At Bogview Castle I sort of collapsed gently to the ground. I got up and Lord Loadstone asked, “What did you do?”
I shook my head. They guided me to my bedroom, and a servant brought me some broth. I drank a bit, nodded and went to sleep.
I woke up and they had milk and porridge for me.
Lord Loadstone came in. “We have the drawbridge up and the wards are proof against any that would cross the walls. It was quite fun telling a group of old ladies that harassing a young lord when he was lying down sick was going too far.
“You must know that turning the stick they have been using to rule this realm for the last thousand years back against them was one of the greatest pleasures that I have had. Sire, can we say your abdication was the fever talking?”
I asked, “How weak will that make me look? Not that it matters, but those old ladies are going to be upset if I embarrass them by looking like a weak king.”
Lord Loadstone laughed. “Shall I ask them which of them we should execute since we can’t have thee look weak? Or do you desire to conquer them since they are clearly the hidden rulers of this realm? If they survive thy rooster crow, I am quite sure they will surrender.”
I said, “No need for dramatics. But feel free to turn the screw on them all that you want. Their methods may have been effective over the years, but I’m not really fond of the manipulations.”
Lord Loadstone asked, “How did you get so ill, sire?”
I said, “Polymorphing three times in succession without food or drink is rough but this seemed worse, and I got a lot worse dehydrated than I thought. I don’t know really.”
Lord Loadstone asked, “So can we bury the thought of your abdication?”
I smiled at him. “Not really, no. I’m connected to six Fairylands and rule three of them, not that anyone can live long in one of them. I sort of like this one, but I want a Fairyland that I can safely have a few friends live in comfortably, and I suspect this isn’t the right world for that sort of thing. I have a lot of things I need to do, and I have spent most of my time doing things that the folk here had wanted done for ages. It has been fun, but I can see getting real tired of it real soon. I know that one should expect a king to be more loyal, but I didn’t grow up here. If considering the events, I sort of won the world in a bet.
“Now I expect I’ll have to hide out and act aloof to try and avoid the folk apologizing, and I’ll have no idea if and when they decide to pay me, if it will be too much, too little, or embarrassing that your king charges a fee for ruling thee instead of just making demands.”
Lord Loadstone smiled. “You know that all the fee in this land is yours to decide on the distribution of. So by proper form you had shown great generosity by using your wealth to build things for them. Since the nobles of this realm play so roughly and since the less magically endowed tend to suffer when they are near the nobles, it was long established that we put their homes and gathering places in remote areas and made sure to feed their egos and their mouths in such places.
“It was assumed that a king would need more than just one very remote and isolated castle, yet we did not plan for these places to be anything but locations to entertain visiting dignitaries or host meetings. So this castle in the swamp was where, ages ago, the plan was made to try and keep whatever monster eventually took over this land and became king.
“There were other plans, of course, that were based on the hopes of a reasonable ruler, but none of this was ever really resolved. In any case, it was never even considered that when you showed up, that you might consider this realm something that you might choose to leave. So now, it is clear that we need to change our plans considerably.”
I nodded and closed my eyes. I must have fallen asleep since when I woke up I was given porridge and Lord Loadstone was gone.
#
Feeling recovered, I got up and changed into me in clean clothing. I’m not a clean freak, but I could smell myself and knew that everyone else could probably smell the sick on me. I took to shadow and found a stream to bathe in. It was way too cold, so I was nervous I was going to make myself sick again. After getting adjusted to the water, it was only miserably and unbelievably cold instead of being so cold I had to wonder why it wasn’t ice. I got out and the air was worse and my wet clothing wasn’t helping. I changed into myself in dry clothing and shadow stepped to the manor where I could get a warm shower and run my clothing through a washer and dryer.
I was ironing my shirt when Anthony came in. “How did it go in Real?”
I shook my head. “I may have a way to find things for Hubert, but I had to leave since I was getting ill.”
Anthony asked, “Are you okay?”
I nodded, “Mostly better. How is Hubert?”
Anthony said, “He is functional when you are here. I don’t want to pressure you when you are sick, but if you can manage something for Mr. Hubert, I will feel a lot better.”
I nodded and thought about summoning Caerwyn. Then I realized that I had sped time up considerably, and as far a the group that I left behind knew, only moments had gone by.
I slowed time to match with Real so I could try and summon Caerwyn. Caerwyn summoned me.
“Where are you Phil?”
“In Snipsnort. I got sick and had to leave.”
Caerwyn said, “He got sick and had to leave. Okay, I’ll ask him. Phil, how did you get sick?”
I said, “I don’t know, I transformed three times and started to throw up. I was pretty ill.”
Caerwyn said, “He says he transformed three times and threw up. Yeah, I’ll ask him. Phil, are you okay to come here?”
I said, “Bring me through.”
Caerwyn said, “One second. They are checking on something. I’ll summon you in a second.”
He disconnected and then summoned me. “Okay, come on through.”
Caerwyn and another Daemon lady were in hazmat suits, and the Fairyland looked like an operating room with movies of cute kittens doing cute things playing on the walls.
The lady gestured to the examining table sort of lounge chair thing that she was sitting next to.
I lay down and immediately started itching. I got up. “Are you a psychic surgeon?”
She said to Caerwyn, “Be ready to catch him.”
#
I woke up on the examining table. The woman said, “He’s awake now. I have another call, tell him he’s fine.”
She disappeared and Caerwyn said, “Yeah, they made you sick. No one wants to spend a lot of time near you since it might show up in someones visions.”
I asked, “How did they make me sick?”
Caerwyn said, “A lot of explosives can contain toxic compounds. The room you were in was also set up to clean all the toxins from you. They only expected to have to use it one time on a person. So between transforming three times and having everything purged from you three times, it left you low on everything. These folk are crazy geared up to deal with disease, so I’m scared that they know more about the plague that’s coming than the rest of us. You went through three purges. Each one of those purges was set to be as extreme as a person could experience and still remain standing.
“So we have a detector and a computer set up to use it now. Someone is going to email us with a source for the parts we need to try and make a few more and maybe improve the detector. We also have all of Archer’s files and passwords to various accounts. The computer was trapped several ways, but as far as I can tell, right now Archer doesn’t have a file, and I have changed all his passwords online, overdrawn his accounts, and shut off all his utilities and his cell phone.
“I’m a bit miffed by all this. The Daemon twins apologized but said they have been told to avoid contact with us. Their sister took all the weapons and said they will make it up to you. I was asked to summon someone so we could leave this hospital Fairyland as soon as you were okay. Seems a bit rude after almost killing you, but we do have Archer’s laptop and the detector.”
I said, “They aren’t infallible. Up until now, I feared destiny was infallible.”
Caerwyn looked at an image on the wall where a kitten was trying to figure out how to go down a stair. “You’re not making sense.”
I pointed to a kitten on another wall who was sneaking up on a golden retriever. “The Queen of Shadows is a legend among the Goblins. I saw her and I saw her slip through shadow when I was young. Just now, she almost killed me. I just did something in Fairy that I probably wouldn’t have done otherwise.”
Caerwyn looked at me. “Still not making sense. Let’s get out of here before the cat pictures make you simple.”
#
Mrs. Nelson, Caerwyn’s mother, summoned us into a large room where she was making a quilt on a long thin table with rolls of quilt and an oversized sewing machine.
“Caerwyn, where have you been?”
Caerwyn said, “Shh, Mom, not in front of Phil. We didn’t go out in public, and we just met with some Daemons and Goblins. No one with cameras.”
Mrs. Nelson said, “Don’t you dare shush me. You weren’t there during the inquisition.”
I said, “I should probably go.”
Mrs. Nelson asked, “You look pale, Phil, have you eaten? I worry about poor Mr. Hubert and you.
I said, “I just got a bit run down. I’m mostly eating okay, but we just got a kitchen going, and we may have to make some hard decisions about where we are living. I need to check out Fairy Dynamics and see what it is going to be like before making decisions.
“Caerwyn, were we just in England? I heard Kent, but I wasn’t sure and everyone sounded American.”
Caerwyn said, “I don’t get outside, so I’m not really sure. I think it was in England, the bathroom fixtures are a little different, but since—No, wait, the wall plugs were type G. It’s probably England.”
I gave a mock sigh. “First time out of the country and I just stayed inside. I don’t even have a way back since they’re going to avoid us.”
Caerwyn looked at his mother.
Mrs. Nelson said, “I keep a few places in other countries just in case something happens, and there are a few places that will bring you through. They usually want a gift or for you to buy something. Some charge a stated fee. Where do you want to go? And, no, you can’t take Caerwyn there.”
Caerwyn whined, “Mooom. What if it’s indoors?”
I smiled. Caerwyn had solid defined muscles and was physically a good six years older than me and probably a hundred years older and still had to ask for his mother’s permission.
I said, “I was just thinking that I need to beat Archer to Chicago and see about collecting a few things, but I really want to check out junkyards in some other countries since Archer might not have gone there.”
Caerwyn said, “Let’s check the detector and see how it works.”
I waved to Mrs. Nelson as Caerwyn and I ran up to his workshop. Inside the box the detector was mounted on there was an Arduino board with a mess of circuitry just wired together without any visible order.
Caerwyn smiled as he looked at it. “Old school radios were wired with things avoiding flat planes. That canceled some of the internal interference. When the descendants of giants make things, you can expect it to be old school like this combined with some really old school like the spinning cup.”
“They said they were going to email me a source for parts, but I can tell you already this stuff is all going to be in Taiwan, Hong Kong, China, or Indonesia. We won’t get this stuff for months if we order it. We might be able to find some of it at First Saturday in Dallas. I hear it is huge, but since it’s outdoors and public, I won’t get to go, and that’s over a week from now.
“I have boxes full of Arduino’s and the like, but some of the other components may take a while to get and sometimes they say it was sent, and you never see it.”
I said, “I hate to risk the only one we have, but I want to beat Archer to the stuff that is in Chicago. Do you think he can find it without this detector?”
Caerwyn nodded, “He made it so he probably could write the code as soon as he downloads a compiler on a new laptop. He knows how he made the first one and all the equipment is simple enough. He’s tricky, there might be an electronics place he knows to get this stuff, and he might go as far as to order it online, find out where it’s shipping from, and then go rob the place. Trying to duplicate this cup might be another thing entirely. You can see where he sanded down this part. I suspect that was how he tuned it since it looks smoothly turned apart from that. Do you think you can duplicate it in Fairy?”
I said, “The filing may have been done to balance it so it didn’t wobble as it spun. It spins pretty fast. I’ll go to Fairy and see.”
#
With an illusion overlapping the object, I could easily see where I was off so the illusion mostly shaped itself. The parts all unscrewed easily, so it was easy enough to make them in gossamer, test their weight, and put them together for a dry fitting. Then I made them real and made six of them, hoping I had the right materials. My only way to judge was by finish, color, and weight. Most of it was aluminum, so it was easy enough to make.
I summoned Caerwyn and returned to Real. Caerwyn was talking with his mother.
“Phil, tell her you’ll look out for me in China.”
I asked, “China?”
Caerwyn said, “There is a sort of electronics bazaar area, and a fellow near it runs a pharmacy that will accept a summons if you donate to the temple at the Fairylake Botanical Garden. I was there at night a couple of years back.”
Mrs. Nelson said, “That was for a special occasion, and it was an opportunity for you to be gifted and practice a few languages. It was all at night, and we were going to stand out in appearance whatever we did.”
Mrs. Nelson looked at me. “You can go, since you need the parts, but try to bring something nice back for Caerwyn so he doesn’t feel so bad.”
I smiled since it seemed like Mrs. Nelson was beginning to treat me like one of her children. “Caerwyn speaks the language and I don’t, I will need him.”
Mrs. Nelson said, “I can gift you, then I can regift Caerwyn when you get back so you can both practice. You need to spend at least thirty minutes a day for a week to really get it down and not seem awkward.”
She knelt and kissed my forehead four times. “Mandarin, Xiang, Sichuanese, and Cantonese.” Don’t waste your opportunity to learn these languages. A lot of the people there will speak English, but try to listen to what they say in other languages.”
#
The pharmacist pointed to a box on the counter. There was a slit in the top and written in Mandarin was an indication that all proceeds would go to the Hongfa Temple.
I handed him one of the gold coins and he examined it. “No further charges for you. You can summon me any time.”
I thanked him and we bowed.
On the street I didn’t know where to go but there were signs and people walking. I was following a group, listening to them talk, when I felt Goblins pass by in shadow. I followed and listened to them when they left shadow. They were speaking Cantonese and flirting so I shadow stepped away to look and quickly stepped out of shadow and onto a lonely street. There were so many wards that I didn’t know where it would be safe to go. Without knowing the shadows, walking was going to be safer and faster. I followed the shadow trails but out of shadow until I came to the busiest street. A few people were walking with bags of computer parts, so I went in the direction they came from. I saw a food vendor and realized that I had no money here and no way to get money.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
Story of my life these days. I knew the languages, but I needed to practice them so I decided to remain, listen, and see if I could find the parts on the list Caerwyn had printed for me.
I had just found the place I was looking for when I heard an American say, “There’s one. Just a moment while I do a quick money exchange. I hate doing this, you never know when they are going to be ripping you off.”
His friend said, “Let me help, I know the tricks around here.”
He went on to explain what not to select and how to ignore what they were asking you to do and just get the money with the exchange rate of the bank.
After they left I went up to the machine, and it rejected my card. I had a couple of backpacks of US cash, but I was as broke as I was in Fairy.
I went into the market and saw a display of drones that I thought Caerwyn might like but I had no cash. I listened to conversations and just walked by trying to find the sort of parts I needed. A pair of Daemons were buying computers.
Approaching them, the irony of the situation was off the scale. I had grown up knowing to avoid these dangerous, strong, selfish beings. I had grown up knowing that Fairylands were deadly dangerous, and more often than not, you disappeared forever if you got near them.
The things I was taught were entirely, true but now my best friends and most of my associations were the things I was warned about and knew to avoid.
I walked up to them and looked at the laptops they were getting. The shop attendant was busy with another customer so I decided I could talk to them frankly. “Gentlemen, I saw a better deal on much better system just a short way from here.”
One of them asked, “How did you know I spoke English?”
I said, “Thou art what thou art, I am what I am. Those of thy persuasion oft speak many tongues.”
The other one said, “Alright, show us this other shop.”
I led the way making sure I had shadows touching me at all times as I wove through the crowd. We stopped in front of a shop and I pointed out a motherboard that I had considered buying for Caerwyn. “If you want top end, you want to build your own. You can get a lot more computer with a lot better specs.”
The man said, “Sounds nice, but we are looking for an intact computer, ready to go, and portable.”
I nodded and led them to the shop with the best laptop price for value I had seen so far. I asked the shopkeeper, “Give me a total, top end, we will put the upgraded memory in here. I have an OS on a flash drive that will work. How long do you think it will take to put it together, best memory, this laptop with two of the fastest and most reliable solid state drives and every thing we need?”
The shopkeeper gestured to another worker and explained what we were doing before going to another customer. The new attendant quickly gave a price and a Daemon said, “Four of them.”
I said, “Men, to speed this up, I can help you build this. We may need a few screwdrivers but this should be easy enough. Best of all, you will learn how to upgrade a laptop, and you can brag that you did it yourself.”
The taller one asked, “Is the operating system you’re giving us virus and spyware free?”
I said, “Watch me so you know. This OS was written to this flash drive a couple of hours ago, and the Daemon who downloaded it knows his stuff. No virus, no spyware, and a decent suite of tools. After you get used to Linux, you won’t want to use anything else.”
The shorter one asked, “Anyone we know?”
I was half in shadow so I said, “Do you know a young albino who goes by the name of Caerwyn?”
One of them almost appeared to light up. “Nelson’s boy? How is he?”
I said, “Caerwyn is a bit sad that he couldn’t be here.”
The Daemon said, “I’m Larry. No, I mean Caerwyn’s parent, never met the kid. Just heard about him. Nelson, how is he?”
I said, “I have only met Mrs. Nelson but she is fine.”
Larry winced. “So you haven’t know them long.” He looked at the Daemon beside him. “Lewis, you explain it.”
Lewis said, “He’s Fairy related, this isn’t anything he hasn’t encountered.”
I said, “Fine, I think I’m on the same page now. Mrs. Nelson’s doing quite well.”
We moved to a table at the back of the area and started putting together computers. This was my first time, but I had been gifted. We were talking back and forth in Mandarin so I was getting practice with several gifts at the same time.
We booted and got the first computer up and the shopkeeper helped them get it on the net. Lewis said to me, “We can tell you want something, and we owe you, so, what is it?”
I said, “I have US cash, but no way to convert it. My credit card isn’t working.”
Lewis shook his head. “If you just showed up in China and decided to use your credit card, your credit company is going to think someone is trying to rob you. If you confirm you are in China, and you got here quick, you don’t want to use credit anyway. There are lots of places that will convert your cash though, so you don’t have a problem.”
Larry said, “I know one you can trust.”
Lewis asked, “Really, Larry? The kid just did us a solid.”
Larry winced. I asked the shopkeeper, “Is there a place near here where I can get US money converted at a decent rate?”
He went to a computer and pulled up the current rates. “I can do it. Five percent charge.”
I said, “Sounds good. I’ll be right back.”
As I walked off, I heard Larry say, “Come on, never give a sucker a decent break.”
Lewis said, “Right and after a Fairy that’s willing to walk right up to a pair of Daemons figures out you burned him for small change, what do you do for an encore? We could have made friends with a freaking Fairy that knows technology. How many of those do you think are out there?”
I got back to the counter with a few bundles of money and the shopkeeper said, “Your friends left. Thanks for helping with the sale.”
I showed him the shopping list and asked him where I could find the items on it. He pulled out a laminated directory of the mall and pointed out the areas I should look.
On the way I found a shop with some kits that had a pretty complete Arudino set up and they had motors that matched the ones Archer used in his detector setup. I got a few sets and some motors and then went after the components I still needed to build and test my detector. After getting what I needed, I went back and got a few drones for Caerwyn.
#
Caerwyn asked, “What was it like?”
I said, “Cellphones and cases for them. Headphones everywhere. Batteries of every sort. Cameras, lights, and tripods. My credit card was rejected so I had to convert cash.”
We finished connecting the detector parts, and the cup wobbled horribly.
I switched it off. “Now that we have it together, let’s take it to Fairy and take the cup off. I can make a gossamer version and adjust it until it balances and then substitute with real materials.”
#
In the center of the seven-way crossroads in Snipsnort, with time running fast, we setup several detectors with laptops connected and then put one aside for testing. After hand spinning the new gossamer version of the cup before testing it with the stepper motor spinning it, we found that I caused a wall of blips on the display. I backed up and moved and we found that I was blocking another blip. The blips appeared when the cup faced the direction of the mansion.
Caerwyn said, “I think we can make this easier. Archer’s method is to get it spinning and then sample by timing to see if there is a response. Because the cup samples a wide swath his software tests the range and reduces it to a single point. If it is bigger, he does some interesting math to calculate strength and width from the signal.
“With a worm drive, we can aim this where we want it, and we don’t even have to spin it as much. We can have better angle resolution.”
I asked, “Why didn’t he adjust the cup for a smaller area?”
Caerwyn shook his head. “Until we are comfortable playing with this we don’t know if you can make it smaller. It’s possible he didn’t want elevation to cause issues, so he left it wide so he just got direction. We need to figure out how he used this to find things close up.”
I looked at Caerwyn. “The handheld version in his plans was just the cup and sensors in a flashlight base. He probably had it on him. The odds are good he still has a detector he can use.”
As we played with this, I got concerned with timing. “Caerwyn, it’s a fourteen hour drive from Dallas to Chicago. We only have a few hours to get there before he does. I’m guessing he’ll be speeding, so I don’t know how long it will take him to get to Chicago.”
We tried out the worm drive method and ended up using Archer’s method instead. We did improve the cup and found much better resolution.
#
Back in Caerwyn’s house, we fired up the detectors. The blips in Chicago were gone.
Caerwyn got up and looked at the map he had on the wall. “The moment he figured there was an alarm, he probably abandoned his trucks. Odds are he dipped into his emergency funds, found a flight, or hired someone with a small jet.”
I looked at the map. “I was just in China. What if I went there and looked for junk?”
Caerwyn said, “Unless this plot against Hubert is worldwide, and that seems a bit expensive, there has to be a ton of stuff. My question is why not new, why are we looking for trash?”
I said, “I can’t guess. I’d think that we would be detecting stuff in stores, houses and warehouses. Maybe it has to be old. Maybe it needs to have been hit a few times and have dents.”
Caerwyn did a search for maps and brought up China. “You could get into big trouble, and you might have to break in and steal things.”
I shrugged. “Hubert’s life may hang on this. I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it.”
#
In the pharmacy, I bowed and thanked the pharmacist for answering my summons and shadow stepped to a rooftop where I could work. With the detector running, I found a strong signal. I didn’t know the references to match the signals with the map, but I could tell direction and shadow step. I followed Goblin shadow movements and stopped to walk when they detoured in directions I didn’t want to go. The clouds were obscuring the sun with the worst timing, so I had to walk past shops filled with used car parts sorted and hanging from the walls and rafters. I could imagine someone building a car from scratch as they pushed a chassis down the road. From the prices, they could probably build it cheaper than you could buy a used car.
I had to wait for the clouds to part so I could shadow step and find a vacant roof to pull out my computer and detector. I was close and the detector was set up to work and detect on a flat plane so I could no longer use it from this elevation. I put it up and took out the flashlight-looking version and started searching for the signal. I was very close. I had to wait for the clouds to clear before I had shadows I could rely on. I needed solid paths. Many places were warded from shadow stepping here. I had to go back over older paths to find a ward-free and safe route.
The signal was strong and hard to miss in an area where brightly colored charms were on all the shops and shadow stepping was impossible.
A building that took up the entire block was where the detector led me. I walked around the warded building and had nearly circled it when a sudden loud car horn made me jump. I looked for the source and saw the window of a black limousine was going down. Looking out at me was a man who looked like one of the Arabic princes. He asked, “Are you Phil?”
I nodded. He got out of the car and said something in a Middle Eastern sounding language to the driver. The car window went up as the limousine pulled away from the curb.
He went to a covered keypad beside a door and started entering a code. “You are looking for something special. It is an important day.”
I was nervous but if the Shadow Queen was trying to help, I didn’t want to make it difficult. Inside a large room were evenly spaced pallets with appliances and odd parts. A city block worth of items that Hubert could use if this was what we were looking for.
The Arabic sheikh/prince-looking man gestured to the collection of odd equipment. “Test them and feel the exquisite joy of success after a long search.”
I used the handheld detector, and every item, if I could trust my equipment, was something that Hubert could use.
He smiled at me, closed the door, and held a button beside the door. Shades over windows above us opened and light streamed into the room. “This collection was made just for you.”
He took a couple of steps past me into the room and collapsed to the floor. I looked to the door and then down to the man as I felt a horror.
Something with the taste of bitter metal had entered my mind. I collapsed as the use of my hands and legs was taken from me.
The horror said, “Now feel the despair of defeat. I will take you apart, and you will be of no use to your friend. My collection of diviners told me that you would come if I gathered these parts. I am The Sinful One, and you can now feel utter despair.”
I felt him shift something, and I knew that I no longer resonated for Mr. Hubert.
The voice continued, “Know that your world will be destroyed, and there will be nothing you can do. You will watch, helpless in your own body, as everything you care about is destroyed. We Djinn have watched and waited, and our time has finally come.”
I went to the Fairyland of desolate death. If I was going to die then this monster was, too.
He started to move my fingers. One section at a time, he moved and managed to get up. I bound him to this Fairyland as Deacon Dan had gifted me. Then with that inspiration I used another of the gifts Deacon Dan had given me. I turned him into a Fairy. The Fairy screamed. I had fallen in a position where I could not see him.
He shouted at me, “You will die here.”
I felt my facial control coming back as I felt his teeth biting into my throat. He continued chewing. I couldn’t see him but he felt small. I felt blood running down from the wound in my throat. I felt myself fading out, so I changed into me undamaged in a swimsuit. He asked, “How many forms do you have?”
I felt my neck being bitten again, so I moved my chin down to stop him.
He backed away. “I die, you die.”
He started chewing on my wrist. My regret was that Mr. Hubert was without me and without me or any of the parts he might not last long. I did not regret my going if it meant this monster was gone too. I could move my neck so I could see the little naked man-like creature gnawing on my wrist.
I was able to moan, so I changed forms into a rooster and screamed at him.
I saw spark and flame and felt the heat of his passage.
After recovering control of my body, in another undamaged form of me in a suit, I summoned the pharmacist and again went to China. I gave the man another gold coin. Following shadows I knew, I traced my way back to the place where the Djinn had attacked me. The clouds were cooperating.
I stopped along the way and bought a blanket. Then I bought a hammer and a long ladder that I could barely hold up on my own. I half-carried, half-dragged the ladder to a spot mostly out of sight before taking to shadow and continuing until the clouds interrupted my journey. I ate and rested as the sun started to set. I had a hint of shadow, so I continued for a few blocks. Then I ran out of shadows and had to walk. It was going to be a long night.
After walking a few more blocks, street lights started turning on. I was saved. I shadow stepped to the building and set up the ladder. I climbed up to a ledge with a window but it was dark inside. There were people on the other side of the building, so I didn’t dare use the hammer and blanket to break a window.
I climbed down the ladder, put it away in another form, and walked to an open convenience store. Inside, I did the one thing you will almost never see a Goblin do. I bought a flashlight.
Using the flashlight from up on the ladder, I shadow stepped into the building and summoned Hubert. No one answered. I checked and Snipsnort was running at Real time. I summoned Anthony.
Anthony said, “Thank goodness. A while ago, Hubert sat down. He is functioning but barely. I think he may be shutting down for good.”
I said, “Take his hand and come to me.”
Anthony and Hubert appeared beside me and Hubert stood. There was a light in his eyes like I had never seen before.
He looked around the room and said, “Stay back from the equipment. Some of it is trapped.”
He looked around and then he looked at me. “Tell me, which of these are unwholesome.”
I looked and there were three that I would not want to eat standing next to.
I pointed. “That shiny one with the steel tank on top is the worst, but the avocado green dishwasher is really bad. The trash compactor has something wrong with it as well.”
Hubert said, “Sad, those are the most valuable. Phil, you just saved my life. Can we get the rest of these back to the manor house?”
I opened a gateway and shifted it until it was in place at the mansion. With a fork lift attachment on a spider excavator, I took the equipment that Hubert thought safe to the manor house.
Hubert and Anthony stepped through the gateway and I closed it. I was alone in a large chamber with three trapped objects that might be valuable to Hubert.
I cast a summons. “Phil the fishmonger summons Nia Gray.”
I brought her through. “These are trapped. I don’t know how. But they would be nice to have if they were undamaged and no longer trapped.”
Nia said, “We will do our best. You should leave. Someone will contact you.”
She seemed cold but it was what I had. I went back to Snipsnort and shadow stepped to the manor house.
Hubert and Anthony were arranging equipment in the steel rooms below the mansion.
Hubert said, “Phil, I can’t tell you how much I owe you. This is probably good news, but it is sort of sad. I am well enough equipped and more now, but a while ago, you stopped resonating the way that you used to. You are free in a way, but somehow I miss the bond.”
I nodded. There was something in me, perhaps the Goblin part that wanted to take care of people, yet another part that might be the Goblin as well that didn’t want anyone too dependent on me. A lot of Goblins are like that. It makes us mixed up, and I think it keeps us lonely.
We want to nurture things, but we don’t want them tied down to us. I shadow stepped out to a long pier that I had made along the bridge to Nowhere but there were Fairies fishing on it. I needed to be alone. I shadow stepped out into the swamp until I found a large boulder jutting out beside a willow tree growing in the dirt beside it. Under the shifting partial shade of the willow, I sat and played my penny whistle.
I lay back on the rock and looked up at the sky through the willow leaves gently waving in the wind. Hubert was going to be okay. I needed to see if the Fairy Dynamics Fairyland was going to be a better place for Anthony and Hubert. Maybe it would be a good place for Caerwyn and Mrs. Nelson. I put away the penny whistle and slid off the rock and splashed into the water. It wasn’t as deep as I thought it was going to be. It didn’t matter. I needed to swim and I needed to think. I turned into an otter and swam with only the occasional chase so I could dine on a fresh fish. I rested on the water and explored the swamp.
#
Lying on my back floating and not even caring what day or time it was, I felt Lady Anteater try to slow time to match with Real. We were only five times the speed of Real, but I let her change the time. I floated a while longer before I was summoned.
“Fishmonger King of Snipsnort, I ask for thee to appear in a comely form and answer three questions.”
It was a girl’s voice but it hadn’t identified itself. I asked, “Show me where.”
She shouted, “Did you say that?”
I said, “Let me see.”
She said, “There’s a voice. It wants me to let it see.”
The summons disconnected.
I floated in the water and yawned. I was considering going after some fish or just sleeping for a while when I was summoned again.
“Fishmonger King of Snipsnort, I order thee to come hence.”
I asked, “Is this a prank?”
She yelled, “It asked if this was a prank.”
I said, “Show me where thou art and who thou art or forever leave me be.”
She said, “I command thee to appear in comely form and answer three questions.”
Ready to transform, jump, or go into shadow I decided to find out who was pestering me.
#
I was on a low round table surrounded by tall white candles. Five girls who looked junior high age were sitting on the floor around the table.
This was worse than being set up for an attack. I slid into shadow as the girls screamed. They were lucky I was not a vengeful otter. Then I considered it. I went out to the front lawn and rang the doorbell. When the door opened they saw a giant seven foot two inch rooster standing well back from the porch.
I said, “Knock, knock.” I think the girls and the rest of their neighborhood heard something very different.
#
Transformed into me as a Goblin with ears that let him pass for human, I walked through the neighborhood. It was dark but there were lots of lights on the street and in the yards all the houses had grass lawns and garages. The sort of neighborhood where Goblins might be hiding in closets or under beds but never living there.
I looked at the streets with sidewalks and thought about growing up and graduating high school. I thought about living in a nice clean house like this with other children who didn’t have to hide their ears.
In my imagination, this had always been the dream. I didn’t have it when I was with my original mother, this much wealth was always out of reach. This life was impossible as a Goblin. Yet as I walked my ears perked up and then I had to run to save myself from myself.
Even in these neighborhoods with every dream in the world within reach, there were children who cried themselves to sleep. The siren call that begged a Goblin to intervene was present even in the richest neighborhoods. I didn’t fit in and these streets were dangerous to me.
I was no longer perfectly fit with Hubert. I still felt close, but there was a feeling of slight distance. I wasn’t ever going to give up on our close friendship and time cooking together, but I didn’t quite feel that his home was where I was going to live. The Queen of Shadows and her kind seemed distant. My Goblin family was now a group that I visited but was no longer an integral part of.
I thought about the sister that I had just adopted and smiled. I took myself to Snipsnort and summoned her.
Duchess Byebye brought me to a castle I had never seen in a forest where the air felt cool. “Everyone else is hiding. You have to cover your eyes and count to a hundred. You can count to a hundred, can’t you?”
I nodded.
She said, “Then you have to get out of the castle before any of us catch up with you.”
I asked, “Have you ever been taught the rules for hide-and-seek?”
She said, “Silly, when everyone can transform into things, regular hide-and-seek barely works. This is much, much better. We hide, you run, and we seek. No shadow stepping, getting summoned, or leaving Snipsnort. That would be cheating.”
The End of Book 2