I slid through the archway and the lights changed.

More blue to the light and less yellow or orange. The light was crisper. I went to the shade of the trees around a raised stone platform. An odd piece of furniture was on the platform, something like a cross between a couch and the sort of chair you’d see around a swimming pool.

A voice by the gateway asked, “Did something come through it?”

A voice near it said, “Well, I thought so, but it didn’t really open, did it?”

From the platform, a girl’s voice said, “Someone came through. How odd. Mass came through. Nearly four and a half stone of mass, yet no fee or weight came into my realm. How wonderfully puzzling. What sort of creature can use a closed gateway, weigh less than a feather, and yet have more mass than a wheel of cheddar?”

One of the voices by the gateway said, “A flying foxhound. They don’t have wings typically, so they have to be able to control their weight.”

The other voice said, “Flying foxhounds aren’t invisible, are they?”

“Well, technically, we’re all invisible, but we all have the sight. I never quite saw the sense in that.”

The girl said, “The gateway’s opening. Looks like that stupid nameless Fairy queen’s place.”

“Shall we call the guard together?”

“No, back up from the gateway.” the girl said. “Unlike that silly girl, I can control my realm.”

The light shifted. It felt like rain despite the sky being clear.

I shifted to a tree farther from the gateway.

The girl said, “Clever spirit, I’m called Rummage. Since thou canst conceal thyself, I must call thee clever. Art thou willing and able to talk?”

I thought of the Fairies that shot me with darts. They’d said Rummage’s Fairyland raided them, yet I had no reason to be fond of them, maybe because of being shot. Oddly, I didn’t want to betray the first group of Fairies, even though they were planning an attack.

I appeared behind the trees. “The folk from the nameless Fairyland are glowing mad and planning attack.”

Rummage said, “We thank thee for warning us. Guards, seal the gateway.”

The guards came over. A hatch on the platform lifted and moved to an empty area. A breastplate from a suit of armor was lifted out of the opening using thin ropes and staves. The breastplate floated out and to the gateway.

The ropes went slack, and the staves and ropes disappeared. Several bright flashes and glittery lights appeared and gleamed against the dull steel breastplate. From inside, the breastplate’s glowing lights flickered and went out.

A voice from inside the breastplate shouted, “I curse thee, Queen Rummage. I curse your—” The voice faded in mid-speech.

Rummage said, “Nine stone and change. Well, they really did plan to invade.”

A voice by the gateway said, “At least eighty darts that were not dissolved by the steel. They came in force.”

“Well, then, clever spirit,” Rummage said, “We owe thee for a battle won with no losses and quite a bit of gain. As queen I claim half, and as the leader of combat, half the remaining. But as thou gavest warning, half of that’s thine before the troops involved get their share. That gives thee over a stone.

“I would further gift thee any power I can as a reward, and gift thee once more for coming out, talking, and telling me what manner of being thou art and how thou hast managed to enter my realm.”

With part of me still in shadow, I approached the edge of the platform. “I’m a Goblin. I was sitting and playing my penny whistle when I was hit by a dart and brought into the other Fairyland. I was shot again so I hid. I examined the gateway from their Fairyland, then I came here and heard thee speak.”

A voice beside me said, “Bow before Queen Rummage.” I felt something sharp hit my arm.

I went to shadow instantly. I didn’t know how badly I was cut. I started exploring, looking for a place to safely hide. For a moment, it had seemed like I would make out like Galen, then it became clear how dangerous Fairylands were.

Rummage shouted, “Well, he was near a friend, and now, if he were not already going to die from darts, thou hast assured his death. Three times struck by Fairy point means a short time and little joy as he passes from life.”

“Sorry, my queen, but he wasn’t bowing.”

Rummage spoke more softly. “He would have died. I would have nursed him with porridge and eased his pain. He would have become committed to our Fairyland, then we would have had a musician with new songs. Instead, a soon-to-die spirit is loose in our world. ‘Til he passes, he can appear as he wishes, and if thou didst not notice, his belt buckle was iron.

“He may be a gentle spirit now, but when gossamer fever hits, the only thing that may save thee is the one thing that will make me stay silent ‘til his mass falls from him in death and becomes mine. I don’t think he can see us. Of course he didn’t bow.”

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

“My queen, how do I make this up to thee?”

Rummage did not reply.

#

I sailed through shadow in a silent world. I didn’t know where any of the inhabitants were. I dared not come out of shadow to check my injuries, but there were drops of blood where I’d stood.

I found another gateway and slid through it. If I hadn’t been in shadow, I would have fallen to my death. The gateway was in a woods beside a stream that had cut a channel twenty feet into the forest bed. The gateway was thirty feet above that. I was safe in shadow by a tree. From the slope and the woods, I knew I was far from the bogs and swamps I called home.

It was night but the moon was up. I still didn’t know how badly I was bleeding and didn’t want to find out until I was somewhere safe.

I knew woods and knew shadows, and Mr. Hebert taught me that a Fairyland was a valuable place. I made notes and surveyed the area before I took to the long shadows.

The moon was rising, so the shadows would shorten soon. I sailed moonward. I prefer to go downstream in shadow, but I feared going too far west. I realized I might not be in America. I shadow stepped until I found a road, then zigzagged through shadow until I found a larger road and a road sign. I was still in the United States. I learned more as the moon rose, and my trip became choppier. I kept seeing the word “Ozark,” so I guessed I was a bit north of home. Shadows seemed to fight me, so I tried something Dennis had mentioned ages ago.

I followed the road signs to a small airport where a plane was taking off. I spent a while in an airplane’s shadow and figured out that Dennis was lying about traveling in an airplane’s shadow. It didn’t matter if you stayed under the plane or on the plane’s ground shadow, it was the slowest shadow stepping ever. I figured he was lying about shadow stepping in a train’s shadow, too, since you could just sail down the shadows cast by the track faster than any train would ever move.

I left the shadow of the plane as it crossed a train track running beside a large divided highway.

I headed south and finally found road signs with familiar names. I got to Shreveport and from there headed home in shadows I knew.

I got home and Mr. Hebert was in the kitchen. I went to my usual stool.

“What month is it?” I asked and then freaked out. I was dripping blood.

Mr. Hebert made a call on his phone.

“Can you summon in with your doctor’s bag? I have a hurt child here.”

Mr. Hebert put his phone in his pocket and crouched beside me. He stood, grabbed the kitchen shears, and started cutting my shirt off.

He held my arm, washed the cut with rum, looked up, and said, “Yes, please come help me.”

A Goblin girl wearing a knit cap and surgical scrubs appeared, looked at my arm, and said, “You’re gonna have a scar.” She opened her bag and took out a small bottle and a package with a syringe in it.

I asked, “What’s that for?”

She gave me a smile. “Pain killer. Unless you’re Rambo, you don’t want me stitching your arm without it. Looks like a very sharp blade did this. How did it happen?”

I said, “I was stabbed by a Fairy.”

She looked at Mr. Hebert. “This could get expensive fast. We need a good psychic surgeon. This boy doesn’t look like he can spare a lot of fat.”

Mr. Hebert asked, “How much in American dollars?”

“A quarter million to consult. A quarter million an hour. These things can take hours.”

Mr. Hebert looked at me with a pained expression. “Easy come, easy go. What point is wealth without friends? How quickly do they want payment?”

She said, “My contact’s medical group charges ten percent a month interest if you don’t settle with the physician immediately. You'll want to liquidate resources quick and pay as fast as you can.”

Mr. Hebert said, “Fine. Save the boy.”

She gestured to Mr. Hebert. “Hold his arm up so he doesn’t bleed. I need both hands free.” She took a book out of a pouch on the side of her bag and opened it on the table. She read symbols written in a magic circle drawn on a page, and the lines seemed to shift.

After long minutes, she said, “Fats, Mary summons thee. Fats, Mary summon thee.”

A man appeared and stepped back looking at all of us.

He looked at Mr. Hebert and bowed. “I’m honored.” He pulled a stool over, sat near me, and closed his eyes. He took out a flashlight and clicked it until it turned UV blue and shined the light on my wound then shined it right in my eyes before turning it off. He took out a pocket knife and touched it to the floor where I’d bled, then went to the sink, and washed his knife.

He sat down beside me and closed his eyes again.

My arm itched terribly. The man opened his eyes and said, “That was simple. Why did you want a psychic surgeon?”

Mary said, “The cut was made with a Fairy weapon. We want you to save him.”

The man nodded then smiled. “It’s too late. That’ll be five hundred dollars.”

Mr. Hebert seemed to tear up as he looked at me. I wasn’t sure he could cry.

Mary asked, “You can’t save him?”

The man said, “He’s already a Fairy. Don’t worry, he doesn’t appear to be allergic to iron, and sunlight won’t hurt him. Lots of people live fantastic and rather long lives as Fairies.”

Mr. Hebert smiled. “The original quote for treatment was substantially higher. I’m thankful to you. Would you like to stay for a very late dinner? We make an outstanding blackened catfish.”

The man nodded. “Seems like over-payment even on the terms I use to discourage and charge the folks that just want to alter their appearance. My name’s Fats and I look forward to the meal.”

Mr. Hebert said to Mary, “You’re invited too.”

The meal went by simply apart from when I was asked how I got the wound. Mr. Hebert said, “We shouldn’t talk about such things when we are eating.”

While serving bread pudding, Mr. Hebert asked, “How did you become a psychic surgeon?”

Fats said, “I was a surgeon before the days of cosmetic surgery. At least before it happened in Real. I was known for leaving small scars. Because of debts, I started a second practice helping criminals with injuries.

“I didn’t know it, but a pair of Daemons were betting how far they could make me fall. I was in debt to a Daemon, then they decided to have me pay it off in Fairy. In Fairy, I met a man who I’d helped years before. He was dead and Fairy, but he remembered me and recommended me to a Fairy psychic surgeon for training.”

Mr. Hebert asked, “What would it cost to get the points removed permanently from a Goblin's ears?”

Fats looked my ears. “No charge, but I keep the mass from it. Are you sure?”

I nodded. Fats closed his eyes, and I felt my left ear itch then my right one.

Mary took her knit hat off. “Can I get in on this?”

Fats asked, “Are you positive? They’re quite cute.”

She said, “Absolutely positive.”

I watched as the tips of her ears disappeared, the flesh bending and joining into a perfectly formed human ear instead of looking like you’d had a terrible accident. I reached up and felt my own ears.

I said to her, “There's a mirror in the hallway.”

Mary shadow stepped. I joined her and we both looked in the mirror at each other. We both laughed.

I pointed to her reflection. “Still cute.”

Mary smiled and shadow stepped back to the kitchen. I got close to the mirror and examined my ears. I was distracted by looking at how shadows appeared when reflected in the mirror.

I walked back to the kitchen pondering the question: Did I really travel on the edge of light?

I wondered if there were any Goblin physicists who studied light. It’d seem like there should be, but the lack of aging meant school might be an issue.

As I walked in, Mr. Hebert asked, “Lost in thought?”

I asked, “Are there Fairy physicists?”

Fats said, “I haven’t met one. Odd. Are alchemists physicists?”