“These clippings; they all really happened, here in Shadows Fall?”
“Oh yes. Officially I was retired, and I had the florist’s shop to keep me busy, but every now and again the Sheriff of the day would run into something strange and baffling, and he’d quietly put the word out that he could use a little help. I always tried to do my best, and not disgrace my legend. I didn’t wear my costume, except at photo calls. It’s hard for an old man to look dignified in cloak and tights. I like to think I was helpful, but not a nuisance. They weren’t what you’d call major cases, for the most part. That one you’re looking at there was when I helped capture the Phantom Boggier, a semi-transparent gentleman in a long raincoat who went about flashing his insides at people. Rather unpleasant sort, as I recall. Not long after that, I rescued the Crampton child from a cave-in, and helped catch a woman who’d murdered her lover’s wife, and then tried to pin the murder on him. Complicated case, that one.”
Morrison flipped through to the end of the album. The last cutting was dated three years ago. Half a column, no photograph. He closed the album respectfully, and looked back at Gold.
“This is an incredible room,” he said finally, trying to make it clear with his tone how genuinely impressed he was. “I didn’t know you’d been involved in so many… real cases.”
“They were all real, to me. I remember everything that was ever written about me, even the more outrageous ones at the end of my career, when they made a super-hero out of me. The events of those stories are as real to me as anything in that album. Even though they never really happened. I know it sounds complicated, but it isn’t, to me. The world I live in now seems a little duller and greyer than it used to, but I suppose it seems that way to most people as they get older. The Mystery Avenger belongs in the past, in simpler times. I was just as happy running my florist’s shop, with my Molly.”
Morrison nodded slowly. “How many people have seen this room?”
“Not many. Only the most dedicated collectors remember me now, and no one else would be interested. Shadows Fall is full of fictional characters who became legends, and most of them are more famous than I ever was. I don’t have any family of my own, and Molly’s family were always rather embarrassed by my past. So I shut it all away in one room, and locked the door. I come in, once in a while, to dust and remember… But things have changed now. These new murders are getting out of hand. Sheriff Erikson’s too young to remember me, but I haven’t forgotten. I’m as sharp now as I ever was. It’s time for me to come out of retirement. Shadows Fall needs the Mystery Avenger.”
If anyone else had said as much to Morrison, he would have looked away, embarrassed, or hooted with laughter, but something in Gold’s voice and manner, a calm and sure dignity, made Morrison want to believe in him. For once in his life he was lost for words, and just nodded speechlessly. Gold smiled.
“Don’t worry; I’m not going to wear the costume. Tights and cape are a young man’s game. I’ll just pick up a few things, and then we can be going.”
Morrison started to nod in agreement, and then lost it completely as Gold opened a display case and casually took out the biggest handgun Morrison had ever seen. Gold hefted it easily in one hand, checked to see that it was loaded, and then put it down to one side so that he could strap on a shoulder-holster. Morrison watched speechlessly as Gold slipped the gun into the holster and practised a few quick draws.
“Always choose a big gun, Sean,” Gold said casually. “That way, if you run out of bullets you can always club the bastards to death.”
Morrison gave Gold a hard look, but he didn’t seem to be joking. And then Gold reached back into the display case, and Morrison lost it again as Gold brought out what was very obviously a grenade.
“Lester; you have got to be joking!”
“A wise man always takes precautions,” Gold said calmly. He stopped and looked thoughtfully at Morrison. “These… elves of yours; they’re not going to be upset by a little firepower, are they?”
“No,” said Morrison. “Trust me, Lester; they’re going to love you.”
Gold looked at him narrowly, not entirely sure he liked the tone in Morrison’s voice, and then he shrugged and pulled on his jacket, which had clearly been specially tailored to conceal the gun and shoulder-holster. He dropped the grenade casually into a jacket pocket, and politely pretended not to notice Morrison’s wince. “These elves of yours, Sean. Do we really have to go and see them? I mean, what use are a bunch of little people with wings and pointed ears going to be in tracking down a determined killer?”
“You’ve never met any of the Faerie, have you?”
“No. Never thought we’d have anything in common.”
“Well, first of all they’re not my Faerie. They very definitely belong only to themselves, and would not take at all kindly to the idea that they might belong to a human. They don’t exactly hold us in high regard. Except sometimes as pets. Secondly, they’re not at all what you’d expect. They’re an old people, savage and majestic. They are also proud, arrogant, and downright vicious. They delight in duels, vendettas and general slaughter, and most of the time no one within shouting distance of their senses should have anything to do with them. However, since I am also proud, arrogant and dangerous to know, we’ve always got on like a house on fire. People have mostly forgotten the old stories and legends that gave birth to the Faerie. Down the years people have censored and prettified and generally Disneyfied the hell out of them. Those versions are here too. In fact, there are areas where you can’t move for the precious little fluttering things. They are not areas I care to frequent, especially when I’m sober. The Faerie are the real thing; old, brutal and desperately honourable. They keep to themselves, mostly, and everybody else is very happy to leave it that way.”
Gold looked at him dubiously. “The more you tell me about them, the less sure I am this is a good idea. Maybe I should take along a rifle and a few incendiaries, just in case.”
Morrison smiled enigmatically. “Couldn’t hurt.”
Gold turned away, muttering, and filled his pockets with an assortment of presumably useful objects. Morrison looked at the covers of a handful of old super-hero comics, each individually bagged to protect the ageing paper. It was hard to relate Gold to the idealized, hugely muscular character on the covers. Gold was big enough, and in superb shape for a man of his age, but there was nothing superhuman about him. Still, he thought, you couldn’t expect much realism from a medium where the women were habitually drawn with breasts bigger than their heads. He looked up and saw that Gold was ready, and looking at him expectantly.
“You know the way, Sean, so you’d better drive.”
Morrison smiled, and shook his head. “That’s not the way it works, Lester. The Faerie live in their own separate reality; the land beneath the hill. It’s an old world, much older than ours, and entrances are few and far between. Once, long, long ago, it was otherwise, but the Faerie fought a bitter and savage war with something they still won’t talk about. It’s not clear whether they won or lost, but thousands of years ago they retreated beneath the hill and took most of the entrances with them. Which essentially means you can’t get there from here. Unless you’ve got an invitation. Fortunately, I am on their guest list, because I am a bard, so all I have to do is snap my fingers and click my heels together, and we can be on our way.”
Gold looked at him thoughtfully. “Sean; have you been smoking anything unusual recently?”
Morrison laughed. “I know, it sounds crazy even for Shadows Fall, but the Faerie live by their own rules, and they don’t think as we do. Trust me; I’ve done this before. Do you have a wardrobe?”
“Of course I’ve got a wardrobe. What kind of a question is that?”
“Can I see it, please?”
Gold gave him a hard look, strongly suspecting he was being silently laughed at, and led the way out of his den. He carefully locked the door behind them, and then showed Morrison into the next room down the passa
ge. It was a bedroom, clean and tidy and almost completely devoid of personality. The fittings and furnishings looked like they’d been chosen by a committee, and a particularly unimaginative one, at that. Morrison allowed himself a brief internal wince, and then concentrated on the wardrobe. It stood solidly against the far wall, big and blocky and almost aggressively ordinary. Morrison nodded approvingly, walked over to it, and opened the door. Ranks of clothes stared back at him.
“And what are we supposed to do now?” said Gold. “Shout hello, and wait for somebody to answer?”
“Not quite.” Morrison pushed a heavy coat aside and stepped into the wardrobe. “Come along, Lester. There’s plenty of room in here.”
Gold shook his head dubiously, and stepped in beside Morrison, hunching over to keep from banging his head. “I don’t believe I’m doing this. I’m just glad there’s no one here to see me. They’d probably think we were indulging in some strange sexual practice.”
“I don’t need to practise,” said Morrison briskly. “I’m very good at it.”
Gold glared at him. Morrison laughed, reached out and pulled the door shut. For a long moment, nothing happened. It was dark, and extremely claustrophobic, but Gold found the familiar smell of his clothing reassuring. He could sense more than see Morrison beside him, but he slowly began to feel that there was a gap between them, gradually widening. There was a feeling of space all around him, as though the wardrobe was somehow growing, or he was shrinking. He started to reach out to touch Morrison, but stopped himself. It would have been an admission of uncertainty, of weakness, and Gold didn’t allow himself to be weak these days. Let the rot start, and there was no telling how far it might go. He might even start feeling old…
“Here we go,” said Morrison beside him, and Gold’s stomach lurched as the floor beneath his feet suddenly descended like an elevator. The descent quickly picked up speed, but the darkness kept Gold from telling how fast they were moving. The coats had disappeared, left behind above, and Gold reached out cautiously to touch whatever was before him. There was nothing there, for as far as he could reach. He didn’t step forward. He had a sudden alarming vision of himself and Morrison descending into the depths of the earth on a platform no wider than the floor of his wardrobe. He visualized an endless drop all around him, and cold beads of sweat appeared on his temples.
The speed of their descent slowed abruptly, the floor pressing up against Gold’s feet, and then bright light burst through the darkness, and Gold cried out despite himself. He blinked rapidly, knuckled his watering eyes, and finally lowered his hands to look about him. He and Morrison were standing on a vast grassy plain, on a small wooden platform that seemed paradoxically to have risen up out of the grass. The plain stretched away into the distance for as far as he could see, and beyond. There were no buildings or other structures, the plain as smooth and level as a grassy sea. The midday sun was almost painfully bright, but the air was pleasantly cool. Morrison breathed deeply, and grinned almost giddily at Gold.
“It’s good to be back, Lester. Welcome to the land beneath the hill.”
“I don’t see any elves,” said Gold neutrally. “In fact, I don’t see much of anything except grass.”
“Patience, Lester. You can’t hurry things here. The Faerie have a different sense of Time from ours. Which is probably why they’re able to lead such an independent existence. Old Man Time has only the most elementary control over the Faerie. Eventually one or the other will push it just that little bit too far, and then there’ll be the mother of a fight to discover which of them is really in charge here. But, since neither of them is actually all that sure about the outcome, they’re mostly happy to go on as they are, with no one making any waves.”
“That’s all very well,” said Gold, in a tone that rather suggested it wasn’t, “but where are they?”
“They’re watching us. They know me, but they don’t know you. Their war with whatever the hell it was has made them cautious, suspicious and not a little paranoid. As a rule, they don’t care much for human visitors. Right now, they’re deciding whether to let us in, or kill us both. Try to look charming and interesting, Lester.”
“Sorry. I was never written that way. I can do dangerous and menacing, if that’s any good.”
“Don’t put yourself out, Lester. And please, keep that hand away from your gun. Let’s not give them ideas, eh?”
“I’m beginning to think this wasn’t such a hot idea. I don’t like this place, I don’t like the way we got here, and I definitely don’t think I want to meet the Faerie. How about we just turn around and go back again?”
“I’m afraid we can’t do that, Lester. That’s not the way things work here. We’ve stepped into their parlour, and we can’t leave until they let us. Don’t look at me like that; I know what I’m doing. I’ve been here dozens of times, and they’ve never turned me away. Of course, I never brought anyone with me before. Don’t frown like that, Lester; you might get stuck that way. I am a bard, a singer of the old songs and teller of the old tales, and the Faerie have always had a soft spot for bards. They’ll let us in, if only to ask who the hell you are, and why I brought you here.”
“That’s a good question,” said Gold. “What am I doing here?”
“You’re a hero. The Faerie have a thing about heroes. They admire a bard, but they love a hero. If I can’t persuade them with argument and reason, maybe you can charm them into it. We need them, Lester. If we can persuade the Unseeli Court to help us, they could find our mystery killer practically overnight. They have access to magics and sciences beyond the dreams of man. They also have their own unique viewpoint. No one sees the world as clearly as those who live outside it.”
“That’s a lot of ifs and maybes.”
“Yeah, well, the Faerie are like that, mostly. Ah, there we are. The welcome mat.”
A great slab of turf had fallen away inwards, revealing a set of earth steps leading down into darkness. Gold moved warily over to stand before it. The earthen steps looked crude and ancient, as though cut from the earth in prehistoric times. They fell away for a dozen feet or so, and then were swallowed up by the darkness. Gold looked at Morrison.
“We’re supposed to go down into that? There isn’t even any light!”
“There will be. Trust me, Lester, I’ve done this before. Just suck it in and tough it out. The Faerie admire courage. And try to look impressed. I know as entrances go, this isn’t up to much, but the Faerie are great ones for tradition. If something’s worked in the past, they tend to hang on to it. I suppose that’s what being immortal does for you.”
“Are they really immortal?”
“Actually, no, just very long-lived. But don’t even suggest such a thing to their faces. They don’t like to be contradicted.”
He strode forward and started down the stairs with every appearance of confidence. Gold shook his head and followed after him. They soon left the light behind, and darkness closed in around them. Gold stopped where he was. He could sense more steps falling away below him, but he didn’t entirely trust his footing on the uneven steps without light to guide him. He scowled unhappily and peered into the gloom. He should have brought a flashlight. He’d brought practically everything else he might need, but not a flashlight.
And then a bright spark of light flared up before him, bobbing on the air like a cork on water. More sparks appeared, a cloud of them, swooping and soaring all about him like molten butterflies. Their shimmering light filled the stairway bright as day, and Gold could see that the steps came to an end not far below, and gave out on to a tunnel. Gold reached out to try and touch one of the dancing lights, but they evaded his hands easily.
“Leave them be,” said Morrison from the foot of the steps. “They’re will-o’-the-wisps. Basically friendly, but they can develop a mischievous sense of humour if they’re annoyed.”
“You mean they’re alive?” said Gold, stepping down to join him. Morrison shrugged.
“Yes and no. I do
n’t think anyone’s really sure, including them.”
“Is there nothing definite in this place you’ve brought me to?”
“Of course not. This is the land beneath the hill. They do things differently here.”
He strode off down the tunnel, and Gold had to hurry to catch up with him. The will-o’-the-wisps moved along with them, bouncing brightly on the air, never still for a moment. Their light was surprisingly steady and uniform, but there was still something about it that disturbed Gold. He looked unobtrusively around him, and then realized with a sudden chill that neither he nor Morrison cast any shadow.
The way sloped gradually but steadily downward, for more than long enough to make Gold uneasy, and then levelled out into a broad tunnel deep beneath the grassy plain. The walls were bare earth, without buttresses or supports of any kind. Here and there worms the thickness of a man’s thumb oozed and curled in the earth walls, and hung down from the ceiling. There was a good foot or more of clearance above Gold’s head, but he hunched his shoulders anyway. He had a vague but definite fear of the worms falling into his hair. He tried to ignore the unsupported tunnel roof, but it kept pulling his eyes back to it. He thought about the sheer weight of earth pressing down above him, and then decided very firmly that he wasn’t going to think about that any more. Morrison strode blithely along ahead of him, as happy and unconcerned as though he was walking down a suburban street. Gold glared at his unresponsive back, and stumbled after him.
They walked in silence for some time. Morrison wouldn’t answer questions any more, and Gold didn’t like how small his voice sounded in the tunnel. And if he listened very carefully, he thought sometimes he could hear the will-o’-the-wisps singing. They sang in high breathy voices, in a language he didn’t recognize, but still the music sent tremors through his bones, as though he’d heard it before, in dreams.