The vista was breathtaking. They stood on a small hill, but that hill sat on top of a bigger hill, so that they were high up above the surrounding countryside. The sky was an odd shade of burnished amber with hues of purple, and the sun seemed closer than Poison had ever remembered it, and unbearably bright to look upon. To the west, a river of purest turquoise wound its way through the grassy folds of the land, glittering in the morning light. North and east was a great forest, its trees a riot of reds, greens and yellows, as if all the seasons had come at once. In amongst these were swathes of blue and indigo, the leaves of trees that Poison had never seen before. Beyond the forest, mountains ridged the horizon, made ghostly by distance. South, the hills were broken by moraines and valleys into which the river plunged in spectacular waterfalls.
Bram glanced back at the crooked old house, a tiny blot on a hill many miles behind them. They had walked all night to get away from it, as if half-expecting the Bone Witch to come screeching out after them, and yet strangely neither of them was tired. He shifted Peppercorn’s weight on his shoulder and harumphed, then raised a bushy eyebrow at Poison.
“Any idea where we’re going? It’d be a fine thing to get to the Realm of Phaerie and then end up wandering aimlessly till we starve.”
Poison shrugged, then looked at Andersen. “Have you got any ideas, cat?”
Andersen narrowed his eyes and blinked sagely, then set off at a trot down the hillside, towards the forest.
“I swear that thing’s not natural,” Bram murmured again.
Poison shrugged. “Better get used to it. Natural doesn’t really apply here.”
They followed the cat down the hill. It did not seem particularly hurried, detouring now and then to sniff at an exotic flower or pounce on some unseen insect. Poison found herself luxuriating in the hot day, mesmerized by the beauty of the phaerie countryside. Everything seemed somehow sharper and brighter here, her senses tuned more finely than they were at home. She felt the rustle of the grass. She could see individual leaves stirring in the forest from a great way away, as if the clear air allowed her better focus over longer distance.
She was tempted to remark that this place didn’t seem so bad, but she knew well enough that the moment she did so, something horrible would happen to them. How was it that life, like a story, had such a sense of comic timing?
They reached the edge of the forest, and there they found a small stream. They laid Peppercorn down and cleaned themselves of the blood of Maeb’s dogs. Andersen groomed himself nearby. When they were done, they woke Peppercorn, who had been in a deep swoon so long that she had fallen asleep. Poison half-expected her to faint again when she saw that they were outside the house, but she had no more left in her, it seemed. As they dried in the sun, they carefully explained to her what had happened, leaving out the gory details and giving her only the facts. Maeb was gone, and she wouldn’t be coming after them. Peppercorn was free (whether she wanted to be or not). They were in the Realm of Phaerie. They were on their way to visit the Phaerie Lord.
Peppercorn digested all this with something akin to shock on her face.
“You can still go back there, if you want,” Poison said, thinking that she should at least offer the option so that she didn’t feel like a kidnapper.
Peppercorn shook her head, her blonde curls jiggling with the movement. That was all the response she gave. Poison made a face at Bram, indicating that she didn’t quite know what to make of that; but when they were dry enough to go on into the forest, Peppercorn came with them without a word.
The forest was as beautiful from the inside as it had seemed from the hilltop. It seemed miraculously free from the mulch of dead vegetable matter that carpeted the floor of forests in the Realm of Man; in fact, not a leaf seemed out of place, not a twig that did not seem artfully positioned to enhance the beauty of the tree from which it sprouted. There was no blight here, none of the entropy that was part of the cycle of life in the Black Marshes. It was like a painting, like a vision: perfect.
Poison didn’t trust the forest one inch.
“It’s wonderful!” Peppercorn gushed, clasping her hands over her breastbone in awe.
“Aye, and likely as not those flowers would kill you if you sniffed them,” Bram said, echoing Poison’s thoughts.
“Oh, don’t be silly,” Peppercorn said, scowling at the older man’s grumpiness.
“He’s right,” Poison said, recalling what she had learned from Fleet. “Illusion is part of the phaerie way. Don’t be lulled. This Realm is dangerous to us.”
Peppercorn turned her nose up primly at this advice, but Poison noted that she glanced around nervously thereafter.
The day wore on into afternoon and evening, and all day they saw not a single living thing other than themselves. Though the forest resounded with birdcalls and the cries of all manner of strange animals, they did not even see so much as an insect. They stopped to rest in a glade, eating food cold from Poison and Bram’s packs, and though the branches above them stirred with the movement of birds and the branches nearby rustled, they never laid eyes on what was causing the disturbance. It was profoundly unsettling.
Bram was beginning to voice doubts that the cat knew where it was going, but it seemed very definite in the path it was taking, and Peppercorn assured them that Andersen knew his way about.
“It was when the house was in the Realm of Phaerie that he turned up,” she said. “I remember, because it was a bright day. It’s always bright here during the day; brighter than the other Realm, anyway. I was looking out of the windows when he appeared. He must have wandered in from outside. Anyway, he saw I was lonely, so he stayed to be my friend. Isn’t he sweet?”
She gathered up the cat – which mewled in surprise – and rubbed her cheek against him while lapsing into baby talk and gurgling. Andersen made a show of protest to maintain his dignity and then went limp and began to purr. Poison’s expression was one of disbelief at Peppercorn’s nauseating display.
“You mean he’s a phaerie cat?” Bram asked, before Poison could make some sarcastic remark.
“I don’t know,” she said, letting Andersen go. “But this is where he came from when he found me. I think he’s been all over. He doesn’t tell me that much.”
And so they walked, following Andersen’s lead, never quite certain where the cat was taking them or if it was taking them anywhere at all. Since they had no idea where they were, one direction was as good as another.
Night had begun to cover the Realm when they came across the stranger.
They found him at the end of a narrow trail, arched with tree branches and edged with roots that seemed carefully arranged to look natural and yet did not have a scrap of soil or a spot of blight on them. The trail ran into a clearing, dominated by a small lake that flamed copper-red in the sunset. At one end of the lake was a small house that seemed to have grown out of the bank, a moulded blister of wattle and daub with a thatched roof of yellowed reeds like a lid. From the front of the house, a wooden jetty extended out across the water; and at the end of the jetty, a bizarre figure sat with a rod, fishing.
They observed him from a distance, as he had not seemed to notice them. He was a scrawny thing, with moist greenish skin like that of a frog. Two massive, bulbous eyes were set to either side of a nose that was little more than two slits in his face. His mouth was small, and disappeared into his neck in the absence of a chin. Long, knobbed fingers curled around the fishing rod. His thin legs hung over the lip of the jetty. Little else could be seen of him, for the rest of his body was engulfed in a great cloak of something like bearskin, but bristling with quills like that of a porcupine. His head seemed tiny in proportion to the size of the cloak.
“He seems sad,” Peppercorn commented sympathetically, and indeed, as they watched he gave a heavy sigh and continued to gaze morosely into the waters of the lake.
“He’s a phaerie,”
Bram rumbled. “You can’t trust him.”
Poison wondered when they had all decided the stranger was male, since physically there was no way to tell in a creature so outlandish.
“Well, it’s nearly night, and Andersen brought us here so I suppose he must know what he’s doing,” Poison said. Andersen mewed in agreement, brushing round her legs happily. “Shall we go and introduce ourselves?”
“Just be careful, all of you,” Bram warned, his brows beetling together in a frown beneath his hat rim.
The stranger spotted them as they approached, but he made no move to acknowledge them. Instead, he turned back to his fishing and sighed again. They warily joined him on the jetty. Poison could see huge, rainbow-coloured fish swimming lazily in the water beneath, but none of them seemed remotely interested in the lure that bobbed in the water.
Bram coughed.
“Our heroes have arrived, then,” the stranger said, his voice a soft, bubbly murmur.
“Excuse me?” Poison queried.
The odd creature put down his rod in a little wooden cradle that rested next to him, and got up from the edge of the jetty. He looked them over with his vast, yellowish eyes.
“Hmm,” he said gloomily. “You don’t seem a bad bunch.” He jostled past them and began to shuffle back towards his house. “At least you’re not the typical muscle-bound warrior, beautiful sorceress and amusing thief sidekick. By the waters, did that become stale fast.”
Poison and Bram looked at each other in bewilderment. Then, as the stranger showed no sign of slowing, Poison caught up with him.
“Umm . . . hello? My name is Poison.”
He stopped, and looked her up and down again. “Good name,” he said, with feeling. “I’d have thought you were a Melisande, or an Arial.”
“Ugh,” Poison replied. “Why would you think that?”
“That’s what your type are usually called. You’re not a princess, are you?”
“I wouldn’t want to be,” Poison replied. “Everyone wants to be a princess; it’s boring.”
“Ah! So what do you want to be?”
“I want to be at the Phaerie Lord’s palace, so I can ask him for my sister back.”
“So you think,” came the reply. “But I’ll wager that’s just the start.”
“The start of what?” Poison asked in exasperation.
“You’ve only just set out! Do you think the Phaerie Lord will just give you your sister back? No, there have to be tests, trials, a struggle; setbacks, twists, revelations. You have to earn your sister. You haven’t met half the cast yet! Mark me, you’ve still a long way to go.”
Poison was utterly unable to fathom what this curious creature was talking about, so after a moment of vague confusion she shook her head and said: “Do you know how to get to the Phaerie Lord’s palace or not?”
“Of course,” he sighed wearily. “Come inside and I’ll tell you.” With that, he plodded into his house of dried mud and sticks, and the others followed.
Inside it was dark and cramped, with benches, a fireplace, a table and little else by way of furniture. A shallow pit filled with straw served as a bed. The roof was so low that Bram had to duck to fit inside, and Peppercorn bashed her elbow and squawked noisily as she came in. The stranger went to where the fire was already made, and with a flint and tinder he chipped sparks on to it until the blaze caught. It swelled up eagerly; whatever he had on it was evidently highly flammable. When the flames were strong enough for his satisfaction, he took a black pot and set it to boil.
“My name’s Myrrk,” he said. “Isn’t that uncannily appropriate for one as dismally gloomy as me? Funny how names can be so descriptive. You want tea? I’d offer you food, but I haven’t caught anything today. In fact, I never catch anything any day. There’s a whole lake out there full of nice plump fish, and I’ve never caught any of them, not in a hundred years.”
“A hundred years!” Peppercorn exclaimed.
“What do you eat, then?” Poison asked.
“Fish, when I can get it.”
“But you said you haven’t caught any in a hundred years.”
Myrrk blinked. “Yes.”
“So you haven’t eaten in a hundred years?”
Myrrk shrugged. “I suppose.”
“Then how are you still alive?” Poison asked bluntly.
“Good question,” Myrrk replied. “I suppose he didn’t think hard enough when he put me here.”
“Who?”
“The Hierophant. Aren’t I tragic? Always fishing, every day, never catching a thing. I even look sad, don’t I? But I suppose he didn’t bother to work out the details like what I do eat if I can’t get fish. Shoddy work, if you ask me.”
“Aren’t you hungry?” Peppercorn asked, her face a picture of concern.
“I just told you I hadn’t eaten in a hundred years,” Myrrk groaned. “Wouldn’t you be hungry?”
“I’d be dead,” Peppercorn replied cheerily.
“Did you want tea or not?” Myrrk prompted.
“Yes, please!” she piped.
The others agreed to tea as well, if only to placate their host, who was obviously eccentric if not totally insane. Poison did not even trouble herself to ask about the Hierophant; she could not imagine what good it would do to encourage Myrrk’s delusions, and she didn’t want to get sidetracked from her real task, which was finding Azalea. Yet Poison found an odd logic in his words, a pattern which she could not quite grasp that made her think he might be talking a kind of sense – just not the kind of sense that any of them recognized.
“About the palace. . .” Bram said at length. Myrrk bustled past him to dig out some cups, and they had to shrink back to avoid his enormous cloak of quills.
“Yes, yes, the palace. Of course, you can reach the palace from anywhere in the Realm, if you have a mind to. Have you ever heard of firewort?” Here he turned back, brandishing a large clump of green weeds.
Poison replied that she had. It thrived around the marshes where she had grown up.
“Then you must be new to the Realm, if you don’t know what it does. Firewort burns in a particular way. You make a fire when the sun goes down, throw on the firewort, and leave it burning. It’s what they call a short cut. So you can keep things moving, see?”
Poison did not really know what he was talking about, but she was all for short cuts. Patience was never one of her virtues.
“You do wish to go to the palace, don’t you?” Myrrk asked, craning his moist neck around and gazing mournfully at them. “You can’t change your mind once the signal is sent.”
“We want to go,” said Poison unhesitatingly. Peppercorn gave a cheep of alarm, but she did not protest beyond that. Myrrk tossed the firewort on to the growing blaze, disturbing Andersen, who had somehow managed to arrange himself in prime position for the greatest heat source in the room. The fire guttered, and then took up again, but Poison noted that the black smoke was shot through with swirls of crimson now, and the fire seemed to glow red from within like molten rock.
“He is coming,” Myrrk said.
“Who is coming?” Bram asked.
“The Coachman,” Myrrk replied.
“We’re getting a coach?” Peppercorn asked excitedly, seeming to miss the deliberate capital letter that Myrrk had insinuated into the word.
“Right to the Phaerie Lord’s palace,” Myrrk agreed. Poison did not much like his tone.
Myrrk brewed them some tea, and in exchange they shared with him some of the food in their packs. The tea was bitter and green, with bits of herb and twig floating in it, but it had a curiously addictive edge that Poison found pleasant. She noted that Bram was not drinking his; he radiated mistrust for the pitiful-looking creature that attended them.
Myrrk sat himself down on a bench in a shiver of spines. The tiny house was becoming cosily warm now
, and the fire threw a homely glow that kept out the gathering night. Poison felt herself relax a little. Myrrk did seem like a sad fellow, but dangerous? She doubted it. Of course, in the Realm of Phaerie, anything was possible.
“I have a question, Myrrk,” she said at length. “Two, in fact. You don’t seem like you’re happy here. You never catch any fish and you don’t eat. Yet you’ve been here for a hundred years. So my questions are this: how did you get here? And why don’t you leave?”
Myrrk blinked and raised his head as if it were a great weight. “You know, nobody has ever asked me that. Why don’t I leave? Not once in a hundred years.”
“Well?” Poison asked. “Why don’t you?”
“I tried, once,” he said. “I wouldn’t recommend it.”
“So what happened?” Poison prompted. He was reminding her of Lamprey all of a sudden, who evaded her questions with vague answers when she asked him about the purpose of his riddles. She wasn’t going to let Myrrk get away without giving her some satisfaction.
Myrrk gave her a penetrating gaze for a long time. “Maybe you’ll find out, one day. Yes, you’re one of those. Like me. A questioner. Shall I answer your first question before your second? How I got here? I don’t know. One day I was simply here; that’s all I remember. And so I started asking questions. But nobody listened; everyone just wanted to be on their way, as quick as possible, and never to think about what they were doing.” He took a loud slurp of tea. “But fishing all day gives you time to think, and I thought. I listened to the stories people told me, people who were passing through, and I worked it out.”
“You worked out what?” Poison asked.
“How I got here,” Myrrk replied.
“And how was that?”