JET 8.6: THE SERVANT OF THE ENEMY
“I am the messenger-bird that bears unknown tidings. I am the journey and the one who journeys. I am the breath and the breather. I am Lord Storm.”
– from the Orovic Creed
It wasn’t until I stepped into the otherworld that I remembered the true extent of my injury. It was easy to forget, when you were joined with an eldritch whose gift granted not just flight but weightlessness. The horror of Zyger was far behind me now. I’d been subconsciously keeping myself in a deeper wraith-state than I’d realised, and it was only as I performed the portal-stepping trick, letting go of my eldritches upon the very threshold of Etherium, that my all-too-human solidity returned with a crash.
Despite my prepared posture I fell face-first to the ground on the other side of the gateway, but the scrub-covered dirt of the material plane gave way to lush blankets of supernaturally-huge daisies. I took an extremely fragrant nose-dive, and it required the combined might of both my (rather distracted) siblings to extract me. Thankfully, the jadeway closed quickly behind us, preventing my satyrs from getting a glimpse of my prostrate form. That would’ve kept the pair in jokes for weeks.
I needed a break. Just the three of us. We needed this.
At first I tried to rise, but that just served to bury my hands in the flowers. Jaid came right to my rescue when I started yelling, but even she was pulling back at half-strength. Jaroan didn’t bother to grab my flailing hand until my muffled cries became panicked, and by then it was too late: there were at least two strange, luminous millipedes in my hair (or, more scarily, one extremely long one), and something was starting to chew into my scalp behind the ear.
As I was unceremoniously hoisted out of the massive daisies, I belatedly fixed my shields, and watched not one or two but half a dozen dimly-glowing critters go sailing off through the air, expelled for daring to menace the disabled sorcerer drowning in a flowerbed.
“Serves you right,” I grumbled once they had me back on my feet… foot. Standing braced on my right leg, knee-deep in the bright, sharply-scented flowers, I raised a hand to the weeping welt on the back of my head where one of the otherworldly worms had taken a chunk out of me. I could feel a tiny hole where its miniscule teeth had drilled into the super-tender flesh.
“Everything wants a piece of the sorcerer,” Jar commented laconically, still looking around at our surroundings.
Jaid wouldn’t even speak, just staring at the otherworld in awe.
“Everything gets a piece of the sorcerer, it seems,” I muttered.
I joined them in casting about, but with a more suspicious eye, using my senses more than my eyes, seeking potential threats.
The grass was springy, every blade blunted, parted at the top into a kind of many-leafed clover. There were but few trees around. I’d never before seen Etherium so empty-looking, which was a boon for my paranoid nature, and despite the relative desolation of the vista, it retained a savage, raw beauty that startled even me.
The grey crags of Materium that had loomed so near as tunnel-walls on either side were now somehow moved far aside, and were replaced with arches of marble rising like mountainous bridges, their fluid shapes of such grace that they bespoke an intelligence in the winds which lovingly carved them. Between here and there, soft dells lay, deeply-carpeted in rich blossoms that ran like rainbow rivers in the course of the breeze. Each gust had different notes to the nostril, but the cherry-flavour was ever-present, now muted, then suddenly spiced, and then almost creamy…
Above us, the sky was as white as a sheet and yet not blindingly-so. A thick tangle of shimmering green clouds was to be found on every horizon, and directly above us too, muting the pearly brilliance with their eerie, intriguing shadows. More so than ever before, I felt I was peering through a green glass jar, the emerald lens of a native eldritch.
“Is it safe?” Jaid asked in a stilted sort of voice, as though her mouth formed the words automatically. She didn’t actually sound concerned.
“As safe as it’s gonna get, I think.” I rubbed at my scalp behind my ear one last time then lowered my hand, resolved to let the irritating pain run its course. “Let’s move out a ways.”
“What are we even doing here?” Despite the sharpness of his words, for once Jaroan didn’t sound like he was complaining – it was his voice that carried genuine fear. “I mean… what’s the point if time works so differently.”
“Not just time,” I said, wading out of the huge daisies towards a clearer patch of ground. I had trouble with every step, first finding my balance and then dragging my left leg after me. “Space, too.”
“Well, exactly.” Jaroan was following our sister in my direction; I could tell without looking by the swooshing of the flowers. “I mean, ten steps here could be just one there, you said –”
“Maybe even less.”
“So –”
“We aren’t here to speed things up.” Jaid’s taut voice answered for me. “It’s hard to be a person.”
I reached the shallower ground, and spun around awkwardly to shoot her a glance.
What in Celestium does she mean by that?
She met my eyes suddenly, and I could see how she balked, mouth gaping, like a criminal caught in the act.
“What –”
“Ohhhhh, like, without things like this!” She threw up her hands and gaze me a sickly, quizzical smile. “I think… It just makes me feel better, you know. Being here. Away from… that.”
She’d perfected the smile, now. It looked real, as she picked her way out of the expanse of flowers in my wake.
I let me tell myself I thought it was a real smile, even though I knew better. She hadn’t meant to say what she’d said, not at all.
It’s not them, I thought, returning my gaze to the distant lowlands where the many-hued blossom-river was running. It hasn’t happened, and it won’t. It can’t, now. We’re no longer there.
We no longer exist.
“We’re here,” I said, as much for my own sake as theirs, “to find a fairy.”
I trudged on awkwardly, going the same direction as I had in the material plane. North. Downhill, at last.
“Still trying to replace her?” Jaroan sounded unimpressed. He ranged out slightly ahead of me, my stumbling pace clearly irritating him.
“I know,” I muttered. “Next time I get danger-sense, I swear, I’m never letting it go, even if it secretly serves the kings of hell.”
“Who did she serve?” Jaid was overdoing the curiosity in her voice as she came up behind me. “Did you ever find out, the name of Zel’s master?”
I felt my mood souring, just hearing that combination of three otherwise-innocent letters.
“We don’t even know her name,” I reminded the twins. “I doubt you’ll see her again but if you do, don’t believe a word she says.”
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Whatever the faerie queen had done to earn my trust, whatever she had done to make me feel the twins were secure in her presence – all of it was suspect. Every semblance of sincerity, a deliberate malicious act, created to insinuate herself into my counsel.
Every time we connected – every time I felt in her a genuine note of affection for me…
At least Zel knew what she was doing. At least I can hate her.
With Emrelet… all of it was saved for Henthae. In a few years, once the Crucible was an old legend and Feychilde just another passing name in the champions’ records, I’d slink back and have some choice words with that old lady.
It was still strange. Especially being in the otherworld, one of the places I felt we’d shared… To be missing Em… To be in a state where even missing her was wrong, almost criminal…
I still couldn’t face it. I thought I’d dealt with it, thought I’d put her behind me, but all I’d really done was to put things on hold. Magicrux Zyger hadn’t been some relaxation resort, hadn’t exorcised my metaphorical demons like it had my eldritches. It was more like… being frozen in ice. My demons might’ve been frozen along with me, but they thawed at the same rate. Once survival and escape were realised, the less-imperative needs came knocking at my mental door, demanding their own share of attention.
Emrelet…
I stood there in the cherry wind, closing my eyes and trying not to wobble, remembering her one more time.
It wasn’t her touch, her kiss. It wasn’t even her devotion, her cunning, her wilfulness.
It was her smile. Seeing her genuine smile directed at me. The currency of the universe was minted in such moments.
The memory shattered. I wobbled too much, staggered and winced, and ended up chuckling at myself for my self-grandeur.
How many of the epic moments of our history were supplemented by an unrecorded breaking of wind, a random misstep, a stubbed toe?
“You okay?” Jaid asked as she walked past me, all the absent-mindedness back in her voice.
I sighed, and moved to follow.
As we descended, some trick of the light brought the streams of blossom beyond us together into lakes and pools, until after just a few minutes it seemed as though the cosmic artist had drawn the brush horizontally across the canvas, smearing a delta into existence, a convergence and splitting of the rivers…
It occurred to me then, just how wide and deep those blossom-rivers had to be, just how many trillions of petals and leaves and other bits of random detritus I had to be looking at.
“I wouldn’t mind seeing that up close!” Jar cried back, pointing.
I nodded to myself. “Looks dangerous, though!” I yelled in return.
I saw him simply flap his arms in response, like I’d said something so brain-dead there could be no appropriate verbal answer.
He was right. It was a stupid thing to say. Of course the damn river was dangerous. Did I really have to say it?
Wasn’t it dangerous, taking a blade onto the streets? Wasn’t it murderous –
I stopped myself before I took it too far, before the cold edge of disappointment bit too deep into me. Had I been much better? Had I had a better reason to be out there breaking the law when I’d been younger?
It was the fashion of the years he bore. The twins were soon to enter a tumultuous age. It pained me to admit it, even to myself, but to some dark degree I’d just thought of them as things – precious beyond all else, of course – but still just props. Often, obstacles. Impediments. Pets to feed and teach and keep secure. I was guilty of making my life easier by refusing to look at them as people. But they were – complex, clever people, and much more so than I’d been at their age. I was beginning to realise just how much I’d bitten off, raising them alone like this. Maybe we shouldn’t have come here today. Maybe it wouldn’t work. We’d have to find somewhere to stop soon, or at least some other actual humans to mingle with, before the three of us drove each other crazy.
If it wasn’t already too late for our sister.
“Jaid,” I said as we walked along, her pace slowed to match my lopsided lope. “Jaid.”
She looked around at me slowly, as if reluctant to tear her attention from the otherworld; but there was a dull glaze in her eyes even when they met my own.
“Jaid!” I said sharply.
“You gained,” she murmured, and then in the very next instant snapped out of her reverie. She brought a hand up towards her lips as if to reach back in time and stop her tongue before it started.
“I gained?” I looked at her critically, then put my hands to my waist and posed a little, sucking in my waist to accentuate my stringiness. “I very much did not, thank you. But it’s nothing week-old pastries won’t fix.”
I couldn’t coax the smile out of her. She was looking at me in terror.
I approached her, or tried to, but she could see the concern on my face and she drew away more quickly than I could follow. She backed up towards a bank of sparkling heather –
“Jaid,” I remonstrated, “Jaid, what’s up? I mean, really…”
Her boot pressed down into the heather, and a goblin sprang out of it at her, arms and fingers spread wide to grab her and drag her back with it.
I’d let the millipedes get the better of me – I was out of practice, my old habits forgotten – but I’d relearned my lesson. The simple shields I’d placed about the three of us in the wake of the attack on my scalp were plenty to protect us against all normal attacks. I watched with at first surprise and then amusement as the greyish hands closed on the air, long, dirty nails scratching at the azure force-lines only I could perceive.
His kidnapping attempt ended with him sliding down the invisible barrier, falling face-first in the gorse. A great cloud of scintillating sparks exploded about him, rising up from the bushes and then drifting back down upon his recumbent form.
“You’ve got me, haven’t yer,” it grumbled, not even raising its head.
I was suddenly uncertain of its gender. Its voice was less gravelly, softer and higher in pitch than I was used to. Blodg and Graggag… no, Glodb and Gradagh… they’d been blokes for sure, but with this one? I was pretty sure I’d never even thought about the existence of female goblins before, but if there were ever a candidate – this was her.
“You must’ve been desperate,” I observed, casually snaring her inside a diamond hanging off Jaid’s shield.
“The queen wants children,” the goblin wailed, not raising her head. “A nibble on a unicorn’s horn an’ a kiss from an elf, for every mortal babe delivered! Look at yer, just walkin’ by!”
“An elf!” Jaid burst out randomly, some degree of shock in her at this sudden attack, and revulsion at the thought of this scabby creature receiving the intimate favour of such a noble fey. She took an instinctive backwards step, trying to put some distance between herself and the monster, but she only succeeded in dragging my captive along with her.
I chuckled a little, letting the brittle force-lines elasticate somewhat, so that if my sister tried again it would let her back off. Behind her, I could see Jaroan as he came sprinting back, hollering and pointing at the goblin.
“Yessss, yes an elf!” The goblin finally drew back, sitting on her haunches and letting her manky hair hang down in knots to cover her angular face. “The gorgeousest bit o’ flesh in the realm! I’d kiss ‘is lips, oh yeah I would.” The wretched, deranged way she crooned made me pity her. She sneezed as sparks drifted down about her huge nostrils. “Achoo! Just one minute with ’em, an’ that’s all it’d take to make me better. Blimey.” The back of a hand was raised to wipe tendrils of snot from her face, and I suddenly felt sick, seeing the silvery strands glistening there atop the loose folds of greyish skin. I could make out the green veins or arteries beneath the hanging wrinkles, like webs of tree-sap pumping away under a layer of grease-soaked paper.
“You’re ill?” I asked.
“I’m a goblin,” she replied, and wailed some more.
Jaroan had thought better of approaching across the glittering heather, eyeing the tangled patch of ground like it might at any moment start birthing dozens of fey beasties; he circled around instead to view my latest acquisition from our side.
I caught his eye, then he hurriedly looked back down at the eldritch, as if ashamed to have been spotted casting me a glance.
All this was beginning to grate on me.
I returned my attention to the goblin along with him; Jaid was asking it a question.
“Doesn’t the unicorn mind you… nibbling her horn?”
“Him,” the goblin hissed, glaring balefully at my sister suddenly. “Bircanos. Favoured o’ the Riderless One, scourge o’ the Thousan’ Marches. Oh, so pure! Oh, the light!”
Jaid squealed. I couldn’t recall hearing of Bircanos, but that didn’t mean she hadn’t found some obscure reference.
It had my curiosity piqued, and I had to slow my thoughts to get a handle on what she was saying. “You don’t want to be a goblin?”
“Who’d wanna be a goblin.”
She beat at the ground with her bony-looking fist.
Since when do things hate what they are?
As far as I was concerned, goblins were supposed to hate (and envy, I supposed) everything else, not their own kind.
“What’ve unicorn horns and elf-kisses got to do with it?” I pressed.
She didn’t answer – just pounded at the earth some more, ejecting an army of tiny yellow ants or termites from their hiding place in the grass.
“Who’ wanna be a goblin?” Jaroan echoed her, muttering as he came to stand between me and Jaid. “I didn’t think they got much choice in the matter.”
It was an interesting way to put it. He was right about that, as far as I knew at least. Fey came into being in much the same way as mortals in the material plane, and, I guessed, like mortal souls entering Nethernum; they would be born into a shape, their fate sealed from the moment they first breathed the floral air of the otherworld. Nothing I had ever read mentioned anything about fey transformation and yet it was a typically-astute line of inquiry from my brother, even if he’d started by rejecting it as a possibility.
I tried another tack, and in spite of my efforts to sound relaxed, I heard the cold edge to my voice:
“Your name?”
I noted the way her head jerked, her eyes pulled inexorably to meet mine.
I stared into their dark pits, finding the emerald depths twinkling within, and I knew her name before she voiced it.
“Blofm,” she croaked, and a shudder passed through her as she closed her eyes.
“Welcome to my coterie, Blofm.”
Her trembling stilled.
“You’re mine, now. You’ll do as you’re told.”
She met my gaze once more.
“And you can start with this: stop hating goblins.”
* * *