a blur in the air. Calan blocked with the stool, releasing it even as it was cut nearly in half, dancing to the side and picking up a second stool - this time throwing it at the swordsman, not waiting to see its fate - grabbed a third and threw that also, a fourth in his hand. He spun about, rushing toward the swordsman - as he'd hoped the fay had used his sabre to slash the stools into kindling, but it had left him open, badly positioned. 

Before the fay could draw back the sword for a cut he rushed him - holding the stool across his body like a ram - trapping the sabre in front of the swordsman and driving him backwards. He saw the look of surprise in his dark eyes just moments before he slammed him hard into a stone pillar with a painful grunt of escaping breath. Calan used the rest of his momentum to slam his head into the fay's face, felt his nose crunch beneath his forehead, did it again, driving with his legs - the fay's face softer this time, a low mewling sound coming from him.

He drew back the stool, slammed it into the stunned fay once, twice - drawing a grunt of pain on each occasion - threw it to one side and smashed his elbow into the side of the fay's head, bouncing it off the unforgiving pillar. 

He went down and didn't get up - wet gasping sounds coming from his foetal body.

Calan retrieved the sabre and the sheath, looking about easily - scanning for anyone else who fancied their chances. 

Somewhere towards the back somebody was clapping slowly. "Now, where did you learn to do that?" said a quiet, cultured voice.

The speaker was a slim faerie in a suit the colour of vanilla ice cream. His skin and hair were the colour of wood, his eyes like pieces of jade. Around him a number of competent looking faeries in business suits lounged in feigned lack of readiness.

"And you would be Sorrow?"

The faerie laughed softly. "Oh no, I'm Thorn. From your little display am I to understand that you're looking for employment?"

"I am." He held the acquired sabre loosely in his right hand, not too obviously ready to draw.

"Well, you may consider this your job interview, so to speak. Your practical skills would seem to be okay," he said, voice like velvet. "Tell me about yourself."

Calan glanced across the crowd surrounding Thorn, considered what he would say carefully - as close to the truth as he could get.

"I was a knight in the Unseelie court under Nicnevin. When the queen was killed I found I had little liking for her replacement. Recently I had cause to leave his service. I hear that Sorrow is looking for swords, I need a place to settle - so here I am." 

"Yes, here you are." Thorn stared at him for a long moment. "Fine. I can think of no reason to turn you down - but I find I don't trust you. Keep that in mind. Until you prove your trustworthiness to me, I'll be watching you."

Calan nodded slowly. Sounded pretty fair, it wasn't as if he was going to trust anybody himself anytime soon. "I can live with that. Where do I start?"

"Wait here, we'll take you back with us when we go," he said. "Oh, and Calan, don't break any more of Sorrow's knights, eh?"

******

To Ethine's eye the guards seemed only passingly interested in them. She had come to know the three that seemed to be assigned to watch them. There was a hulking ogre dressed in a thick jacket that looked like some kind of sheepskin, the wool still attached to the outside. Although he appeared most fearsome - his face twisted by the tusks thrusting from his lower jaw and disfigured by scars and warts, his head enlarged by the dark, curling horns spiralling back from his forehead - he was the least malicious, rarely using the crop or the thorn-pole that he carried.

The hob was only four feet tall, half the height of the ogre, his skin like bark - studded with spines - his black eyes lit by malice. He seemed to take the most pleasure in his job, using his thorn-pole to poke the prisoners awake whenever he caught one sleeping, or unawares. He would often wait, leering, around the stinking pit that passed as a toilet - embarrassing anyone unfortunate enough to be using it when he was about. 

The last guard was a goblin, his leathery skin moss green, his eyes a watery pink. Dressed in rough leathers, he seemed to regard the prisoners as an inconvenience and patrolled the least - often remaining out of sight for most of the day while the hob and the ogre walked the corridors surrounding their prison. When he did venture out to watch them he was so liberal with his whip that they'd learnt to stay away from the sides when he passed along.

Ethine had established from comments made by the guards that there was only one exit from the prison area - along the corridor in the direction of the guardroom. She had no idea where it went, though the other fay talked of a hall at the top of a narrow staircase.

She still felt weak, weary, but her fever had gone, the ache in her bones receding. Whatever that vile stuff they'd made her drink was, it had certainly worked. There was little iron about and she felt her strength returning quickly. It was her sense of isolation that most scared her, the vulnerability of the lonely. While Turiel was persistent company, sticking by her continually, the company of these strangers - as despairing and lost as she was - made Ethine realise quite how alone she truly was.

Lost in thought she barely noticed the cold draught blow along the corridor from the outside, the fresher air suddenly making Ethine realise how badly the corridor and cage stank. In its wake a frisson of fear swept over the prisoners - fay huddling back away from the door, seeking solace in the shadows. Packed in such close proximity, the fear was contagious and, without knowing why, Ethine found herself huddling like the rest, fearful of whatever might be coming for them now.

Four fay entered the corridor, two wearing black suits, swords slung over their backs, and two in more colourful garb - one wearing a garish yellow suit with matching shirt and tie, his eyes the colour of brass, his hair yellow, the other in a suit the colour of dried blood, his shirt and tie more of the same but his eyes and hair were as black as pitch. The fay in the garish yellow suit seemed to be in charge, she thought before she lowered her eyes. Beyond them she saw the guards loitering in the shadows. 

The three entered the cage, standing easily just inside the entrance. Ethine felt their eyes slide over her, over the other prisoners, sensed the other prisoners flinch around her, a collective sight of dismay drifting from the cage.

"Her," the yellow suited man said, pointing.

Ethine cringed back as the two black suited fay came towards her, almost crying with relief and guilt when they grabbed a screaming Turiel -- her eyes rolling in fear - instead. Although she couldn't name it, she felt her fear like a palpable thing - a cold hand about her heart. Petrified, she watched them drag Turiel screaming in terror from the cage, her slender body twisting helplessly in the iron grip of the two fay, her wings beating helplessly in the air.

Just as she was dragged from sight Ethine met her eyes and had to stop herself from crying out - so great was the despair she read in that gaze. The sound of her screams, her pleading, followed her along the corridor, growing fainter and more despairing with distance. Ethine shivered uncomfortably, her skin suddenly covered in gooseflesh.

The guards locked the door behind them, the hob chuckling maliciously, the ogre looking almost shamefaced.




Ethine Ch. 01



Alone in the crowd again, Ethine felt cold tears trickle along her cheeks.

******

The sword he had acquired was a fine piece of work - the blade slightly curved, light, supple, reflecting light in ripples from the surface. Calan swung it experimentally a few times - nicely weighted, it would serve him well he had no doubt - better than its last owner at least. Reassured he slung it over his back so that it could be drawn from beneath his arm, the hilt hanging down near his waist.

A few of the other knights had observed him but nobody had shown any inclination to seek retribution for their injured colleague - one or two had even smiled in what he'd taken to be a friendly manner.

They had left the bar en masse shortly after closing time, moving in military order through the nearly deserted streets. As Terror had indicated, Sorrow's Court was located in Andrew Freedman House, just off the Grand Concourse - a sagging limestone palace originally built to keep once rich old mortals in the luxury they'd become used to. Its grounds were now patrolled by Sorrow's muscle - glamoured faeries with vicious looking fay hounds discouraging all but the most intrepid of visitors.

"For a while at least, until you earn my trust, you'll be the lowest of Sorrow's knights," Thorn had explained. "Which means that any dirty jobs that need doing, you'll be doing them. Understood?"

"Understood."

Inside Calan had not been surprised to find that the upper floors of Sorrow's Court had been left to decay - sagging plaster and mould a better protection than any security. The Court had centred itself in the basement, the entrance to Faerie down a narrow twisting staircase guarded by a couple of knights in Sorrow's regulation business suits.

Long before the staircase opened into the Court's central hall Calan could hear music -- the sound a strange mix between the wailing melodies of Faerie and the stronger beats, the vocals of the mortal world. Like Sorrow's Court, he thought, truly neither one thing nor the other.

The hall itself was a dimly lit room stretching away in all directions, the light source indeterminate - walls barely visible in the dark - the nebulous illumination leaving more in shadow than in light. At intervals across the open space thick pillars of dark stone rose into the darkness above and, along the walls, a series of arched niches ran together like gap-toothed gums, providing privacy and shelter for those who might crave it.

Filling the hall were the fay of Sorrow's Court: ogres, trolls, pixies, hobs, nixies, dryads, gentry and every other kind or type of fay found amongst the exiles were scattered in every direction, lounging about, chatting, fighting - a scene not too far removed from similar tableaux in the Unseelie Court, though the number and type of faeries were much reduced. Moving amongst them were both mortals and fay with trays of drinks and food - in one case he saw a troll chewing on a limb so it was possible that some of them were food.

At the approximate centre of the hall a dais had been raised - a gleaming thing of gold and black studded with lights, rising in three layers like an art deco wedding cake - its perimeter guarded by a low railing. Rising from the centre of the dais was the thick trunk of an enormous ebon tree, its branches and leaves flaring above to spread in a canopy across the dark ceiling. Carved into the trunk of the still living tree was a large chair, seated in which was a pale skinned fay in a grey suit, his grey hair pulled back in a pony tail. Sorrow, Calan realised. Attending him were a number of other fay - a fox faced man in a tweed suit talking into his ear, a handful of knights in dark suits. Set in a rack near his right hand, was a slender, straight bladed sword, its sheath and hilt as black as midnight. 

"That's Sorrow's dais," Thorn said. "You don't go there unless Sorrow summons you, understood?"

"Understood." 

Just short of the dais, adjacent to the wall, was a curving bar - all polished ebony and gleaming brass, its surface heavy with piles of food -- fire apples, silver pears, farbread -- and silver carafes of drink. A number of fay were gathered about it, or slumped on the floor near it, a hobgoblin was serving drinks from behind its polished top.

Beyond the dais part of the floor appeared to have been cleared to form a dance floor of sorts, knots of fay and mortals were moving about in the space - some clearly dancing, others entertaining themselves in less obvious ways difficult to make out in the shadows. Against the far wall he could just make out the band, no more than a collection of shadows in the distance.

"Gilraen here will show you your quarters. You're welcome to come to the hall any time you like - the bar's always open - but until I say otherwise the rest of the place is off limits to you. Understood?"

"Understood."

Gilraen was shorter and skinnier than Calan, his hair the red of a chestnut's skin against a ruddy complexion, all bones and angles. He was one of the fay that had presented as friendly back at the bar and he had smiled warmly when Thorn had handed out his task.

With Thorn and his knights heading off towards the dais, Gilraen had led him toward a wooden door in an arched niche at the side of the hall, not far from the bar. On the way Calan had looked about furiously for any sign of Ethine, his eyes scanning the crowd. As he'd expected, there was no sign of her and he'd forced himself to relax lest he seem too attentive.

"Sorrow's a good boss, I'm sure you'll settle in okay once Thorn's happy," Gilraen said, stepping aside to let two knights in dark business suits, sabres slung across their backs, exit the passage.

"What's his problem anyway?"

Gilraen shrugged, stepping down the narrow passage. Like the hall it was paved in dark stone, the walls brick, numerous wooden doors set into it along both sides.

"We've had a lot of trouble with the exiles' courts, especially since Silarial's death. Guess he's worried about what Roiben will do to back up his offer -- you know, infiltrators." "Infiltrators? Right." Calan nodded, obviously unconvinced. "What's all this I hear about Sorrow kidnapping solitary fay off the streets - that part of the plan?"

Gilraen laughed musically. "You could say that. Look, I'm sure Thorn will tell you when it's time, okay."

"Sure," Calan said. "Wouldn't want to cause you any trouble. I'm just the new boy, right?"

"Right." Gilraen laughed. "Just keep your nose clean and you'll be fine," he said, leading the way along the dimly lit corridor. "Here. Here's your room." 

Gilraen pushed a wooden door open onto a small chamber: a narrow wooden cot, a cupboard, small table, a chair, the smell of resin and damp. Home sweet home, Calan thought. For good measure Calan made a show of checking the room out, opening and closing the cupboard, leaning on the desk, nodding to Gilraen as if it all met some expectation he'd formed.

"Pretty good. All I need now is something to fill it with."

"You'll acquire things fast enough, I'm sure. Don't you have anything brought with you from the Unseelie Court?"

"A few things, stashed Ironside. I'll get them when I have time - they're safe for now. So what else is in this place? Going to show me about the Court?"

"You heard Thorn. You can go the main hall, but no wandering. Bar's open though, if you want a drink?" Gilraen looked hopeful.

Calan paused for a moment. Well he wasn't going to find Ethine in his room, he thought with a self-deprecating smile. "Okay, sure. Why not?"

The bartender was a tall hobgoblin, his skin the colour of aged leather, eyes stained yellow with drink. Around the bar a number of other fay were sat drinking or talking, one fay with pale furred skin and the head of a bear was fondling the breasts of a topless mortal in the shadows of a niche at the far side of the bar.

Calan chewed a silver pear - sucking the fiery juice from its flesh - and sipped slowly from his goblet, the bloodwine sweet and bitter at the same time - not a bad vintage. All the while his eyes drifted about, seeking some sign of Ethine. Trouble was, he both wanted to find her and was afraid to. He had no real idea if she was here or not, or even in trouble for that matter - but his heart told him that she needed him and needed him fast. Every time he thought of her he could feel his heart pounding like a hammer. Very disconcerting.

Conversation with Gilraen had been easy, and despite his earlier caution he had been all too willing to tell Calan everything he knew. Unfortunately what he knew was practically nothing. It was clear that Sorrow had something planned, and the kidnapped fay were part of it. But what 'it' was was no more clear now than it had been when he first talked to Terror. 

Gilraen had revealed a couple of useful things, though. He had pointed out the back entrance to the Court - a dark wooden doorway at the far end of the room, behind the dais, near the dance floor - and informed him that it came out in Mullayly Park, beneath a rotten stump in the northeast corner.

He had also learnt that Gilraen was fascinated by the Unseelie Court - lapping up Calan's tales as if they were bloodwine. It didn't sound like much, but Calan had a feeling that Gilraen's aid could be bought with promises of entry to the Unseelie Court. It might matter.

Furthermore, as he had sat chatting to Gilraen, Thorn had left the room through a small arched wooden door at the side of the hall, not far from the far end of the bar. When he left he had been escorted by two fay knights from those who had attended Sorrow -- one in red, one in yellow - so it was a fair bet he wasn't going to bed. Finally, and conveniently, it had become apparent that Gilraen couldn't hold his drink, he thought, as the fay knight slipped from his stool and crashed on to the floor, insensible.

He turned to the barkeep, chuckling, his own drunkenness feigned. "Any idea where Goldilocks lives so I can get him home?"

The hobgoblin grinned a feral grin.

"Sure. Not the first time," he said. He pointed to the door that led to the passage along which the rooms were located. "I think it's the third or fourth room on the right, or close by."

On a whim, Calan slipped a couple of fire apples and some farbread from the bar into his shirt, winking at the barkeep. 

"They might make a useful breakfast," he said, grappling Gilraen onto his shoulder, lifting him in a fireman's lift. "Come on, Sleeping Beauty, bedtime."

******

It seemed like hours later that Turiel was returned. In the interim Ethine had slipped into a haunted, restless sleep - the opening of the cage door waking her to see the pixie being pushed in by the guards. Turiel fell to her knees, sobbing. Ethine rushed to her, hugging her, feeling the faerie shudder against her.

"It's okay, Turiel, it's over now," she whispered.

Turiel looked up at her, her black eyes filled with anguish, with pain.

"No, it's not, it's not... They took my name...they took my true name..." and she sobbed harder than ever. "They hurt me, did things to me, until I told them..." She clung to Ethine with desperate strength, her fingers digging in to her flesh, her body shaking with sobs. "It was awful, Ethine, awful..."

Horrified, Ethine couldn't help but notice the burn marks on Turiel's arms, her legs, her wings. She hugged her close, drawing her further into the cage, into the dark away from the torchlight - all the while feeling the eyes of her fellow prisoners - those who knew and those who feared - following her into the shadows.

Gently she held the shuddering pixie, rocking her like a baby, until she fell asleep. Ethine felt fear, yes, horrifying fear - but she felt something else she was familiar with, too. Hate. Burning hate for the fay who would do this.

******

Somehow, in his quixotic quest to get Gilraen's unconscious body home, he had become turned around in the shadowy hall and had found himself staggering up to the same door that Thorn had used to leave the hall. On the way he had managed to spill the rest of his bloodwine down his own shirt - so that he stank almost as bad as Gilraen. Clumsy, clumsy, he thought with a smile. Not like him at all.

The door opened easily onto a set of narrow stone steps leading down into a corridor lit by a flickering orange light. The air smelt stale, thick with the scent of burning wood and pitch. Sighing slightly, Gilraen across his shoulders, he staggered in apparent drunkenness down the steps - eyes uncommonly alert for a drunken man, a dangerous glint in their depths.

He didn't quite sing, but he almost whistled beneath his breath. The corridor was floored in earth, the walls rough stone but, a short distance ahead, he saw the corridor end and split into a larger open space. On the left as he approached it he saw an open doorway - a guardroom, he guessed. 

Not seeking to avoid being seen, he staggered against the wall and wandered openly past the guardroom - all the while talking in a quiet, slightly slurred voice to Gilraen.

"Come on lad, get you home," he said. Then, lilting tunelessly, "No more blood...blood...bloodwine for you, oh no."

He staggered into the open area, spotting the wooden cage at the same time that the wandering hob guard saw him.

"Hey, you!" the hob said. Behind him he could see shadowy forms in the cage, faces appearing in the flickering light. "What are you doing here?"

"Hey, Spiky, I work here," he said, staggering in a zig zag pattern toward him. The faces were becoming more numerous now, drawn like moths to the commotion being created on their doorstep.

"Work here. Ha! I don't know you. This area is off limits. Go on - get out!" he said, but his voice lacked authority. Then the hob raised his voice. "Calafas! Glorindar! Get out here!"

"Look, Grumpy, I just need to get Sleepy here home, okay. How do I get back to the hall?" In the background he could see the fay gathering, the noise they were making attracting attention, faces in the darkness - no sign of Ethine.

Then he saw her, her pale face appearing in the crowd near the cage wall - eyes like quicksilver in the light, her pewter hair cropped short, spiky. His heart lurched in his chest, an almost physical ache accompanied by a sensation of unguarded relief. She was alive, she was here. The rest he could manage. For the briefest moment his eyes met hers and he saw hesitation, then a shock of recognition.

"Look you go back the way you came..." the hob said, still helpful, not alarmed.

In his drunkenness he managed to turn about so that Gilraen's feet clouted the hob on the head and then, to compound the matter, he contrived to drop Gilraen directly on top of him while he staggered clumsily back against the cage, falling face down next to it.

He saw the hob go down with a grunt of exhaled breath, struggling with Gilraen's dead weight. Gilraen barely stirred, grunting, gulping air drunkenly.

"Ethine," he whispered. Her face suddenly pressed against the cage next to his. "I haven't got long... I've been looking for you. I'm here to get you out. Are you okay?" 

Her face registered shock, curiosity - relief. He saw her start to say something, pause and start again.

"It's horrible here, I'm scared," she said at last, her voice shaky. She gripped the cage bars, her voice taking on a pleading tone, her eyes filled with unshed tears. "If you are here to get me out, please hurry. They've hurt some of us, I know it will be my turn soon. I'm frightened."

Calan felt his heart hammering, aching with the need to help her, feeling helpless once again. "I will come for you as soon as I can. Believe it. Please, just stay safe, stay alive - whatever happens, whatever you have to do - just stay alive." His eyes held hers, his voice soft, earnest, filled with anguish.

Ethine swallowed, nodded quickly. Then, her face unreadable: "Did Roiben send you?"

A quick glance told him that the hob was still down, Gilraen's larger size and weight and the hob's natural fear of offending one of the gentry conspiring to keep him pinned to the ground longer than Calan had hoped for.

Calan shook his head. "No, but he knows I'm here. I came for you. I came for me."

His eyes met hers again, she was so close he could have reached out and kissed her. A thousand things he wanted to say rose in his chest, none of them right - not here, not now. "Ethine..." His voice failed, his whisper choking off. Behind him he could hear the hob struggling with Gilraen's dead weight. "Here, take this..." he finished.

He slipped the fire apples, the slices of farbread from his shirt through the bars and felt her small hands take them. For just a moment he felt her long, slim fingers in his and he held her hand gently - trying to say with that simple gesture what he couldn't say, didn't have time to say, with words.

"Thank you," she whispered, but whether it was for the food, or what he'd said he couldn't tell.

When he turned, the hob had managed to roll Gilraen off himself and a goblin and an ogre were making their way from the guardroom along the corridor.

Calan lurched to his feet, his feigned drunkenness returning. "Hey, what're you doing to my pal?" he said, his sudden anger from finding Ethine caged hidden under a more obvious cause. He shoved the startled hob away from Gilraen with careless force, bending over his inert form. In the corner of his eye he caught sight of the startled hob pulling a whip from his belt and he turned full on him, swaying slightly. "If you swing that at me, Stumpy, I will shove it up your ass, got it?"

He heard sniggering from the cage, echoed by the guards approaching along the corridor.

The hob glared - but he was just a guard; Calan was gentry, a knight. Furthermore, the savage look in his eyes was not encouraging. The hob lowered the whip. In moments the ogre and the goblin had wandered up together, looking in confusion at the scene in front of them.

Calan hoisted Gilraen back onto his shoulders. "This way?" he said, pointing back along the corridor the way he had come. "Right?"

"Right," said the hob, cowed. 

Whistling softly he staggered back along the corridor, breaking off every so often to reassure Gilraen in a quiet voice that he was nearly home.

All the way he could feel Ethine's eyes following him, feel his heart aching in his chest. It was the hardest thing he'd ever done - walking away and leaving her trapped like that. He felt like he'd let her down, like he'd trapped her there himself. All the way back he could feel her eyes on him, see her tear streaked face, feel the fear in her and he hated himself.



Ethine Ch. 02



Ethine's heart was racing, tears stinging her eyes. It made no sense. The knight with the green eyes, the Unseelie knight - here. Looking for her. How? Why? Her first instinct had been her brother, but he'd said that he hadn't sent him? So, why had he come? For her? It didn't seem possible. Watching him walk away had been horrible - she'd felt abandoned, had felt like screaming after him, pleading with him to get her out right there and then. A more rational part of her knew he couldn't, knew she had to be patient - but she was so scared, so alone. Of course that rational part of herself had realised something else even as she'd watched him walk away - she wasn't really alone, not any longer, someone had come for her after all. Despite her surroundings she'd felt her heart lift.

As he'd disappeared from sight she'd realised something else - just having him here had changed everything. Somehow his presence seemed to diminish the scale of her problems. Then there was that soft, tender look in his eyes - like nothing bad could happen to her while he was around. She looked at her fingers, she could still feel the touch of his hand. His fingers - hard, calloused from training with the sword -- had been so soft on hers, gentle. For the first time in a long time she felt herself smile.

Once the guards had gone the fay gathered around her, whispering hopefully amongst themselves.

"Who was your knight-errant?" Turiel whispered, awake now, the others pressing close - hope as contagious now as fear had been earlier.

Carefully she shared the food he had given her, passing it out as evenly as she could amongst her fellow prisoners. They gobbled it hungrily, only a bite each but the warmth of the fire apples' intoxicating sweetness flowed through their starved bodies; the farbread - sweet, sticky, designed for long journeys, for hardship on the trail - working magic on her and the other prisoners half-starved on gruel.

Ethine shrugged, licking sticky juice from the fingers he'd held. "My knight-errant? I'm not sure - I don't know his name," she said shyly. "Don't know his name?" whispered one, chuckling. "He certainly knows yours..."

"Ethine, girl, that man is sweeter on you than this fire apple?" said Elderbany, chuckling like rumbling thunder. Ethine giggled with her, the juice of the apple making her silly. 

Athinas, the troll, laughed lightly, an alien sound in the prison. "Sweet isn't the word I'd use," she added, her big ears red with the effects of the apple.

Ethine found herself laughing along with them, her heart pounding fit to burst. Her knight-errant?

Her happiness was brief.

Even before the effects of the food had gone, Thorn, vanilla suited, returned with his two colourful cronies, both still in red and yellow - his elegant, handsome face sneering at them as he looked through the bars of the cage. She wasn't surprised when she was chosen, she had known that it had to be soon, too many others had already been through the ordeal. 

Without preamble the two fay took hold of her arms - grinding their hard fingers into her soft flesh until she whimpered in pain, frog-marching her along the corridor. They followed the path her knight-errant had used, toward the only exit from the prison. Behind her she could feel the imprisoned fay watching her helplessly from the cage. Thorn led and she was dragged in his wake - along the corridor, past the guardroom with its musty smells, to a small door at the end. On the way they passed a set of narrow stone stairs leading up to a banded wooden door, from beyond which she thought that she could hear the sound of music playing, of singing. She noted it as a possible escape route.

They passed to the side of the staircase, through a thick wooden door and into a further corridor. This one was paved with rough stone slabs, the sconces more permanent bowls of coals - the light brighter, less inclined to flicker into shadow. At the end of this corridor they reached a further short staircase and passed up two small steps through an arch into a better appointed part of the Court. Here the light source was indeterminate - the corridor lit with an even warm glow - and the floor was carpeted, warm beneath her feet. After a few paces they stopped outside an unremarkable wooden door and Thorn knocked gently, waiting until he heard a summons before entering. 

The room inside was a simple study, a writing bureau open on the wall just beyond the door. On the facing wall Ethine could see a bookcase that took up its entire surface. A matching bookcase occupied the wall to the left of the door making the room cramped, its smell was the smell of old books and dust. Bare by comparison, the remaining wall held only a large but simple, dark portrait of a male fay with malign features.

The male fay depicted on the painting sat at the desk, a book open before him, a pen set to one side. His long grey hair was tied back in a pony tail, held with a silver ring, his pearl grey suit elegant with its matching shirt and tie -- but his angular face held no warmth, his storm grey eyes as cold as the winter.

"Lord Sorrow, another prisoner for you to inspect," Thorn said, nodding his head briefly in respect.

To one side she noticed a black sword in a rack, its presence seeming to suck light from the room. Just looking at it made her eyes hurt. 

Sorrow looked over at her, his eyes hard, boring into her, roving over her body - undressing her; dissecting her, even. There was nothing of lust or desire in it -- it was more akin to an appreciation of livestock or of some possession whose value remains undetermined. Despite herself, she shivered - his gaze was cruel, malicious, calculating.

"Are you the one responsible for kidnapping us?" she said, surprising herself with her sudden boldness, her voice steady though her heart beat in her chest like a bird trying to escape a cage. She felt the pressure on her arms increase as she spoke.

Sorrow inclined his head, his face momentarily surprised that she had had the courage to address him. "Yes," he said simply, his voice hard. "I am."

"Why?"

Sorrow smiled. "I am going to trade you, you and the other prisoners, in return for the use of some rather special knights." As he spoke his delicate fingers rolled the pen back and forth on the top of his desk.

"But... Trade us? To whom?" she said, her mind racing - could she use this information, would it help?

For a moment he looked at her, his face blank, then he beckoned to the men holding her and she was forced into the room, her arms pinioned behind her. With her helpless before him he reached out, his fingers slowly, cruelly, squeezing her cheeks, forcing her mouth open - examining her teeth as if she were an animal for sale. His hands, she noticed, were crowned by long, pointed fingernails.

"I am going to trade you to Hafgan, the Witch Queen," he said, releasing his hold on her.

For a moment Ethine struggled to make sense of what he'd said: Hafgan the Witch Queen, Hafgan the Hag. If mortal parents scared their children with tales of witches in the forest, fay children were scared with tales of Hafgan the Hag, the queen of witches. But Hafgan was only a legend, a storybook character. She looked at him closely, his face held no trace of humour - it was clear that Sorrow believed every word of what he said. And fay couldn't lie. But if she was real... 

"No," she hissed, suddenly frightened again. "You can't!" 

"I assure you that I can," he said, smiling. "In fact, I think you'll find that there is very little that I can't do to you."

As if to prove his point his hand slid onto her blouse - his thumb slipping into the gap between the buttons on the front, stroking her nipple beneath the fabric.

"Stop it," she said, flinching away from him - prompting the guards to twist her arms painfully, wrenching them up behind her back - making her gasp in pain - holding her still. 

After a while her nipple hardened involuntarily, her body's automatic reaction a million miles from her mind's fear and loathing.

"Yes, good. Excellent," he said at last, apparently satisfied with her body's reaction. Then to Thorn: "Ensure that Memory records her name."

With that he turned away from her as if he had entirely forgotten that she had ever existed, his hand taking up the pen he had set down on being disturbed.

She was dragged quickly from the room - the guards gripping her almost as eager to be out of his presence as she was, she thought. Still held helplessly between them she was forced back along the corridor - back into the less salubrious part of the Court - only a short distance this time before she was thrust into a further chamber. This one was lit with more torches - the orange light flickering off the low ceiling, strange apparatus hung about its walls and placed about the floor. 

It was clear that this was the torture chamber to which the other prisoners had been brought. The atmosphere was too warm, stuffy, and the room itself seemed to exude an oppressive, sickening feeling like a miasma - as if the memory of the horror, of the pain experienced by past visitors had somehow impressed itself into the very stones. Her stomach churned, her skin tingling - icy fingers running up her spine.

The words of the fay knight - her fay knight - returned to her.

Stay safe, stay alive - whatever happens, whatever you have to do - just stay alive.

It was little enough, no more than a crumb of comfort, but she clung to it like a drowning man to a float. She could do this. She would survive. He would come for her, he'd promised. She just had to endure as the other prisoners had done. 

She turned about in the middle of the chamber, rubbing her arms where the guards had hurt her.

"Welcome, welcome," said a new voice, a fox faced man dressed in a tweed jacket and waistcoat appearing from the shadows. "I'm Memory." He bowed slightly. "Now, don't worry I'll not be hurting you...I'm just here to record your name when you give it, which you will I'm certain. Not many choose death these days." He chuckled slightly at that.

She backed away from him looking about for an escape route. Thorn and his two friends had positioned themselves near the door, blocking what she guessed was the only exit. The room wasn't big enough to conceal any other exits but she couldn't help looking. Memory had taken a seat near the wall, scratching his ear, all the while watching her.

"Don't worry, Tinklethwaite will be along shortly," he said. Then, when she didn't react: "It's a joke, you see. His name, Tinklethwaite. He's a torturer but he has the silliest name, do you see?"

Somehow Ethine failed to see the humour. 

She searched the walls - there were plenty of unpleasant looking instruments hanging within reach, maybe she could grab one and force her way free? She glanced over at Thorn to see him smiling at her knowingly - obviously hoping that she would do just that. She sighed and crossed her arms over her thin shirt. Perhaps waiting was the worst part.

Moments later the door opened and Thorn and his friends moved aside to let a small goblin with yellow skin into the room, shutting the door again after him. Tinklethwaite, she presumed. He looked her over from the door and she noticed that the left side of his face was disfigured, burnt - his left eye milky white to the right's glinting black.

"What do you think, Mister Tinklethwaite?" said Memory after a moment. "The whip first?"

"Mm. Maybe, just to soften her up. She's a pretty one - I think the pear."

"Ah. I haven't seen the pear used for a while." Memory turned to speak to her. "You are privileged."

She glared at him. "Whatever you do, I'll not forget you," she said, but her words sounded hollow even to her. Memory chuckled softly. 

Maybe waiting wasn't going to be the worst part after all.

Tinklethwaite moved around the room with familiar competence, picking up items, setting them down. He lifted a finely crafted metal object worked in silver - exactly like a narrow pear mounted on a screw, she thought. For a while he examined it, turning the screw in its base so that the object's thick end opened up like a flower blooming. Ethine shivered, unable to tear her eyes from the thing but unable to fathom its use. 

Apparently satisfied he set it down, moving to a chain hanging near the wall, unhitching it from a peg. With small, clawed hands he tugged on it, rolling it over a pulley on the roof with a rattling sound. Gradually a pair of leather coated manacles dropped from the ceiling to the centre of the room.

"Okay, put your wrists in here," he said, his voice coarse, sibilant, as if the injury to his face had affected his voice too. He held the harness up for her, the twin cuffs gaping open.

"Are you mad? I'm not putting my hands in there," she said, backing away, her heart pounding in sudden fear.

Tinklethwaite gestured and the fay in the bright yellow suit walked quickly into the room.

"Do as your told, bitch!" he said, punching her hard in the stomach. Her breath exploded from her body in one mad rush. She dropped to her knees, gasping in pain, her vision swimming. He grabbed her hair, pulling her head back so he could stare into her face. "It'll be easier in the end."

Before she could get her breath back enough to speak, let alone struggle, he and the red-suited fay had taken her hands and dragged her to her feet. They held her steady while Tinklethwaite tightened the manacles around her wrists. Then the chain was pulled and the cuffs rose so that she was pulled up onto her tiptoes, whimpering slightly in fear.

Tinklethwaite pulled a long whip, like a lengthy riding crop, from the wall flexing it slightly. Dissatisfied he dipped it into a bucket of water, feeling it until he was satisfied that it had reached the correct state. Ethine spun helplessly in space, before him, her feet only just in contact with the floor, her long toes struggling for purchase. When he was ready Tinklethwaite approached her, steadying her slightly to stop her swaying. With leathery hands he started to unbutton her shirt from the bottom up. 

Ethine recoiled, trying to swing away from him, his hands gripping her shirt. "No, don't! Get off me!" she shouted, her toes scrabbling for purchase.

"Hm. I'm trying to..." he started.

She kicked him with all her strength, her small bare foot striking into his soft gut. He grunted loudly and she felt a certain pleasure when he crumpled to the floor, obviously winded.

It was short lived. 

Yellow-suit punched her again, his fist slamming into her lower back so that she mewled in pain - black spots dancing in front of her eyes, the room fading at the edges. She tasted vomit and blood - coughing on the sour taste, spitting it onto the floor, gasping for breath.

For a while she hung there, her chest heaving, spitting blood and vomit from her mouth. Yellow-suit ripped her shirt open, his eyes flashing, sending the buttons springing about the room and leaving her naked chest - her small, flat breasts with their pink nipples, exposed.

Tinklethwaite approached her again, a little warily this time, though she hadn't recovered enough from the last blow to do anything but gasp for breath and dribble. He pressed his ear to her chest, listening to her heartbeat. Apparently satisfied he picked up his whip once more, his black eye glinting with real malice.

Ethine whimpered slightly.

The whip whirred through the air as he swung it, the blow landing across her back like a streak of fire slicing into her flesh. She gasped with the pain, hissing through her teeth.

"Now, we need to know your true name," Tinklethwaite said, his voice harsh. "I'm going to continue to hurt you until you tell us what it is."

The whip sliced into her bare thigh, drawing a thin scream from her, her eyes filling with tears. She twisted helplessly in the harness, unable to see where the next blow would land.

"When you tell us what your true name is, I will stop hurting you."

Across her exposed stomach, cracking with fearsome force. She really screamed this time, an anguished sound torn unwillingly from her.

"Once we have your name we will test you...make sure that you've told us the truth."

Cracking across her back, screaming with pain - the shock making her whole body shudder - she tasted more blood, oozing from her lip. Had she bitten it?

"After that, we'll let you go back to your friends."

Slicing into her calf, drawing blood, the pain indescribable - burning, cutting, shivering through her.

In the end it was his presence, her knight-errant, that made the difference. If she hadn't believed that someone was coming for her she would have given in, would have told them her true name. Even as she had been hung from the manacles, she had known what she had to do. It was simple really, she had to hold out long enough to convince them that she had been broken, that their pain had taken her spirit - then she had to tell them a name, any name. 

After that, she knew, would come the tricky part - the test. But she knew to steel herself, to show no feeling, to obey without question.

When they had whipped her, she had endured - screaming as if her lungs would burst, the pain like fire slicing into her skin, her whole body sweating, and thrashing, blood running along her skin. Then, when they had held her down - forced her open, forcing that evil contraption between her legs - she had endured. Had endured the feeling of it opening inside her - the pain beyond any description - all the while focusing on his presence, the hope he represented, believing in him as she had never believed in herself. 

Finally she had told them a name - had screamed it in their faces - her abused body sobbing, gasping, sweating in pain such as she'd never imagined existed. It had satisfied them, the pain had stopped but not the ordeal.

As they let her up, gasping and sobbing weakly, her body shuddering as the pain receded, she had remembered her brother's words when he had described the Unseelie Court - they wish that you be made of ice. That was what she wished for when they tested her - deliberately degraded her - forcing her by the power of her false name to do things she would - no, could never have done willingly. Made of ice. She wished she was made of ice. 

But it was more than that. She believed in something now, something imminent. Someone had searched for her - had promised that he would come for her. Promised, with his words and with his soft, gentle eyes. She would endure. She could be ice if that was what it took. Ice.

Finally they had been satisfied at her subjugation, her humiliation and had dragged her back to the cage - dumping her semi-naked amongst the other prisoners. She had crawled straight to the toilet, whimpering, vomiting - spitting the taste of them from her mouth as she could never spit the memory. She felt Turiel holding her and she leaned into her, sobbing, the pixie's hand stroking her hair.

"Don't worry, he'll come for you," she whispered. "You can leave all this, get away...hold onto that, just hold onto that."

And, crying in the dark, Ethine had nodded, her mouth thick with the taste of vomit and blood and semen - knowing that she wasn't worth it, not now, not ever.

****** The knight hammered on the door. 

Gilraen groaned rolling over on the bed, his head hanging off the side where Calan had dumped him. Calan lay on the floor, his feet splayed near the door.

"Come on, get up. Thorn wants to see you."

Somehow the two of them managed to drag themselves upright, Gilraen looking a touch green, swaying a little on his feet. Calan less unsure of his feet but contriving to look a little bleary eyed. He had expected this summons, had kept his wits about him in expectation. A faerie cannot lie, but Calan was past master at bending the truth. He was going to need it, he felt.




Ethine Ch. 02



Thorn was sat on a sofa in the main hall, his signature vanilla suit glamoured to look pressed and fresh. About him were a number, perhaps a half-dozen, of Sorrow's boys, all in matching black business suits, white shirts, black ties - like extras from a movie, Calan thought. Reservoir Dogs, perhaps.

He and Gilraen staggered up, making a reasonable fist of looking like two drunken revellers up too early for work, Calan ran his hands through his hair.

"My Lord," Calan said. "You wanted to see us?"

"Yes. I seem to recall telling you yesterday not to go wandering about," he said calmly. "Yet this morning I hear that both of you were in the prison. I want to know why."

Gilraen shrugged. "We had too much to drink, I can't remember anything. Calan must have got me home..."

"Yes, the barkeeper said that Calan had to carry you away from the bar," he interrupted. "Calan, then, perhaps you'd like to explain, how did you end up in the prison?"

"This place is new to me, it's all wood and dim lights and faeries. I drank some really good bloodwine yesterday, which didn't help my sense of direction," he said, slowly, picking over his words as if still drunk. "I didn't even know you guys had a prison, I just tried a door and went along a corridor - I didn't know where I was going."

Thorn looked at him.

"I remember there was some hob with a whip, he helped me find my way back," he said. "Ask him."

"I did," Thorn said. "He supports your story, said you stank like a drunk and fell over."

For a while silence stretched. Gilraen fidgeted.

"Okay. I accept that you were drunk and lost last night," Thorn said, finally. "I won't accept that excuse in future. Tomorrow night we will be meeting with someone important, I want all the knights sober and able for that event - is that too much to ask?"

Thorn waited until they had both assented before continuing.

"Right, in the meantime I have a job for you two," he said. "Ironside. I was going to send some of the muscle, but since you two love wandering so much, you can go instead."

******

Ethine lay back on her rug, she had established that each of the fay had given up their true names, she had been the last. That had to mean something, she thought. But what?

"Guard's changed again," whispered Athinas the Troll, sitting near the cage door.

For some reason the arrival of her knight-errant had propelled Ethine into the role of unofficial leader and, at the suggestion of one of the other fay, she had organised it so that the prisoners observed the guards now, marking how many patrols they did before they changed, scratching the knowledge in the earth of the floor. She had no idea if it would help in any way, but it was better than sitting in silence, nursing despair.

The other fay had stitched her shirt back together again, patching the ruined fabric using threads picked from their own clothes, a splinter from the cage walls as a needle. It was remarkably fine work. "Ethine, your knight," Athinas whispered.

Ethine jumped, her heart lurching. Wincing slightly in pain from her wounds, she hurried across to the the door of the cage, dropping down into the shadows. 

She saw him in the mouth of the corridor, crouched in the darkness. He watched the movements of the guard, the ogre this time, moving about the cage, waited until he had begun to pass down the long corridor away from the cage and dashed on silent feet over to her, slipping once more into the shadows.

"Ethine," he said, his eyes widening at the sight of her body criss-crossed with red weals, the marks of the whip. His face twisted - anger warring with anguish. "What happened to you? What did they do to you?"

For some reason his earnest concern made her tearful even as she felt herself smile. She rubbed at her eyes

"It's okay, I'm okay - they hurt me, they were trying to get my true name," she said, her breath catching at the memory.

He looked horrified. "Have they? Did you?"

"No. No...I didn't give in," she said, feeling strangely bashful, her eyes dropping to the floor, the feeling too raw to disguise. Suddenly, kneeling in the shadows before him, her mind still filled with memories of what they'd made her do, what they'd done to her, she was seized with a desire to explain, for someone to understand, for him to understand. "I...I kept thinking of you coming for me...I gave them a false name."

She felt his finger on her chin, lifting her head gently to meet his soft, green eyes. There was something new there, shining in his eyes - admiration, respect - and she felt herself tingle in response.

"You're amazing," he said, unguarded. 

The memory of what she'd done, what they'd made her do, flooded back, a wave of self-loathing sweeping over her.

"No. No, I'm not...I did things," she felt the tears come again, trickling down her cheeks, "they made me do things..."

"Shh," he whispered, his finger touching her lips delicately. "I don't need to know, I don't care. You did what I asked, what you had to do to survive - nothing more." 

When she lifted her eyes he was looking at her - his face concerned, his eyes understanding. Tentatively, almost nervously, she reached out to touch his hand, her fingers slipping between his, her heart beating like a hammer. 

"Thank you." She was blushing. Actually blushing. "I don't know your name, what shall I call you?"

"Calan," he said, smiling at her - a smile that seemed to warm her from the inside out. "Here, I want you to take this. I don't know what use it will be, but if they don't expect you to have freewill it may be all the difference." He slipped a small bootknife into the cage, the blade no longer that her thumb but razor sharp. She picked it up, sliding it into the seam of her mended shirt.

"Look, I have a feeling that whatever is planned is going to happen tomorrow night," he said, quietly, but she held up a hand to stop him before he could continue. 

"I spoke to Sorrow, I know what he's doing," she whispered. "He's going to trade us to Hafgan the Hag, something about obtaining the services of some knights."

Calan nodded, his eyes widening with renewed respect. "That's what I feared," he said. "I'll try to get you out before that - but if not I'll be near, count on it. I won't leave you here."

"Guard's coming, lovebirds," a voice whispered in the dark.

Before she could react she felt Calan's hand on the back of her neck. She looked up, startled, and his lips were pressed to hers - warm, soft - kissing her through the bars. Moments later he was gone into the dark, hiding before the guard returned. She blinked, her lips still tingling at the touch.

******

Calan rang the buzzer, standing in the covered lobby of the decaying apartment block.

"Calan, what are we doing here?" Gilraen said.

"I told you, I need to speak with some old friends."

With a croak the electronic intercom sparked into life, Terror's voice rumbling through.

"Hey, Terror, it's Calan, open up."

There was a momentary pause then the door buzzed and the lobby was open.

Gilraen shrugged, entering past Calan's inviting arm, the door held open. Earlier in the day he'd stood by as Calan had done the work he was supposed to be doing - intimidating an exiled faerie into paying his loan dues on time. If he was honest he'd been a little intimidated himself - making him wonder if he was really cut out for work like this: the casual brutality, the sudden violence. Since then he had trailed Calan about the city as he had visited friends in various exiles' courts, their names as weird as their traditions, their dress. On each occasion he'd been excluded from the discussions - he knew something was up, but every time he'd tried to work out what was going on he was hushed with promises of later explanations.

Now he found himself in yet another apartment block, Calan leading the way, no closer to an explanation and, increasingly, the obviously junior partner in their relationship. Calan was already halfway up the first stairwell, avoiding the graffiti marked lift with its oppressive stink of iron, before Gilraen thought to follow.

"Come on, Gil, these are good friends - don't you want to know what's going on?"

Gilraen sighed, struggling to keep up with an energised and somewhat hyperactive Calan. After three floors he left the stairwell, kicking the adjoining door with its cracked glass pane open to enter a barren concrete corridor, its walls and floors marked with court graffiti. The window at the far end of the corridor was smashed, a few jagged pieces of glass still protruding from the frame, and, with the stair door open, the wind whistled along its length chilling Gilraen in his identikit business suit. 

As he entered the corridor Calan was greeting an ogre at the door to one of the apartments, touching fists in what he now recognised as a form of handshake amongst the exiles. Clutching his suit close about his neck, he wandered over, feeling more than a little self-conscious. On this occasion, unlike the others, he found himself being introduced.

"Terror, this is my friend Gilraen," Calan said, pointing to him. "Gilraen, my brother in arms - Terror."

Gilraen nodded, too embarrassed to risk being rebuffed if he tried to touch fists as Calan had done. Terror chuckled, a sound like stones tumbling together.

"Any friend of Calan's is a friend of mine," he said, bowing a little, still chuckling so Gilraen didn't know what was genuine and what was humour at his expense.

"Uh, thanks," he said at last.

The apartment was an absolute dump - no item of furniture spared from the advancing neglect. Tentatively Gilraen perched himself on the edge of the sofa, a hobgoblin emerging from the kitchen with a dirty glass containing some kind of fruit cordial. 

"Here," he said, drink this, "it's good."

"Monster - Gilraen, Gil - Monster," Calan added, taking his own drink.

"Pleased ta meetcha."

"Uh, likewise, uh, Monster."

"So, Calan, what's this all about?" Terror said, squeezing back into his chair. Monster flopped down next to Gilraen, leaning forward attentively.

"Okay. Gil, you're going to hear some stuff now, stuff you may not like," he said. "At the end of this I will ask you to join me but, if you don't feel you can do that, I won't hold it against you if you refuse. Just hear me out first, okay?"

"Sure, Calan." He already had a sinking idea that he wasn't going to like this.

"Terror, I found Ethine. You were right, Sorrow has her," he said, his voice unconsciously tender, "Her and a load of other fay. I also know that Sorrow is planning to trade them to the Hag. Thorn let slip today that they're meeting someone important tomorrow night. The two may not be linked, but I think they are."

"He's playing a dangerous game then," Terror said, voice rumbling. "The Witch Queen is not someone to lightly take into your confidence."

"More to the point, if he completes this trade it's bad news for you and yours - the exiles are going to be the target of whatever he's got planned."

Terror nodded. "Go on," he said.

"I spent most of today visiting the old courts, sounding out the territory. The Court of Glass are in, the Eastside Court and Bloodmoon Court likewise. Some of the others a little more tentative, though all are agreed about the danger."

Terror nodded thoughtfully.

"I need you, Terror. They won't deal without you."

For a long moment silence crawled through the room. Terror obviously thinking things through, his fingers idly scratching at his beard.

"She mean that much to you, eh?" Terror said. "You'd start a war to get her back?"

Calan nodded. "I gave her my word, Terror. You always told me nothing was more important than that."

"I suppose I did at that. Monster?"

Gilraen felt the hobgoblin shift next to him. "It seems to me that sooner or later we're gonna have to fight Sorrow. Might as well be sooner, before he gets any stronger."

"Okay," Terror said, slowly. "I'm in. I'll organise the courts for you, what's the plan?"

Calan turned to face Gilraen. "This is the point at which I ask you whether you're with me or against me," he said. "You've heard what I said. I won't let him give Ethine to the Hag. I mean to rescue her, and the other fay, before that happens. I have the ghost of a plan but before I discuss it..."

Gilraen stared quietly, thoughtful. Calan looked earnest, his face open, Terror was unreadable, his ogre's visage twisted but passive. He didn't even look at Monster, he could sense the tension without looking around.

"Sorrow's Court is the only home I've known... I was born into exile. Thorn took me in..."

He felt Monster shift next to him, saw Calan's head drop.

"Look. I don't think that what Sorrow is doing is right, and I know this Ethine means a lot to you. I won't hinder you, or interrupt your plans, but I can't help you... Do you understand?"

For a long moment the silence crawled, tension strung like a bow across the room. At last he saw Calan shake his head. For a second the gesture appeared meaningless then he realised that it was intended for Monster not him. He recoiled from the sofa, spun about in time to see the hobgoblin slip a cruelly curved silver blade back into its sheath. His body felt suddenly weak - he'd been that close to death and not realised it! He really wasn't cut out for this.

"Sit down, Gil," Calan said. "We're not going to hurt you. Just a precaution, okay?"

Gilraen nodded. "Calan, you bastard, you scared me half to death!" his voice was shaky, adrenaline making his legs rubbery.

"Look, in a minute I want to discuss preparations with Terror and Monster. I accept your offer, but I will have to ask you to wait outside while we plan...the less you know, the less you can give away, right?"

Gilraen nodded. "Sure, Calan."

So it was that for forty minutes he huddled on the draughty corridor while Calan made what plans he could. Through the broken window he could see the city skyline stretching away, the first lights of evening turning it into a fairground of colours. 

This was what Thorn had told him might happen, that Calan might well not be loyal. Not like him, he was a good little soldier, right? 

******

Surrounded by sagging damp plaster, mould and broken glass, Thorn looked out of the corner window of the upper storey of the Palace of the Bronx, watching the sun set behind the Empire State Building, the towers and lights of the city opposite. It was a magnificent, rousing sight but he couldn't shake his nervousness at the coming meet. He knew that Sorrow and the Witch Queen had been in contact, had agreed terms - but giving her any kind of toehold in their operations seemed like a high risk strategy to him.

They'd forged what they had alone. First it was Sorrow, making his court the most ruthless, the most feared of the exiles' courts - coming to dominate the Bronx, taking the money from the protection rackets, the prostitution, the drugs trade amongst the exiles. That had attracted Memory, turning a gang into a proper court, a business - increasing profits, driving down expenses. He it had been who had acquired the Andrew Freedman Home from the city, a weeping financial sore they'd been glad to lose. And lastly it had been Thorn - taking the gang's feared soldiers and uniting them into a truly effective fighting force, knights such as any Court should have. 

With better organisation and better fighting strength, Sorrow's influence had moved into Brooklyn and now they were shouldering into Queens - forcing the other courts to pay tribute or be annihilated. Now this.

He heard a polite cough behind him, turned to find one of his knights hovering in a grey pinstripe.

"My Lord, Lord Sorrow would like to see you."

He allowed the messenger to lead, taking him back into the basement of the building, the place where the mortal world and Faerie came together. The transition was impossible to feel, impossible to limit - you were either in Faerie or you were not - sometimes you could even be in one then the other yet remain unmoving, if you occupied an area close to the border. Thorn had no doubt Sorrow's office was in Faerie. 

Thorn knocked, was summoned.

"My Lord, you called for me?"

Sorrow looked up, his eyes cold.

"Yes. Is all in readiness?"

"It is. The knights stand by for your word. The prisoners are ready, all we await is your pleasure."

Sorrow nodded slowly.

"Good, Thorn. Good. And the traitor?"

"Will be taken care of shortly, My Lord."

"Excellent. Nothing can be allowed to interfere with our victory, old friend, nothing. Go now, choose me a prisoner - I want a sample to take with me, to show the quality of our goods."

As he spoke he stood, picking up a large leather bound book in one hand, his fell-sword in the other. Thorn felt himself flinch involuntarily away from the cursed thing, saw Sorrow smile slightly at his discomfort.

"I have already chosen just the one, Lord," Thorn said. 

Sorrow nodded. "Fine. Go then, I shall meet you in the hall."

******

"Thorn's coming," hissed a voice in the dark.

The prisoners recoiled into the darkest corners of the cage, drawing back from his gaze. Ethine and Turiel huddled together, watching him approach, four knights standing escort, the two in red and yellow and two others in more familiar dark suits.

Ethine had shared Calan's knowledge, his intentions with the other prisoners. They knew that this was the night that he intended to rescue them - as a result the cage was alive with tension, the prisoners reading every change, every alteration to their routine as a sign of the imminence or failure of Calan's plan. Strangely, the same tension seemed to have infected the guards, they were patrolling more than before and seemed more attentive, more vigilant - something that had sparked frightened debate amongst the prisoners. For a while they had consumed themselves in maudlin conjecture - what if Calan had been caught? What if Sorrow moved them before the rescue? - but Ethine had ended it, her own faith in Calan so complete that it had stifled all thoughts of failure. For a time.

Thorn approached the cage, a scrap of paper in his hand.

"Elan Ethine Era." He read from it. Her false name, she realised. "Step forward," he commanded.

She didn't hesitate for fear of giving the game away, but her heart quailed as she walked to the door. 

"Elan Ethine Era by the power of your true name I order you never to harm me or another knight in this court, or yourself unless I command it," he said. "Furthermore, you are to obey me immediately and absolutely."

Ethine stood as still as stone, behind her she heard the prisoners hissing in shock and fear.

"Well my little plaything, it seems that we are going on a trip," he said, his voice smug. "But first, I have a nice surprise for you."

He grabbed her hair painfully, twisting it in his grip, making her whimper. Gripping it tightly he dragged her out of the cage and along the corridor, pulling so hard by her hair that she felt tears in her eyes, the pain making her wince. Around her the four knights formed a wedge.

******

Calan picked up his sabre, casting a last glance along its razor sharp length. Satisfied, he sheathed it, slung it over his shoulder, copying the fashion of the other knights around him. Having surrendered his bootknife to Ethine he had taped a switchblade to his ankle with duck tape, a last ditch weapon. Not for the first time he glanced over at Gilraen - since returning they had barely spoken two words to one another, whenever their eyes met Gilraen looked distinctly uncomfortable. Not a good sign, Calan thought.

At least the waiting appeared to be over. It had become oppressive sitting around all day long - never mind that he wanted to go to Ethine, to talk to her, reassure her, oversee her safe rescue. He checked the clock on the wall - not long now. 




Ethine Ch. 02



Together with a quiet, thoughtful Gilraen he made his way to the hall, settling by the bar with a fruit cordial. Around the hall he counted nearly thirty knights, practically Sorrow's entire complement. He had other soldiers, of course, various hobgoblins, ogres, trolls, hobs and the like. But only gentry became knights and it was only the gentry here tonight, the others given the duties that the knights couldn't cover tonight - some on the perimeter, others in the city. 

Reluctantly he had to admit that Sorrow's boys were an effective looking crew, there was a cold professionalism about them that wouldn't have looked out of place amongst the Seelie or Unseelie Courts. For the first time he had serious doubts that his plan would work.

As he'd expected he'd not been asked to join the troop protecting Sorrow, that duty was being reserved for more highly regarded knights - felt like that was becoming a real theme in his life. Like the other un-chosen knights he had been instructed to guard the house and, if necessary, be prepared to act on instructions. In effect this meant pulling a couple of roving guard duties, then loitering about the hall waiting to help if needed. He fingered the cellphone in his pocket, holding it burnt his fingers and even having it in his pocket was uncomfortable, but his entire plan depended on its use. 

"Would you have killed me?" Gilraen asked.

"What?"

"Back in the apartment, would you have killed me?"

Calan looked at him, he looked decidedly green.

"No, Gil, I wouldn't. Monster thought it might be necessary, he was out of order."

If anything Gilraen looked worse than ever. Sudden suspicion kindled in Calan's heart.

"Gil, what have you done?" he said, standing.

"Calan, I didn't... I never..." he looked stricken. "I'm sorry."

He felt people behind him, heard footsteps approaching. Knew what he would see before he turned around.

"I told you I didn't trust you, didn't I?" Thorn said.

Calan turned. There were four of them, two wearing brightly coloured business suits - yellow and red - with matching shirts and ties, two in regulation pinstripe, but that wasn't what stopped him. Behind them Thorn held a petrified Ethine by her hair, her head twisted back exposing her long, white neck. In Thorn's other hand he held a naked sabre, the threat too obvious to state.

Calan sighed, dropping his sabre to the floor. He saw Ethine flinch at the sound, tears trickling along her cheeks.

It'll be okay, he wanted to say. To mumble some small words of comfort to her, to make the pain, the despair in her eyes go away. But he was fay, he couldn't lie.

"I don't think we'll be meeting again, Calan," Thorn said. "Nor do I think you'll be having a nice day or faring well, so I shall wish neither of those upon you. In fact there is only one thing I can say to you that seems appropriate - die well."

"If I survive this, Thorn, I'll wish you the same, I promise you that."

Thorn laughed. "Forgive me if I don't start shaking in fear."

With Ethine threatened he was afraid to defend himself, forcing himself to stand passive as yellow suit punched him in the gut with pile driver force, dropping him helplessly to his hands and knees with a sickening grunt of exhaled breath. He wasn't given time to recover. As one they started kicking him, stamping down so that it was all he could do to crawl into a ball, covering his head with his hands as they pounded on his defenceless body.

He heard himself groaning, gasping with pain, heard something crack - a rib? - the sound of heavy breathing, aggressive comments mumbled under their breath as they kicked him and, worst of all, away in the distance, the sound of Ethine screaming. 

Eventually everything went black.

******

Terror crouched in the dark shadows of Mulayly Park, watching the moon rise slowly into the sky. Calan was late. 

Around him a gentle susurration of conversation continued, the gathered exiles crouching low in the shadows, moonlight glinting gently from weapons, jewellery, clothing. It was only the second time that he had seen so many exiles in one place, the soldiers of a dozen 'courts' come together in one place. The last time was for Roiben, for his offer of sanctuary. This time it was for a baser motive - self-preservation. 

They were an eclectic bunch. Trolls with meat-cleavers and baseball bats, goblins with jagged daggers of glass, hobs with razor studded bicycle chains and spiked knuckle-dusters, gentry with gently curving sabres, dozens of them, from courts all through the city.

The exiles were already frightened of Sorrow, the thought of his ambitions bringing him directly into the city had them really scared. When Calan had offered them the chance to strike back, to strike a deadly blow in Sorrow's own Court they had seized it like drowning men - uniting again under Terror's honest-broker leadership with bloody vengeance on their minds.

Before them lay the back entrance to Sorrow's court, the rotting stump of an old tree, partially hidden beneath fallen leaves. They couldn't see the actual building itself through the trees, behind the buildings, the raised railway and roads in-between - but its presence seemed immediate, nevertheless, as if it radiated influence as a coal gave off heat: the palace of the Bronx.

Soon. Soon, thought Terror, his eye on the cellphone set on the stump before him. 

******

Ethine watched them beat Calan to death - a pitiful, wailing scream burning her throat, tears flooding down her cheeks - held helpless in Thorn's cruel grasp. After he stopped moving, Thorn lost interest, dragging her by her hair over to the low dais set in the middle of the floor, thrusting her down onto a chair beneath the spreading limbs of the tree.

She sobbed pitifully, struggling to breathe - the knowledge of losing Calan leaving her utterly bereft, lost. Her hand drifted to her blouse, Calan's knife was still in place. Perhaps she could kill Thorn, she thought, kill him before they killed her.

Through her tears she saw the yellow and red knights moving the rest of the furniture out of the way, the chairs, a table - clearing a space in the centre before a seat cut into the tree. She watched as two other knights carried a large free-standing mirror with an ebony frame to the dais. They were holding it gingerly as if it were a dangerous animal that might turn on them at any moment. With exaggerated care they set it on the dais in the centre of the cleared area, scuttling back from it as soon as it was steady.

Ethine noticed that the glass was black, a sinister aura clinging to it like a bad smell. As she stared at it she had the sense that something else was staring back - something infinitely cruel, infinitely evil. Hurriedly she looked away.

A short time later she saw Sorrow enter the hall, coming through the door to the prison, the fox-faced Memory following close behind holding a large leather bound book - the book with the names in it, she now knew. The two of them mounted the low dais, followed by a group of knights - about ten in total, she thought. 

Sorrow approached the mirror, showing none of the horror or trepidation that his knights had shown. He ran his hands around the frame, caressing it almost. Standing next to her she felt Thorn tense, obviously uncomfortable.

For a time Sorrow peered into the mirror, his hand resting delicately on its glossy surface, then something changed. Ethine gasped - slowly, imperceptibly at first, the glass was going dull, its glossy shine replaced by a swirling opaque mist. It appeared first at the point touched by Sorrow then spread slowly like smoke across the whole glass, twisting as if blown by some unnatural wind.

Sorrow smiled. "It is time." 

Thorn made a sharp gesture and the yellow knight approached the glass, reaching out to it nervously. To Ethine's surprise his hand slipped through the glass as if he touched nothing more than a bank of mist. Slowly he stepped through and disappeared.

Thorn nodded and the red knight followed him through.

A few seconds later the red knight re-appeared, stepping from the glass. "My Lord, all is clear."

Sorrow nodded, the red knight stepping back through the glass, followed by the black suited troop of ten, their sabres drawn. Thorn grabbed her hair once again, pulling her to her feet and propelling her toward the glass.

For a second he stood before it, staring into its swirling depths, then with a brutal shove he pushed her through. Despite what she'd seen she flinched slightly as she reached the glass, her body unconsciously bracing for impact. The mist gave way around her. It wasn't completely insusbstantial. More like water, she thought - parting drily around her body as she passed through. She felt a momentary chill, raising goosebumps on her skin, then she stepped out onto a clearing at the entrance to a wide gully.

It was night, full dark, the only light coming from the full moon risen above them, painting everything monochrome - the shadows deep where its light didn't penetrate. Before her, at the far side of the clearing, the gully stretched away into the distance - resembling the overgrown remnant of an old railway cutting, though Ethine knew that no line had ever marked its path. Along its side and around the clearing trees growing thickly above them. There was no wind, no cloud - the stars intensely bright overhead - a smell like damp, like vegetation. Other than the noises made by their small group it was absolutely quiet - unnaturally so, she thought.

Thorn stepped through right behind her, taking her arm and pushing her to one side. Sorrow and Memory were the last through, stepping from the glass behind them. 

The knights spread out in a circle about them, forming a boundary. Thorn and the red and yellow knights remained close to Sorrow and Memory - and her, she thought. From this side, she noticed, the glass didn't look exactly as it did from the other - on this side it was no more than a freestanding block of mist.

For a while there was nothing. The knights looking about curiously, Sorrow and Memory conferring in quiet tones. Thorn was gripping her arm so tightly he was cutting off the circulation to her hand. Then, faintly at first, she heard the sound of something in the distance; in the distance but coming closer. Over the oppressive silence of the gully a high pitched wailing noise rose - discordant, unpleasant, but becoming clearer with every passing second. As the sound grew louder it was clear that the others heard it too, conversation stilling, silence falling on the group. Thorn gripped her arm harder than ever, making her wince with the pain - but he was paying no attention to her. 

From the far end of the gully she saw movement, slow, measured, gradual but inexorable, a wall of mist was approaching - rolling over the ground, filling the gully completely from side to side so that it seemed as if the gully itself was being consumed by the roiling cloud. Above, the moon was still bright, its light illuminating the approaching cloud so that it seemed to glow with a strange sepulchral light. The sounds, more recognisable now as a strange, lilting music - rich with alien melodies, emanated from within the cloud. To Ethine there was something sinister about its slow, measured progress - something that made her horribly reluctant to enter its borders.

Clearly feeling as she did, the knights on the perimeter began to unconsciously draw together - reducing the circle - but so transfixed by the approaching scene were they that nobody seemed to notice.

A cold wall of damp air reached them first, sweeping over them as the mist began to drift about them. Small tendrils at first, washing coldly about their feet, drifting lightly between them, touching them with a chill dampness. Seemingly in no time, yet without perceptible haste, the cloud thickened, about them - becoming so thick that they struggled to see even as far as the knights forming the perimeter.

Worse, peering into the thickening mist, Ethine was certain she could see figures moving about - horrible, hunched things, their shapes hidden and distorted by the thick fog. She huddled back against Thorn, moving to ensure that she could see the portal still, her hand gripping Calan's knife through the fabric of her shirt.

Very quickly the mist shrouded them completely, blinding them even to their neighbour's presence. The knights started calling to one another, voices nervous, moving closer together, closing the circle until they were all stood practically shoulder to shoulder, huddled like a knot about the almost invisible looking glass.

And, unnoticed in the swirling maelstrom, the Hag's Court had arrived.



Ethine Ch. 03



Cold, freezing water, shocking him awake to a world of pain. His whole body throbbed with agony, every breath its own individual torment. He coughed, fire lancing through his side, awareness creeping back from the faded edges of his recall.

Ethine! 

Adrenaline spiked through him, he remembered the sound of her screaming. It jerked him fully awake, the pain receding as his body struggled to ready itself to fight. Where was Ethine? His eyes opened, tried to sit up, failed.

The room about him was dimly lit, overly warm. A low brick roof hidden above in shadows, he could sense heat coming from a large brazier not far from his head. He was tied to some kind of bed, or cot, his wrists above his head, his ankles stretched below him. He was naked.

A leering face loomed above him - a goblin with sallow skin, one side of his head covered with puckered scar tissue, one eye obviously useless. "Ahh, you're awake, good," Tinklethwaite said. "I know Sorrow asked for some special treatment for you."

Near a door below his feet Calan could see a couple of suited knights loitering in the shadows, not paying much attention to either him or the goblin. He ran his tongue around the inside of his mouth, tasted blood, the sour flavour of vomit, bile.

The goblin leaned over him, pressing the side of his head to his naked chest, obviously listening.

"Hmm. Remarkable. Your heart beat is strong, even after the beating you've had - I imagine you're quite something in a fight, eh?"

Calan smiled, spitting a mouthful of blood and vomit into his face. "Let me out and I'll show you - cut your other little eye out you capering little fuck," he said, coughing.

Tinklethwaite wiped his face clean with a rag. "I don't think so," he said. "Let's see how you feel when I dislocate your shoulders, shall we?"

With that he moved to a large wheel set into the side of the cot, turning it slowly with a ratcheting sound, its progress a series of clicks. Calan felt the ropes on his wrists and ankles pull taut, taking the slack, pulling him rigid.

"You'll like this," Tinklethwaite said, speaking as if to a favoured student, "as I turn this wheel the ropes get tighter, you get longer. Eventually you'll hear some loud popping sounds, that will be your cartilage breaking as your joints separate."

The wheel ratcheted onward. Calan felt himself pulled from both ends - pain creeping into his wrists, his ankles, his shoulders and knees.

"Eventually your joints will separate completely so that they are absolutely useless to you. But, long before we get there, your muscles will all be torn," he continued.

The wheel turned again.

His body was on fire, the pain from the beating receding as a new pain was heaped onto it - burning pain across his joints, his muscles stretching beyond their normal extreme. He felt himself groan - a long sigh of pain.

"Not many people realise it, but once your muscles get stretched beyond a certain point - they can't recover, they stay stretched, useless. So even if you survive my little toy, you'll probably never walk, or hold a sword again."

Tinklethwaite chuckled softly, his little clawed hands gripping the wheel in a fond caress. He turned it again.

Calan screamed.

******

"He's late," Monster whispered, drawing away from the gathered exiles.

"I know, I know," Terror whispered. "We have to wait, he'll call...he will." 

"We're running out of time, Terror."

"Okay, I know. He'll call." Don't let me down, Calan, he thought, don't let me down.

Behind him he could sense the unease in the gathered exiles - the constant tension was getting to them all. Waiting, knowing you were going to fight but not knowing when. Before long nervous exhaustion would set in, their fighting edge would start to dissipate. Not long after that they'd start to drift away.

Come on, Calan! It has to be soon, or not at all, he thought.

******

Gilraen drank his second bloodwine. He'd done the right thing, he had. He was one of Sorrow's knights, he'd told Thorn like he was supposed to. He'd done the right thing.

So why did he feel like a heel? 

He swallowed the bitter-sweet liquid slowly. As usual he was alone, none of Sorrow's knights wanted to drink with him, he wasn't 'cool' enough for their company. Which is what made him feel so bad, perhaps. Calan was the first; no, the only knight to call him friend in as long as he could remember. And what had he done? Betrayed him. For what? So he could end up drinking bloodwine on his own again. If he fell down tonight, would any of those bastards pick him up and carry him home?

Well he knew the answer to that. It wouldn't be the first time he'd woken up on the bar floor.

He wasn't going to give them the chance, he was going home to bed while he still could. With a baleful glare in the direction of the knights gathered restlessly about the dais he stood up, picking up his own sabre from the bar. Calan's sabre was there next to it. 

For a time he looked at it, guilt suddenly choking him. Finally he picked it up, cradling it next to his own. He set off for his room, each footstep like a lead weight - his heart screaming at him to do something, anything to put things right. Maybe with more bloodwine he could drown it out.

****** 

The mist cleared slowly, first drifting back so that their small group stood at the centre of a circular clearing in the mist, then lifting back towards the gully - opening a path towards the far end. As it peeled back it revealed figures gathered about them - hunched and crooked shapes shrouded in black, each one staring toward them with hidden eyes. At first sight they appeared to be scattered almost randomly throughout the cleared area but, despite their apparently haphazard arrangement, Ethine didn't fail to notice that they still managed to be positioned so that their group was entirely surrounded. 

Above the strange scene a mad skirling of pipes drifted - the clash of cymbals and the sound of voices raised in song clearer now that the mist had drawn back - still distant at first but obviously coming closer, approaching from the edge of the gully. Gradually, as the mist drew back and the music approached, sound and perspective came together - the source of the music and the furthest point visible in the gully coalescing into a single point. Impossibly, appearing from the darkness and mist at this point was a building - a low, single-storey house apparently made of bleached wood, surrounded by a crooked fence - moving steadily along the gully towards them.

Ethine stood transfixed, Sorrow and his crew equally immobile. Preceded by a mass of dancing figures, throbbing and swaying like the tendrils of an anemone, the house worked its way towards the mouth of the gully, moving along the narrow valley as if the gully itself was giving birth to it, as if peristalsis was responsible for its impossible movement. With its approach the sound grew louder: a mad, chaotic coming together of sounds that both excited and chilled the listener, making hairs stand on end even as it made feet tap.

Closer now, the dancing figures were revealed to be satyrs and nymphs, dryads and nereids - swaying and skipping, eyes unseeing as if they moved in a trance. From this close it was also possible to see what moved the building: legs. Grafted to the bottom of the building were hundreds of legs, moving like cilia, as if a hundred people were wearing the palace about their waists. Looking at it, Ethine knew instinctively that this wasn't the case - the legs were part of the building, the flesh of some poor unfortunates somehow crafted into the fabric of the house itself. It was horrible.

The dancers were around Sorrow's crew now, the knights forming a tight knot with the glass at its centre as the faeries capered and spun just beyond the perimeter. Ethine looked again at the dancers, from this range she could see that their eyes weren't lost in the music - they were tormented, their faces tortured, desperate, damned. With sudden clarity she realised that they couldn't stop dancing - like automatons - the thought adding to her unease.

Ethine watched as the house came to a stop, settling like some massive insect on the hundreds of legs that extended below it so that it rested some four feet above the ground. Gathered around it were more of the sinister, crooked, cloaked figures - forming a barrier between Sorrow's group and the building. Ethine stared at it in horrible fascination - dotted over its bone-white surface she noticed mouths, their lips opening and closing mindlessly, eyes, limbs - the flesh of living beings fused into the structure as if it was itself a massive living being. She felt sick.

As soon as it was still the music stopped, silence falling as completely and as suddenly as death itself. Around them the capering faeries dropped to the ground with a collective groan of exhaustion and despair.

Slowly the door of the house swung open. For a moment there was nothing more than a dark hole in the surface of the repulsive house, then, slowly, Hafgan the Hag emerged. She rode on a chair made of dark, hairless flesh - four limbs propelling the hideous seat out onto the platform before the house, a massively muscled torso rising behind her so that she was overtopped by a huge ogre's head, its plate-like eyes staring about horribly. The chair's arms were exactly that - clawed and massive, the hands opening and closing spastically - its four legs the lower parts of some faerie. From this throne of the damned - wrapped head to foot in a thick, black robe, the hood puddling at her neck - Hafgan looked down at them and her gaze was utterly inhuman.

To Ethine's surprise she appeared to be a mortal - or partly mortal at least, Ethine thought. Her head was the aged head of an old woman, wrinkled and marked by age, twisted and malign - but the rest of her appeared to be a chimera of different body parts: one exposed forearm pale, elegant, the other thicker with a ruddy complexion; her neck was thicker than her shoulders; her breasts appeared to be different sizes. It was as if she had replaced her mortal body with different body parts harvested from fay, perhaps in some repugnant effort to prolong her life beyond its allotted span. 

With a feeling of overwhelming revulsion Ethine realised what Sorrow had been trading - they were spare parts! 

******

He screamed until his voice was hoarse, all the while that blasted goblin's voice wittering away as if he was making some kind of presentation. 

Calan's body felt as if it was on fire, the pain sweeping over him in waves, each worse than the last. The damned goblin leaving just enough time between turns to allow him to accommodate the new level of agony before turning it again. He couldn't stand much more before he suffered permanent damage and he knew it - already his arms felt as if his shoulders were about to tear free, his hips and knees strained to the point where he doubted he could move them even if he was freed.

"Now, let's explore the next tier shall we?" Tinklethwaite said, patiently. "Where you start to suffer permanent damage, each turn disabling you. Psychologically I'm told that has a great effect. Did you know that?"

"When I get out I'm going to burn you in your own fucking brazier - know that, goblin," he spat, his voice thick with blood and phlegm, croaky through screaming and weak with strain.

Tinklethwaite chuckled, taking hold of the wheel once again. Calan braced himself, his thoughts on Ethine. He cursed himself for failing her, said a silent goodbye, steeling himself for the end.

There was a knock at the door.

Tinklethwaite paused, looking up.

One of the knights opened the door and staggered back with his head split in two, blood spurting across the floor as he collapsed in a heap.

Gilraen stepped into the room, his sabre in his hand, blood dribbling along the blade. He looked almost as surprised as the knight had before he died. The other knight ripped his sabre from its sheath, slashing at Gilraen, who blocked a little clumsily, falling back. 

"Gilraen, you traitorous little shit, I'm going to gut you..." said the knight, slashing down, dancing forward, forcing Gil to sidestep.

For a while the two circled warily, looking for an opening.

Gil saw an opening, lunged, his blade slashing down and opening a shallow cut on the knight's side, marking his nice suit with a stain of blood. The wound was small, shallow, but the effect on Gilraen's confidence was immense. He seemed to go from a boy with a sword, wracked with self doubt, to a knight - someone who believed he could win. Suddenly he moved with a new confidence, his whole body stepping more assuredly. The other knight saw it, too, diminishing by the same degree, a new desperation entering his movements.

The two clashed together, a deadly dance of flashing metal in the narrow confines of the chamber, apparatus scattering with each blow, each twisting avoidance. There was no talking now, the sound of panting breath and ringing blades echoing from the close walls.

At last Gilraen knocked his opponent's blade free, sending the knight's sword tumbling through the air to crash metallically onto the floor. The knight fell to his knees, breathless.

"Mercy, Gilraen, I ask mercy," he said.

Gilraen paused, panting, seemingly unable to believe what he'd done. Then he ran his blade through the knight's chest, staring deep into the knight's astonished eyes.

"What mercy did you offer Cal, you evil bastard?" he said, chewing the words, his voice a little slurred.

Behind him Tinklethwaite saw his chance, grabbing the fallen knight's sabre and diving forward towards Gilraen's exposed back.

"Look out!" Calan shouted, pulling helplessly against his bonds.

The sword slipped into his back just as Gilraen was turning in response to Calan's shout. He hissed with the pain, clutching his back, spinning around - smashing the sword from the goblin's grip and cutting him across his chest, sending him scuttling back into the shadows. The wound was shallow, Tinklethwaite's lack of experience making it more of a slash than a puncture, but still debilitating.

He staggered over to Calan, hand pressed to his wounded back, using the sabre to cut through the ropes. Agony flooded back into Calan's body as the tension was released, fire pouring along his veins so that he heard himself whimpering with the pain - but, if such a thing was possible, it was a good pain, the pain of normality returning, not that of damage being caused. For a second he lay still, unable to focus enough to do anything more - then thoughts of Ethine crowded in, driving out all concern for himself. He forced himself to sit up, gritting his teeth against the pain, his left arm hanging uselessly by his side - dislocated probably, he thought. 

He saw Tinklethwaite cowering in the corner, his discarded clothes in a pile near the base of the rack.

"Gil, clothes - there's a cellphone in the pocket, get it..."

Gilraen grunted, wincing as he bent down, hunting through the dirty pile before his fingers found what they sought, the cellphone burning his hand even as he lifted it. Calan flipped it open, the screen blank for a second before it lit with the familiar green glow. He pressed redial, saw the phone connect and let it drop. 

It was done.

******

"He must be in trouble, Terror," Monster said, "this is way more than late. What do we do?"

Terror looked pensive, tapping the blades of his bronze sickles together nervously.

Behind them the leaders of the various courts had gathered in a semi-circle: a council of war. Terror turned to face them, their eyes glittering in the dark - leaders of soldiers, these were not people easily impressed or easily fooled. 

"Terror, we need to know, man," Cold Iron said, a goblin from Brooklyn, his voice heavily accented. "Are we going in or not?"

He heard muttered agreement from the others.

"Look, we agreed to wait for Calan's signal," Terror said.

"That signal is over two hours late," Winter whispered, a skinny troll with a dark beard and a massive scar across his bald head. "We need to know now, or we need to go."

Behind them he could see the gathered exiles moving restively, the sound of muttering loud in the dark.

"I thought you wanted to take Sorrow," Terror said, angry now. "Wanted to punish him for his presumption - have you forgotten that or have you lost your fire?"

"Hey man, we haven't lost no fire," Cold Iron said, voice hard. "When we get our chance we'll show Sorrow how exiles fight, but all this waiting man, it's killing us!"

The phone rang. Its blaring tone cutting through the muttering crowd like an axe blade.

There was a moment's pause as the gathered throng realised what the sound meant, then: "Well, you wanted a chance - now's your fucking chance!" Terror yelled, sweeping to his feet, his voice rising in a crescendo across the parkland, booming and echoing back from the surrounding buildings.

Before him the exiles surged to their feet with a bestial roar - weapons brandished aloft.

He grabbed the stump, tearing it open with brute force and plunged into the opening - his sickles held up ahead of him. Behind him the passage was suddenly choked with exiles - cries thick with bloodlust, with desire for vengeance following him down into the dark.

******

Calan pushed himself to his feet, staggering weakly and leaning on Gilraen heavily for support. Gilraen led the way to the door, stepping carefully over the splattered gore coating the floor. Behind them Tinklethwaite's screams tailed off into pitiful whimpering as the flames of the brazier licked over his weakly struggling body where Gilraen had dumped him face first at Calan's request.

"Come on Cal, the healer is just down here." Gilraen staggered along the corridor.

"Need to get to Ethine, got to save her, Gil," he said, his voice as broken as the rest of him.

"Save yourself first or you'll be helping nobody."

It was a dozen steps to the healer's room, each one a living, burning agony, his body struggling to obey him, weak beyond anything he'd ever known. Eventually Gilraen fell against the door, pushing into a brightly lit chamber.

An old fat woman was sitting on a small chair by a desk, the surface strewn with vials and bottles. Nearby a girl in a grey dress was mixing some liquid in a glass bottle, holding it up to the lamp on the wall, her eyes widening as she noticed his battered nakedness. The room was lined with shelves each one covered with jars, vials, bottles and alembics. Some of the things they contained were clear - Calan saw one with a collection of frogs floating in it, another with the bodies of sprites twisted together - others uninteresting, brightly coloured powders or liquids, but others seemed to contain items both bizarre and unknown - in one he thought he saw a tongue licking the glass but could see no apparent body, in another something with the head of a lizard and the body of a mouse was floating in a green liquid.

"What have we here - trouble, so it is," said Old Mary.

Gilraen lowered him to sit on a small cot with a wince, Calan grimacing as his body adjusted to the pressure against it again.The old woman approached them. She looked at Gilraen first, a cursory glance at his wound. She clucked her tongue.

"Hm, nasty wound but clean, so it is," she said. "You," speaking to the girl in grey in the corner, "a simple poultice for this one, I think."

She leant over Calan, her fingers digging painfully into his skin, making him gasp in pain, kneading his flesh.

"Hey, watch it, that fucking hurts," he said. Then, laughing bitterly: "It all fucking hurts."

"Yes, hurt all over, so it does," she said. "Soon get you fixed up, so I will."

She waddled over to the desk, opening up bottles, sniffing them, putting them back.




Ethine Ch. 03



"I need something fast, I have to go back and fight, right now - so make it good," Calan said.

She looked over at him, her dark eyes glinting maliciously in the light. "Hm. I have just the thing, so I have."

She placed a glass in the centre of the table, pouring different things into it from a variety of jars and bottled scattered about her. The girl in grey packed a bandage with a collection of herbs, all the while her eyes on the fat woman and her work.

Calan forced himself to sit up, his sabre cradled across his lap, leaning against the wall, each breath laboured, hissing in his chest. Eventually the old woman waddled back across the room, a glass of some foul looking brown liquid in her hand. Calan sniffed it tentatively - cinnamon mixed with oil, he thought.

"Here you are. Drink this," Old Mary said. "Soon have you right, so it will."

She pressed the glass to his lips, he sniffed once more, opened his mouth.

"Stop!" the girl yelled. Calan lifted his head, the old woman spun to glare at the girl. "That won't heal you, she's trying to poison you," she finished, flinching back from the old woman's glare.

Calan slapped the glass away - sending it flying to smash against the wall. "What is this?" he said.

The old woman faced the cringing girl. "Shut up you little bitch," she said.

"It's obvious that Tinklethwaite has tortured you - you must be the traitor - she knows that, she's going to poison you," the girl said, quailing, backing into the corner. "It's true."

"Lying bitch, so you are" Old Mary said. 

Gilraen was on his feet his sword in hand. "I believe her," he said.

Old Mary turned to face him, her evil little eyes drifting from him to Calan, his sword unsheathed now, to the girl. Then, her eyes calculating, she screamed and rushed from the room, waddling quickly through the door.

"She'll warn the others..." Gilraen said. Moving to go after her.

"Gil, leave it!" he said. "They'll soon have enough to worry about without us to occupy them." He looked over at the girl, standing afraid in the corner. "Thank you." He smiled. "Can you help me? I have to be able to fight, fight right now. It only has to last an hour or two, but I must be effective - after that doesn't matter."

The girl looked thoughtful, her eyes scanning the shelves. "I have something, but it's dangerous," she said, looking at him. "It'll get you fit but when it drains you - in your state you're unlikely to be strong enough to survive. It will probably kill you."

"Cal, don't," Gilraen said. "You don't even know Ethine's in danger, or where that glass leads - she might be okay, you'd be taking it for nothing."

Calan smiled at him, listened to his heart beating - that knot of anxiety right at its centre. She wasn't fine. She wasn't safe. She needed him and he knew it.

"Give me the potion," he said. "Couple of hours is all I want."

The girl moved quickly, gathering things from shelves, mixing with a fluid grace the old woman had lacked. 

"Gilraen, when I'm gone I'll need you to get the prisoners out of the building, understand?"

"Sure Cal."

"Upstairs will be chaos, Terror will know you, as will Monster - but the others will be as likely to kill you as save you. When you go up, glamour yourself a pink outfit - pyjamas or something like that - the exiles will know you're not Sorrow's that way, got it?"

"Pink?"

"Yeah, the sillier the better."

"Sure, okay. What about you?"

Calan smiled. "You already know where I'm going - wherever Ethine is."

The girl finished mixing her potion, approached them with a glass of blue liquid that smelt metallic, bitter.

"Drink this. It won't make up for the damage you've suffered but it will mask it for a while - you'll still be weak, but at least you'll be able to fight." He reached for it, but she held it back from him.

"I know, when it wears off, I'll die," he said.

She handed him the glass with a nod, her eyes unreadable. He drank it down in one long draught. It tasted disgusting in a creamy way, not metallic - like sour milk mixed with wallpaper paste. In moments, though, he felt the warmth seeping into him, flowing around his body, dulling the pain, strengthening his joints. A short time later he was able to stand with confidence, his body responding as it should for once, though his left arm still hung weakly. 

Not wanting to waste his transient strength on any glamour, he struggled into his discarded black trousers and white shirt, slinging his sabre over his shoulder.

"The prisoners, Gil, I'll help you get them free before I go," he said, then, turning to the girl, "Lady, come with us - there's nothing here for you now." 

The girl nodded, tying the poultice around Gilraen's wound.

Gilraen stood, flexing his arms, his sabre in hand. Behind him the girl quickly sorted through the shelves, gathering jars and vials, placing them hurriedly into a leather satchel that she slung over her shoulders.

"Some of this might be useful, it's quite rare," she said, smiling shyly at Gilraen.

Finally she stood ready. Gilraen and Calan in the lead, the three of them moved down the corridor toward the prison. The corridor remained empty, although Calan expected at any second to come across Old Mary, his eyes alert.

The ogre was patrolling the perimeter of the cage, walking slowly towards them as they approached. Behind him the prisoners sat like ghosts in the shadows, faces anxious, peering through the bars of the cage. The ogre turned, face curious, as Calan and Gilraen approached with the girl.

"Is there any news - does Sorrow want the prisoners?" he said, his voice rumbling.

"Nothing yet," Calan said. 

There was a brief whistle of metal and Calan's sword sliced into his shoulder with a jet of blood. The ogre seemed to sigh a little, an exhalation as much of shock as pain, then Gilraen ran him through. Like an oak falling, he crumpled slowly to the ground, thick black blood oozing from his wounds.

Gilraen went to the door, smashing the simple lock open with his sword. In the shadows the prisoners gathered themselves, rising to their feet, Turiel dashing forward.

"Calan, they took Ethine, she's gone," she shouted.

"It's okay, pixie, he knows," Gilraen said softly, pushing the door open. "He knows." 

He looked back to where Calan was approaching the guardroom. Some sixth sense must have alerted the guards, that or some of the noise must have leaked further than they'd thought. They were both approaching the door as Calan reached it - the goblin had his whip in hand, the hob his pole and thorn. Neither were a match for Calan's sword. He made short, bloody work of the pair of them - cutting them down with brutal, inelegant chops more akin to butchery than fencing. It was all they deserved, he thought.

By the time Gilraen returned leading the prisoners, they were dead. Calan turned to him, his face and clothing bloody.

The prisoners looked shocked, pitiful, their eyes wide and frightened in the dim light.

"Come on," he said, his voice quiet.

******

The time for subtlety was past, Terror knew that. When he reached the door at the far end of the corridor he didn't even pause, smashing it open with pure brute force - his mass and speed conspiring to make him unstoppable. He surged into the dimly lit hall, the room almost entirely empty. He kept moving, not pausing even as he looked about. Behind him he sensed the exiles pouring through the doorway, their cries turning to screams of triumph as they realised how few knights Sorrow had arranged against them. 

They poured across the floor of the hall in an ever expanding crescent, Terror at its head, his face contorted with battle-rage, his twin sickles waving in the air above him - his scream of fury joining with the raucous cries of the exiles - furniture and ornaments were thrown aside, smashed, jumped on or climbed over as they rushed to meet the enemy.

The knights slowly woke to their predicament. Thorn wasn't here, his colourful sergeants absent - but they were still knights. Without leadership they lacked co-ordination, losing the discipline that had made them so formidable before - each one making an individual decision about what to do. Some drew swords and moved to meet the enemy, others tried to unite into bigger groups, still others tried for a tactical withdrawal - seeking a defensive position. Gradually events overtook them - robbing them of options, forcing them to meet the exiles piecemeal - and one by one they drew swords and engaged in combat. 

In seconds the hall was a maelstrom of battle - swords, knives, clubs, chains wielded with no thought for tactics or discipline - simply an urge to kill, to draw blood, to hurt the enemy. Screams of fury and anger, of hate and bloodlust, filled the hall. It wasn't a battle such as are written about in ballads, that make up the myths of the Seelie and Unseelie Courts - this was a brawl, a vicious, nasty street brawl fought between people bred to violence. 

******

"Sorrow, what have you brought me?" Hafgan said, her voice was soft, soothing - almost like melted butter, thought Ethine, totally out of keeping with her appearance.

Sorrow gestured and Thorn grabbed her wrist, crushing it in his grasp, pulling her into the centre of the circle directly in front of the Witch Queen, holding her helpless. 

"This is but a sample of what I have ready for you, Milady," Sorrow said with a bow. "I have all their true names recorded so they will be yours to command, your little puppets."

The Hag was looking at her with hard, glinting eyes. Ethine noticed with a shiver that one was blue, the other black - as if they'd come from two separate fay. Worse than that though was the look on her face as her eyes wandered over her body - she looked hungry.

"Show me."

"As you wish, Majesty," he said. "Memory, the names."

The fox faced man approached Sorrow, handing him a small square of paper. Sorrow looked at it for a moment, then slipped it into the pocket of his suitcoat.

"Now, what shall we have you do," he said, pensively. "Elan Ethine Era," he whispered to her, keeping his voice pitched so that the Hag wouldn't hear. She went rigid, desperately trying to think of what to do, playing for time. "Dance for the Queen, dance until I tell you to stop."

Ethine winced. Embarrassed, beyond thought but not daring to show the slightest hesitation for fear that her only advantage would be lost, she started dancing - skipping and swaying in the utter silence of the night, the eyes of the gathered boring into her.

"You see, Hafgan," Sorrow said. "I have a dozen just like this - ready for you tonight on the agreed terms."

The Hag was watching Ethine closely.

"Have her take her clothes off, Sorrow," she said. "I want to see what I'm buying."

"By the power of your true name I command you, strip off your clothes," he said.

Still dancing, Ethine peeled off her skirt, concealing the knife in the waistband so that nobody would see it, dropping the clothes at her shuffling feet. With a swift movement her shirt followed - its stitching forcing her to pull it over her head - her skin the white of snow, her small breasts naked before them. Last were her panties, dropping to the ground near her skirt to leave her naked before them - her pewter pubic hair like quicksilver in the moonlight. She danced on, trying to forget the people around her, trying to keep close to the blade.

"Very impressive, Sorrow," she said at last. "Are they all as pretty as this one?"

"Maybe not quite as pretty, Milady, but still usable."

The Hag nodded, pulling her robe back to show her mismatched limbs. "I think I like this one's arms," she said.

"Yes, or her legs, perhaps, they are rather skinny I know - but..."

Ethine danced on, trying to tune them out, skipping lightly over the ground as if her feet barely touched it - her sense of revulsion increasing with her fear, the only thing keeping it at bay the thought that she could end her own life with Calan's blade before they mutilated her.

"Alright, Ethine, you can stop now." 

She stopped dead, standing still next to her clothes, her breathing only a little heavier for all her exertion.

******

Turiel, the pixie, a troll named Athinas and an ogress called Elderbany led the prisoners, crowding together through the narrow, empty corridors behind Gilraen and Calan. It was only a short distance to the staircase and it passed without incident, the corridor empty before them, but each sound brought new fear of being caught and returned to the cage, the prisoners quailing with each pause so that the three had to repeatedly reassure and usher them forward.

Calan paused at the top of the steps, the door partway open. Beyond was carnage. The battle was in full swing in the hall - a seething mass of motion, screaming and blood. As he watched he saw a knight disembowel a troll in a spray of blood, moving on to the next engagement before the body had even hit the floor. In another part of the room, a knight's sword was caught in a chain swung by a goblin, a second hamstringing him with a glass dagger before he could get it free, leaving him to fall screaming, daggers hacking at him as he fell.

To Calan's eyes it seemed that the exiles were on top of things, their superior numbers whittling the knights down gradually despite their better local knowledge, better weaponry.

"Okay Gil, this is where we part ways. Get them out through the back entrance," he said, gesturing to the door in pieces on the floor and the yawning gap beyond it. "If they have no safe place to go get them to the Unseelie Court, to Roiben. He owes me that - for my life, for Ethine's, it's worth that to him. The old Untermyer Estate, do you know it?"

"I do, I will, Calan," he said, his eyes sad, as if knowing they would never meet again. "Good luck." 

They gripped hands tightly, Calan pulling him into an embrace. As goodbyes went, it was pretty good.

Calan nodded once to the prisoners, "Gilraen will get you out, stay with him, listen to him, okay?" There was a general murmur of agreement, a little giggling as Gilraen glamoured himself a pink suit.

Calan turned to Turiel, smiling lightly. "I'll get her back, Turiel. If it's the last thing I do - I'll get her back," he said. 

"She believes in you, Calan. Don't let her down," she said quietly. "And thank you - for everything."

For the briefest moment her lips were pressed to his, then Gilraen was running for the open door herding the prisoners along with him, Turiel rushing to keep up. Calan watched them go, crouching near the door. In the maelstrom nobody appeared to have noticed them leave, the chaos effectively covering their escape.

Every moment that passed he felt better, his limbs no longer aching, his strength returning quickly - though his left arm seemed weak, very weak. Couple of hours - that was all he'd asked for, it had to be enough.

Seeing a gap in the fighting, he sprinted for the dais - dodging past a knight cutting down a wounded hob, cutting him down in turn as he passed. A second knight surged up in front of him, business suit splattered with blood and Calan ran him through without pausing, dashing past the falling body for the dais. Briefly he glimpsed Terror and Monster, fighting alongside one another as usual, the exiles surging around them against a knot of knights. Terror looked up as he ran. Even in the brief glance they shared Calan saw recognition dawn - saw Terror realise his direction, calculate the disposition of the battle, alter his battle plans like any good general. 

Calan made the dais, falling over the low railing inelegantly, rolling for cover at the centre. The dais itself was an island of calm in the chaos. All about it the room was devastated, the battle having reduced furniture to sticks, or weapons - tables were smashed, chairs and sofas slashed to pieces or home now to the dead and wounded. The bar was littered with bodies where it had been used as a defensive position, knights hiding behind it with crossbows picking off exiles almost at will. From his transient cover he saw Terror urging the exiles to new passion, driving towards the dais, Sorrow's knights falling back - their numbers dwindling, discipline failing as they saw defeat looming.

And standing at the centre before him like a sinister marker was the glass. It remained opaque, its surface swirling with grey mist. Slowly he reached out - his hand passing through with a chill.

With a last look about he stood, facing it for a long moment - steeling himself for whatever lay beyond.

******

While Thorn held her immobile, his fingers like a vice on her arm, Sorrow stroked his hands across her shoulders - his touch cold, impersonal, fingering the buds of her wings on her shoulder blades - Ethine couldn't help but flinch away from him, not that he seemed to care.

"So, Hafgan, do we have a deal? A dozen fay for the service of a dozen of your knights for one year and a day?"

"Oh, Sorrow, you make such pretty deals," she said. "Yes of course we have a deal - bring me the rest of the fay and you will have your knights."

She stretched her arms, scratching at her skin, all the while her eyes drifting hungrily over Ethine's naked body.

"I shall see to it at once, Hafgan," Sorrow said, nodding to Thorn.

Still holding her arm, Thorn gestured quickly to the red and yellow knights who broke off from the main crew and made their way to the glass. Memory joined them, gripping the book of names beneath his arm. With a last nod to Sorrow, the three of them slipped back through the glass.

******

Calan was ready, the red knight wasn't. In the end that was all the difference it took. 

Just as Calan was about to step into the glass, burning with violence, the red knight stepped through in front of him. For a moment they both hesitated, but Calan had been planning to step into violence and the red knight believed he was returning home. Calan ran him through, a second blow slashing his throat open just as the yellow knight stepped through the glass. 

For a second their eyes met over the red knight's crumpling body, the yellow knight's eyes opening in surprise as awareness of his surroundings reached him. Then he too died, Calan's blade opening his throat even as he struggled to pull his sword from its sheath.

Memory was next to emerge, stepping out only to stumble over the yellow knight's bloody remains. Calan pushed him aside, over towards the side of the dais, standing ready in case any further figures appeared. For a moment the fox-faced man looked startled, then his eyes took in the crumpled body of the red knight and Calan's bloody blade, staring wide-eyed at the surging chaos of the room and he quailed, huddling against the railing with fearful eyes. 

After a few moments it seemed obvious that no new figures were about to emerge from the glass and Calan approached him, his blade still in hand.

Memory cowered back against the side of the dais. "Please, I'm not a knight, I'm a bookkeeper - I won't fight you, don't hurt me."

For a second Calan looked at him, murder in his eyes, then he grabbed him by the throat, bloody sabre pointing at his face.

"Oh no, I'm not going to hurt you, Foxy - you're far more use to me alive than dead," he said.

"What are you going to do to me?"

"I'm going to trade you," he said. "So do as you're told and you'll be fine, got it?"

"Yes, yes, of course, I'll be no trouble."

Quickly, using Memory's tie, Calan bound his hands behind him. A cursory search produced a thin bladed dagger strapped to Memory's waist, which Calan slipped into his own belt, and the leather bound book that Memory carried everywhere with him. Calan gave it a brief inspection and tossed it aside.

"Come on, Foxy, we're going for a little walk." 

He pulled Memory to his feet, sliding his sword back into its sheath and holding Memory's own knife to his throat. Once again he faced the swirling glass but this time he didn't hesitate. Holding tight to Memory's collar he pushed the fox-faced man through the glass and followed immediately after him.




Ethine Ch. 03



******

Ethine watched as twelve of the sinister, cloaked figures separated themselves from the Hag's entourage, moving to stand adjacent to Sorrow and his knights, their sinister natures causing Sorrow's knights to unconsciously draw back. From the group gathered before the house she watched in cold dread as a further cloaked figure shuffled forward, his robe falling open to reveal sets of elaborate manacles in golden metal hanging from his belt.

"Here, give me her wrists," the figure said, his voice a sinister hiss in the dark, his face hidden in shadow.

Thorn grabbed her forearms, forcing her wrists outward.

"No, please, don't..." she pleaded, hating herself for how she sounded but so frightened that she couldn't help it.

Thorn opened his mouth to speak, just as another voice cut across the gully: "LEAVE HER ALONE YOU FUCKING GHOUL!" It cut across the silence, full of anger and hate and rich with the promise of violence.

As one every eye shifted to the source. 

Calan stood by the glass, dagger in his right hand, a petrified Memory helpless before him - battered, bruised, cut, covered with blood - but alive, definitely alive! Ethine gasped, her heart suddenly jumping in her chest. Thorn released her arms, pulled his sabre from its sheath instead.

"What, who is this, Sorrow?" the Hag said.

Sorrow looked from Thorn, to the Hag, to Calan and Memory, his face furious.

"This is a nasty little traitor, Hafgan, who will be dealt with shortly," Sorrow said, looking balefully at Thorn.

Quailing at Sorrow's look, Thorn took hold of her once again, squeezing her arm so tightly she gasped with the pain. With a quick glance at the Hag, the hooded figure retired quickly to the ranks of Hafgan's court.

"Forgive me for interrupting you, Hafgan," Calan said, his eyes on Ethine. "But he doesn't have anything left to trade."

"What do you mean, little man?" she said.

"Don't listen to him, Milady," Sorrow shouted. "He's nothing but a traitor."

"No, if there is one thing I know it's that fay don't lie - let him speak, Sorrow," she said. 

As if on cue there was a loud ring of metal as each of the cloaked figures drew their swords, the gully suddenly alive with shining blades. Sorrow's knights looked about unsurely, so obviously outnumbered that they felt utterly helpless.

"Thank you, Hafgan," Calan said, his eyes briefly flicking over the figures before him. "In Sorrow's absence there have been a few changes back in the mortal world. All his prisoners are gone for a start - so he has nothing to trade with you. Furthermore, my allies amongst the exiles are slowly reducing his knights to dog food. I wouldn't be surprised if, by the time he gets back, he doesn't even have a court."

Ethine could see he was wounded, damaged. His whole body appeared bruised, his left arm hanging awkwardly by his side, his eye swollen. What was keeping him up? she wondered. She desperately wanted to go to him, to see to his wounds, but Thorn was holding her tight and it was clear that this was far from over. Instead she kept her eyes on him - looking for any signal, any sign indicating what he wanted her to do.

"You lie!" Sorrow said, his voice angry, the knuckles on his fell-sword white.

"I'm fay, I can't lie, Sorrow," he said calmly. "But I came here to make a deal of my own."

"Go on, little man, I'm listening," Hafgan said, her voice hard.

"It seems that I am in love with the woman being so cruelly treated in front of you here," he said. "I will trade Memory for her."

Ethine jumped. In love? With her? She blinked, staring at him harder than ever, her heart pounding. Did he mean it? Or was it a ploy? Instinctively she looked at him, found his eyes on her before they flicked away - taking in his surroundings, his enemies. No, not a ploy - he was fay, he couldn't lie; he meant it, of that she was sure. Looking at him with new eyes she could see it, could read it even in the brief, tender look he'd given her. Despite everything - despite her surroundings, her nakedness, the nearness of death itself - she felt herself suddenly hopeful, a new respect for herself dawning as she tried to be worthy of his affection, to see herself as he saw her.

"I fail to see how that deal is attractive to me?" Hafgan said.

"The offer is to Sorrow," he said, prodding Memory with the end of his knife so that he jumped slightly. "Memory for Ethine."

Sorrow looked across to where Thorn held Ethine by the arm, then up to where the Hag sat in her macabre throne, her inhuman gaze sweeping across the frozen tableau, to the block of mist behind Calan that represented the only way home.

"I have a counter offer, traitor," he said easily. "I'll fight you for the life of your woman." His eyes flicked sideways to the Hag. "If I win, Hafgan, our deal proceeds as normal. If you win, traitor, you leave here in peace with your woman."

"If I refuse?" Calan said. 

Sorrow shrugged. "Then I shall trade Ethine to Hafgan as planned. You may kill Memory, of course, but then you will also die. You gain nothing."

Calan thought for a moment, standing quietly, feeling the feverish energy of the potion coursing through him. "I accept," he said at last.

Hafgan laughed, a sound rich with amusement. "You are both fools. Do you imagine that either of you has any say in what happens here in my lands?" she said, chuckling. 

As if to illustrate her point the mist rolled back, exposing more of the crooked figures standing as still as death all about them - standing as if waiting for some instruction, then it boiled back over them, obscuring them and the threat they represented.

"Nevertheless, it is not often that I have such diverting company," she continued, "and I am inclined to allow you to spill your blood for my own amusement." She leaned forward in her chair, her voice dropping, all trace of amusement gone from it now. "However, I have a caveat to add to your little deal before I allow this charade to continue," she said, "if you lose, Sorrow, those members of your court here with you are mine - they will never leave."

Ethine felt Thorn flinch at her words, his grip, already a vice on her arm, suddenly pinched tighter. She fingered the blade she still concealed - it may still come to that, she thought. For once she felt she had an advantage over Thorn: if Calan lost she was dead anyway - she had no desire to live to be offered to Hafgan and her mercies - but at least she could take Thorn with her.

With a last glance at Thorn, Sorrow nodded to Hafgan, drawing his fell-blade from its sheath - the blackness of the blade like a wound in the fabric of the world about them, a slash of absolute darkness against the night.

"Good," Hafgan said. "Then let's make some room so that these little men can kill one other."

The mist boiled forward again, silently shrouding the figures surrounding them, then, as quickly as it came, it drew back. In its wake the figures, the faerie dancers, were all gone, the land about them clear once again. Sorrow's knights moved more slowly, enlarging the perimeter, making an expanded circle of about fifty paces, its circumference just inside the swirling walls of mist. Thorn pulled her with him, manoeuvring them so that they were only about ten paces from the surface of the glass, the way home. She saw Calan following her with his eyes, Memory held in front of him. Quickly she turned her hand, exposing the blade to his eyes - saw him nod imperceptibly - his eyes flicking to Thorn. She knew what he meant, readied herself.

Calan pushed Memory away, watching as the fox-faced man stumbled and ran awkwardly over to the far side of the circle, his hands still bound. Quickly he slipped the knife back into his waistband and drew his sword, stalking around the cleared area. He looked again across at Ethine, saw her try to smile encouragement at him - saw it die, stillborn on her lips, choked with fear. 

Sorrow stood relaxed at the far side of the circle, his fell-blade held almost casually, but his eyes were alert, shining in the moonlight, and Calan was not fooled. He dropped into his guard, saw Sorrow do the same - the pair of them circling slowly now, measuring one another. Calan could feel the potion working, could feel its strength burning through his veins, supporting him, masking his body's damage but he knew he was far from his normal fitness. Worse, he knew that even this partial fitness was no more than temporary - that it could fail at any moment to leave him weak and vulnerable. He needed to finish it and finish it quickly, for Ethine's sake.

For just a second Sorrow glanced sideways, looking at Thorn, and Calan lunged - flying across the open space between them - his sabre slashing for Sorrow's head. Sorrow blocked it with ease, his fell-blade faster than Calan would have believed possible. Then it flashed back in a swift thrusting counter that Calan barely got his blade to in time. For a second they traded blows, Calan giving ground as Sorrow's greater speed forced him on the defensive - then Calan disengaged, dancing back out of range and the circling started again.

Ethine watched with her heart in her mouth, Calan was hurt, she could see that. He didn't move with the same fluid grace she'd seen in him before and his left arm hung awkwardly at his side - obviously badly hurt. She was frightened, but frightened for him, not for herself. Sorrow had seen it too, she knew, reading Calan's weakness - a triumphant smile on his face as Calan had spun away at the end of their last engagement. 

Calan glanced about the circle, the terrain was uniformly flat, damp grass over earth, a slight slope down towards the Hag's house but not enough to be a serious advantage.

The fell-blade flashed towards him, as quick as thought - he parried, going for a quick riposte that was easily turned aside. All too quickly he found himself forced back, Sorrow advancing in a blizzard of blows from which only his instinct saved him. Desperately he parried and twisted, drawing on every last part of his experience to make up for his injured body, only just keeping Sorrow's evil blade from his skin as he danced back about the circle - the sound of Sorrow's knights loud as they urged Sorrow on with mumbled encouragement.

They broke apart, Calan breathing hard, his joints aching with the exertion. Sorrow looked fresh, smiling, almost taunting him as he moved easily about the open space. Calan knew he was tiring fast, his abused body unable to take further punishment, even with the potion's effects. 

He dropped into his guard again, his sword held lightly before him. Once again Sorrow came on, faster than ever this time - his blade seeming to appear almost as if from nowehere. Desperately Calan locked the blades, catching Sorrow's on his own, lashing out with his foot at Sorrow's knee - felt it connect, a grunt from Sorrow - then he pushed him back disengaging his blade and slashing high for Sorrow's throat. Sorrow was faster, skipping away, his parry knocking Calan's blade aside and his riposte coming on quicker than Calan could react. He felt it slice into his side, twisting with the cut, a streak of fire shooting through him even as he crabbed aside, blood staining his shirt. 

The cut burned, burned like ice. It was as if Sorrow's blade had frozen his body - weakening it further. Calan rubbed distractedly at the wound, feeling the blood oozing from it - put it from his mind.

Before him Sorrow smiled triumphantly, dropping into his guard.

Calan glanced across at Ethine, standing on the far side of the portal. The anguished look on her face galvanised him. She looked so helpless, so frightened. She was counting on him. He had failed her before, he was not going to fail her this time. He had bargained his life for a few hours to help her... He drew strength from that, his life was forfeit, he had nothing left to lose. With that realisation he felt a terrible kind of freedom soak into him - the freedom of the damned.

He straightened, feeling the blood trickle along his skin, a vicious, feral smile meeting Sorrow's triumphant grin - saw the beginning of doubt in Sorrow's eyes.

"Come on then, Sorrow," he hissed, his anger flaring white-hot, "think you can take me?"

"Oh, I can take you, traitor," Sorrow said.

Calan's blade flashed out, reaching for Sorrow. Once again the clearing rang with the chime of blades - Sorrow's fell-blade flashing for his face, Calan blocking, riposting. He felt sudden heat as Sorrow's blade nicked his shoulder, a moment later a second cut to his left arm - but he didn't pause, his anger clamping down on the pain, driving him with only a single goal - kill Sorrow. He felt a third nick, a shallow wound on his right arm - barely noticed, his blade cutting savagely for Sorrow's eyes - and saw nervousness there for the first time. Uncertainty taking root as he came on and kept coming.

Sorrow gave ground, falling back before the onslaught, and Calan drove him, pushing him toward the perimeter - a wild exultation taking hold, driving his blade onward, pushing all thoughts of pain, of the state of his body from his mind. There was just Sorrow and him. And Sorrow was going to die. He knew he was grinning, grinning like a madman - as if he was sure of his victory.

Finally it happened. Sorrow knew he was being backed toward the perimeter but couldn't take his eyes from Calan to look, to find out how close he was to the edge. Each step he took only increased his nervousness, his desperation. Calan drove him on, his blade flashing, until Sorrow couldn't retreat any further.

Desperately Sorrow tried to reverse his progress, his blade beating Calan's aside, flashing for Calan's head. Calan blocked, thrust for Sorrow's gut. Sorrow parried, his riposte faster than Calan could meet - slicing towards his face. Calan dropped, feeling the wind of Sorrow's blade as it passed over his head, falling to one knee. Sorrow leapt forward - his blade thrusting for Calan's throat. 

Calan's attack came from nowhere - launching himself forward with no regard for any parry or block. Even as he moved he felt Sorrow's blade slide into his left shoulder but he was already moving. He threw himself from the floor, screaming at the top of his voice - driving his sword into Sorrow's chest even as he felt himself falling, the pain in his shoulder exploding through him.

They fell together, a collective moan rippling around the circle, Ethine's scream piercing the night. 

Calan groaned, Sorrow's body lying across him, his face mere inches from his own.

"Traitorous bastard," Sorrow said, his voice little more than a breath, his grey eyes flashing their hate. Then blood bubbled from his lips, poured over his face and he died.

Everything happened at once. 

Thorn cursed, releasing Ethine's arm to draw his sabre, his eyes intent on Calan's prostrate form trapped beneath Sorrow's dead weight. Ethine stabbed him, driving Calan's small blade into his neck with frantic, desperate strength - knowing she had to stop him, kill him before he killed Calan. All around the outside of the circle the mist suddenly boiled up, sweeping over the knights on the perimeter, reaching into the clearing.

Desperately Calan struggled to push Sorrow from him, the fell-blade still protruding from his shoulder. All around him the mist boiled, filled with the panicked shouts of the trapped knights - calling to one another in fear.

Thorn looked startled, staring at Ethine in surprise even as blood poured from his neck. Then, he glanced quickly about at the rapidly encroaching mist and, hands both pressed to his wound, he turned and ran for the portal. Ethine ignored him, running for Calan's side.

The body was too heavy, he couldn't shift it. His left arm was useless, his right was aching, weak, and he couldn't seem to get the energy to struggle any longer - his body had finally had enough. He watched the tendrils of mist sweeping around his feet, could make out the movement of shadowy figures in it. Even as he watched the shouts of the knights turned to screams, the sound chilling as the others called more desperately now, their numbers slowly dwindling.

Ethine grabbed his hand, her slender fingers wrapping around his.

"Calan, come on," she shouted, her face frightened, her eyes looking fearfully into the approaching mist.

"Ethine, it's no good," he said. "I can't move the body. Go on, go! Save yourself."

"Not without you!"

Desperately she pushed at Sorrow's body, trying to roll it off him. All the while the mist closed in, tendrils sweeping between them and the portal. Slowly, painfully slowly, Ethine rolled Sorrow's dead weight off his body. Calan struggled to rise, the effects of the potion all but gone now - weakness sweeping through him so that he could barely move his limbs. She grabbed his hand, tugging him, pulling his right arm over her shoulder, the fell-sword still standing obscenely from his left.

"Come on, Calan!" she screamed.

With strength born of fear and desperation she succeeded in helping him to his feet, the two of them staggering like drunks towards the almost hidden portal, his weight leaning on her slender body. She knew that any slip, any stumble would send them both falling to the ground and she knew she wouldn't be able to get them up again. One step, two steps, his weight was dragging her down. The screams of the knights were tailing off now, the silence all the more eerie for their absence. The mist between them and the portal was thickening perceptibly.

Two more paces, she thought, just two more. The portal was there, right before them. The mist surged toward them, tendrils reaching for them, gathering between them and the portal. The clearing was almost completely hidden now, the mist obscuring everything. One more step, she thought. Calan staggered, falling to his knees on the damp earth, blood pouring from his wounds, staining her skin, staining the ground.

"Calan!"

He looked up, his eyes meeting hers. He looked awful, his pale skin white now, filthy with blood and grime - blood covering him, oozing from his wounds, dripping from his hand.

"I love you," he said, his voice no more than a breath. "I always have."

Then, with strength she didn't think he still had, he pushed her through the portal, the mist parting as she was flung backwards into the glass.

******

Terror stood before the glass, Thorn's body at his feet, blood soaking the dais. Around him the exiles stood uneasily, casting furtive, unsettled glances at the swirling surface of the portal.

Sorrow's court was no more, a handful of knights had fled but most would never leave this hall, their bodies lying crumpled all about the smashed room. With their victory absolute, many of the exiles had already left, a mere handful remaining with Terror and Monster, waiting for Calan, for Ethine. With them stood Gilraen and a mortal girl dressed in grey who had returned only a short time ago, entering even as the exiles were leaving.

Moments before, Thorn had come running through the portal, his hands held to his bloody throat, blood soaking into his pale suit. For a moment he had stared about, aghast, at the exiles gathered before him - then Monster had killed him, stabbing his silver blade into his exposed heart. His arrival, however, had sparked a new debate. Should they try to pass through the portal and help or should they wait, and if so, for how long?

"We don't know what's happening - if we pass through we may make things worse?" Monster said.

"How?" asked Terror. "There's obviously some kind of fight going on for Thorn to be wounded - Calan may need our help."

Terror looked about at the handful of exiles still remaining. In truth not many would be willing to pass through the strange portal. Something about it was deeply unsettling, standing next to it was like the feeling you got just before a heavy storm struck - like static electricity running over you.




Ethine Ch. 03



"He does need help," the girl said, "he's badly hurt, he will probably die without assistance."

"He looked okay when he left," Monster said.

"That's because he took bodybane before leaving... Look, he was hurt, hurt badly but he insisted he had to fight so he took the potion," the girl said, her voice urgent. "When the effects wear off he'll be weak, so weak his heart may stop - not to mention all the wounds he may have picked up in his fight."

"That settles it, I'm going through - who's with me?" Terror said.

Ethine flew backwards from the glass, screaming - her naked body smeared with blood - falling heavily onto the floor of the dais. 

"Calan!" she shouted, struggling to rise. 

The girl in grey ran to her, Gilraen close behind.

"Shit!" Terror shouted, pausing only momentarily, before he rushed into the glass, Monster right beside him.

In three breaths they were back, flying from the glass with Calan's inert body between them, blood spilling from his wounds to drip in a trail along the floor.

"He was right there," Monster said. "Practically knocked him over, just kneeling in the mist."

They dragged him into the clear space, lying him down on his back in the open, his body lifeless. The girl in grey rushed to him, pulling vials from her satchel, Ethine already ahead of her, grabbing at his still, battered body, tears flooding from her eyes: "Don't you die on me, Calan! Don't die..." she screamed, clutching at his bloody shirt, his blood staining her skin.

******

Calan woke to sunlight. 

He lay on a bed, crisp white sheets drawn up about him, his arms free. Everything hurt, even taking a breath was painful. A moment's examination revealed that tight bandages seemed to be wrapped about his entire body. He looked about him. The room was small, stone walled, a single narrow window with yellow drapes filling the room with a cheerful light. From somewhere outside he could hear the sound of people talking, laughing.

Next to his bed was a low table, on it a stone jug.

"You're awake then?"

Calan jumped, turned his head with difficulty. Roiben sat in a low chair in the far corner of the room, standing once he saw Calan move. That would explain the comfort - he must be back in the Unseelie Court, or the Seelie. 

"Ethine?" Calan said, his voice dry, hoarse. "Is she okay?"

"There's water in the pitcher," he said softly. "Rather than get into explanations I'll fetch my sister, she can tell you herself. I am under strict instructions to get her as soon as you wake up, anyway. Just so you know, she's been sat here with you since you returned. She only left because I agreed to get her as soon as you woke up."

"How long?"

"A week. You've barely been awake. Those are the first words you've spoken since they brought you in."

Roiben moved towards the door. "Calan, before I go... Thank you. I know you saved her life, maybe more than that. I won't forget."

Calan nodded and Roiben slipped out, pulling the door to behind him.

Minutes later it reopened and Ethine entered. She looked radiant in a silver dress, her pewter hair was still short but styled beautifully, her eyes flashing like burnished silver in the sunlight and, playing around her mouth, a small, shy smile that made his heart beat faster just to see it.

Wordlessly she crossed to his bed, standing above him. She drew breath to speak, stopped. Tried again.

"It's silly," she said at last. "I've had all week to think about what to say to you, how to say it, and now I get my chance I can't think what to say."

Calan smiled. He opened his mouth to speak but before he could draw breath she stopped him, bending forward quickly to kiss him gently on his lips. He blinked, startled.

"There, that's for saving my life," she said, smiling.

For a moment he was lost for words. 

"I seem to recall that you saved mine, too, do I get to kiss you for that?" he said at last.

She bent forward, kissing him again, more confident this time, her tongue flicking over his lips.

"There, that's for me saving you."

"What about..." he started, desperately trying to think of another excuse.

She didn't wait, leaning down and kissing him again passionately.

"What was that for?"

"That was because I love you," she said, her shy smile back on her lips.

******