I sat on the stone embankment and put my feet in the water that Swampy had been stirring with her pole.
She looked up at me. “It took forever before Dwight went to sleep. I thought you would never come. Next time, speed time a bit more. Right now, speed time so you can rest. We need you in Real making gateways.”
I looked down at a minnow that was trying to nibble one of my toes. “I got connections to three worlds from licking the boot. Just in case, I should check out those three worlds and maybe pass them up the ladder.”
She nodded and looked down at the minnows. “They aren’t scared of you.”
I smiled and moved my foot. The minnows darted away.
Swampy looked at the ripples. “Don’t go to those worlds yet. One of them is poison. Hot acid vapors. Pure death.”
I asked, “How did he get such dust on his boots?”
She peered into the water. “Sorry, that was just an image of what might happen to this world if you fail. I got it confused. But now I’m nervous that there might be traps. Do you have any armor?”
I turned into me in my recently made armor.
She looked at it and grimaced. “Can you wear armor over that armor?”
I thought about it. “I think I can. Come with me.”
She flew up and landed on my shoulder. I shifted gateways and took us into the Fairyland with the two-seat six-legged spider excavator.
#
She flew up when she saw the spider excavator. She flew around it a few times. “This will do. It even has its own air.”
I nodded. “I can’t operate it to its full capacity by myself, and I’m not sure how someone would properly manage it.”
She asked, “Can you drive it? Can you operate it as an excavator?”
I nodded. “Yes, but I have to switch seats.”
She landed back on my shoulder. “Take it, but be ready to leave it behind if there is a trap.”
I asked, “Why would he put traps in worlds he thought were safely his?”
“You need a haircut unless you’re going to grow it long.” She pulled back the hair in front of my ear. “These monsters trust no one and they have their own prognosticators. Their pride and lack of imagination have kept them from seeing you as a real threat, but if there was an inkling of doubt, they would destroy anything to slay you.”
I took us back to the world with bananas and bogs.
#
“How about I call this world Rougarou?”
She laughed. “Are you going to take the form of a wolf?”
I said, “I have maybe two forms left. I don’t think wolf is on my short list.”
She said, “Call Fairy Dynamics Rougarou. This place deserves a romantic name.
I asked, “How about we use the name of a lost town? Lots of them out in the swamps.”
She said, “We don’t know the rules on naming Fairylands, but I can look at probabilities as you name them. Rougarou looks good for Fairy Dynamics, but we need a good name for this place, not that we should tell anyone.”
I asked, “You have been around longer than me. All I can think of is Bayou Corne and naming a Fairyland after a town that disappeared in a sinkhole sounds like bad luck.”
She stirred the water. “Frenier is taken. Don’t want to mess with the Queen of that Fairyland. La Belize is also taken. Burrwood, taken. This is looking like a dead end, anymore ideas?’
I splashed the water with my feet. “I like Bayou.”
She looked and pointed. A grey heron was wading in the distance. “Heron Bayou? No, it’s taken. Wait, well, we could avoid this destiny, but it looks like we name it Anabranch.”
I asked, “Will people call me Anabranch?”
She shook her head. “Snipsnort is your major name. You might get a mention of Anabranch in your long form title, but this Fairyland isn’t on any of the lists. Unless you go out of your way to advertise, no one is going to remember the name.”
I nodded. “It sounds kind of pretty and sort of dignified. If it were my last name, I wouldn’t mind. Does it have a meaning?”
She shrugged and stirred the water. “Get rest, go check out one of your new Fairylands. Be careful.”
I went to an empty transport Fairyland and made a gossamer mattress and pillow. I napped a bit and went back to Anabranch to wash up in a stream.
After changing into me in armor and then getting in the six-legged spider excavator, I went to one of the worlds I had linked to by licking a boot.
#
The rules here were different. I felt that I could not safely stay here for more than a day.
I was on a metal catwalk in a warehouse without floors. Catwalks and ramps went from level to level, and there were metal boxes held up on scaffolding. The boxes had their bottom corners missing, and they looked like they might be made of aluminum. In boxes with lids pulled back were things that almost looked right, but the proportions were wrong. Ornamented weapons and sheaths. Walking sticks with carvings of unidentifiable creatures. Coins. So many coins, so many bottles and jugs.
I didn’t want to get out of the spider excavator or move it. As agile a vehicle as it was, it was not the right size for going down the catwalks. I saw a metal box with the sort of oil lamps you might imagine rubbing and having a Djinn come out of.
I decided to leave. If the stories were right. Care needed to be taken if you removed treasure from one of these places.
#
I ate and rested before taking the gateway that was nearest the house that Swampy was now sleeping in. I put it in the Fairyland with all the catwalks and went to the next one.
#
I was in the two seated spider excavator inside a palace. A man turned his head, saw me and then fell over. A dark shape hurtled towards me. As it entered me, I bound it to my Fairyland of death and went there. I made it a Fairy as it tried to put me to sleep. I held myself awake and saw it fall to the ground. It tried to climb my ankle, but I left the Fairyland and sped up time until I felt it pass away.
Back in the Fairyland palace, the man who had collapsed was dead. His throat had been slit. He was also barefooted.
I slid through shadow. There were Fairies hiding. I found rooms, closets, fountains, and places to bathe. In the closets were sandals, shoes, and boots, among other things. I looked for poison and then I made sure no one was looking. I was sure someone would eventually figure it out, or Swampy would tell on me, but I didn’t see any choice. I was now Phil, fishmonger and boot licking king of Snipsnort.
I had eight more Fairylands connected to me. By the distribution of shoes in the various closets, at least five of these nasty folk visited this place. If I subtracted the two I had taken care of, there were three more. If two of those were members of the Order of the Crepuscular Gloaming, then there was at least one more after that.
I decided to clean up the body and went back to where the corpse was. It was gone.
I had ten Fairylands to explore, and I felt like I needed to explore them before I risked my life in a duel. I needed to eat, but I didn’t feel like eating. I needed to wash my mouth out before anything like eating was going to take place.
#
I sat on a stone outcropping far above a wave-swept shore on the coast of Crimea while I made gateways. I was just about finished with a gateway when Feile Griff summoned me. I finished the gateway and contemplated summoning her back, and I had decided not to when she summoned me again.
She asked, “Phil, where are you? Can I come there?”
“I’m on a narrow stone high over a lot of rocks. There isn’t room.”
“Can I see?”
I opened the connection so she could see.
She asked, “Can you land below so I can come there?”
I turned into an owl and sailed down to the rocks below. In a stable spot, I let her come to me and then I went back to Fairy.
#
On a rock outcropping in Barvaria, I was making a gateway when Feile summoned me again. I had just started so I dropped the spell and answered,“Feile, I’m going to be dueling a lot of wizards tomorrow, and I need to make some gateways. I’m not going to be hanging out or visiting anyone. I have a lot I need to do.”
She asked, “Can you take me to Barvaria? You took the barn that had all my runes of transport in it.”
I asked, “The barn you were going to burn down?”
She said, “Yes.”
I disconnected the summons and ignored her summons while making a gateway. She kept summoning me so when I finished with the gateway I went to a transport Fairyland and took all the gateways from it.
She summoned me. I let her come to me and then I left the Fairyland and froze time. I thought that might teach her a lesson, but then I realized that since she wasn’t going to feel the passage of time, she probably wouldn’t learn a thing. It gave me peace though, the last thing I wanted was for her to summon me while I was fighting someone in a duel.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
#
I made several more Gateways when Rasnarf the Greedy summoned me. I canceled the Gateway and connected.
“King Snipsnort, all the Fairies from the old Fairy Dynamics Fairyland have refugeed to a few of the Fairylands we used for testing. A gang of wizards have invaded, and I just thought I should warn thee to stay away. It’s the Order of the Crepuscular Gloaming, and I am pretty sure which Fairy betrayed us. Worse yet, another Fairy decided to take what profit he could from the situation and now the Order of The Veiled Mist is involved. If that were not enough, FAAFL is planning a visit.”
I asked, “What is FAAFL?”
“Fairies Against Abuse From the Living. Considering that thou art alive still, even though thou art a Fairy, thou shouldst really not want to be anywhere near this. ‘Tis sad, but I don’t think there is much chance for the old Fairyland. Dogsbane took us corporate and that was our ruin.”
I asked, “Can I get a name so I can summon someone from FAAFL?”
Rasnarf asked, “Dust thou want to go to the rally? I doubt they would hear a summons.”
I asked, “How do we get there?”
Rasnarf said, “It’s in one of the old warehouses from back when Fairy Dynamics was still a thing.”
I said, “I suppose I should.”
Rasnarf said, “Hold on a moment, King Snipsnort. Yes, I am talking with King Snipsnort. No, he wants to go to the FAAFL rally. Yes. Yes.
“King Snipsnort, the rest of the Fairies in the room think it’s a bad idea for a living Fairy king to go to a FAAFL rally. Wait, what? That might work but it’s practically daft.
“Your Majesty one of the Fairies had the idea that thou couldst go in an obvious disguise. Since it is thy Fairyland, at least for now, it would be rude to call thee out in disguise. It could be dangerous, but thou couldst probably get away if it turned ugly.”
I asked, “What sort of disguise should I wear?”
Rasnarf shouted, “Rumble, doest thou still havest that box of—Yes, that would do nicely. King Snipsnort, come to us.”
I stepped into a Fairyland with sand dunes and measurements on the walls and illusions of measurements in the air. I looked and the Fairyland was two hundred and twenty feet across according to the measurements. We were looking down at once-pretty stone gazebo that had been scarred by scorch marks and spray paint markings.
Rasnarf and three other Fairies in worn business suits were standing on the dune with me looking down at the gazebo.
From a hatch almost by the outer wall of the Fairyland, a Fairy came up holding two clear plastic packages one with a pair of black glasses with a plastic nose, fake mustache, and fake eyebrows. The other pair of glasses were to make my eyes look like big silly googly doll eyes.
The Fairy looked up at me and opened the package with the fake nose and bushy black eyebrows. I put the glasses on and smiled.
Rasnarf said, “Perfect. No one polite will recognize you.”
The Fairy still holding the other package handed it to me. “Just in case you need a backup.”
Rasnarf gave me a thumbs-up. “Twidlings is making his way to the rally. With any luck he should be summoning me shortly. Then we can go see what they have planned.”
#
The warehouse was filled with a range of folk: tall, short, flying, bestial, and more. A human-looking Fairy was standing on a gossamer platform.
“Wizards have gotten organized. Wizards have been making us do the dirty work and claiming the wonders as their own for ages. What has it gotten us?
“While this Fairyland was not directly ruined by mortals, it is in ruin for having adopted mortal ways.”
A Fairy with a sign in a language I can’t read was staring at me. When I glanced at her, she looked away.
The Fairy on the platform looked at me. “We get along fine without mortals. Why do they insist on coming into our realms and robbing us? We are told we can’t take it with us, but then they come here to take what we have from us.
“This Fairyland was torn apart by adopting mortal ways. Fairy ways can be cruel but at least we know where we stand. The new Fairy king of this world managed to enrich it with soil and then he ignored it. Now it is in the middle of a struggle, and we have a chance to fight the wizards who would enslave and use us, but this Fairyland has no hope for peace. We fight for Fairy rights but apart from our striking fear into the hearts of wizards, we have no chance for peace. These wizards are strong and they are wicked. They will use steel, and they will slay many of us. Yet we must fight them together, or we will be enslaved and turned against each other.”
“Strange Fairy who we don’t recognize, when will we rest in peace?”
The room got silent.
I looked around the warehouse.
The man on the stage said, “Shouldn’t mortals just let us be instead of trying to rule us?”
I looked around for Rasnarf, but I didn’t see him. I looked back at the man on the stage. “If a mortal had any sense, he would leave Fairies alone. If a mortal were wise and knew the risks, he would flee Fairy, and he would not prepare to duel the wizards gathered to attack this Fairyland.
“A mortal Fairy king would be a fool to fight for a Fairyland that was betrayed by it’s own Fairies. A mortal Fairy king would be a fool to fight for a Fairyland that he had spent only a short time in and wanted nothing from.
“A clever gathering of Fairies would wait until a foolish mortal died fighting against the odds. If they waited until the fighting had weakened their enemies, and mortals had fled the field, then they could show their strength.
“Faced with such force, even a foolish mortal Fairy king would know to abdicate and then flee a place that he did not desire, need, or deserve. If Fairies cannot make this Fairyland right, then there is no chance that a mortal with scant experience in Fairy could manage it.”
A Fairy behind me shouted, “After the mortals have worn themselves down, then we strike for justice!”
There was shouting and I felt someone bump into me, so I went back to my transport Fairylands. I started arranging gateways. I had a few more gateways, and I had a few more ideas about fighting wizards. I had nine Fairylands I needed to explore. One of my transport Fairylands was occupied by Feile Griff.
I had planned to keep her in that Fairyland until I had finished fighting, but if something happened to me, she would be stuck there.
I sped the Fairyland back up and went there. I put in a gateway to Barvaria and opened it. “Feile, I’m preparing for battle. I have a lot to do, and I don’t need distractions. I don’t need you summoning me endlessly. If you summon me while I’m fighting, I might just let you show up.”
She scowled. “Fine. If you’re going into battle, in case you die, tell me. Who did the artwork? Who made the kitchen?”
I shook my head. “He doesn’t want you summoning him either. You’re in Barvaria now. I have a lot to do, and I don’t need to be bothered.”
She asked, “Can you get me to the nearest town?”
I pointed. “Five minutes. Walk that way.”
She nodded and started walking.
I went back to the transport Fairylands and continued arranging them. I had a gateway in China that had been moved. I looked through it. It was under a bridge that went over a double train track. There was a train stopped on the far track. Directly opposite the gateway was a train car that someone had spray painted a picture of a mechanical spider on.
I would have ignored it, but on the gravel beside it was a broken road sign. The name Philadelphia was split by a crack right so one side of the sign said, “Phil.”
Someone meant for me to see this. Someone had arranged this image. I moved the gateway just in case and contemplated what it might mean. I went to the Fairyland with the cherry trees and the barn, and then when to the Fairyland where I first met Feile Griff.
#
There was a new eight-legged spider excavator surrounded at a distance by mirrors. The excavator was armored, and it was smaller than the others I had seen. Beside it was a spacesuit. Not a big bulky thing like the astronauts wore when they went to the moon. This was big bulky thing like you would imagine hard-working men would wear if they were doing construction in space and expected rocks to be hurtling by.
After speeding time, I read the display with instructions that was on a stand by the suit. The instructions told me to be clean and to remove other garments. There were instructions that were even more personal, and I had to refer to them as I suited up. When I got it together and closed up, it inflated and held me in place. Then I got into the new excavator, and it locked the suit in place when I closed the hatch.
I practiced moves in front of the mirrors. After going through a few maneuvers, a panel slid back to expose a control panel with covered keys with built-in maneuvers. I tried a few. It could drop low, spring, and dodge. The controls moved gently as the maneuvers executed. I ran over some of the mirrors when I tried the forward roll. I practiced the moves on my own after I felt the excavator that really wasn’t an excavator could take it. It was more like an armored robot acrobat with a cockpit and controls.
As I did the maneuvers and practiced them, the displays built into the covered keys started changing to still more maneuvers. I took a break, transformed out of the acrobat machine, ate, and slept. Then I went back to practicing. After learning a wide range of maneuvers, the keys started going blank. It was sort of sad to see an end to the crazy maneuvers, but I could do things in this armored robot acrobat machine that I wouldn’t even try in my own body. I’d probably break my neck the first time I tried a triple back flip.
When I finished learning the last maneuver, the panel slid back and covered the keys. I sat for a moment and considered things. If this was mine, it was mine. I didn’t really have an agreement that said either way. I had things that I owned as Phil Thibodeaux, and as long as my identity held up, it was all mine. Ownership was an odd thing. Most of my life I have been crossing fences without caring and fishing wherever I could put a trout line.
Fish wandered in and out of areas that maybe someone owned. I was legal to fish by apparent age, but my real age gave me limits. Now I was in a spacesuit sort of thing in a spider robot sort of thing and I didn’t know if any of this was mine really. I was about to fight for a place that I didn’t have any special feeling for. I had thought about having a friend move there, and I had tried to make it a better place for the Fairies, but I had only seen a tiny bit of it.
My mind wandered and then I made a decision. I transformed with it and went to Anabranch.
#
I flew high over the slow-moving streams. I followed long stone bridges that snaked their way through wetland woods. I passed numerous small houses and stone trails that widened into roads, and I found an empty village with barns and a town hall. All of it was empty. No furniture, no Fairies.
I left a gateway in the barn and went to Real.
#
At a fast food place in a gas station, I ordered five of every poor boy other than the ones that had catfish. I could probably face it, but I didn’t want to risk it. I ordered ten of their red beans and rice. I got chicken wings and extra coleslaw, french fries, and potato salad.
The girl at the counter said my order would take a while, so I sat and made gateways while I waited. I took several trips outside to hide my putting the bags of food through a gateway into a world that I set to have slow time when the gateway wasn’t open.
#
With time sped up, I sat on top of the barn in Anabranch and ate a shrimp poor boy while watching the setting sun. After eating, I set up a bed in the loft of the barn and went to sleep.
When I got up, I went swimming as an otter. I caught a fish, and as I carried it up onto the bank, I saw Swampy waiting for me.
Swampy waved. “Don’t want raw fish, so take your time, but I would love a bite to eat.”
I turned into me and got a red bean and rice plate out to share with Swampy.
She didn’t eat much before she flew to the water’s edge and started stirring it with her pole. “Phil, go ahead and do what you do. I have ripples to watch.”
I said, “This may take days.”
She nodded. “We’ll stop for meals, but I think this is important.”
I finished eating and went back to the barn. I sat in my spacesuit in the new armored spider acrobat robot and closed my eyes. Slowly and carefully, I examined the suit. I examined the materials.
Caerwyn had gifted me with computers and hacking. This was different but still there was a lot of carryover. I had been gifted with making strange things and kitchen equipment that was nearly sentient. Now I took the time to learn just what this spacesuit was and how it worked. I learned the materials and the parts. The programming had documentation in it, but I couldn’t read the documentation.
Some of the stuff I left out as I made my own suit and made a mental pattern to be able to make more suits in the future. Then after getting the suit down, I spent the time to figure out how the various spider excavator things were made.
I had to make several more trips to Real for food before I was finished.
#
Swampy looked at all the odd failures and experiments I had filled the barn with. “Well, at least they’re going to do Hubert some good. Did you take all the equipment back?”
I nodded.
She said, “We should keep the link between you and them as small as we can.”
I nodded.
She said, “Okay, I know it’s killing you. You can show off your latest contraption.”
I led her out of the barn and gestured for her to stay where she was. I walked a bit further and transformed into me wearing my evil-looking, armored, wheeled, double-clawed, six-legged spider suit.
She asked, “What if you go to a Fairyland that is mostly gossamer?”
I sighed and turned back into me in casual clothing. “Fine, I will make another.”
She gave me a thumbs-up as I walked to the barn.
#
I had ten worlds to explore. So I suited up and went to a new treasure store. Different boxes, wider catwalks, same sort of treasures, at least the same as far as I could see. I placed one of the gateways the Goblin girls were spying on me with and went to the next.
Four more treasure worlds, two more palaces, and a horribly trapped place that I had to leave the excavator behind in.
With the two palaces, I got six more worlds so I had eleven worlds still to explore.
A wooded place and a ruins in a desert. An orange and dark-red jungle. More palaces and more treasure troves. I put gateways intended to keep watch on me in thirty worlds before I finished. I didn’t need the worlds. I didn’t want to manage them, and I was connected to them in any case.
I was worried about the battles that were about to happen. Not the evil spirits that wanted to possess me. Those two things were the final reason I was going back. With all the Fairies involved and a set of duels and arguments between two sets of Wizards, they might take care of themselves. If there was no hope for the Fairyland, then there was no hope for it. If it had traitors ready to summon in wizards, then maybe it was doomed no matter what happened.
Swampy landed on my shoulder. “Let’s go see Hubert.