[30] Act 6 Act 6 Act 6 (Part 1)

Classic. A headache. Always a headache. If not an ache in the lungs—a pain in the stump—a vague brittleness in her bones—it was a headache. Never a moment of wellness in this body. Never a moment of peace.

If she could just have—a moment. A moment of peace. That was a lie though, that "if she could just have." She wouldn't be satisfied by a moment. Even someone like her had moments. She wanted a lifetime. A peaceful, placid lifetime. Free of pain, free of fear. All things negated.

Got worse ever since Jay left. Fucked it up with him royally didn't she? Hmmmmmmm. Meddlemeddlemeddle. Can't let things happen naturally. Always need to stick your nose in it. Too used to things never going the right way. Possessed of a constant notion that taking your fate into your own hands is the only possible path to a happy outcome. Striving. Maybe peace comes to the peaceful and no rest comes to the wicked. False though. Had she never done anything she'd be in California still. And we all know how that ends.

Jay'd be back. Hopefully sooner rather than later since her time in this life was drip, drip, dripping to the base of the hourglass. He'd be back though. She'd need to put on a better face. Apologize. She understood. He just didn't like the meddling. Or maybe he just didn't like her. Had a convenient excuse now. Maybe when he came back he'd toss her to the wolves in court. So easy: "I know who's behind the assassinations." They'd believe him whether he had evidence or not. Especially since he'd be accusing her. Even now, was that spider that dogged his heels trying to convince him? Ridiculous. He didn't need convincing. He already hated her—

"Ah, the enchanting Princess Viviendre."

DeWint. Why. Leave her alone. Her head hurts.

"Prime Astrologer. Preying on a young lady when she's all alone? You never fucking change huh?"

"I assure you, Lady Viviendre, that I possessed no such thoughts. Although if you are ever in need of assistance due to the absence of your retainer, call upon me and I shall sprout wings from my feet."

She looked this way. That. Castle corridor empty. Her room another long passageway distant. She'd be stuck with him until then wouldn't she?

"DeWint. Please," she whispered. "I'm not in the mood this time. Seriously."

His debonair act, ridiculous now that his age was advancing, dispersed. "Viviendre. You've been acting oddly for two weeks now. Keeping to your room, locking yourself away with books. My eyesight remains quite good, you know, despite the late night reading I've done in my time. Whatever is the matter?"

A rude gesture and she tried to walk away. She was slower than everyone though. Escape never an option. If they wanted nothing to do with her they left and if they wanted to harass her she could never do the same.

"Please—Viviendre. I'm not a fool. It's the hero, is it not? I heard from some of my students the two of you had an argument in front of the academy before he disappeared."

Didn't want to talk about this. Never, never, never. At least his powers of observation hadn't failed him. Would've expected him to pin her demeanor on the assassination attempt. It'd been what scared the sister shitless after all.

"I cannot have my top student neglecting her wellbeing. Viviendre. Lady Viviendre!"

Built to bursting she swiveled on her peg and aimed a finger at him. "Mayfair's your top student. Always was. I'm second fiddle. Must be a mighty blow to you, one less trophy to your name huh? Instead of the fair Princess of Whitecrosse you've now only the demented Princess of California. Leave me alone. Go seek the mysteries of the spheres the way Astrophicus did—by yourself."

He reached to place a hand on her shoulder and she brushed him off but he spoke anyway: "You know, the other day Lady Shannon gave me pause for thought."

"I don't care about her."

"She possesses such immense knowledge. Knowledge none here have ever glimpsed. Yet when I speak to her, I find she is no genius. She's of a certain level of intelligence, to be sure, but no smarter than any of my top students—you included. I then thought to myself—how came she by the answers to riddles none have even asked? Not a product of her, as a force herself, but by the power of her world, a world where each generation for hundreds of years has striven for something greater, and so striving humanity manages perhaps a single upward step every ten or twenty years. Yet each step is then built upon, built upon, built upon. For some reason, this idea of generational growth has never occurred to me. I reflected, earnestly—"

"Shut up."

"—seeking within myself why I know nothing more than my teacher before me, or his teacher before him, and so forth, all the way back to the days of John Coke. After thinking long and hard, I realized. It is this pride I hold within me, this desire for personal achievement, personal acclaim, at the expense of my students. You are correct; I have treated you as trophies, as emblems of my mastery over the known arts and sciences. Yet personal glory, even if achieved—would that truly benefit this kingdom, this world? It is not myself I should be pushing toward greatness, but you, Lady Viviendre, and Lady Mayfair too."

"I don't want to hear about her!"

"I failed Lady Mayfair. She was, despite her innate charms, an awkward child, poor at socialization. My position should have made me one of her closest confidantes, yet I did not concern myself with her beyond my capacity to train her by rote into the recitation of facts and figures. I failed her; and alone, she thus ruined herself." His hand fell upon Viviendre's shoulder. "Lady Viviendre. I do not intend to fail you as well."

Her one eye twitched. Christ Almighty, this headache. "The difference," she said, "the difference is Mayfair's a child and I'm a woman. Becoming my confidante means more to you then, hm?"

"Lady Viviendre, I am being gravely serious! I will not lose another prospect for the future. Another building block toward a wiser, more knowledgeable world. After I'm gone—"

"You fucking bastard! You shithole! In twenty years you'll still be stooped over your desk and I'll be dead. Do you get it? Do you get it now?!"

"Lady Viviendre—"

"Enough already!"

She thought maybe she'd spoken sharply enough to pin him to the spot in stupefaction. Her chamber was finally here, the door beside her, fit to flee through. But she took one step and stopped.

Someone was coming from the far end of the corridor. At this length, eyesight blurred at the edges from the severe pain in her skull, she could only make out identical bright red uniforms. How odd. The castle servants wore white livery, the dukes' men checkerboard patterns of white and green and blue and gold depending on the duke. California of course was black, black, black. So none wore red—

"No!" a voice cried out. Directly behind her. DeWint's voice, although it sounded nothing like him. Drained of all dimension that made him DeWint. Something primal, something chilling in her bones. His body slammed into her from the side and forced the door to her bedchamber open and her through it. She lost her balance instantly and flung an arm out to catch herself while gripping the Staff of Solomon tight to her chest and landed with a painful shock to her shoulder and chin.

Wincing—wondering if any frail ribs broke—she rolled partway against the side of her bed. Warm blood running down her chin and her head a pulsing petard threatening to crack and spill the syrup of her brain. DeWint lay within the open doorframe.

"Why?" she asked. Her eyesight, a spiral, snapped into focus. Out of DeWint's body extended several tall, straight, feathered shafts. Feathers as red as those uniforms. From the corridor came the clomp of boots.

Oh, Viviendre thought. This can be fixed. Her hand reached for her eyepatch. She had a way to fix this. Nothing new under the sun. Those were the words for the thing that replaced the eyeball she never had. Those words and everything was back to the way it was.

Except not for the dead. Those were the rules. Even the power of a relic could not bring back the dead. Her hand fell away from her eyepatch before she even bothered to remove it and unveil her second relic. For out of DeWint's eye one of the shafts emerged, his head twisted at a funny angle. Everything about him deathly still.

From the corridor came the clomp of boots. Closer.

She gripped the Staff of Solomon. No—no. The staff was powerful, but could only divide one person at a time. There had been a column of red emerging from the end of the corridor. They'd swarm her. Emerge through the cascading gore of their foremost allies all the more primed to eviscerate her. No, no, no. DeWint dead already. He—he saved her. No. Couldn't waste thoughts about him now. Oh God, oh God if you were there as some said you were, oh God who she always somewhat believed in despite the lack of evidence, oh God please do not let her die. Oh God she did not want to die.

The bed. Had to get under. To hide. Sliding, pulling, she crawled under the bed and clutched her staff ready to use it if need be. The horrible face of DeWint, one eye obliterated. That was her view, that and the open doorway. Under the bed she chanced to think this was worthless. They saw her go inside this room. They would enter and find her. Kill her no matter how many of them she killed first. In such an instance—should she simply die? Was it worthwhile to gouge the price of her blood with theirs? Or was a cheap and simple death the sole atonement for her sins. In her thrumming wash of headache these useless thoughts she thought. No—she wanted to live. More than anything she wanted to live. Or was that not right either. She wanted more than to live perhaps. Just a little bit more than to simply live.

Right now, though, living was her sole concern and the dead face of her teacher cemented that concern as a thunderous bolt in her brain. She held the staff and awaited the tromp of boots. Divide, she thought, preparing herself to speak the simple word. Divide. Divide. Divide. Divide. Divide.

The boots passed the open doorway. Tromp, tromp, tromp—but they did not turn. Did not enter her room. They continued down the corridor in their bright red uniforms only the legs of which she glimpsed emerging out their brown boots before her vision was occluded. In a neat and military line. Another. Another. Another. They were not concerned with her. Another. Another. Another.

DeWint, his eyes hers, grinned into her hiding spot. And as her one eye grew blurry but now with tears she thought: Bastard. Bastard, he died before her just to prove a point. Bastard. Bastard. Bastard. Bastard. Bastard. And the hero was no longer here.

—

The madness in the throne room—Mallory screaming for a sword, for the soldiers to be called, for the challenge laid down by the ambassador to be met; and all her dukes and courtiers attempting to calm her—was rendered chillingly quiet at once when the bleeding guard dashed into the room, his arm a red streak at his side, and breathlessly howled: "Attack! It's an attack! The elves are in the castle. A whole army of elves!"

His last proclamation terminated with a choke as he staggered to the side like a lazy drunk and slid down the nearest pillar, leaving his blood behind him.

Those gathered stared at the spot he voided in abject stupefaction. But in the silence where before their clustered arguing had dwelled they heard it: the distant sound of combat, shouts, clinking and clanking of metal, and perhaps if it was not their ears deceiving them those sounds were drawing closer each passing second.

"Nonsense—nonsense." It was Duke Meretryce who spoke first, always easy with his tongue. "They could not have possibly breached the city walls without warning. Not an army. There must be—must be some error—"

"You fool! Fool indeed you are," said Archbishop Tintzel. "I warned you not to hear the words of that fae creature. These are not godly beasts, nor are they human, human not one drop of their devil blood! They may walk through walls, may manifest out of a nightmare—"

"SILENCE."

The voice of Duke Mordac fell like a stone onto a glass pane. In the bright light that streamed onto the room from the gigantic circular window above the throne he became a chiaroscuro set of contrasts, black robe and pale face, sharp creases forming pathways to the abyss between his lean jowls.

"We've no time for argument. The throne room must be defended. My men will secure the front entrance. Meretryce, organize your men to hold the smaller side entrances. Gonzago—where's that oaf Gonzago!"

The dandyish, simpering man in question, Meretryce's nephew, crawled out from behind his uncle's fanning cloak. "Y—yes, Your Lordship?"

"You're fleet of foot and otherwise the most useless among us. If they've truly snuck into the castle unseen then we must call back the men defending the walls. Go now! Fly, fly—stop standing there slack-jawed and fly!"

Gonzago sprouted to attention, sputtered, took off toward the broad, double-doored front entrance of the throne room before Mordac laid into him with his tongue: "Not that way, you imbecile! You'll only dash straight into the fighting. Take the side door—that way, that way! Blow your horn and fly!"

The words bit into Gonzago's backside like a whip as he sprinted, slipped on the lacquered tile, pulled himself up, and dashed in a somewhat effete manner out the door.

"God help us," Mordac said. "We must hold out at least until the forces of Whitecrosse are mustered. Meretryce, command your men to take positions there and there. Go on, move!"

It was at that point Queen Mallory strode forward. She had spent the time since the messenger's arrival arming herself; she now cut a ridiculous figure, holding a spear on her shoulder and a sword in her other hand, with two more crossed blades strapped to her back and a hatchet wedged between them, plus three or four daggers and shortswords jangling at her hips. The cross enameled onto her silvery armor, which she had donned as soon as the elf ambassador left, shone in the streaming light, and the links of mail of her hauberk shifted around her ankles. Her chin and mouth were concealed by a shimmering beaver and her helm she wore with the visor up so that her blue eyes might pierce through adversaries as her weapons. All of this armor gave her body inches of both height and breadth and as she approached Mordac she towered over him.

"Aside, knave. I'll hear none of this cowardice. The fighting's within the walls already; we shall meet them and spill their blood where they dare trespass. Either go with me or I go alone."

Mordac's retinue comprised ten men, who now blocked the double doors leading out of the throne room, five in the front with their heavy shields held together in a wall of iron and five in the back with spears jutting between the gaps. But their backs were to the queen and thus undefended, and if she did not merely vault them despite all her armor she might hack them to pieces to gain passage.

Despite the murderous glint in the queen's blue eyes, Mordac moved into her path to intercept her.

"You foolish girl," he said, the disdain a flowing drip through the crevasses that lined his harsh face. "All this time a foolish girl you remain."

Mallory brimmed ire instantly. "What did you call me."

"A foolish girl! A fool and a girl both! Not even a woman. You'll truly die like a dog in those halls when your birthright remains right there behind you?" His arm shot out, he indicated the throne.

Not a face among them watching would have been surprised if Mallory whipped out her blade and severed that outstretched arm in a flash. Yet she made no movement and that stillness was somehow all the more ominous.

"My birthright? You speak to me of my birthright, Duke of Mordac. You speak to me of a girl. You who sold off a girl of thirteen years so you might better manipulate the male child she produced—"

"And you have not aged a minute since that day, child."

"I have aged a thousand years since then! And every endless second of it I spent waiting for this day, the day I might reclaim the glory this kingdom has long since lost. War was what John Coke waged and what was in his blood and war is thus my birthright, not that motionless throne."

"I was not pointing to the throne."

"Your Majesty! Your Majesty"—it was Meretryce, wheeling in a slow arc with the queen at the center, keeping between them a wide berth as he subtly neared a pillar that might serve to defend him should the queen suddenly lunge—"Your Majesty, my colleague the Duke of Mordac lacks eloquence and the situation has stiffened his tongue even more than usual. He—and I—mean no offense, of course, we could never mean offense to you. What I believe he is trying to tell you is that, if you are truly to live up to the glorious example set by your forebear the great John Coke—an example, mind you, I am certain you will be able to follow if not exceed in this time of unexpected darkness—then would it not be wise to do as he did and take up the holy relics of Whitecrosse to aid you in this battle? The vault beneath the castle—that, I believe, is what Mordac refers to when he says your 'birthright.'"

"We shall hold the enemy here," Mordac said. "While you go down to the vault. Arm yourself with the relics and, if you can, become the hero you claim to be."

Mallory looked at him blankly. Looked at Meretryce. Finally, after a long pause so quiet even the growing mayhem of the battle nearing the throne room became quiet within it, she smiled. The tips of her smile rose above her beaver.

"How kind of you, my beloved dukes, to volunteer to die simply so that I may become all the more glorious. Very well! I look forward to this new future."

She turned on a heel and marched back to the throne, her knights and maidservants parting to give her passage, and with one almost effortless heave toppled the giant seat and kicked the panel beneath it to reveal a hidden stairway leading into the darkness under Castle Whitecrosse.

"Those who belong to me shall accompany me to the vault. That includes you, Lady Heroine."

Those imperious blue eyes landed heavily upon the one among them who had not spoken the entire time. Shannon Waringcrane, arms folded, neck stooped and head tilted, returned the gaze with sunken, dark eyes of her own, but still said nothing.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

"I told you I protect what's mine and I meant it," Mallory said. "Now let us proceed. To the vault! Down to the vault... Fool! Quit moping in that corner and come too. Now more than ever I desire your mirth."

She gestured, already descending the first of the steps into the tomblike depths. The Fool, who sat in the corner with a look of melancholy to match Shannon's, lacking any ditty or pun to produce, sighed and rose slowly as the shivering maidservants and Shannon Waringcrane fell in behind the queen and dropped down into the dark.

Soon they were gone, leaving only Mordac, Meretryce, their men, and Archbishop Tintzel. The last of these closed the trapdoor and with the aid of two soldiers turned the throne upright to its ordinary position.

"You do not intend to accompany the queen?" Mordac asked drily, disinterested, to the archbishop.

"I shall not see this land claimed by the devil's minions. No I shall not!" Tintzel moved to the men at the second of the smaller entrances to the throne room, taking command with a pompous bark although they were Meretryce's men. In response to Meretryce's questioning look, Mordac approved with a nod, finding that three commanders was meet for a room with three entrances.

Meretryce continued to hesitate: "Should we not retreat elsewhere and draw away their attention from the throne? Would it not be better to find a more defensible location?" They were questions nobody deigned to answer. In this world, symbols possessed enough power to make them worth defending. Besides, it was too late. Into the corridor beyond the throne room's front entrance the elves were now streaming, crimson uniforms and fair faces, and there was no mistake about where they intended to go; they moved with singleminded purpose, as though a solitary entity. Mordac bid his men ready themselves as the first wave crashed against their shields.

—

By some miracle Gonzago made it out of the castle. In haste and confusion he became lost among the corridors he had traversed countless times prior, and oh how every juncture and every door seemed to him upon approach to have an elf lying in wait to spear him, though none ever was. Into the afternoon sun he burst, howling, though nobody in the courtyard around the monument to John Coke was not already either sprinting toward or away from the castle; realizing he was already panting from exertion, he wondered how he would manage the trek to the city walls with the speed the situation required.

Surely not by screaming his lungs out. He ran into the treacherous downslope of the hill Whitecrosse was built upon, skidding against the narrowly-encroaching walls to stop himself from reaching such a velocity that he lost control and pitched headlong forward. "An attack," he sometimes said to the sooty faces peering out windows, "an attack at the castle. All men, to arms, there must be a defense or we lose everything!" He could not tell if they heard or cared; he could not tell if fleet-footed Rumor was somehow two steps ahead of him, conveying his message before it left his lips.

The walls, he thought. At the walls there are many guards posted, most of Whitecrosse's regular army that was not already at the castle. He had to pray that news of the commotion would spread without his impetus to the lords of the upper district, who commanded their own entourages; the wall was furthest and where he was bid to go, and so he would go there. His uncle the duke considered him inept, he knew it though it pained him to admit it, but here he would not falter. No—not here. From the wall he could send riders to the lesser lords of the surrounding lands, who might yet arrive in time to bring succor should the battle prolong itself. And also a rider to the third duke, Malleus, who was by happy coincidence already en route to the capital and expected to arrive at any moment. Yes, Malleus! He would arrive with a contingent, as the roads were dangerous for a rich man to travel without ample guard, and a rider bearing an urgent message might spur him at a gallop the rest of the way. An excellent idea, this of the riders, but of course it came naturally to Gonzago, who often managed Uncle's commerce at the gates and saw to it that men were dispatched to nearby lands to best conduct his business.

For a brief moment, as the slope tugged his legs faster and faster so that his speed seemed superhuman to himself, Gonzago nursed a fantasy that war might perhaps be his calling, the way so many other disciplines were not; not academics, nor politics, nor athletics. He envisioned himself upon a horse, dressed in armor, dictating the movements of troops upon a field, seeing the men arrayed like ants before him and from such a vantage able to understand inherently where was best to mass, where best to fall back, where now to divert the enemy's focus, where to position the flanks. Why not? Why could that not be him? The fear he felt fleeing the castle was gone as the walls loomed before him and in their place was bravado. He imagined himself rushing to the aid of Lady Shannon, rescuing her at the last moment, and she gratefully swooning into his ready arms; oh Lady Shannon, could it not be so? Could that not be your Gonzago?

A man slammed into him. Their two bodies twirled and skidded onto the stones and Gonzago's hands scraped open with thin speckled sores that set him wincing. The man with whom he collided rose immediately, shook his shoulders. "Lord Gonzago! Lord Gonzago!" It was a guard often stationed at the gates; Gonzago knew him. "Lord Gonzago, you must run to the castle now. A message—an urgent message!"

"You've already heard?" Gonzago said. Rumor again, Rumor fast as the wind. "If you've heard—then where are the rest of you? There is no time, we must abandon the gate and return to the castle at once!"

"Abandon the gate?" The guard blinked. "But Lord Gonzago, it's headed right for the gate."

Gonzago didn't understand. The guard shot up, waved his hands placatingly, and continued up the hill. "Apologies, Lord Gonzago. I cannot waste a moment. I must warn the castle!" He sprinted and was gone.

Damnation! Even these guards treated him with disrespect. He hadn't the faintest idea what the man was saying, and got up rubbing his hands on his shirt.

A set of switchbacking stairs led up the back of Whitecrosse's main gate to reach the upper story of the gatehouse. Not only would the commander of the guards be stationed there, but the gatehouse also contained a gigantic, loud horn that could be blown to signal an attack. The horn was, Gonzago realized as his climbed, blowing now, a heavy and low sound that thundered so strongly he marveled at how lost in his own mind he had been to miss it. He burst through the gatehouse door and stooped, panting.

"Message from the castle," he said. "Where is the guard captain?"

"Praise God you've come fast, Lord Gonzago," the guard captain said. "We've never seen anything like this before. Her Majesty the queen may want to come down herself."

"What are you talking about? The castle is under attack. Every man must go there now to defend the queen. Leave the gate undefended, if the castle falls all is lost!"

"How can the castle be under attack? Nothing but farmhands have passed through the gate since that ambassador. What you're saying makes no sense, man."

A soldier ran up. "Sir! It's come close enough now that we can see the rider at the head of it. You must look!"

The captain gave Gonzago a dismissive flick as though he were a madman and hurried to the opening that looked out onto the farmland around Whitecrosse. Gonzago trailed behind babbling but when they reached the opening one glance was all it took to still his tongue completely.

The forest was approaching.

Those words were what flashed through Gonzago's head and although there could be no other explanation for what he saw he disregarded those words as absurd, impossible.

A line of trees cut straight through the flat, even farmland. It started from the far distance and extended like a grasping tendril reaching for the city. They were tall trees, leafy trees, dark and foreboding trees, as though even in this narrow corridor of greenery and life all the horror of inhuman dominion was contained. How the trees got there, Gonzago could not fathom. They had not been there before, all the land here was tilled and planted or else left fallow. As he scrutinized, though, it became clear: the trees were sprouting out of the ground, emerging before his very eyes, growing closer and closer to the gate. No trick, no illusion. The forest was approaching.

"There," a soldier said, pointing to the forefront of the tendril, around where the newest trees were appearing so rapidly and suddenly as though time for them was magnified a thousandfold to instantly transform sprout to full-bodied oak. Something that was not forest was there, a horse plodding slowly their way, and a figure atop it—nay, two figures, one behind the other.

The figures weren't what caught Gonzago's attention, though. It was the horse itself. He recognized that horse. How could he not? Anyone who spent much time at the castle knew it. Such a proud and well-bred specimen, the envy of every lord and knight, Gonzago included. It was the horse of Prince Makepeace.

Yet Prince Makepeace, according to the hero and Lady Shannon, was dead. And the man riding the horse was indeed not him. The horse and the forest were close enough now to just barely make out the man's face. He was somewhat plain, his eyes covered by curious glass lenses that caught and reflected the blazing sunlight in a shimmer; his clothes were likewise strange, of a form and pattern alien to any style Gonzago knew (and he knew every fashion of note in this kingdom).

The style reminded him of the hero. He thought: this must be another hero from the other world.

Then it all came together. Lady Shannon had mentioned several times a companion of hers, whom she claimed was captured by Flanz-le-Flore. And this tendril of forest extended from the direction of Flanz-le-Flore's wood. And who was that second figure, the one seated behind the man, wrapping its lithe arms over his shoulders to hold onto him? What was the tint of her skin, was it not a sort of green, alike to the leaves of the trees emerging around her? What were those fluttering things extending from her back? Were they not wings made of gossamer?

Flanz-le-Flore, the faerie queen, was coming to Whitecrosse.

"We've already brought up the gate," the captain said. "But they say the queen of Flanz-le-Flore can transform one thing into another with but a clap of her hands. Will the gate even stop her? We must alert Her Majesty immediately!"

A trembling fear gripped Gonzago, he thought: How? How can it be? Were their troubles not already so terrible? Must not one fae queen but two ride against them? Were the fae houses working in tandem? Yes, that must be it, Gonzago knew virtually nothing of fae politics, but like cleaved to like and that was a universal rule, the two queens must have coordinated—

No. No, wait. That wasn't it at all.

He remembered the elf ambassador. Had she not mentioned Flanz-le-Flore? Yes. She had indeed. It was, in fact, the entire reason for the elf kingdom's diplomatic overtures. The elves wished to war against Flanz-le-Flore. To redress wrongs accumulated in the time of John Coke.

The elves and the fae were not friends. They were enemies. They were enemies!

"Lower the gate," Gonzago said. "Captain! You must lower the gate."

"Are you mad, man? Lower it? Let her in unimpeded?"

Perhaps it was a trick, the back of his mind told the front. An elaborate ruse, the elves claiming they hated Flanz-le-Flore specifically so that Gonzago of Meretryce might make this blunder in the hopes that the fae queens would fight. That was what fae were said to love, pranks and jests and whatnot, but even so they could not stand against the two queens severally so what did it matter if they were allowed to come together? Were it not a trick, though, and if the queens indeed held enmity toward one another...

"I have been sent by Queen Mallory herself!" Gonzago shouted suddenly. Forcefully, rising up onto tiptoe so that he might reach the chin level of the guard captain. "It is on her orders I have come. The elves are attacking the castle. They seek to destroy Whitecrosse and then destroy Flanz-le-Flore. That makes Flanz-le-Flore our ally in this struggle, not our foe. We must let her in!"

"You're speaking nonsense, man."

"Am I? Look again at the horseman riding toward us. That is no fae, nor no ordinary man. That is a hero from the other world, a companion of Lady Shannon herself. He has brought the fae queen to save us in our time of need. The same fae queen who allied with John Coke to slay the dread lizard Devereux!"

Though the captain's face was incredulous, he looked again. The rider was now so close that there could be no doubt that he was not a man from this world, not with his fashion and the strange appearance of his face unlike the men of either Whitecrosse or California.

"There is no time," Gonzago said. "I speak truthfully that the castle is under assault as we speak. You must listen to me. This is our only hope, I swear to God!"

The captain stared at him. What did he see? What did he think? Contempt. The way they all thought of Gonzago of Meretryce, be they his equal or better or lesser. The duke's worthless nephew. But he was no madman. They must surely know that. He was no madman.

After an interminable period of time, the captain hissed. "Very well. If we're to be damned by this, so be it. Lower the gate! Lower the gate now!"

—

"Hold!"

The armored men held. Bodies of elves lay dead or dying on the floor before them, gored by the spears that jutted between the shields. The assault was juvenile, mindless in its tactics. The elves possessed no strategy other than to charge with their weapons or fire arrows from down the corridor, and they gave no preference to either strategy (both were inutile) despite one leaving them with holes in their torsos.

Fae had no mind for war, it seemed. The discipline of battle was not the domain of those who frolicked in fell wood. Some said the elves were part human, the cult that followed the teachings of the previous archbishop even whispered blasphemously they were descended from John Coke, but while that theoretically human blood had allowed them to mimic the rigidity and order of a trained battalion, it was mere mimicry. Mordac's ten men held them to a standstill at the throne room entrance. None had even attempted to navigate the corridors to approach from the smaller side entrances, and so the men Tintzel and Meretryce commanded were left idle. Mordac thought, if this prolongs enough those men can be used to relieve mine. War was not his forte either; none of them knew war and of them all only that infantile queen prepared for it. Yet so far even rudimentary strategies proved successful.

The problem was that no matter how many elves were slain, more streamed into the corridor to take their place. The corridor was now a sea of red uniforms, clogged so tightly together that the archers could no longer shoot, which lessened the pressure on the shield-bearers. Mordac's primary fear was that so many elves would stream in that even though they impaled themselves on the spears, the massed weight alone would be enough to break the line. His prayer was that before then either the fool Gonzago or the fool Mallory would return.

"We ought to flee." Meretryce paced anxiously beside the throne. "This endeavor is pointless. Mallory's got enough of a head start now."

"The doors to the vault take time to open," Tintzel said.

"We'll hold," said Mordac. "We shall not allow these beasts to take the castle. We'll hold until the queen returns!"

Even as he spoke something changed in the singleminded demeanor of the elves in the corridor. Their identical faces—male or female they all seemed identical—shifted in waves as they cleaved fast to the walls of the long corridor. The vacuum left a straight line all the way to the castle's front doors. At first Mordac believed this motion was to allow the archers in the back to fire again, and reflexively he stooped his rigid back behind the shields lest a stray bolt transfer command to that spineless Meretryce. But no—even the archers moved aside.

"What devilry's this," Mordac muttered to himself.

From the passageway leading into the corridor, from whence most of the elves had manifested, a strange and shimmering light suddenly shone. It was not white light but pinkish and mobile, like light strained through clear but rippling water. As it approached, the faces of all the elves turned toward it, even those nearly in striking range of Mordac's pikes. On those faces arose a unified awe, almost holy in its reverence as the figure within the light emerged.

The figure touched the floor with only the sheerest tips of its toes, but even that was a lie; it floated, divorced from ground by less than an inch of space. Its arms were held straight out at its sides with the palms turned upward. Its eyes were closed in serene peace and its mouth pressed into a kindly, benevolent smile. The smile of a pleasant Christ, not one dying upon the cross, not one awash in mortal agony, the way Christ ought to be, the way it needed to be impressed onto them all that Christ truly was, a sufferer, afflicted by a catalog of highly specific wounds rendered in such exquisite detail that any onlooker felt the pain in his own palms and the scratches of the thorns around his forehead, that was the way it should be, a scourging of one's own soul, for through that scourging one might find relief; no, this was a False Christ, the Christ of the snivelers, those so bereft of love they must imagine it within their Creator and God, despite His endless and hateful power over them. The Christ of the charitable, the Christ of women. This Woman-Christ (for the figure floating into the corridor frozen in this stance of crucifixion, though there no crucifix be, was female) reached the center of the corridor and as though set upon an axis swiveled to face Mordac and the rest of them, wearing holy vestments of the same translucent pinkness; vestments that seemed part of her body, not something worn.

Around her head instead of thorns she wore a halo and from this halo emitted the strange light that preceded her.

"It is I," the figure said, "the Effervescent Elf-Queen."

"We end this here," Mordac said. "A single spear thrown with good aim. Quickly!"

His soldiers, alas, were not quick enough. The Effervescent Elf-Queen turned her palms toward them and to Mordac's surprise the palms were in fact marked by the stigmata. No, false, the almond-shaped patterns there were not wounds but eyeballs, and from each of them dropped a single tear. The tears fell but did not strike the ground, hovering just above as they enlarged into bubbles, and within each bubble a body was coiled in fetal position. The bubbles popped and the bodies landed. They were slathered in a pinkish sheen but beneath that they were elves same as all the others, and no sooner had they been birthed from these teardrop bubbles did some of their fellows rush forward to throw red uniforms around them.

The strangeness of the scene struck Mordac's men still; Mordac realized he himself was transfixed. To the newborns—though they be as fully-formed as adults—their elders gave each a motionless thing the size of a tiny bird, able to fit in a hand. The newborns in perfect tandem held the small creatures up to their mouths and bit into them, causing blood to stream down their chins.

"Now, my children," said the Effervescent Elf-Queen, "incinerate those who stand in our way."

Only from these words did Mordac realize the danger of the strange ceremony. He gripped the nearest man by the shoulder to rouse his attention and by then it was too late.

The newborn elves from their blood-dripping mouths belched each a jet of flame. A flash—and fire washed over the armored men in their shields, over the Duke of Mordac. For a brief period there were screams, and a horrible crackling, and all the voracious sound of an inferno. An indistinguishable lump of coal ran out flailing what remained of its arms as they dissolved to black ash at its sides, then it pitched forward and came to a final rest upon the carpet.

Though the flames continued to spread along the carpet and to the tapestries that lined the throne room, there was nothing left of Mordac or his men beyond a few blistering lumps. What to do, thought Archbishop Tintzel. He turned to Meretryce to ask: What to do? But Meretryce was gone, vanished through the side door without a word. Tintzel turned to the set of men under his command but they were also gone. He stood alone in the throne room, at least until through the smoke drifted the Effervescent Elf-Queen, accompanied by her elfin horde.

Well. That was the story, no? Always too slow. Tintzel for decades a faithful and dedicated servant of the church and the monarchy under which the church served, yet time and again he was passed up. Passed up, even, by that Astrophicus, whom anyone with half a mind knew was rotten, deviant, meddling in matters beyond him, unfit for such a title. But Astrophicus had ambition, goals, drive, and putting himself forward fastest received first. Never Tintzel. Even his speech slow, a stutter transformed by habit into something others suggested was worse than a stutter, reorganization and repetition of words until their meaning became clear within his own mind, that was the way he needed to speak. Here he stood now, last to flee. Suppose that was how it must happen. The fable of the tortoise and the hare, in such had he found relief as much as—he was ashamed to admit it—any Biblical parable. Squat, rotund, unfit for else and always second best at best. Well. When Astrophicus revealed his treachery and it was time to replace him they wished for certainty over ambition and so the most certain of them was finally promoted. Now too was there a certainty in it. This was not a terrible way to die. He would not be proved a coward.

One of the knights dropped their sword as he fled. Tintzel reached to pick it up and found it too heavy to lift fully, but he managed with some exertion to heft the hilt. He considered his final words: For God and country! Those were the words he wished to speak. "For God indeed," he said, "indeed for God and country." The words were close enough. Though even now he wished he could speak one sentence straight. Even now he wished it were not as though his tongue were cursed, as though God had absentmindedly dabbed a note into his page: Must speak contorted only, indeed contorted speak. Was it bad that his final thought would be so impious? Then erase it and add another: The people of this wonderful nation of God, the people who were faithful and saved. Yet the thought he actually thought as he put all his strength into lifting the sword was that maybe they would spare him if he told them about the secret passage under the throne.

An elf strode forward and drove a spear into his body.

Tintzel dropped the sword and toppled. This was for the best. Now his thoughts could turn back to God and country. Oh God, forgive him his sins. Oh God, oh Christ, he tried his best to do good deeds in this world.

"Excellent work, my children," said the Effervescent Elf-Queen. The throne room was going up in flames around her and the smoke was most irritating, both to herself and her children, the latter of whom nonetheless tried to grin and bear it. "They were defending this place for a reason. Let us find out why."

From the eyes on her palms two more bubbling tears emerged and two more elves were born, a male and a female as these pairs always were. Their brothers and sisters robed them and fed them the sleeping fae captured during previous conquests. The new elves (whose animus was as the Effervescent Elf-Queen chose for them: To uncover hidden things) activated their powers and immediately, unified in their movements, both aimed a finger at the throne, which then toppled to the side before a panel underneath swung inward.

"Ah! There we go. Thank you, my children. I thank you all."

That would be where the queen was. That would be where John's relics were. Oh John. What was the purpose of hoarding them? You were so ephemeral. When she met you, you were already on the cusp of death, an aged man, and she a woman who did not age. What matters anything to you after you die? Perhaps that was the human impulse: to build toward something for which they would be remembered after death. That was what John meant when he spoke of "greatness," of "glory." But John, your dearest and closest lover was immortal. You would never be forgotten, even if you were only a insect scuttling through the dirt. Why then did you need to return to them, to bring them gifts ensuring your memory? You could have been with her, with all her children who were your children too, for it was part of you that remained inside her all this time, producing these teardrops from her eyes by the hole in her heart you left.

She was sorry to rub flat those monuments you erected to yourself, because you cared for them so. But it was alright. Soon the only memory of you would be hers, and she alone would keep you alive. No others deserved the memory. Not these human offspring of that wretched Tivania whom you pretended to love, nor that other human woman of California you took as paramour; and especially not that sluttish Flanz-le-Flore who in her jealousy estranged the elves and cast them into the depths of darkest forest, disqualified from being fae or human.

For a long time she accumulated strength. Now was the time to raze them; all those who held memory of John Coke. Into the depths of the castle she descended, steeling herself for battle against his human progeny.