“You can do that?” asked Scott as he wiggled out of his backpack.
“Takes a bit o’ concentration,” said Mick, “an’ ’s difficult to pick anythin’ up through all the fuzzy glamour here, but sure.”
They sat on a felled tree that was furred over with green moss. Scott kicked off his shoes. Mick exhaled and shut his eyes, but a moment later they snapped open again.
“Oh,” he said. Then a net fell on them.
Scott fell off the log and struggled to get out from under the web of silken ropes. It was held down at eight points with metal weights. As he thrashed, two tall elves stepped out from the shadows, and a third leaped catlike down from a tree. Each wore a red cap with a pink embroidered dragon.
“Don’t leave us in suspense, Finchfather,” said the commander. “Are we close? I wait with bated—”
The elf tripped on a tree root and fell face-first onto the net.
“Heh,” said Mick.
The other two elves fidgeted and shared an embarrassed glance.
Scott frowned at the elf on the ground. “You guys are usually more . . . you know, graceful than that.”
The commander got up on his hands and knees. “Forsooth, a dragon’s age has passed, and more, since last I lost my footing in this fashion. And then there was a pixie jinx to blame.”
“A pixie jinx,” said Mick. “Yeh don’t say.” He seemed to be preoccupied with something he’d spotted in the trees. Scott caught sight of a bit of movement, and squinted up at it—just a bird on a high branch, that was all. Or was there something strange about its back? He strained to make out the shape.
“Polly?” he whispered.
The two elves who were still on their feet slapped their own necks, in unison, as if one were just a mirror image of the other. Each discovered a tiny thorn in his skin. They drew their swords in unison as well, and turned to scan the trees. Then they fell over too.
“Pixies!” said one. A high warbling came from the trees, just as a short-beaked crow with Scott’s sister riding it swooped down from the high branch.
“BUG ZAPPER!” screamed Polly, for reasons Scott would have to ask about later. She had a slim straw in her hand, and she used it like a peashooter. Prince Fi followed, astride a second crow and brandishing his sword and shield. The crow’s dive skimmed the floundering body of one of the elves, and Fi leaped from the bird’s back onto the elf’s buttocks. Which he stabbed. The elf made a startled kitten noise and twisted his body to swipe at Fi, but the little prince wasn’t where he had been. He dipped his sword briefly into its scabbard and poked the next elf in the thigh.
During all this, the elf commander tried to rise but, having failed to account for the fact that he was now tied at the wrist to his own net, fell forward again. He jerked the net and therefore Scott’s head as he did so, and now Scott saw more pixies, pixies he didn’t know, creeping through the grass. They had blowguns too, and they used them to shoot thorns into the commander’s arms and neck.
“Pixies! Hear me!” shouted the commander. He anchored the edge of the net with his boot and yanked his arm, ripping the thread that had bound his wrist. “Cease and desist! You are in violation of the Treaty of Nag’s Head! An’ the trea . . . tready cwearly states—”
He was slurring his speech. He was on his feet now, staring, and seemed to kind of zone out for a second.
“F’got whud I was dalking abou’,” he said.
Scott heard another complicated whistle. He’d lost track of Polly, but now she swooped into view again, atop her crow, and buzzed the commander’s face. The commander swiveled to strike at her, hit one of his own elves instead, and fell down.
“Hee hee hee hee,” said the commander. Then he fell asleep. The elf he’d struck was already quietly snoozing. The remaining elf panicked, stumbled off through the ferns, and ran into a tree.
“We won!” Polly cheered. Her bird landed on the forest floor, and she dismounted and ran to Scott and Mick. “Sorry we weren’t here sooner,” she said, “but we had to fight a troll, and then we had to make our blowguns and get enough bee stingers and find just the right kinds of flowers and mushrooms. Did you know that there’s a poppy here that glows in the dark?”
Scott stared at her. “You’re . . . smaller than I remember,” he said.
Mick crawled out from under the net while Fi and his brothers gathered around Polly.
“What happened to yeh?” the leprechaun asked her.
“Magic potion, duh,” Polly answered.
“Who’re your new friends?”
Prince Fi stepped forward. “Mick, Young Master Scott, may I introduce my brothers, Fee, Fo, and Denzil.”
The pixies all bowed.
“Enchanted,” said Mick. “Literally—I can feel all your pixie auras messin’ wi’ my glamour.”
“Ah, the so-called pixie jinx,” said Denzil. “That’s naught but an old wives’ tale.”
“Tell that to the elf there who tripped over a chunk o’ tree. Still an’ all, yis are a welcome sight an’ no foolin’.”
“Polly’s smaller than she used to be,” said Scott. He still hadn’t attempted to get himself free of the net.
“Hey, Fi?” said Polly, pointing. “Look.” There was a thin stinger stuck in Scott’s neck. “Did I do that?”
Mick plucked it out. “Hey now,” he said, “what is this? Is he gonna—”
“He will likely fall asleep,” said Fi. “We dipped the stingers and filled my scabbard with a . . . recipe known to the pixies. Made from flowers and certain varieties of fungus.”
“You peeble are all tiny liddle peeble,” Scott told them. Then he took a nap.
CHAPTER 7
The butcher and the baker sat on the grassy hilltop and watched the strangers approach through the twilight. The baker was hogging the telescope, as usual.
“Anyone promising?” the butcher asked him.
“The one in the lead is kind of a little fella,” he said. “But he has his own sword an’ shield, so that’s a good sign. He’s got an old man with ’im too. And like twenty naked people.”
The butcher wrestled the telescope out of the baker’s hands.
“Oi! Give it back!”
“Ho-ho!” said the butcher as he focused on the strangers. “That’s weird, innit?”
“Give me back the telescope.”
“You think he’s some kind o’ crazy cult leader or somethin’? He has a sparrow on his shoulder.”
“Yeh better send the message, then.”
“You send the message. I always send the message.”
The baker grumbled and got to his feet. He turned the signal device and raised its shutters. A few minutes later he’d sent a message to the men in the tower a mile distant:
M-A-N—A-P-P-R-O-A-C-H-E-S—S-H-O-R-T—
B-L-O-N-D—S-H-O-R-T—H-A-I-R—
N-O—B-E-A-R-D—R-E-D—J-A-C-K-E-T—
S-W-O-R-D—S-H-I-E-L-D—F-O-L-L-O-W-E-D—B-Y—
B-I-R-D—O-L-D—M-A-N—
T-W-E-N-T-Y—N-A-K-E-D—P-E-O-P-L-E
“I thought they just called him the Chickadee because there’s one painted on his shield,” said one of the naked people.
“A common mistake!” said Merle. “He was raised by chickadees and painted that portrait in honor of his dear departed mother.”
“Aw,” said someone.
John could feel the queen fidgeting in the backpack, so he guessed what she was going to ask before she asked it.
“I’d like to lie down in your hood again for a while,” she said. “All this standing aggravates my sciatica.”
John helped her out of the sack and into the hood of his jacket. She reclined in it like a baby in a sling.
“So why does the bird go everywhere he goes?” asked another naked person. “That’s not a chickadee, that’s a chaffinch.”
“Friend of the family,” said Merle.
“Ohhhh,” said the naked people.
“I think . . . ,” John said to the q
ueen. “I think after this is all over I’m going to try not being famous for a while.”
“Good luck with that,” the queen answered. “One does not simply decide, one has to ask for permission. You’re their paper doll now.”
“Merle would say it’s because I’m a changeling. It’s my fairyness that makes people want to tell stories about me. When I was younger, you know . . . I was confused about who I was, what I wanted. And when I was confused I couldn’t get hired singing telegrams. Then I figure out a few things, and bam—I’m magic.”
“When I was a very little girl, I thought everyone was famous,” said the queen with a smile. “Everyone I knew was, after all.”
“At least you didn’t choose it. I chose it. And then I made some other choices I shouldn’t have.”
Merle came alongside them. “Hey, have you noticed?” he said. “There’s a couple guys on the road ahead.”
William Baker kept a hand on John’s back as he steered him toward the Village of Reek. Billy Butcher was so afraid of being caught leering at the naked ladies that he didn’t look at them at all, and instead smiled uncomfortably at the tiny old woman sitting in John’s hood.
“Yeh have a crown,” Billy told the tiny woman.
“Yes. My former captors made me this crown. I think it was a joke to them.”
Billy chewed his cheek. “Oh. Why are yeh still wearin’ it, then?”
“Because it is not a joke to me. I am the Queen of England.”
Billy was a reluctant liar, so he mostly pretended to believe other liars as a kind of professional courtesy.
“Oh right,” he told the queen, nodding. “Didn’t recognize yeh.”
Merle caught up to them. “I’d like to hear some more about this Chosen One prophecy,” he said. “Who made it? How long ago? And what makes you think my friend here is your guy?”
“Ah,” said the baker. “I’d better let one o’ the village elders handle all that. Declan Sage . . . he’s the, ah, current keeper o’ the scroll.”
“There’s a scroll? What’s it say?”
“Yes, I’m awfully curious too, obviously,” said John. “Can’t you at least tell us more about this ‘evil that has befallen the land’ business?”
“There now,” said the baker. “I never said ‘evil.’ I said ‘nuisance.’ Didn’t I, Billy?”
Billy winced and belched, and whether or not this amounted to an endorsement was anyone’s guess.
“All right then, a nuisance, but what sort of nuisance?”
“Declan Sage’ll answer everythin’.”
They approached the village gates. The city’s wall was three stories tall, made of stripped and tightly packed tree trunks like telephone poles. Woven throughout these poles were bands of wrought iron. Something behind the wall was burning, its soot craning upward like a warty black neck.
“Oi there!” shouted a guard atop a wooden tower. “Is that you, William?”
“’Tis. An’ I have with me the Chosen One!”
The guard had an expression that was hard to decipher. “You don’t say. Better open up, then.” He heaved himself off his stool and started down the stairs.
“Mister Chickadee?” asked one of the women. “Do you suppose your new friends might find us some clothes before we enter town?”
“Oh hey,” Billy said to John. “You’re the Chickadee? I heard o’ you. Everyone’s talkin’ ’bout those people yeh saved from a tribe o’ murderous brownies.”
John smiled wanly as they waited outside the gates while one of the guards fetched a stack of blankets, which were passed around. Then two guards opened the gates with a flourish, and the village introduced itself.
Once again, John had to remind himself that, despite being trapped for all intents and purposes in a medieval fantasy movie, he hadn’t actually traveled in time. It was the twenty-first century here too, and the thatched-roof huts and rancid living conditions he’d expected quickly gave way to a clean and pleasant little town with paved roads and blandly boxy, almost modern-looking houses.
“Welcome to the Village of Reek!” said William.
People bustled about with baskets, a man pushed a cart laden with flowers, children paused in their play to openly stare at John and Merle and the rest.
“Perhaps some of the townsfolk can take these nice people someplace to . . . freshen up,” said John.
“Yeah,” said William. “Hey! Mary! Can yeh take this lot wi’ the blankets over to see Millie Tailor? An’ then maybe to the bathhouse.”
“I should like to freshen up myself,” said the queen, so she was helped out of John’s pack.
“Makes me nervous even letting her out of our sight,” Merle muttered to Finchbriton. “Stay with her, would you?” Finchbriton whistled and perched atop the queen’s crown as Merle added, “Mary! It’s Mary, right? Treat the little woman good, okay? She’s a queen where she’s from.”
The queen looked over her shoulder and gave them a meaningful look. “I would prefer that no one make a fuss,” she said, “as I trust we won’t be staying long?”
Soon John and Merle were alone with the butcher and baker. “Just this way,” said the baker with a wave.
They passed a skinny busker who played his lute and sang about the meadow being a lady, or a lady being a meadow, or some such. But William snapped his fingers when he thought Merle wasn’t looking, and the busker nodded, cut his song short, and began another:
“Little dragon, little dragon—you’re alone, they say, and lonely,
And you’ve pillaged our poor village now for oh! so many seasons.
But despite your size and feeble eyes, you nonetheless can only
By the Chosen One be beaten, for inconsequential reasons.”
“Is that your ‘nuisance’?” said Merle. “You guys have a dragon problem?”
“Almost there,” said William.
A thin-wheeled wagon that looked something like a go-kart with an espresso machine attached putt-putted by. The man piloting it tipped his cap.
“Nice!” said Merle. “Was that a steam-powered car?”
“That was a completely reckless waste o’ time, was what that was,” said William with a sneer. “The thing’s useless on rough roads, an’ it only takes twenty minutes to walk the length and breadth o’ Reek, so what’s it good for?”
“The ladies like it,” observed Billy.
John turned his head to follow the car’s path and spied, through gaps and alleys, the source of the tower of smoke they’d seen outside the village wall. He couldn’t tell what it had been, but the ruins of it glowed a furious purple that snapped and cursed and bent the air.
“That looks bad,” said John. “Did this dragon do that? Was anybody hurt?”
Billy coughed. William acted as if he had to search to see what John was asking about, acted as if he was unimpressed, as if he’d forgotten all about the pile of smoldering rubble, acted in a manner that John had to say, charitably, was maybe not the best performance he’d ever seen.
“Oh what, that?” asked William. “That’s always been there. I don’t even see it anymore.”
“It’s funny,” Billy said, “what yeh only notice abou’ your town when people visit.”
John and Merle shared a look.
“Yeah,” Merle said. “I mean, I lived in New York for fifteen years and I only ever looked at the Statue of Liberty when family came. Course, it was never actually on fire—”
They were approaching a fairly plain octagonal building made of stucco. “Here we are,” said William under a sign that read REEK PUBLIC HOUSE NUMBER TWO.
“Well, that’s a real nice name,” said Merle.
They entered into a great room filled with mismatching tables, benches, chairs. A chandelier of antlers hung from a rough wooden rafter. The floor was a patchwork of raw white planks, covered with sawdust, and the whole pub smelled like shop class.
A few men and women sat in here, drinking or smoking, but with a jerk of William’s head they hust
led out by the back door. They were scarcely gone a second before an older man entered from an adjoining room, draped in uncomfortable-looking burlap robes festooned with coins and charms and bangles. He sounded like a wind chime when he moved.
This man gasped, faintly, and looked seriously at John. “There he is,” he said. Then he acknowledged Merle as well and added, “Gentlemen. I am Declan Sage, historian of the Village of Reek. Thank you for agreeing to come.”
“Of course,” said John.
“Centuries ago, our simple village was a happy place. Then the Gloria came, and the world withered and became a dusky fairy island. And we were confined to this twilight bubble in a great black sea of nothing.”
“Right,” said Merle. There was something about this old man and his practiced shtick that was rubbing Merle the wrong way. It felt rather a lot, he realized, like passing a mirror and catching sight of your own unflattering reflection.
“The world continued ever so slowly to shrivel and die,” said Declan, “and so the Fay grew angry, and then bold. They goaded the magical creatures against us and raised a dragon on the highest peak of the Black Stacks. But one day it is prophesied that a Chosen One will lead us. A stranger. And see here—it’s you.”
He unrolled a scroll of brown paper to show them a drawing of what could have been John, followed by what could have been Merle, followed by what was definitely a bunch of naked people. John raised his eyebrows.
“That is awfully specific,” he said.
Declan unrolled the scroll a bit more. “And here you are again, after you’re clothed in a fine suit of armor once worn by the great Lancelot himself at the Battle of Camlann, and waiting hollow all these centuries for the Chosen One to claim it. Then you will choose your weapons and ride up the mountain to rid this land of a garden-variety run-of-the-mill dragon.”
This dragon was pink, and John edged forward in his chair. “Saxbriton?”
“No, no,” said Declan with a smile. “Goodness, no. No no no.”