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For the talk of tropics and deserts, our childish fictions filled them with the same oaks and aspens that grew in our garden. We built on their landscape, exotic buildings that were just our little whitewashed church in Birdforth in disguise. We rained down on strange soil the same Yorkshire rain as that which drenched our skins and drove us inside, peeling off our clothes, housebound by the weather and desperate for diversion.
changelings never seemed quite real to me. But then, given how sheltered I had been, the French were never quite real.
“How far to Gethsemane?” He tutted to himself, the space between his brows folding like an accordion. “Two revelations and an epiphany? No, there has to be a shortcut… Two painful memories and a daydr–”
As he turned to leave, he started as though remembering something important. In the most solemn tones he told me, “Almost almost forgot. Remember, no walking down the silver corridor when it’s dark. No looking behind the emerald curtain. No staring portraits in the eye. No eating things without salt. And no trusting the Salamander.”
My mind would always be more finite than that of God. And still, I wanted to behold greater, to become greater than my frail bones could hold. With each laboured breath I felt as though I would tear the papery skin that held the coals of my soul in check. Glimmering embers had lain hidden among those ashes, and now these alien climes had breathed upon them and nurtured new flame.
At this period, and for some years before, the British government had the honour of instituting voyages of discovery very different from those early navigators. Expeditions of this kind were formally set on foot for the purpose of conquest, the acquisition of territory and of wealth. But now commenced a new era in the annals of navigation, when the voyages of discovery were undertaken for the interests of science; for acquiring a knowledge of the different seas, continents, and islands on the face of our globe; and for ameliorating the condition of the savage tribes that might be discovered.
In vain with lavish kindness The gifts of God are strown; The heathen in his blindness Bows down to wood and stone.
Meric Casaubon’s A True and Faithful Relation of What Passed for Many Years Between Dr John Dee and Some Spirits.
Was there truth in the old theory that the fae had been angels? Or was it simply that they remember it from the time of Adam?
As my hand lingered on my door, a feeling of being watched came over me. The hairs at the back of my neck stood on end as I felt the scrutiny of a thousand eyes, like the rush of heat when brave fingers dart through naked flame.
Iron or steel, in the shape of needles, a key, a knife, a pair of tongs, an open pair of scissors, or in any other shape, if placed in the cradle, secured the desired end. In Bulgaria a reaping-hook is placed in a corner of the room for the same purpose. I shall not stay now to discuss the reason why supernatural beings dread and dislike iron. The open pair of scissors, however, it should be observed, has double power; for it is not only of the abhorred metal, – it is also in form a cross.
Their promises, their oaths, their geas are there to hinder you, to hobble you, to hide you. They are there to blind you and to bind you. Their truth is not our truth. They wield it only as a weapon.
By and large, the Fair Folk possess all the essentials of humanity. They have in common with us all the elements of body which make up the man. They have two eyes, two ears, two hands and two feet. They appear to laugh when they are pleased, weep when they are grieved; they sleep when weary, eat when hungry; rejoice over their gains, mourn over their losses very much as other men do. However, those longest associated with them, and most intimately acquainted with their character and habits, never expect one of the Fair Folk to speak the truth when there is a chance for them to tell a lie. Yet
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A black dog tore through the mists. Its bark was sharp and abrupt, it filled my ears and, unlike the dreamlike softness of the mist creatures, the dog seemed to burn with a hellish intensity. The mist shied away from it; its tendrils turning to wisps of smoke where it touched it. It had bounded straight out of a fireside story, a spectral hound with eyes of flame. The cook used to scare us with folktales, the Gytrash and the Barghest, all beasts of shadow wandering the endless moors. Some were lost dogs, waiting for their long dead masters, but most were simply out to ambush lonely travellers.
The feeling of discomfort which insensibly creeps over one upon entering a fae dwelling is produced neither by the rudeness nor the scantiness of the furniture, nor by the difference in external appearance from that which one has been accustomed to. It is the result, rather, of the instinctive feeling that there is still something absent, without which even regal splendour would fail to satisfy. There is wanting that which is the charm of every home, whose influence can invest even poverty in the raiment of beauty and joyousness, and which, even amid much that is depressing, can fill the house
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“Realness is a strange, strange thing in these parts,
“They say the Howling Duke and the Chief of Winds are more cruel. They say He Who Commands Fear is stronger, more powerful. The Keeper of the Markets is more calculating. The Colourful King, She Who Sleeps For The Mountains and the Lost Emperors are more unpredictable, more changeable… This is all true, you have to understand.” He swallowed, visibly. “But I daresay I fear the Pale Queen the most.”
“The Pale Queen is already, by far, the most approachable and sympathetic to the human cause. She wears a face, after all.”
The beasts of infinite viciousness who cruelly exploit and savage one another from a bottomless well of pure spite are not Men in a state of nature before the civilising influence of Society. The image of the Leviathan is not a representation of an earthly sovereign as Mr Hobbs supposedly propounds. The gigantic beast formed of a multitude is no metaphor. The potency and loyalty it commands do not concern the abstract qualities of a mundane political society. The dire warnings of chaos, bloodshed and doom are carefully contextualised into a Treatise on the proper organisation of a Body
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A man of sand reached into her carriage and drew her out by her shining white hand. She unfurled from it like the sticky fronds of the sundew, like an octopus blossoming from a dark corner of a rock pool, like the slices on a peeled orange.
The sun was completely still. My heart beat and beat; I counted numerous seconds outside of time. It was strange to imagine these seconds unrecorded and apart. I remembered the stories of the Egyptian days that belonged to no year, the time when the false gods broke their own laws and sinned against their own blood.
Her grin was only getting wider as she watched me with unblinking, yellow eyes. “But you did not truly know what it meant to be human until you looked upon the fae.”
The faces then came off, each of them to be masks atop ribboned rods. For many, there was simply no face underneath, only a strange hollowness. The stone woman was an exception to this as hers was of the same marble as her body. Her featureless eyes were empty of expression. Weatherworn and crumbling, she was missing the nose and half the chin.
Thunder rumbled in the distance, and a red-capped man stood in the centre. He waved at another of the fae and I saw that he had eyes in the middle of his palms and that those eyes were weeping blood.
Something – or someone – had fallen down the chimney. A figure unfolded from the still-burning fire. They were of imposing height. They scowled as they took in the gallery, regarding Laon and me with coal-black eyes. White scars crisscrossed their face. What flesh wasn’t white was the bright, shiny red of freshly burnt skin. That flesh rippled and seeped blood as they lumbered from the fire. Black soot and white ash billowed and clung to their singed clothes.
The stranger was dressed in the dark red of old, dried blood, calling to mind the scabbed-over cuts that itched and itched. At the hem of her dress were row upon row of shimmering Enochian.
I cringed at the utterance of the Pale Queen’s name, but did not correct them. I realised that they did not fear to speak her name. “Mab won’t notice, brother. She’s far too busy starting up that feud again with the Abyssal Lords. The winter Masquerade out of season, the fox hunt tomorrow.” “It is all very old fashioned.” He paused and savoured a crystal grape from the ivy. “Still, she could be trying to snub the Green King or the Lady of Iron. She hates a lot of people. Comes from being quite so old.” “We both remember when the sun was lashed to a chariot, brother.”
“It has been decades, hasn’t it? We were such gluttons for summer that year.” Another breath and the gills on the stranger’s neck opened into eyes that blinked green and gold.
“You’re human. And humanity loves us.” She was stroking my hand as though it were a lapdog. “So desperate are you to speak to us that you see us everywhere. You look across your borders, your walls, and instead of your neighbours, you see us. As your ships sail further and countries and continents discover each other, you see not each other. You see us. You want to see us.”
“I’ve been to the Markets. Everything has a price.” “It is a very high price.” “It is that way in stories, and I will be one. Fae are nothing but stories, after all.” He smiled as though at his own joke. “Tell me the story I will be part of. The story of our sin and our salvation.”
the strange geography of the Faelands is such that it can only be reached by those who are truly lost. It does not matter where one is lost, be it the moors of Yorkshire or the deserts of Mongolia, but true confusion is vital and therein lies the failure of a great many explorers who have attempted to follow in the footsteps of Captain Cook. Many animals, even seemingly unintelligent beasts of burden, have an extraordinarily good sense of direction.
The South Seas Company, on the other hand, are going on the opposite tack, – they are doing everything in their power to make it appear the trade to Arcadia can only be conducted in safety by themselves; but the public, knowing the events which have taken place since the charter was last renewed, will not now receive the evidence of the Company’s servants without a suspicion that they have a strong predilection for things as they are.
By the lineages of creation, the dragon is as much my brother as Mankind ever was. We were both made of God’s substance, after all. He saw in me a true equal. They would know me as a creature of night and named me accordingly. They would know him as a bringer of light and named him accordingly. Our children they would call the Fair Folk, the Pale Folk. Each child would be unique, mixed of two equals, beautiful and infinite in their oddities. They are unlike those of Mankind, for he mated with his own shadow.
We were made together, Mankind and myself. He was created as my equal and I his. By the lineages of creation, he is my brother. But he wanted neither sister nor equal. I ran away with a dragon who stole a mind for itself and Mankind would love himself so much that he would marry his own rib. My children I had to hide away from a Creator still angry about our betrayal; his children inherited the earth.
