Leinan capered. She couldn’t stop herself. The euphoria of safety, of Relief after the horror and uncertainty of the night was like a drug. It was heady!

She ran. She spun and danced and picked up her two safe, wonderful children, Aemon and Keimen, and hugged them and kissed them and spun them in circles!

She laughed. Her laugh was high and loud and filled with everything that had filled her soul this night.

It was black with hatred. It was sharp as a blade and high like the cruel moon. It contained all the harrowing horror and fear and rage that consumed her all of this night.

It was a cackle as she had never heard before, and it rocked her shoulders and lifted her chin to the sky as it all came billowing out of her mouth.

And she couldn’t stop. Once it started it was all she could do not to burst with it. She could go home! They could go home! With riches!

And oh what riches! Gems which glittered and glowed with Magic lay where she had sat! Scattered like play things and pocket coppers.

Mundane ones too! Gold and crowns worth kingdoms. Pieces of art and artifice who’s working she could not fathom. And books!

They were rich! They were….

‘Wealth enough to buy Landsend’. She thought wonderingly. ‘More! How — what…?’ What were they to do with it all?

She didn’t know. Did it matter? They. Were. Rich! And they were going home!She’d — she’d think of something. But that was later. Now — Leinan laughed and cackled to the sky —

And that gave her a wonderful view of Flynn and Theilan wrapped up like cocoons and tied to trees and staring at her as if they had never seen anything more disturbing in their lives….

Which was insanity because they were being guarded by a pair of short, hairy creatures with arms like blacksmiths.

As she watched, one of them flared a pair of gigantic wings, like a bird’s and grinned toothily at her.

Leinan gawked and that put an end to her cackling.

Then she spun around to The Forerunner, words of retribution on her lips — where had she grown the courage?! — and… stopped. The words died on her lips.

Leinan hadn’t paid attention afterwards. The world had stopped for her after the night had turned to morning and she had realized she’d won.

She — no, They — They had won! The Wizard AND her had beaten…

‘Then why did The Wizard look…?’

* * *

The Wizard wept.

He wept like Leinan had wept.

He wept like The Forerunner had wept, with tears like moonstones.

He wept and sniffed into his beard and padded his eyes. But it wouldn’t stop. Part of him didn’t even know why he wept.

They’d won! They’d strove and plotted and played Beautiful games. So Beautiful an immortal Fae had been ensnared by them. Grand as legends of old and Old. Once, there were Wizards who bandied with Dragons, but he… He had cheated The Forerunner of all the Fae.

At his feet were items of such Magic that Wizards from around the world would build a Library around him just to study and Ponder upon them.

So why…

‘I really think you’re over reacting.’ Hat huffed. ‘You weren’t even using them! ’

Dreams. They were just those images at night, right? Just aspirations which most people never reach. Right? Nothing to cry like a child about. Nothing to….

Barnibus squeezed his eyes shut and rubbed at his face, and when he opened them again, there were speckles of black along his palm and on his fingers.

‘Oh’, he thought dimly. ‘That’s how you make it.’

‘Oh really now,’ grumped his Hat. ‘Blackest Hatred from you too? Don’t you think that is a bit….’

The Forerunner was watching him, Barnibus realized. Just watching.

Not kindly, but not angrily either. Just watching. Coldly maybe, but not cruelly.

“Played thee well thine game of wit,” The Forerunner of all the Fae said softly. “Grand an’ Beautiful wast this night, an’ my sisters willst long tell of mine plight. To have lost mine quarry to a Wizard’s folly an’ a girl with eyes as sharpened knives.”

“But how couldst I resist?” She laughed, opening her hands, palms up as if to say ‘What foolishness!’ She shook her head, chagrinned. “Just as yee couldst not desist. Thee made and thee meddled. An’ look what fate thee peddled.”

She shook her head and chuckled again softly, kicking the tea set — Kettle of Tea Overfloweth — she had won despondently. It rolled a little ways away, but it didn’t shatter. It had been a Wizard’s kettle not too long ago after all.

“Thee must know, Wizard One,” She continued. “Though escaped mine quarry hast, Fate’s die wast already cast. The children Leinan holds so dear an’ so sweet shalt be brought anon to the land of sleet. All of Fae hath decreed an’ thus, tis so.

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I am The Forerunner of all The Fae,

an I mere’ came afore this lone, dreary day.

I came afor, yet they follow after,

in dimming light an’ fading laughter.

Mine brothers come from coldest Winter,

an hay an’ ruin they bringeth hither.

The Forerunner looked at him. “Mine word ‘pon it.” She said quietly.

Barnibus rubbed his eyes and… didn’t care. Not this time. ‘ Not. This… What had he lost?!’

The Forerunner sighed tiredly. She dusted off her hands and combed her fingers through her frost tipped, wintery hair, which glinted in the morning light and looked about.

She looked up to the sky where the cruel, pale moon had long since set. She looked at Leinan hugging, and crying and holding Aemon and Keimen. And she blinked a little in Surprise at the two boys tied to tree branches just outside where the firelight would have reached.

But what she said was, “Ne’er much longer now. As the sun breaks the tree-line an ne’er longer. What dost thee say Wizard One? Shalt we play another? As we wile away the hour? I offer…”. The Forerunner tapped her chin speculatively.

‘Nope! Don’t offer anything boy,’ Hat said triumphantly. ‘We got what we wanted. All five objectives in a nice little bundle. HA. Turn that into a feather and stick it in a cap. Brim Stitching, against a Fae too! We don’t want anything m—’

“Home.” Barnibus growled through a throat which scratched and tore. “I. Want to go. Home.”

— ‘Mothballs boy!’

The Forerunner smiled winsomely. “Done. As day’s augur breaks yon trees shalt yee return, as mine offer.”

Barnibus reached a quivering hand into his robe, but The Forerunner was already shaking her head. “Nay, Wizard of Mine Ire, not for trinkets ist that road.” She said seriously. “Paved by lives it was, an’ thee hast no trinket that may afford.”

‘Seamstresses Boy! This has gone far enough! You’ll make new dreams! Grand ones too if your going to pine so much about those old —’

And Barnibus’s mouth curled and Blackest Hatred spattered from his eyes.

“For a road so paved I offer —” He reached up to his head.

“A hat as old as Wizards have known,

So fickle and so bold.

Not from wonder was it sewn,

But treachery so cold.”

* * *

The words died on Leinan’s tongue as she watched The Wizard reach up and pull his hat from his head.

Pull, as if it was trying to hold on.

The hat with a brim so wide it blotted out forest on either side of his head. With a trunk so tall and curved that it should have fallen but didn't. So big it should have encased his entire head.

It dragged as he pulled, but his grip was insatiable. Off it came and he flung it next to the game board.

Leinan looked wildly at The Forerunner and then back at the Wizard, not understanding. How — wha — he was shaking! What was —

And Leinan suddenly felt a cold, hard certainty grow in her heart. NO!

Games and Games were played this night. Beautiful and Grand games, and games which she only suspected were there.

But watching that Grand hat strike the ground, Leinan had a dark inkling that she was seeing the edges of another one.

Leinan opened her mouth to cry out. To beg him to pick it up. No! Put it back!

“Done.” The Forerunner intoned, and smiled.

The Forerunner had remained steadfast all of the night and the day prior, Leinan remembered numbly. She had sought and coveted Aemon and Keimen and had never strayed from that goal… except once.

So long ago it seemed, but there it was. Right in front of her. Singing a song as cold as she was, The Forerunner had stopped hunting. And she had said —

— ‘My — what a wonderful hat!’

And before her eyes The Forerunner changed.

* * *

She was OTHER. She was MORE. She was the soul of the Winter Whirlwind and the Icy, Frigid Cold of the Tallest, Loneliest Mountain Peak. She was Terror and all the panicked horror of Darkest Night. She was The Forerunner of all the Fae.

And one more thing, Leinan realized belatedly in her dawning moment of Horrified Realization. The Wizard had trespassed against her this day.

This game was not Beautiful.

* * *

Barnibus’s mind fizzed as The Forerunner cackled a cackle every bit as triumphant as Leinan’s and delicately reached out and seated her hat snuggly about her ears.

Fizzed….

“My hat…” Barnibus breathed, and it was like black clouds parted from his thoughts. Wizards… didn’t give their hats away. They…. “Hat…. My — my hat.”

“Mine hat, Barnibus.” The Forerunner rolled her ‘r’ indulgently and grinned at him.

No. “No! I —” What — Barnibus shook his head like trying to shake away a fly and stumbled to his feet and back, back, away from the creature in front of him. His hat. HIS Hat. His… what had he done?!

Barnibus’s head felt like it was a jumble, and he shook it. Hard. But it didn’t unshuffle. His thoughts, usually so ordered were… Blackest Hatred? Trading his HAT? To go back to a Library that wasn’t even his. What… what had he been thinking?

He tore at his beard, pulling black wisps away with his fingers. He clutched his face.

“No!"

“I didst say, thee shalt live to regret this day. Thine hat upon it.” The Forerunner commented lightly, and she stood adjusting her hat on her head and drawing her wintery locks back, behind her ears. They were sharp too, Barnibus noted for the first time. Sharp like her teeth.

She stepped back, giggling a tinkling laugh like a struck dinner bell, and mimed a flamboyant curtsy.

Then she twirled with another laugh and bowed at the waist in a mirror of how they met. Again. “An I thank yee, Wizard. Verily did thee granteth me enjoyment an’ glee, an’ so fulfilled us our duties, both thineself an’ me.”

The Forerunner turned to leave and Barnibus breathed, “What do you want?”

He looked around himself, at the riches of worlds strewn about the campsite. At Leinan watching him with Horror in her eyes. At the two boys in the tree and and the winged monkeys which guarded them. He looked down at himself and up into the sky, a hairs breath from glowing with sunlight. “For thine hat?” He whispered, “What will you have of me? A Wizard’s boon? A service rendered?”

The Forerunner shook her head.

“I’ll return with thee to Winter.” He begged. “A Wizard I be. Anything. How canst thee think to use a Wizard like me?”

“Nay, Barnibus,” The Forerunner crooned. “Thee art too small. An’ mine hat is Grand. What use have I for thee in Winter?”

Barnibus wept into his beard. His chest heaved — what had he done?!

“Anything!” He begged. He looked down at himself and the scattered treasure and magic that he had won. Scattered — as if they were toys!

A Staff Hewn from Earthen Bones.

Living Flame Trapped in Time

The Seedling of a Greater Tree, Seven Bottles of Youth’s Wellspring, The Frigid Breath of an Elder Thing, and … and elder magics and rituals that all but time forgot —

Wizard’s and Witches would pound on his door. They would… his Hat. What had he done?!

—A Gem of Fear and one of Rage. Books and scrolls. Gold and silver and spells. Enchantments wrought by inhuman smiths and spell-writes.

"Everything! All mine winnings! All of them. And” — he panned around desperately. And —

Leinan’s mouth tensed as his eyes fell upon her, but then Barnibus saw her eyes briefly flicker down to Aemon and Keimen who she was holding in an ever whitening grip and her mouth twisted.

She hissed a breathy sigh, and then grudgingly kicked at the pile of treasure that could have bought nations and nodded shortly.

Barnibus spun back. “Whatever thee desires. Just, pray,” he begged. “Once more, let us play!”

* * *

The Forerunner thought for a moment and tapped her chin. And then she grinned cruelly and named her price.