The couple of days extended into a couple of weeks. Treasure after treasure revealed themselves in the tall, black house. Not jewels or gold or rare paintings, or any such riches, but useable crockery; packets of seeds; a keg of salt; bales of twine; bottles, some still full of wine; a chest crammed with blankets packed in lavender and sage; baroque mirrors; bolts of cloth; jars of beeswax; dried herbs hanging like mummified limbs in a closet, and many books.
The cat, whom Filerion named Segila, followed him from room to room, jumping onto the windowsills, whispering cruelties at the birds outside, jumping down again to wash herself and generally keep him company.
Time sped by; a holiday of exploration and renovation. Gradually, Filerion accepted the fact that some part of him had decided to stay indefinitely, and he gave in to that desire with little fight. The house seduced him, constantly leading him to find things of use, to bring comfort to his life. There were caves in the cliffs behind the garden, some with pools of sweet, clear water. At one time, someone had constructed a plumbing system, using as supply a natural reservoir found within the caves, and had connected it to the house. Filerion inspected the pipe-work and found it sound. A survey of the garden and orchard revealed overgrown vegetable plots, masses of riotous, giant herbs and fertile fruit trees. There were hives for bees, sadly empty, but, Filerion reasoned, if he could restore the garden, he could grow things to sell in the villages that punctuated the road to Celestia and Grote. Maybe he could buy some bees one day.
Buy bees he did. And a goat, some hens, grain, meat and white, glistening sugar in a sack. The garden responded to his attentions and even the first harvest, only months after he’d begun work, rendered a pleasing income. Sometimes, Filerion wondered who had lived in the house before him, why they had left it, and whether they’d been as contented as he was now. Surely, countless lives before his own had whiled away the dark, green hours beneath this roof? Many of the books he’d found had been written by hand, in graceful, curling script. The subject matter was often esoteric and strange, as well as being practical and eminently useful. Since studying them, Filerion had learned how to heal his body, whether of disease, wounds or spiritual ennui. He could treat his animals effectively. All of the plants required were on hand in the garden, waiting to be discovered and nurtured once more as Filerion cleared the ground of weeds. The strength of will to empower the remedies he drew from the trees themselves.
There was only a single stain on his happiness. One afternoon, in summer’s full heat, Filerion took mop and brooms to the uppermost floor of the house. It consisted of a single passageway, with three doors leading off it, and had the feeling and smell of a place that had not been disturbed for years. There was almost an air of resentment at Filerion’s intrusion. Summer was shut out there. Filerion did not like it. He turned to say to Segila, ‘Perhaps this part can wait...’ and then noticed Segila was not behind him. A shiver of unease slipped up his spine. Usually, the cat followed him everywhere. He stepped backwards, not through feeling threatened, but wanting to avoid something he thought would be unpleasant, sickening. The house would not allow that. It was quite emphatic. As if dazed, Filerion let it show him a small, dismal room at the end of the corridor.
Afterwards, he could not remember clearly what he had seen; only a feeling of depression had remained, but words whispered through his head for the rest of the day, faint yet persistent: ‘This is why, this is why, this is why...’ Filerion avoided that area of the house thereafter.
Two years passed and during that time, Filerion devoted himself to repairing the tall, black house and its gardens. His old life seemed a hideous, tawdry, contemptuous existence in comparison to what he had now. It was very rare he missed the town, although one damp, winter evening, when his spirits were low, he found himself thinking about old friends and, perhaps unwisely, wrote a couple of letters to people he knew. He remembered the place at the edge of Coolcandle, where the woodcutters, charcoal-burners and local villagers left items they wished to be taken to the towns. A man on a grey pony came regularly to collect them, leaving behind any mail or packages he’d picked up. Filerion went out into the drizzly night, swishing through the trees. He began the journey to the edge of the forest, unable in his sudden anguish to wait till morning. By that time, he’d learned a quicker route to the road and had reached the collection bin by the following afternoon. He left two dozen eggs with the letters and hoped that would be enough payment to cover their delivery.
The morning after his return dawned bright and optimistic and Filerion’s brief depression passed. The flight through the wood, the burning desire to communicate seemed a silly, feverish thing to have done. He did not need anybody. The advantages of his new life far outweighed the ephemeral loneliness he experienced. After all, here in the forest, the only twittering was that of the birds, not of gossips and quick-tongues. The only harshness that of the elements, never of a human temperament.
Not long after he had taken up occupation of the house, Filerion had drawn himself a likeness of Celestia, to serve as a reminder and perhaps a warning. It hung on the wall in the kitchen, in an old, wooden frame he had found. That evening, as he sat in the kitchen after his meal, relaxing, sipping herb wine and smoking one of his green cigarettes, he gazed at the picture thoughtfully. It seemed he’d poured all the filth and subtle cruelty of the past right into it. A purge. He was truly rid of it. The letters would reach the town and people would laugh at his strangeness, and think him mad. No one would come to find him and that was for the best. The pangs of lust and hopeless love would never touch him here. All he needed now was that which the tall, black house had given him. All the company he needed was that of Segila, his hens, his rather sour-tempered but amusing goat and the spirits of the forest itself, never seen but often felt. In time, he completely forgot he’d sent the letters.
One day, as a summer evening bloomed around him like a late flower, Filerion sat outside his house, taking a glass of wine fermented from honey and elderflower, when he heard the unmistakable sound of human movement through the trees. Very occasionally, other wood-dwellers crossed Filerion’s glade, but they travelled with the silky, silent ease of the wilderness-footed. An understanding existed between all forest natives; contact was minimal unless invited, and respect for privacy observed. This movement was accompanied by the warble of voices, the sound of iron-shod hoofs, the swish of outraged branches, pushed to the side. The noises came from the south. Whoever travelled towards him must have come upon the wide, dusty road from the direction of Celestia and Grote.
Filerion watched with a mixture of fascination and fury as horses burst from the trees. He stood up and put down his glass of wine. The horses trotted nearer, two of them; one spotted grey, one dark dun. Filerion wasn’t sure whether to be pleased or annoyed when he realised he recognised the person riding the dun. A hand was raised in a splash of yellow silk. A voice cried ‘Yo! Filerion, you imp!’ and an old friend urged his horse into a canter, spewing up clods of turf behind him.
Filerion felt weak. He remembered the letters; more than twelve months’ sent. Finally, it seemed, someone had decided to sniff him out.
Filerion had known Ricardo Neathtree since they’d been children. Their careers had diverged somewhat over the years – Ricardo had nestled comfortably into his father’s merchant business – but, up until Filerion had left Celestia, their friendship had remained constant, if rather shallow. Ricardo, after all, had never considered their relationship close enough to offer Filerion the funds he’d desperately needed after his mother died. And Filerion had had more pride than to ask for it, although he’d fought resentment at the time. Ricardo liked having a courtesan as a friend, rather like he enjoyed owning exotic, foreign pets. In all the years he’d known Filerion, Ricardo had never suggested their friendship change its platonic state. Filerion had never desired Ricardo either, and even though the pair of them behaved as if they were brothers, Filerion was secretly glad Ricardo was not a relative. As he watched the
expensively-clad Ricardo spring down from his horse, Filerion considered that he still harboured a vestige of feeling for his friend, but it was faint.
Ricardo’s companion – a young man, silent and unremarkable in shadow – was overlooked during the first flurry of greeting, the inevitable shower of city gifts, the exclamations, comments, mandatory viewing of the tall, black house and the gardens beyond, the quickly offered refreshment, quickly prepared. Ricardo’s companion kept his head hung low, shuffling behind the others, quite invisible, a satellite in orbit round Ricardo’s sunshine.
‘You have yourself a palace here!’ Ricardo declared, nodding round the rooms.
It would cost a fortune to own such a place in Celestia or Grote, even more to build one. Filerion thought waspishly how Ricardo would probably go and commission himself a copy of it immediately when he got home, using his father’s money, without a second thought.
‘I would have come before if I’d known you lived like this!’ Ricardo said.
Filerion flinched. ‘I prefer to live alone,’ he said, and then added hastily, ‘but it is good to see you, Rico, after all this time.’
Filerion laid out a table with white linen in the porch. He set a bowl of smouldering resin by the door, which exuded a delicious smoke into the heavy, sensual evening air. He carried out bowls of salad chopped freshly from his garden and arranged one of the cooked fowl, which Ricardo had brought him, on a plate. The little group sat down to eat.
Ricardo smiled at Filerion’s exquisite, delicate wines and then shook his head. ‘Delightful! So clever! But tonight, a treat!’ He had brought expensive liquor with him from Celestia, fiery with spice, smoky as the town itself on Fall nights. It did not taste of the green forest at all.
As they sat down, Ricardo indicated his companion and said, almost as an afterthought, ‘Ah, this is Fairen De’ath. He had a whim to accompany me here. Needed a rest too, I expect.’ He laughed heartily, offering no more explanation or introduction than that.
Fairen De’ath ducked his head and shrank into a seat.
Filerion thought it looked as if the young man was shrouded in smoke, as if he was somehow fuzzy at the edges. How strange. He blinked quickly and the smokiness vanished. Perhaps a trick of the light, something in his eye...
Ricardo didn’t stop talking, throwing his arms about, indicating further gifts he’d forgotten to mention. Filerion wondered if Ricardo was faintly embarrassed coming to a place like this where the silence of the forest was so huge and its strength so pure and near. ‘So how is your life going now?’ Ricardo enquired boisterously. ‘Quiet, eh?’
Filerion smiled sweetly and replied that all was going very well, thank you and, yes, it was quiet, but he liked it that way, having got used to it.
Fairen De’ath sat silently, his head bowed as if in timidity. Filerion was reminded of the boys and girls he had known in the town, too young to solicit alone, too desperate not to, who had fallen under the protection of older men and women, who undertook to manage their business. They too used to sit bowed and humble, deaf to the haggling that occurred over their heads. Was Ricardo Fairen’s patron in some way?
The moon rose over the chimneys of the black house, which stood nearly as tall as the tallest tree. Nimble bats flitted in and out of the eaves, peeping out their high, navigational squeaks. Below, sitting comfortably in the glow of a lighted globe of glass, the three talked long and deeply. The presence of the forest stole over them, seeming to bring the mysteries of life very close to hand. It was inevitable the conversation should turn towards the mysterious, the baffling, the arcane.
Ricardo Neathtree squinted nervously at the black, rustling forest and said, ‘It must unnerve you often, Fil, living here.’
‘No,’ Filerion answered, ‘I am never afraid.’ It was true. He feared what he had left behind in the town more.
‘No ghosts then? Not even in this dark old house?’ Ricardo’s smile held an edge, as if he had only just realised he too would be spending a night inside it.
Filerion grinned. ‘No ghosts,’ he said, sipping his glass of liquor. Had it tasted this harsh back in Celestia or had his palate become refined these past two years?
‘You don’t get lonely?’
‘Only once.’ Filerion remembered, with mixed feelings, that sad, cold night he’d sat and written the letters telling people where he was. Thank All That Breathed Ricardo had been the only one to respond. Ricardo shrugged petulantly, perhaps affronted his old friend didn’t seem more relieved to see him. Filerion hoped this presaged no further surprise visits and then silently reprimanded himself for being so anti-social. He smiled at his friend. ‘I’m glad you came,’ he said. ‘Really.’
Ricardo grinned roguishly. ‘I half expected to find you’d already know I was coming!’ He indicated their surroundings. ‘You were always mystically inclined. I was not surprised when you left so abruptly, or at your letter telling where you’d decided to root. No, not at all. You are a proper witch now, of course. Did you sense me coming? A scrying ball wouldn’t be out of place here. Do you have one hidden away perhaps?’
Filerion shook his head and laughed. ‘I cannot read the future,’ he said.
Fairen De’ath, nudged from his silence by alcohol, said suddenly, ‘Upon the table in my house there stands a sphere of perfect crystal. I look into it often.’
‘And does it tell your future?’ Ricardo asked, winking at Filerion.
The brow of Fairen De’ath, which was pale and high, wrinkled in thought. ‘Sometimes. I have seen hints, presentiments perhaps.
Ricardo laughed. Though he would not dismiss the existence of sorcery, he clearly doubted whether his young companion had any knowledge of it.
Filerion merely looked on warily.
‘So tell us, tell us,’ Ricardo chided. ‘What hints present themselves to you? Daughters of rich houses clad in jewels, I should hope!’
Fairen De’ath shook his head seriously. ‘No, nothing like that. Other things.’ He looked up.
Filerion was shocked from a lazy comfort by the glance. Dark eyes in a pale face, wistful as a slave, perhaps lovely. What had Ricardo brought here, and why? Discomfort pooled itself in Filerion’s breast. He felt as if a rushing wind, foul with destruction, had come gusting up the south road, and not two travellers on iron-shod horses. He sensed turmoil.
After a moment, Filerion excused himself, rose, and went into the shadows of the house. He let its cool, sinuous presence invade his troubled mind and closed his eyes. Balm. Security. Sighing, he padded into the kitchen and poured himself a long, cold glass of clearest water to rid his palate of the sting of Ricardo’s liquor. His brain seemed full of the echoes of past noise; voices, laughter, hot, smoky taverns, yellow light and stale air. He did not want that here, in this house. He would be glad when Ricardo and his strange companion left him alone, to bask in the luxury of solitude once more.
Fairen De’ath, he considered; even the name inspires fear. Loveliness he disguises with smoke. A trickster. No, a boy, shy and faltering. Pretty boy. Dangerous. Like all those pretty boys who’d come to the Footways, their brief attraction to his light. And yet... A look? Desire? Was it there? No. No. Too long alone here. A mistake. He is Rico’s plaything. Must be. A mistake...
Then, in the darkness behind him, there was a movement, so slight Filerion wondered whether he had really perceived it.
A voice came out of the darkness, a furtive whisper. ‘In the crystal... It was you, Filerion. Just a moon ago, the crystal showed me, told me. You, you, you.’
Filerion turned and saw the pale shape of Fairen De’ath, standing in the doorway. ‘I beg your pardon?’ False confidence. False cool. It was an angel gliding towards him.
Fairen De’ath advanced into the room, his hands wrestling each other in discomfort. ‘The letter you sent. I read it. Months ago. And then, in the crystal, I saw you. I saw all of this!’
‘You must have been mistaken,’ Filerion said coldly, filled with dread. ‘I do not know you
at all.’
Fairen still crept forwards into the moonlit room, still wringing his slim, pale hands. ‘No, but I know you,’ he said, babbling, almost incoherent. ‘I’ve seen you. Before. Many times. If only I’d spoken, but you seemed so distant, so aloof... I watched. I saw. Others came, others touched you. But not me. Not me. And then you were gone, vanished. It was like the light went out of the town. When Ricardo showed me the letter, months after you’d sent it, I wanted to come then, but I was nervous, shy. Ricardo kept mentioning he would visit you one day, but that day never came. I waited and waited, and then... the crystal. I had to act. I was out of my mind. I persuaded Ricardo to come here. He was tired. Needed a rest. The forest, I said, would do him good. I asked him to bring me with him, introduce me to you. Two years. I have not forgotten you. I had to see you. I had to tell you this. You are my life!’
Filerion made a dismissive gesture. ‘This is... a shock. What you are saying sounds like madness.’
‘It is!’ Fairen agreed. ‘I had no alternative but to obey the call of this insanity.’
‘You don’t understand,’ Filerion said. ‘I have chosen this life, this privacy. I have no desire to share it with anyone, no desires at all, in fact. I am touched by your feelings, it’s very flattering, but...’
Fairen came and put his hands on Filerion’s arm, and oh, how cool that touch was, so cool yet vibrant with promise. How dark were the eyes that implored to be recognised, how winsome the face. Filerion could smell the maleness of him, young and vibrant. He looked away, pierced by a swift, insidious spear of lust. He’d forgotten the bittersweet poignancy of such attacks. ‘I have no wish to share my life with anyone,’ he repeated and paused before adding, ‘not even someone as lovely as you.’ The words hung like crystal in the air between them.
Then, Fairen De’ath made a bitter sound. ‘I will not leave here,’ he declared fervently. ‘Do not underestimate my feelings. I will stay until I make you want me to stay.’