Part 8.

 

DAY 5
—-

I underestimated the subject. A foolish mistake, and I nearly paid for it. The matter was settled however, and he now lies within the bowels of the Cradle. It is remarkably efficient, and the first signs of fruiting are apparent. Within the next two days we shall have a windfall, and then the subject will be well and truly gone. A shame, for he was exceptional.

 

DAY 7

——

The crop was excellent. They proved fractious, much like their progenitor, but lack his experience and sense of self. A minor exertion of magick was enough to instill their mission and send them off.

 

DAY 9

——

A raven comes from the young king. His battle was won, and the tide of the war turned. None of the crop survived - most gone in combat, I imagine, and the rest slain by the victors for their abominable nature. It is understandable but regrettable that such achievements would be killed out of hand simply for their origin.

 

My time inside that tree was of a character unlike anything I had so far encountered. I had the impression of both mastication and gestation as I lay entombed within it. The pain was extraordinary, but pain had become a constant companion during my stay with mad Crose, and so I focused on the tree itself.

 

It seemed that the tree was claiming portions of me. And as it took from me, I became united with it. I have no doubt that the tree maintained my life - I entered it moribund, and yet my heart still beat. Nutrients seeped into my very bones, it seemed, and with some concetration I found I could sense as the tree sensed.

 

Trees are certainly more aware than we give them credit, but their perception is beyond my faculties of description. Being unused to such modes of perception, I received only general impression of the goings on outside of my hideous womb.

 

Calamity came, and I knew not its nature or how it affected me - I only knew that Crose’s Unseeing Grove was in danger.

 

I hung, suspended, as some drama unfolded outside of my dark world. It was muffled, distant, and impossible to access from within, and so I merely waited.

 

Someone touched the tree, and the tree reverberated with it. I felt the mouth of the tree tested, as if that someone sought to open it. From within I applied myself to the selfsame task, straining against the tree. Together, we suceeded -with a sucking noise, the tree opened, and the bright light of the outside world blinded me.

 

I was again a man, and no longer a memory, and Morgana stood before me.

 

Her eyes broke my heart, and she reached for me. I was prised from the tree’s jealous grasp, helpless as a newborn, and my feet again touched the earth.

 

“You came for me,” I said, voice weak. “Why?”

“Crose he… made you. Copies of you. They fought in the battle against the Ferals and I… I couldn’t bear to see you die a hundred times over.”

I embraced her, heedless of my condition, and then said.

 

“Crose. Where is he?”

“Here, Robert,” Berwyn called from across the clearing. The young king held the Talent firmly in his grasp. “What will you have of him?”

 

I released Morgana and walked towards Berwyn. “I will have justice.”

 

Berwyn looked at me, dripping with ichor from the tree, and nodded. “It seems you’ve earned that right.”

I did not so much as respond, only grabbed Crose and marched him towards the tree. “It’s the Cradle for you,” I hissed in his ear. He said nothing, and this was fine by me. I heaved him into the mouth of the tree and it closed upon him as it had closed upon me, swallowing him up.

 

“Now what?” Morgana asked me.

 

I placed my palms against the tree, feeling Crose suffer within it. I turned to the rescue party, watching me wide-eyed.

 

“Burn it. Burn it all.”

 

And so the Unseeing Grove was razed to the ground, its master reduced to ashes along with all the rest of it.

 

As we walked through the ruined place, my angry eyes raked the ashes. They had fetched me clothes, and I had cleansed myself in a nearby river, but the filth of this place was still upon me, I felt. Yet there was nothing left to do. I came across a small leatherbound book, singed by largely unharmed by the flames. Picking it up, I realized it was Crose’s journal. It was remarkable, to find a faerie writing, and he had clearly devised his own makeshift system of pictograms and illegible runes. I pocketed it, resolving to decipher it at a later date. Morgana walked silently alongside me as I prowled through the burnt skeletons of trees.

 

“The war - it’s over?” I asked her.

“So it seems. We broke them at the King’s Cataracts. I have to say, a hundred screaming Englishmen, naked as the day they were born - a sight I won’t soon forget.”

I smiled ruefully. “I can imagine.”

“Best not imagine too much, Robert - my sleep is still disturbed.”

Laughing, I offered her my arm. “Let’s leave this place.”

 

And so we did, and we went walking through the winter woods arm in arm.

“What’s next?” Morgana asked me.

“I assumed you would be telling me that.”

She nodded. “Berwyn is not finished with you yet.”

I shook my head and pulled her a little closer. “Does your offer to allow me to flee still stand?”

“Do not worry. This task is far less dangerous than the previous.”

“Faintly reassuring, but far less dangerous than that grove still puts me in mortal danger. What does the young king want of me?”

“He wants your aid in securing a wife.”

“I’m flattered that he thinks so highly of my virility, but -”

“A human wife,” Morgana cut it.

“Human? What the devil for?”

She laughed and patted at my arm. “Have you ever noticed that my dear brother is large for our people?”

“The thought has crossed my mind, yes.”

“Why do you think this is?”

I shrugged, and Morgana rolled her eyes. “He’s a half-blood.”

It all became clear to me - the hatred of the humans, the thinly veiled fascination, the sheer bulk of him.

“She was dead a year before I was born - a high-born lady, to hear my father tell it.”

“How did she die?”

“Our world was too much for her. She was too firmly rooted in the human existence, and it broke her to live amongst us. My father was inconsolable - even then he was sympathetic to the humans.”

“What has gotten into Berwyn’s head, then?”

She thought about it, blinking slowly. “He wants to know what his mother was like, I should think.”

I sighed, and regarded the gray sky. “And afterwards, I’m free.”

She said nothing.

****

Some time later I went to speak to Berwyn about this latest set of orders.

“Morgana tells me we are to go to the human world.”

“Yes, Robert - this was my original intention for you. It is regrettable that so much else befell you before this simple task could be carried out.”

“Spare me the diplomacy, Berwyn - I’ve been exceedingly convenient at every turn, and you’ve not flinched in making use of me whenever possible.”

“Very well. You mistake me if you think I’ve not balked at some of these requests - they were necessities, and if you think I took pleasure in them, you do not know me.”

“I’ll grant you that last portion. No one ever told me you were one of my kind.”

The bait was successful - Berwyn’s face froze, and very stiffly he said: “My blood is partially human, yes. But your blood does not decide who you are.”

“Oh, you’ll find some who might disagree with that. What’s more, no need to be ashamed of your mother - haven’t you discovered that we humans are singularly delightful?”

A small smile came to Berwyn’s face. “You do have qualities, I shall grant you that. Now let me ask you: will you aid me in this last thing?”

“Are you truly asking this time?”

“You know that I am.”

I considered it at some length. “I will help you, Berwyn,” I said, finally. “If you can assure me that it will truly be the last of it, and no bloodshed, either.”

“Only a few of my courtships have ended so.”

I laughed and stood. “When are we to leave?”

“We’ve a few preparations to make. Otherwise, as soon as possible.”

“Will Morgana be joining us?”

He shook his head. “No - I’ll need her here to ensure my throne is still mine when I return with a queen.”

“Very well.”

He nodded curtly, and I sketched a mock bow and made my leave.

 

THE DYEING OF BERWYN

———————–

 

Berwyn’s strangely tinted skin immediately presented itself as a problem. The faerie, however, had a solution, as they usually did. A hole large as a bathtub was scratched out of the hardened earth, and this was lined with flat stones, creating a sort of bowl. Poured into this bowl was a noxious mixture devised by a team of Talents. The stuff hissed as it was poured in, and smelled vilely. Berwyn watched these preparations with the exacting eye of a man constructing his own gallows. When the cauldron was at last ready, Berwyn disrobed and approached it. As he stood at the edge, he hesitated for a moment. Then he stepped within it. He stood there for a moment, and then sucked in a breath. With a queer look for those of us watching, he submerged himself in the solution. For long seconds he remained underneath, and I watched with something that approached concern. At long last he resurfaced, completely changed.

 

Simply put, the young king had been bleached. Skin and hair, both leached of all color, he looked a ghost. His distinctive bilberry eyes fell to his hands. He contemplated himself, and I saw a flash of disgust pass his countenance as he regarded the pale white hand.

 

“Robert - is this coloration correct?”

 

I nodded. All that remained was the hair.

 

This proved a far more natural, less unsettling process. I oversaw the cutting of his hair, and directed Morgana into a fair approximation of a style a human might be seen with. Morgana herself created the dye, and Berwyn’s hair was turned to a rich chestnut brown. The tangles and burrs were removed, and at the end of it, he looked frighteningly human. I told him as much, and he nodded with grim satisfaction.

 

****

 

Morgana was deep in conversation with one of her brother’s advisors - I could see she was quickly taking to her role as queen regent. At my appearance, she broke off and approached me.

 

“Robert. We need to speak.”

“That we do.”

 

We went to the scrying pool where I had kissed her, those moons past. It was unspoken and natural, and we walked in silence. Only when we sat side by side upon a rock did we trust ourselves to speak.

“Berwyn tells me you won’t be coming along.”

“Yes. I need to rule in his absence.”

“He also says that once this is finished with, I’m free.”

She nodded.

“Tell me, Morgana - have I anything to return to, here?”

She looked at me with her beautiful eyes, and the question hung in the still air.

“Me,” she nearly whispered.

I shook my head, seeking clarity at this crucial moment. “If I do return, what then?”

“I can’t look into the future.”

“Then look to your heart, and tell me. Tell me if we can be.”

“I do not know. Berwyn would never allow it.”

“And why not? He aims to take a human wife.”

“Yes, but I am his sister and you are an enemy, no matter how familiar.”

“Then leave with me.”

“And go where?”

“It doesn’t matter. We can find some place.”

She said nothing, eyes lingering on the earth. I gripped her shoulder. “Don’t tell me this is something you don’t desire.”

Her eyes met mine, shining with tears. “Of course it is. But my desires are irrelevant.”

“What do you mean?”

“My brother the king would never have it.”

“He aims to take a human wife - surely he would understand.”

“Take a wife? No, Robert. He wants only to take her to bed. More for the novelty of it than anything. And isn’t that what this is?”

“Of course it isn’t, and you know that. Of what consequence are your brother’s wishes, in such a matter?”

“Great consequence. He is both my brother and my king, and as such I am bound to obey him not only as a sister but as his servant. In all likelihood I’ll be married off to some foreign clan as part of some treaty.”

“But don’t you understand? You are not currency, to be used. You are your own person, Morgana.”

“So you say. But what would Berwyn say?”

“It doesn’t matter,” I repeated.

Her hand found my cheek, and she stroked it. “Custom is a difficult thing to break. Perhaps you could save yourself some pain if you stopped trying.” The words left her lips grudgingly, as if to speak them was an effort.

I realized then that I could never truly have her - Morgana was like the wind, and no mortal can hold the wind in his hands. I stared into the middle distance, eyes unfocused, thoughts roiling. I had to know.

“Do you love me?”

She hesitated. “It’s not that simple, Robert - there are other things to consider.”

“No, then.” I stood to go. “It’s the simplest question in the world. Farewell, Morgana.”

 

I located Berwyn.

“I am prepared to leave,” I informed him, my voice flat. He nodded, eyes questioning, wondering at what had transpired. I turned brusquely and left, before he had a chance to see any more deeply.

 

Berwyn and I struck out alone shortly thereafter, making our way through the woods, in no hurry. Our destination was the royal court of France. Berwyn and I reviewed the parameters of our deception as we walked.

 

“We shall masquerade as foreigners then.”

“We will be Russians.”

“Are you sure?”

Berwyn dropped his hand to the hilt of the sword he had taken from the cossack. “Yes.”

“Very well, Russians it is. You are aware we’ll now have to teach you the Russian tongue.”

Berwyn groaned. “I think I’d rather you cut it out of my head.”

“It might be arranged.”

 

So we embarked on the arduous process of training Berwyn in courtly manners. While he spent the duration of the sessions scoffing at the strange rituals, after a fortnight he could make a decent bow and speak passably well.

 

We lived off the land, moving beneath the trees like wayward leaves, maundering towards civilization.

 

THE GRASS-CLOAKS

——————-

The faerie are exposed to the elements, no matter how inclement, every moment of every season. As a result, they have devised techniques for combatting the cold. Our ancient method, fire, is largely abhorrent to them. Fire, to man, is the Promethean gift, a symbol of progress. Provided the necessary fuel it will grow larger and larger, providing utility to the creature clever enough to harness it, and wreaking destruction on those not.

 

To the faerie, flame is merely man’s close ally and conspirator. Both, they feel, are ever-voracious, ever consuming. And while the uses of fire are undeniable, the faerie do without, instead relying on the bounty of their mother earth to compensate.

 

This was the motivating force behind the grass-cloak. Every summer, when the days are longest and the nights sweetest, the long grasses are harvested. The elderly faerie take this task upon themselves, and the most Talented amongst them lovingly pluck up great bales of grass. These bales are then woven into mats, which are to be slept upon by the pregnant members of the female faerie. Apparently only these faerie have the capability to instill everlasting warmth into the grass, even as they instill life into the babe within them. The grasses are worked with further magick still, to ensure that they stay ever green. Then, once the first breath of autumn reaches the trees, the grass mats are converted into cloaks.

 

As one who has worn this peculiar garment, I can attest to its singular comfort - but its capabilities exceed that of warm cloak. For the cloaks are out-sized, far too large for a normal faerie. This is to serve their second purpose, that of tent. When night falls, the weary faerie may lay down and cast the cloak over himself like a shroud. The grass, now in contact with its natural home, spreads roots in the earth, neatly securing the edge of cloak to the ground. The faerie underneath it finds himself in a cozy cocoon, one well-equipped to retain every last shred of heat.

 

This strange form of bedding also serves as excellent camouflage in the summer, as the sleeping form of the faerie appears only as a strangely placed hillock. There are numerous stories of sleeping faeries rudely awakened by some forest creature treading upon them.

 

One afternoon my much aggrieved stomach was griping more than usual, and I got it in my head to silence it with meat. Berwyn shrugged when I voiced this desire, and unslung the bow from his shoulder.

 

“You’re welcome to attempt it, if you won’t waste too many arrows.”

I snatched the weapon from his hands. “Are you entirely sure you would not rather do the honors?”

“I’ve no taste for bird,” he said, as if the very thought of it was barbarous. I took the quiver from him, and went tramping some distance off, hoping to rustle up a particularly lead-winged bit of prey. My gentlemanly upbringing had given me a modicum of skill at the hunt, yet that was with a shotgun in hand. I tugged at the bowstring uneasily, lacking any faith in my accuracy.

 

As I lost sight of Berwyn, it was only myself and the trackless wilderness. I slowed in my pace, becoming more deliberate with every step, placing each foot with the silent grace of the born predator. The world was cloaked in white, and miserable trees huddled together, thick coats of snow making their branches dip under the weight. The stillness of it all gave my surroundings a sacred quality, as if my very presence was blasphemy. I stilled myself further still, seeking to make myself indivisible from the landscape. I breathed with the earth, the long tranquil breaths of the deep sleep brought by winter. As I continued onward, my thinking self disappeared, reducing the world to its raw form, unfiltered and unprocessed. My heartbeat and the soft crunch of my well-worn boots was all there was to here, until…

 

Wait.

 

Something else lay nearby, I dimly perceived. Something quiet and panicked, its heartbeat fast as a fluttering of wings. I took another step, and the pheasant burst from cover. In one fluid motion I did not think my body capable of, I wheeled and nocked, sighting the fast-flying bird. For an instant time slowed as if to accommodate me, and my instincts guided my aim. I lead the bird, ever so slightly, and loosed. At that range, the arrow took the pheasant like a thunderbolt, straight through its breast. It fell limp from the sky as Phaeton from his father’s chariot.

 

Watching the bird fall, a low animal pleasure surged through me. But even as my natural joy occurred, my aesthetic facilities were engaged, and I watched its death spiral with the keen eye and painful breath of any spectator before tragedy. For it certainly was a tragedy, though a necessary one. This did not diminish the sad beauty of its ungainly fall, or the unnatural cant of its stilled wings. It fell to the thick snow with a whisper, and I went to it, again utterly out of place in the nave of some immense cathedral. The bird rested, wings splayed on an altar of snow whiter than marble, whiter than alabaster, white as purity. I, crass and foreign, removed the fatal arrow and took it by the neck. Roughly forcing down the peculiar emotions at play within me, I called out to Berwyn, my voice harsh as a crow’s on the still air. His answering call seemed close, and rang out clear and crisp.

 

I made for it, the dead pheasant dangling from one hand. Berwyn looked upon me with utter surprise.

 

“I’ll need a fire,” I told him.

Berwyn considered the request. “I know not how to make one - how do you humans go about it?”

“With flint and tinder, for a start.”

He looked at me uncomprehendingly, and I irritably waved a hand. “Come now,” I said. “Surely you faerie have some arcane and esoteric process for creating a spark. Might not a Talent be capable of it?”

“It is possible, but I have never seen it. Fire is difficult to conjure, and more difficult still to harness.”

“Perhaps it would be different for a human Talent.”

Berwyn’s eyes were sharp with skepticism. “If such a one existed, perhaps.”

I told him of my encounter with mad Crose, how the necromancer had drawn a strange blue substance from the depths of his skull. Berwyn listened, plainly shocked, as I recounted my peculiar battle with Crose within myself.

“You tell this truly?” he asked me when I had finished telling of my victory.

“Of course.”

“Then perhaps you really are capable of it. Let us see.”

It was a relief to hear curiosity about my capabilities that did not end in some perverse experiment. Berwyn merely gathered up some fallen twigs and dumped a pile of them before me, sitting upon my grass-cloak.

 

“Now then, Robert. I’m no Talent myself, but Morgana has taught me enough. Place your hands upon the twigs.”

 

I did so.

 

“Note the texture of the wood beneath your fingertips. Note its unique color, its weight. You must know everything about a thing before you may destroy it.” I did as he told me, examining it as keenly as I knew how. I felt myself slipping into a sort of trance as I carried out his instructions, and the world narrowed until it was only myself and the kindling I hoped to ignite. “Now you must focus all of your being upon them. You must become a thing before you may manipulate a thing.”

 

I did so, drawing upon my experience within the Cradle. I sought the slow rhythms of the wood, its creaking growth and hardened maturity.

 

“Now, Robert. Discover what it is the wood needs, what it desires. You must communicate with a thing before you may influence a thing.”

 

I spoke the strange tongue of trees, and heard as the twigs responded. Their wants were wholly foreign to my thinking self, but that had been abandoned long ago. I was little more than a twig, then.

 

“Now speak to them, and change those desires. You must convince them to burn, to destroy themselves. You must make them believe that your warmth and their crackling death is greater still than their desire to be, to exist. You fight the desire for self-preservation, Robert. A thing must live before it may die.”

 

And so I entreated with the sullen wood, asking it the unthinkable. I was met with stony resistance, a forceful denial. I pressed on, heedless, wheedling and cajoling. I summoned up the experience of true cold, spinning it in my thoughts and telling it to the twigs, making them understand what it was to be cold and desperate.

 

At that moment, a spark of understanding leapt between us, and I felt a heat beneath my hands.

 

I opened my eyes, not aware that I had ever closed them, and saw a nascent flame flickering within my marveling hands.

 

“I did it,” I shouted excitedly to Berwyn. He nodded, eyebrows raised.

 

“Your second impossible feat of the day, Robert. I’ll fetch more wood.”

 

We built the fire up into a cheery blaze, and sat before it, the flames between us. I sat close, holding my palms before it, feeling the blessed warmth seeping into my cold bones. I felt as if I had frozen, in my time with the faerie, and finally felt true heat again. It was a wondrous thing, but Berwyn sat at a cautious remove from the fire. He edged closer, however, as I constructed a rudimentary spit and cooked my hard-won pheasant over it. My fingers were still sore from removing every last feather upon the bird, and I turned it with some vindictiveness, punishing it for being so entirely feathered.

 

Once I judged it ready, I removed it from the spit. Berwyn watched my movements with the intensity of a mongrel looking for a scrap of food. I tore off a wing, the bird crackling and savory. I took the roast wing and offered it to Berwyn. He regarded it with a mixture of revulsion and desire.

 

“No, I’d rather not. I’ve no taste for bird.”

“Taste or not, you’ll have to eat meat at table, so you’ll need to be able to swallow this down without retching.”

He nodded gravely, and accepted the food. Taking a tentative bite, I watched him carefully. He chewed slowly at first, and then with more vigor, but made a great show of handing back the food.

 

“I’ll be able to manage it, but I think not at the moment.”

I laughed and relieved him of it - if his pride would make him eat frozen foliage, so be it. I applied myself to my meal. Once I’d put the majority of it away, leaving nothing but shiny bones, I sighed contentedly and bade Berwyn good night. As I lay their, body heavy with the satisfying meal, a sluggish thought occurred to me.

 

“Berwyn - what about your wings?”

I heard him shift under his cloak. “What of them?”

“They won’t do in human society - what would my people think if they saw them?”

“Whatever they wish.”

“They’d call you a monstrosity, which certainly would not aid you in your pursuits.”

“I’m very near maturity, Robert… they should molt anyday now.”

“And if they don’t?”

“We will deal with that if the time comes.”