WHEN A FAELING CRIED in the night, no-one came to comfort her. When she screamed, her family groaned and covered their ears or shouted at her to be silent. Darkness was the time of her greatest fears, those unmanageable, overpowering forces that came from nowhere to attack her mind. She had never seen them embodied nor felt their touch as she had felt her father’s hand, fist or whip – many times – yet she knew their presence as intimately as her own wings.

In this darkness, voices surrounded her. Allory saw nothing. She felt nothing – yet she seemed to be trapped upon the threads of a Semmish Spinner’s web, unable to move.

“You must remember,” hissed a voice.

“Remember, Allory. Tell me everything,” Xertiona’s voice urged, almost merging with the first voice, but not quite. “Just let it out, little blossom, just this once, and I promise you everything will feel better. Tell me, are you the one?”

Allory moaned through gritted teeth.

“Are you the one who bears the secret burden of our people?”

“I … I don’t know …”

Ask her again. That voice, that rasping whisper – did she hear it or sense it without use of her ears? Ask again, Philosopher. Do not fail me.

I shan’t. “Allory, little blossom, tell me what’s troubling you? Please. I can help soothe your fears. Maybe another sip of this nice medicine?”

“No … no, please, not more amsinthe …”

“Take it! Drink!” Bitter liquid coursed down her throat, an oily tang that burned the back of her throat.

Administer more to the child. We must know the truth.

“That would be a killing dose.”

More!

As dream-Allory writhed, a doubt slipped into her consciousness. Could that be her Dadfae’s voice? Was he the one driving the relentless questioning?

Again, the bitter oil burned – was there something hard stuck inside her throat? She struggled, choked, failed to cough it out, but then the struggling Faeling became aware of something new. A transient trickle of musical notes plucked upon the strings of her heart. Each note became a droplet of light, and the quality of the light was extraordinarily, impossibly pure, like argent love burnished upon every secret thought or emotion she had ever owned.

A sense of invitation struck her forcibly, despite her distress.

With a soundless giggle, the Scintillant Fae welcomed the light into the quintessential sap of her soul, and bade it be at home – yet when she thought about it, that radiance did not come from without, but rather, grew from within as if it had always been present.

Pure, lucent warmth swept her away into a new realm.

* * * *

Sometimes sleep seemed a thing most light and ephemeral, a realm briefly dipped into before being abandoned in the morn. Sometimes it gripped with tentacles that threatened to never let go, like a Fae girl who dreamed of being stuck in quicksand, slowly sinking, while a yellow-eyed Ripper Baboon perched on a branch nearby watching her die. No matter how doggedly she struggled, she could not heave free. Her wings hung like lead beneath the gooey morass, which crept inexorably up her neck toward her mouth as she sank. She knew she would die. She must.

I am the boneyard girl. She moaned softly, fighting despair so dark and cloying, the very sap of her bones knew dawn would never come. I see the Wraith wreathed in shrouds of death. Death follows me.

Another part of her reflected briefly, ‘The Wraith? That entity – it’s real?’

A nightmare born into reality had to be the greater of two evils. Somehow, she had always believed the horrors she experienced to be her own personal penitence, yet this realisation was no relief. What would the Wraith do to her Spheris? It was a capable of anything. Anything at all.

Life ebbed and surged, ebbed and surged.

Dimly, as consciousness coalesced as from a faraway place, she became aware of a great struggle within her body, of searching as if through a dark space of timeless immensity for that one, infinitesimal spark that would ignite her being … for the essence of who she was, the true Allory … for she understood now that the truest expression of her inmost nature had eluded her all her life. It had been stamped down, oppressed, denied, beaten and drugged into submission. There must be more. Some … some tiny spark …

A spark lost in an infinite jungle of lies, deception and lifelong phobias.

“Lumpus grumpus,” intoned an authoritative voice. The echoing sound caused her dream to fray strangely around the edges, as if veils of jungle vines had interrupted it, bringing multiple tangled threads of reality to the fore. “Torus thumpus. Magior rumpus!”

Help! she tried to cry out. Her mouth would not work. Help me.

The voice continued, “Trumpus dumpus. Stupendous mendous, extra-smooth blendous! Not so much … maybe, semaphoric strumpus? No, not that one. Ruddy Felidragon, I’d better try it again.”

What? Help! I can’t breathe!

Allory panicked.

“Draconis slumpus – blast it, I’ll never get this incantation right. Great-grandpixie’s right, actual studying does help. Maybe I would if my love life weren’t so dust-confusty blustery … ahem. Can’t even speak right, this dust storm has my pixels stirred up into a right fusty soup.”

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

Please stop prattling and hear me! Please!

Her arms and legs spasmed violently, but the swamp’s tendrils held her fast. Beginning to sink into a darkness she feared more than anything beneath Middlesun, Allory forced herself to fight. Fight!

Yet no sound would come.

“Less emphasis on the draconis thumpus,” suggested a burry voice. “I know what you’re trying to achieve, mrrr-hrrr, friend Pixie, but this is a very inefficient form of the required magical construction – if I may refer you to the misconstrued structure of this particular line –”

“Maybe I’ll lumpis you up the trumpus, Felidragon!”

“Touchy.”

“Immature.”

“You can talk, Dustbag.”

“If you say so, Furball.”

With a despairing scream, Allory inhaled something that wasn’t air. KERZAP! An explosion ripped out of her body. She began to suck in a proper breath, deep and long, when –

Crash! Bling! Bang! Tinkle! Kerump! Blang! Bong-bong-bing! Snick! Plop …

She froze. Whatever she had just done, it sounded bad. Impressively bad. No. Angry Dragon throwing a tantrum in a chamber full of delicate artworks kind of bad.

“She’s awake!” someone screeched.

“She’s alive!” a Dragon bellowed. “What was that explosion? I’ve sparkles inside … my fires, that was weird!”

“My pixels are tiny lights! No, it’s fading now … some electrostatic side-effect of dust agitation?” Chenixipi’s voice pondered, the scientific words supplemented by a current of clear, uncontainable joy. “Allory! Allory Fae! Dusts’ sakes, speak to me, girlfae!”

Alive? Awake? Decent result. However, she was also strapped into something that resembled a cage and kept her limbs utterly immobile. Before fear excoriated the very sap of her being, another sensation struck that routed the fear; wiped it from her awareness in a blink. Her right-wing cluster quivered. Truly? Had the nerves returned to life? As if responding to her regard, to her disbelief, sharp pain stabbed at the wound site and spangled up into her wingtips until tears sprang to her eyes.

Even pain was welcome!

Pain was her friend, for she knew that meant Inixipi had achieved the impossible.

Why could she not open her eyelids farther than a crack? No detail could she see, nothing save a faint glimmer of light.

As bodies large and small crashed about the chamber in an attempt to reach the trapped Faerie girl, Allory began to laugh even though she cried. Wetness streamed down her cheeks. Chenixipi screeched for her great-grandpixie, while a warm, familiar talon stroked her forehead. Why were they so beside themselves? Her voice box bobbed in an attempt to speak but Allory found something soft but inflexible lodged right down the back of her throat. She choked as instinct made her fight the invader.

That thing from her dream! The thing they had done to her – forcing her –

“Easy there, hrrr-prrr,” Yaarah purred, touching her legs with a warm talon. “There’s a tube down your throat helping you to breathe, Allory. Don’t try to speak yet. It’s been a few days.”

Days? Who had stolen so much time from her? That was days more that the Marakusian Slavers would have enjoyed to drag her family even farther from any hope of rescue. How would they ever track them down now? Stop them?

Allory forced herself to lie still as tendrils of Pixie dust touched her arms and legs, releasing restraints which kept her splayed flat on her stomach. Inixipi fished the tube out of her throat, leaving her coughing and rasping at the rawness. Warm water bathed her eyes, eventually releasing her gummed-up eyelashes and something within that seemed to peel away. She blinked many times as the Healer Sage cleaned up all the gunk her eyes had produced.

The Healer explained that she had experienced an allergic reaction to the first draught of potion they had administered, following which Allory had remained unconscious for five days. The delicate, magic-assisted surgery on her muscles, tendons and nerves had proceeded as well as could be expected, but there had been no sign of recovery since –

Hrrgh! Allory rasped. Hurrrghsss …

“What’s she saying?” the Healer Sage asked, sounding as if she were at pains to speak gently to her patient. “Don’t try to speak, dear. I’m sorry, but the tube – your throat swelled to a life-threatening point, see –”

Hrrgh! She tried to point over her shoulder. Why could she not see properly? Everything was blurry, a mishmash of moving shapes and shadows. Hrrgh-hurrr …

“Hurts,” Yaarah said immediately. Both Pixies hissed at him. “She’s definitely saying it hurts. I’ve experience with the Faerie, you know. At least a whole two weeks.”

Never had she imagined any creature could be more pathetic than her at pleading a case, but there it was. Focussing her utmost, Allory managed to flick her wing cluster slightly.

“Her wing! Marvellous progress!” Inixipi cried, distracted at once. “Did you see that?”

“Splendusteriffic!” Chenixipi yelled.

“That isn’t a word, child.”

“I don’t care, great-grandpixie, I really don’t! This is truly splendusteriffic news and I’m so, so happy I think I’m going to explode into a cloud of enchanted dust –”

“Messy but fun,” Yaarah audibly smirked.

“Inixipi … Inixipi, where are you? Where’s everyone?” Allory asked. She tried to rub her eyes, but that made it no better. “Why can’t I see?”

“What’s that, dear?”

She waved her hands exaggeratedly. “I can’t see a thing. Please –”

“Oh, that’s unusual. You might have some form of residual Faesap-related ophthalmic obfuscation – fetch me my loupe, Chenixipi, and by my dust, who destroyed my infirmary? Yaarah? You had better start confessing right now, you exasperation on paws.”

“Not me,” he rumbled. “Her.”

Allory pictured him displaying his fangs in a typical Dragon smirk.

“Are you attempting to counter-stir my dust, young Felidragon?” Inixipi hissed at a dangerous level of vexation. “Is this a game to you?”

“Nrrr-frrr –”

“Did you learn nothing from your dungeon experience?”

“Your Eminence –”

“Then stop blathering on this second, because I swear you’re well on your way to being turned into hairball soup laced with mushrooms!” the venerable Healer snapped. “How dare you accuse my Allory in her delicate condition? She does not need this kind of nonsense from the likes of you! Out!”

“Mrrr-wrrrl!” he yowled, sounding as if he were leaping for his life.

In grim tones, Inixipi inquired, “Allory?”

Thinking back to how she had awoken, she hung her head and, in her smallest voice, confessed, “I am very, very sorry, Your Eminence, but –”

“You?”

“I’m really –”

“You did this? Dust of my ancestors! All of this damage?”

Her heart leaped painfully inside her chest. She gasped, “I … sort of … I’m guilty, I think – although, by my sap I’ve no idea how. Aye. I’m so sorry. I … I’ll make it up –”

“By my dust, this is perfectly marvellous! What a result! Well done, Allory.”

Wheeze! “Eep! Eh?”

The Healer Sage patted her shoulder with palpable care. “You are a wonder. A marvel. How you shiver every particle of my dust!”

“I … what? Your Eminence …”

Presumably, this was a high compliment amongst Pixies. She simply could not fathom what under Middlesun she might have done to deserve such an accolade. Destroyed an infirmary. Shattered her delicate, irreplaceable equipment. Could she do no wrong in this Pixie’s eyes?

“That one is eleven and a quarter inches of pure trouble, as I warned you,” Yaarah had the cheek to put in, in quite simply the smuggest purr ever heard beneath Centresky. “As amply proven, she is disproportionately talented at –”

“KITTY, OUT!”

SSS … MRRRWWLLL!!

By the subsequent sounds of things, he had just been kidnapped by a horde of pixels and dumped unceremoniously outside the doorway, probably right on top of his overstuffed cranium. Allory giggled merrily. Poor Yaarah, he was having a bad week. Not that she would ever in a million orbits of those Shyraiama Dragons be calling him ‘kitty.’

Leaning close, Inixipi the sagacious Healer Sage whispered into her ear, “I must confess, dear, that we actually quite like the sort of trouble you’ve introduced around here, lately.”

“Eep?”

“These caverns would be dreadfully boring otherwise. However, don’t you dare tell that mewling overgrown kitten. He’ll be even more insufferable than usual.”