“Cathy, have you heard where the manager has decided to head our troupe for this season?” Trowa questioned idly as he helped her break their small camp and store everything away securely in it place in their shared wagon. He had hitched their two sturdy ponies Bix and Lin into their harnesses just before coming to help her gather the last minute odds and ends and sweep out the ashes from the metal lined fire barrel.
“The Kingdom of Sute in the Helzar Mountains, they are holding their wool festival there this year, you know, lots of traders and weavers, cloth-merchants and tailors and all of their like all spending their coin but none of the other troupes want to take that route this year so it was open for us. Manager thinks it’s going to be a profitable venture.”
“I suspect he’s right,” Trowa replied, frowning a little to himself. Something nagged at the edges of his memory, but he couldn’t quite place it. He brought up the various bits of knowledge about the kingdom that he had accumulated over the years in his mind. It was (obviously) in the mountains; its economy was mostly agrarian and mining-based, it enjoyed a healthy trade in wool and thorma, a tough smooth fiber that was used to make strong durable lightweight robes and by the kingdoms in the south to make sail-canvas. He had studied a little of their music and liked it, perhaps that was what had bothered him; he wanted to learn more of their music and style.
“Oh and that boy… your friend Quatre should be there at the same festival,” she said, her tone slightly cool. Catherine had never really forgiven Quatre for stealing her adopted younger brother away from her for entire months at a time. “His father trades heavily with Sute and has sent his son and heir as his representative for this season so that he can learn the ways and customs of some of the nations he trades with.”
“Oh, that’s good,” said Trowa. “I look forward to seeing him again.”
He didn’t say anything to Catherine but he was glad to hear he was meting up with Quatre for more than one reason. He wanted to warn him about the steady disappearances of Wild Talent’s and tell him to be on his guard.
The journey to Sute in the north wouldn’t be more than a week or two, even for a caravan this large. They were already farther to the north than most of their king journeyed during this time of year. Still it was a sensible choice to make.
* * *
“Trowa!” Quatre called
enthusiastically from the top of his mount. Trowa
waved back a greeting and waited for his good friend to finish giving
instructions to his faithful manservant and join him. His troupe had pitched
their tents and camps outside the limits of what passed for a city in this
isolated mountain country and Trowa had the rest of
the
Quatre dismounted and his pure-bred steed was taken by Rachid to be fed, watered and groomed.
“Hello, it’s been a long time,” Qutre said as he walked up to Trowa. It didn’t look like his friend had changed at all, his face was eternally young-looking and even though he had to have grown a good two or three inches since the last time Trowa had seen him Quatre’s clothes were exactly the same as he had always worn except for now he wore a jacket of dyed leather instead of a vest as a concession to the cooler climate of the north.
“Indeed it has,” Trowa acknowledged. “Too long, old friend. How have things been for you?”
“Well enough, I suppose. My father and I still don’t see eye to eye on much, I’m beginning to wonder if we ever will.” His friend looked troubled for a moment, then Quatre shook his head.
“Enough gloomy thoughts from me,” he said, smiling. “You’ve traveled all this way and the first thing I do upon seeing you is to burden you with my troubles.”
“Don’t worry about that,” Trowa said quietly, leading his friend to a small stone fountain in a deserted square so that he didn’t have to shout out his private news above the din of a busy marketplace.
“I’m afraid there is just one more gloomy thought to be shared. I wanted to warn you. There has been an odd trend lately; mysterious disappearances in fact. All the people that have disappeared have been Wild Talents. I wanted to tell you to watch your back Quatre.”
“Does anyone know what has become of the ones who disappear?”
“No. They simply vanish without a trace. There are never any remains found and no one sees them ever again. It is as if they drop from the face of this world.”
“And you say that they’re all Wild Talents?”
“According to the Seer, yes.”
“Seer?”
“There is an old woman in our troupe who tells fortunes; she has an amazing accuracy rate. What our paying customers don’t know is that she can actually sometimes see their futures and into the unseen. She has been having dreams for the past few years, nothing concrete, just images. But when I investigated the matter for myself I discovered that many of the things she had seen in her visions pointed the way to another missing person and that all of the missing persons were Wild Talents.”
“I see,” said Quatre, looking worried. “I take it that your kinsman have already sent the alert out among their own people.”
“Yes, as well as notified certain other people we know and trust about the present and unseen danger.”
“I will be doing the same with people I know of who know others with the same abilities.”
Trowa nodded, a little relieved. As a trader Quatre and his kin would have a wider range of connections, many of those in positions of wealth and influence, people who could get things done and make changes. The Gypsies had an information network second to none but as far as wealth and power went they didn’t have much of either. Being unnoticed on the bottom of things had its advantages and disadvantages. Gypsies could slip in and out of places and gather information that many of the upper crust couldn’t, but as far as influencing the hallowed halls of the wealthy, they hadn’t a chance.
“I see your father sent you here for Sute’s trading fair, how goes it?” Trowa inquired, politely changing the subject.
“Very well actually,” Quatre said readily. “Sute not only trades in fine wool, but also copper, semi-precious stones, granite, some foodstuffs. They make good use of what they have, given that most of their countryside is composed of mountains.”
“It’s chill up here, not like the south right now.”
“Too cold,” Quatre agreed. “I don’t see how they stand it.”
Trowa allowed a small smile to graze his face; Quatre was from a nation far to the south and west that was filled with nothing but hills of sand. It was said that the sun beat down so unmercifully in the middle of the day that its glare could kill a man. To Quatre, the cooler summers of the north felt unnatural. They continued their walk together exchanging news; Quatre inquired after the health of his sister and the prosperity of his camp. Trowa in return caught up on news of Maguanac, the trader convoy that was loyal to Quatre and his father. Generally, Trowa didn’t bother to go this far outside of himself around other people, but Quatre was his very best friend so Trowa was willing to make an exception.
“…Heard this country was known for more than fine wools Trowa,” Quatre was saying as they made their way from the outskirts to the heart of the festival.
“Oh?” Trowa inquired, still happy to let Quatre do most of the talking.
“Oh yes, like mainly for tales of faerie rings and strange happenings. I’ve heard that a great number of the songs and stories of the Fair Folk originate from this area.”
“It likely means that a nearby Elven Lord has been careless about keeping his presence here a secret,” Trowa said with a small shrug. It was a matter easily explained.
“Since we have time today, I’m very interested in tracking down a few of their folk singers and getting them to recite a few of their old songs to add to my collection.”
Trowa nodded, unsurprised. Quatre was a notorious collecter of music as well as a writer of it. He loved all kinds of music, from enduring classic pieces to the latest song to hit a court, from the ethereal music of the Gypsy clans to the hearty reels of the county folk.
“It shouldn’t be at all difficult to find a local singer in a fair this big,” Trowa said agreeably.
The two of them blended in with the crowd of the fair; as much as the two of them could blend in with that crowd… they did look a trifle out of place because the folk of the nation of Sute were for the most part light-skinned, blonde-haired and stolidly stocky; with the men being built with muscular arms and barrel chests, and the women being plump and healthy. Trowa was tall and thin like a reed with dark hair, and Quatre was slightly built and shorter.
The music of that mountain country was much like the people and much like the foods they ate; solid. Drums were featured heavily in most of their pieces as well as strike-bars (sets of metal bars arranged from long to short that were hit with hammers). Next to those they preferred wooden pipes, giterns (a stringed instrument with six strings stretched down a neck and over a round hollow amplifying chamber) and a very strange instrument that Trowa had never seen or heard of before that they called a neerin (possibly because that was the closest approximation to the sound it made that could be made by the human tongue) it was a thin hammered piece of metal about four inches wide and a foot long; one end was wedged against something, the other end was bent a little and the metal was struck… they changed the notes and tones by how they bent the metal. It was high pitched, but very eerie!
Quatre and Trowa found a small collection of local musicians gathered in a shaded square beneath a tree playing to the people eating on nearby tressle tables. There was an elderly man on a hand-drum that shook with small metal pieces, a young woman playing an old worn gitern, a boy on a shepherds pipe, and an older lass playing a neerin. When they broke for that set Quatre respectfully approached the older man.
“Excuse me Granther?”
The graying old man looked up in inquiry.
“Yes?” he asked curiously.
“I was wondering if, for your next set if it isn’t too much trouble, you could play many of the older songs you have from this area; the tunes that have been passed down for generations. I collect them you see, songs I mean.”
“Oh sure,” the old man said pleasantly, looking pleased and flattered by the request. “Folks aroung these part know all those old pieces by heart and get tired of hearin’ ‘em. Mehself, I love ‘em still. I’d be glad to play ‘em for and appreciative audience. As a matter of fact, I have just the first piece in mind.”
He signaled to the woman with the girtern and she sat down next to him.
“ ‘
Quatre smiled and readied his magic recorder to catch the notes. The two launched into their song…
I sing to you now a tale I’ve been told
Of a weel bonnie lass with hair like spun gold
Who ventured out in the woods where the farie rings grow
And ne’re was heard of again until now.
Her father was sick, and her sibs still in their babe-holders
So the task of providing fell on her young, slim shoulders.
Special joy found she true in the singing of song
Her words wove a spell that lingered after she'd gone.
When came there a long winter, the ground hardened with frost
Her family was starving and need be fed at all costs.
In desperation one night snuck she to the wood near the fen
A place forbidden to her by her pa for good reason.
For it was there in the place where the wild trees grew
In shapes not found in nature, ‘tis true
That the witchiest happenings it is said one could find
It's the favored home of the fae-folk... of the Elven-kind.
There went she to sing for coin from the fae
Her family's hopeless starvation made her desp'rately brave.
She trembled inside as she crossed the last of the wards
And stood alone unprotected before Elven warriors with swords.
A magical force opened a gate between worlds
It was there in that place that the fairy folk twirled.
They danced in patterns with forms so lissome and fleet
That it seemed that the ground never dared touch their feet.
When she saw their perfection, too beautiful to be
The girl flushed with shame at the notion that she
Had thought she might provide them pleasure evening-long
With naught but her gitern, and her small gift of song.
Still, deep in the center of that wondrous host
Where the air was like summer instead of bitten with frost
She was taken and knelt before a shining gold throne.
and bid welcome by a king, who’s hair, eyes and skin shone.
With a trembling voice and wide watery eyes filled with fright
She told the forever-young king of her family's plight.
She begged that he would hear her on her small gitern play
And if he liked her music would he her efforts repay.
The king regally signaled that she was to proceed
Before he could change his mind she put fingers to reed.
She fluted tune both lively and quick
And all of the court soon fell gaily in step.
Elves have a weakness for all things of beauty that humans create
For all of their time-frozen perfection they lack that talent great.
So when she had finished with her country jaunty tune,
The king signalled another and another followed soon.
As she caught her breath the king ordered that she play,
She'd crossed into his realm of her will and it was there she would stay.
The young girl protested that she had a family to feed,
She had to return home for her did they need.
The king would hear none of it and ordered her song
She would stay in his court until he ordered her gone.
Trembling inside the girl stubbornly refused,
Staying there was never part of the deal, she accused.
Angrily the powerful Elven king roared in fine rage
And ordered her imprisoned inside a golden birdcage.
If she would not sing freely, then with his magic strong
The terrible elven king would force his new bird into song.
So languished she there for a hundred years to a day,
Weeping tears of despair, unable to play.
Excepting that the more sorrowful her weep
By the Elven Kings curse did her melody keep.
This tale I tell you is as true mountains of home
And this my children is why you must never go out into the woods alone.
For young Midii did that same mistake make,
And now pipes for a king in sorrow, unable to escape.
That song’s about one of my own ancestors, happened about a hundred or so years ago and a bard came round and made a song about it. Fancy that.”
“Did you say her name was Midii?” Trowa asked, a little urgently.
“Oh, aye,” the old man said. “I’m descended from one of her little brothers from the song, the middle one I believe. It’s a well known legend around these parts, I remember as a boy me mam ussa tell me not to go out into the deep woods or I’d get nabbed by the Fae.” He chuckled.
Quatre and Trowa exchanged a glance… nabbed by the Fae? That fell rather a bit too closely in line with their recent conversation. And besides, Trowa wanted to investigate the matter for another reason.
“Midii must be a very popular name around here then,” Trowa said casually. Anyone who didn’t know him would think he was just making polite conversation; those who did know him knew that he asked little without reason and almost never made truly idle conversation.
“Not really,” the woman said with a shrug. “It’s kinda considered bad luck to name a girl after someone who got taken by the Fair Folk.”
Trowa nodded. Most laymen didn’t distinguish the elves between the two Courts; they just lumped them all into one category and labeled it “To Be Feared and Suspicious Of.”
“Does that happen often around here? People getting nabbed by the Fair Folk I mean?”
“Not at any time within living memory,” the old man replied readily. “Not in my fathers time or his father’s before him. Most of the songs and stories are considred to be just that; there’s no one I’ve ever heard of in real life that’s gotten taken Underhill.”
“I see, thank you for your time and for the music,” Trowa said politely. Quatre was left standing beside the old man gazing after his friend Trowa who had suddenly taken the notion to depart on something he wasn’t explaining. Friends though they might be, much of Trowa’s life was secret even from those closest to him.
* * *
Allerune Si Terevin Do Kelariskin, Lord of Fire and Shadow, called up the image of his Midii as she played her instrument in time to the innate music of the little garden he had conjured for her. She was comely enough; plain as the Elves reckoned beauty of course, but that was because she was only half elven. A crossbreed, with the all of the strengths of both races and none of the weaknesses; Cold Iron did nothing to her and she was immune to much of the conventional magic practiced by both Elven and Human. Oh she didn’t know these little facts and Allerune certainly had no intention of enlightening her. He didn’t want his docile little lamb to suddenly start getting ideas into her head; ideas which would be inconvenient, even dangerous to Allerune. He had gone though a great deal of trouble to create and a great deal more acquire her, and now that keeping her required minimal effort Allerune wanted her exposed to as little enticement to free thinking as possible. Plant an idea into a mind when it is young enough and it became and inviolate law when the creature got older. In Midii’s mind Allerune was a god, a supreme being who help all power and sway over her world; with a wave of his hand he could unmake her and her very life rested on his goodwill. It wasn’t true but he needed her to believe it was, other wise… the consequence were unthinkable. Midii was a dangerous creature, but the benefits he reaped by keeping her outweighed the risks as long as she was utterly and thoroughly cowed.
Still, his handling of
her had to be very very
careful. The fact that she was only half Human also
meant that she was half Elven as well and that meant
that by Law of Blood she was entitled to certain protections; she could not be
physically coerced, nor could she be forced into binding agreements against her
will. She was a rare and special case and had required much careful handling to
stay just on the right side of the letter of the Law. Elves, for all of their
power and long life were bound by rules as surely as any other creature; even
the most impertinent of the Darkling Throng dared bend the rules only so much.
To break the laws that bound all of Elven Kin,
As a trade off for being long-lived Elves found it exceedingly difficult to reproduce, even among their own kind. Interbreeding between the races of Humans and Elves was next to impossible. Humans possessed a power of creativity that the elven lacked; while Elves could summon ancient magic spells of immense power that their families had passed from one long-lived generation to the next, they could create no new spells. Humans might have lesser power but their abilities to adapt what they had and create new magic and new ways of using it gave them a distinct advantage. There were even some daft members among the Courts that had the absurd notion that the might spells wielded by the Elven kin had actually originated from the Humans and that in gratitude for their service the Elves had given some Human bloodlines the ability to sense and manipulate magic. Allerune thought the idea preposterous, elves had always been the mighty and Humans the lesser.
Allerune had wanted a half-breed child of his own for the purpose of gaining more power. So he had found a Human woman and cast a charm on her, then sat back with her firmly in the grips of his spells to await the results. The mortal woman had apparently had some form of innate resistance to magic for just as she was about to burst forth with the fruits of his labor she had up and taken off with his unborn babe in tow, completely sloughing off the effects of his magic. It had taken quite some time for the Hounds of his Hunt to track down the child. It had been left on the doorstep of a poor Human peasant widow. Allerune remembered well his tooth-grinding frustration at this. They had taken the babe in, and by doing so had cast an automatic shield of protection in the form of the Law which even he, in all of his might, dared not penetrate. The babe had been claimed by the household of its blood-mother, and the Human bitch had officially denied him entry; which meant that he could not steal the child away against its will without invoking the wrath of both of the Courts. He wasn’t powerful enough at that stage not to tread with care when dealing with something that could invoke their awesome and potent wrath. He had tread finely on the line as it was, if they had known how far he intended to go they would be livid. So he had sat back to plan.
Slowly, slowly he had wittled away at the family and their fortunes until they were poor and quite desperate, then he had set about placing rumors of a fairy treasure deep in the woods. Since elven, (even half-elven,) could not be coerced, Midii as the girl was called, had to enter to Gate to his Realm of her own free will. Enter she had, late one long winter night, and he had simply closed the door to the trap behind her.
The results of his breeding experiment (and spell) had been successful beyond his expectations. Not only was the child a successful crossbreed but she was one of those rare humans who possessed some of the odd Human magic. Luckier still she was an empath, a projective empath. Her particular ability drained a subject of its emotional power and amplified it tenfold; Allerune could batten on the power of a hundred men for the price of a mere ten. Better still she resonated with the Wild Talents, the unnatural Human bloodlines that could sense and manipulate magic. Allerune planned to rid the world of them one by one while battening on their power.
For that he would need a peculiar artifact that had been hidden in the Human realm… because it was so dangerous to them and so useful to the Dark Courts. Allerune had snt his Hounds on the hunt and eventually they had picked up the scent. At that point his Halfling child had been old enough to consider defiance and young enough to think she might get away with it. At the biological age of ten years the Elver were by Law given their first Rite of Choice. They were allowed to choose which parent they preffered to live with. To deny a child of Elven Blood this choice was to offend every last writ and measure of the Law and the penalties were so harsh they did not bear thinking of. Not in a mood to lose everything due to a mere technicality Allerune had summoned his child to him and used a spell to remake her memory, then he had set her down in the company’s path. The rest had fallen out as he had planned, she had located the artifact (a cross-shaped piece of metal) and then regained her true memories upon the first instant she saw him. Obedience was a habit by then and so she had chosen him, Allerune, her father. She had climbed on his horse of her own free will and thus satisfied the letter of the Law.
The artifact that he had had his daughter recover for him was a spell to convert emotional and death energy into usable magical energy. At last his chilt would truly be of the use for which he had created her. She would seek out the Wild Talents and the energies of their deaths and miseries were enough to make him decades younger extending the life of an already long-lived man. Allerune was enticed by the notion of gaining true immortality. He could barely even begin to plan what he might do with that, perhaps when he was powerful enough… well, ruling to world was an overrated idea but ruling both of the Courts, now that had savor to it. The chance for eternal life, limitless power and the destruction of all who opposed him; all for the price of one little Halfling child.
* * *
Midii woke miserably to another day in captivity with the same crushing weight of depression she always carried. She often wondered why she bothered to open her eyes when the day before her stood a good chance of being worse than the one she’d just recovered from. She was gowned in an exquisite robe shadowy black water-silk layered in folds with cut away patterns of stars and moons in diamonds and platinum trimming the edge and winking brilliantly in what little light penetrated the gloom of the interior of Allerunes great manse by the magical servants that her father had set to attend to her every need. Her hair was coiffed with jewels and her fingers, wrists, waist, brow and neck also so bedecked to match.
She would take her meal in the garden where there was at least some sunlight. Indeed, long accustomed to her habits, the shadowy servants had the meal waiting for her on a table of solid crystal (no doubt also made by magic) on the landing just outside her door. Midii sighed, at least there was sunlight today. It often seemed to her that the few pleasures she had in her life were that of the sunlight on her face, and the wind that could go anywhere momentarily touching her cheek. She envied the birds.
She looked up at the soft twitter overhead to see a plain brown bird call out for its friend. He was lucky, he could expect an answer eventually. Midii silently bade a shadow-servant to fetch her pipes while she finished her morning repast. Her lowly reed pipes were her only real solace in this world and her father had made it quite clear that even that could be taken from her in a heartbeat if he was ever displeased with her. If she was lucky, he would have no use for her this day. If she was lucky she could sit and play in her little garden until it was time for her to sleep. She began to pipe a melodic answer to the birds cry, only in her mind “twitter twitter twitter” became “please help me please help me please help me.”
Unbeknownst to her the small plain brown bird began to glow slightly, filled with a magic and a sense of purpose. It flitted off, calling out its mournful song as Midii released the last few notes of her own.
* * *