Lich hunt liches get sti.., p.10
Lich Hunt: Liches Get Stitches Book 4, page 10
“Are you aware of the consequences of lying in this realm?” she asks.
“I know it is ill-advised.”
“It is more than ill-advised,” she snaps.
The air is hot and sticky. Somewhere, there is a distant rumble of thunder. A rose petal falls loose from the froth of her snowy hair, so full and overripe are those blossoms. Half of the roses look as if they are about to come loose at any moment.
The elf turns her sharp, obnoxious chin over her shoulder and gestures to one of her fairy attendants. “Briony! Come here!”
The attendant walks forward, cowering before her mistress, and I notice she has a transparent silver chain looped around her ankle. It is so fine as to be almost invisible. Now they are close by, I can see that all of her retinue have the same. Their mistress holds them gathered at her belt, like she is walking a pack of troublesome dogs.
Most of the attendants, like Briony, are pretty fairy women, but quite a few are men. Human men. Good looking human men. You could even say handsome men.
Suspicion blooms in my chest like a wildfire. I count quickly. Yes, there are ten of them. Ten handsome men. And if I was a betting lich, I would bet that I have just insulted the Summer Queen, she of the dandelion meadow, snooty demeanour and wilting roses.
I am beginning to think the Whisperer planned this all along.
The real question is, is he trying to help me or to get me killed? This remains to be seen.
“Yes, mistress?” says Briony.
Briony is green-skinned and wearing a simple yellow dress, while her own, dainty wings droop anxiously down her back.
“Tell a lie,” says the Summer Queen, casually.
Briony’s cheeks go deathly pale.
“A l-l-lie?” she stutters.
“You heard me. Hurry up. Tell me that you love me. Loudly, so that the whole market can hear.” The queen looks over Briony’s head at me and says unnecessarily, “She doesn’t.”
“I—”
“Do it now.”
Briony swallows. “Please mistress, I have children—”
“And you should have thought of them before you sold yourself into my service for the paltry cost of a healing potion and a magical loaf of bread. Do not make me ask again.”
Briony is shaking.
I shift uneasily from side to side, unsure of what I am witnessing but not liking it one little bit. Only I am allowed to bully people, and only when they truly deserve it or are in my way. The Summer Queen waits, one powder-white eyebrow quirked.
Briony draws in a shuddering breath, her eyes desperate. She is weeping now. Her watering eyes turn to me pleadingly. Her chest heaves, and she swallows, as if forcing herself to try and speak.
“Do it now,” says the Summer Queen.
“I love you!” screams Briony.
Her sobs turn into pained shrieks. Red-hot lines criss-cross her skin and it cracks open, cracks like clay baked too hot, too fast, cracking her open like a fiery egg. Steam comes out of her nose, out of her ears, out of her eyes. She is screaming. Her blood is boiling. I can see it bubbling and steaming, through the pops in her skin. I can see her flesh broiling her alive. Mercifully, it is fast.
With one last, agonised scream, the fairy woman is incinerated in a whoosh of flame. A small heap of ash drops to the ground, and that is all that remains of the woman who stood there only seconds ago. I wonder why she sold herself to this cruel elven queen and whether she was fully aware of the price when she made the deal.
The market is deathly quiet.
The Summer Queen watches my expression with rapt attention as if she has scored some great point in a game of wits.
“If you burst into flames for telling a lie,” I say, calmly. “Why do you doubt that I am a queen?”
“Oh, it doesn’t happen the first time,” she says, smiling. There is no humour in that smile, and I long to slap it off her face. “The first time, you just get uncomfortably hot. You smoke a little from behind the ears. The second time, your skin burns. It hurts. It leaves scars, but you survive. The third time, well, you’ve seen for yourself. Briony has lied before, but she won’t again. Will you now, Briony?”
She kicks at the pathetic little pile of ash with one delicately arched foot. She is not wearing shoes.
I glower at her perfect, round little toes. I do not like this woman.
Does she have a soul, I wonder? How much trouble would I cause if I just… ripped it out right here and now? Those wings would make a fine trophy. I open my mouth to whisper the words, and then shut it again. This is not my house. Not my kingdom. There are rules I do not fully understand. I must tread carefully, lest I inadvertently destroy myself. Also, I see no dandelions, and I must remember my quest.
As all these thoughts flash through my brain, something stirs in the pile of ash that used to be Briony. Powder-white wings, exactly the same colour as the queen’s hair emerge from the ash. Small and fine, they flit through the air, struggling weakly. Three sickly white butterflies spiral up towards the elven queen. Her hand flicks out, crushing one in her fist. She pops it into her mouth. Little pearly teeth crunch.
“Tastes like despair,” she murmurs.
The remaining two butterflies settle into her hair, their wings vanishing, white on white.
The Summer Queen eyes me coldly.
She turns with a disdainful sweep of her skirts. “Take care, Queen of Einheath, lest we meet again.”
Chapter 14
Revels
The Summer Queen walks away, nose in the air. Her attendants trail after her, faces blank, their nearly transparent silver chains glittering in the heat. A couple of them look at me sideways as they pass. The ten handsome men are dressed most curiously in a wide variety of costumes. One is wearing a blacksmith’s apron, another tinkers’ garb, but he has not a pot in sight. No iron, I assume. Another wears leather armour, a wooden sword at his side. It looks strange, like a child’s play thing. His face is flushed red in the heat. The last wears a sailor’s outfit that I vaguely recognise as belonging to the Quellac navy. Most curious. Where did she steal them from?
The Summer Queen’s entourage promenades away. Eventually, the party disappears into the surrounding forest, and the whole market heaves a collective sigh of relief. I crane my neck to watch as the last man vanishes beneath the leafy boughs. There seems to be a road there, winding away through the trees.
“How did they end up down here?” I ponder aloud.
“Probably ate the food,” someone murmurs to my left.
I jump, not having realised someone was standing so close. The fortune teller has come out of her tent. Her magical jellyfish float, drifting through the air around her head like a personal selection of tiny, gelatinous glowing clouds, letting out a collection of harmonised sighs. Sea-blue eyes look at me over the edge of a veil that hides most of her features. I can’t tell whether she is human or elf, or some other kind of fae. She smells of brine. Is she a disciple of the Wavewalker, I wonder?
“Or they fell into a fairy ring,” croaks the frogman.
“That happens?” I say in surprise. Everyone has heard tales of people disappearing in fairy rings on moonless nights. I just didn’t think it could be true.
“It does,” says the fortune teller.
All three of us stare into the distant woods.
“Can either of you tell me where I can find the Summer Queen’s field?” I ask, airily. As if I am just casually curious.
“The queen has many meadows,” says the fortune teller. “The realm is hers, for now. Every tree, every hill, every field—”
“I’m looking for a specific field. Where there are dandelions.”
Maybe the task is easy, and I can just go to any field and grab one? But no, the frogman drops his tray again, slimy green hands shaking, and his wares go leaping. He swears and goes scrambling after them.
“I can tell you,” says the fortune teller, “for a price.”
“What is your price?”
“A scarf,” she says, and I can hear the smile in her voice, even though I can’t see her lips.
Well, that is certainly easy enough. I hand one over, woad-blue to match her robes, and the jellyfish sing in approval.
“Thank you,” she says, examining it with long white fingers. She is wearing a lot of rings. “Follow the forest road. At the hollow oak, struck by lighting, take the left pathway, through the marshes and across the starry river. When you reach a silver palace surrounded by a hedge of thorns, you have found it. It is where the queen holds her nightly revels.”
“Wonderful,” I say with a sigh. Just what I need. Revels. “Thank you.”
The fortune teller bobs her head and returns to her tent. The frogman retrieves his wares for the umpteenth time and settles back at his table. All around, the market is returning to normal. Or what passes for normal at a goblin market, I suppose.
Bidding the frogman farewell, I pack away what is left of my knitting. My bag is much lighter now. The two frogs I place on top, a state of affairs they seem happy enough with for the time being. With one last dubious glance at the corpse of the table-mimic, I set off towards the forest edge. Time to get a dandelion and go home. It should be simple enough? Even if the Summer Queen is throwing a party or whatever. I can just sneak in, pluck a dandelion, and be gone. And if those handsome men are hanging about, well, even better.
I walk fast, the sun beating down on my head, my nose full of pollen. The treeline is further away than it looked. This is mostly because the trees are much, much larger than the ones I am used to. Normal-sized flowers and trees exist, but they are dwarfed by their absolutely gigantic cousins. I pass a stand of cowslips taller than me, with petals each the size of my head. By the time I reach the canopy, I feel like a mouse creeping through a garden.
The enormous branches blot out the sun, and create a pleasing patch of shade. The road winds, narrow and cobbled beneath hot, dappled patches of light and shadow. Fairies flutter about, some no bigger than my finger, others human size, or sometimes larger. I really need a broomstick.
This forest is utterly different from my own. It is completely, rudely, obscenely alive. Enormous frogs copulate on the banks of the stream. Giant bees buzz through the glades. Birds the size of cattle wash themselves in the water. Deer run through the glades every few minutes. Once, I am nearly trampled by a completely naked horse-man who comes charging along the road. He has the nerve to wave, but I am too busy unflattening myself from a tree trunk to return the greeting. This is the opposite of tranquil. If the activities of my spring forest bothered me, this is on an entirely different scale.
Everywhere I look there is something. And I can’t believe I am saying this, but there are too many flowers. Too many flowers, too many smells, too many vibrant hues clashing and fighting for my attention. The sheer amount of stuff is giving me a headache, and it is all so very gaudy.
After walking for an hour or so, I have passed no towns or villages. There are, however, many fae dwellings. Doors and windows are cleverly built into the trunks of many of the larger trees, and tiny houses shelter under mammoth petals. Lines of miniscule clothes are hung on spiderwebs. Stone and moss steps lead up to rounded doors, and curious eyes glint at me from beneath every log. It feels more like a city masquerading as a forest than a forest proper. Perhaps that is how I should view it.
The sun sets behind me as I walk, flooding the glades with blood red light.
Twilight arrives a short while later, a blaze of bright summer stars peeking through the branches. A few uncomfortable thoughts occur to me as I walk. If I am under Downing Forest, how is there a sun here? Or stars? And the constellations that I can see between the trees are all wrong. I can only assume it is a portal secreted in the bottom of the old oak, but how did it come to be there?
The colours at least, are softened with the ailing light, but if anything, the woods become even more boisterous. Strains of music float on the warm air—not entirely unpleasant mind you, but still. It is not how I expect a forest to behave. Everything is sparkling lights and twinkling gossamer wings.
“Gah,” I say to the frogs. They do not respond.
I tramp on without respite, the urge to murder something becoming increasingly stronger with every footfall. At one point, a trio of riders on fine white horses canter past me. They are moving too fast for me to see them properly, but I receive an impression of jangling bells and merry laughter. It is enough to make me want to vomit. Before I am forced to dry heave the non-existent contents of my stomach over some poor fairy’s front door, I arrive at a hollow oak and a fork in the road.
I take the left without pause and continue on my way, grumbling under my breath.
After a while, the air becomes even more humid and hot. The light dims. The ground becomes boggy, squishing and squelching between my toes. The trees become low, stumpy and brown with vines draping into the beginnings of the swamp below. An unwholesome mist clouds the air. The road darkens, then disappears into muddy puddles, and more than once I lose my way.
Wisp-lights bob in the shadows. They giggle and whisper, telling me which way to go, urging me forwards. After I suck out several of their little, cackling souls, the rest leave me alone. Which is a pity, because they taste like aniseed and are surprisingly delicious.
My mood brightens slightly, improving even more after I smash the knuckles of a nixie that fastened spindly hands around my ankles and tried to drag me into the bog. The nixie’s soul also tastes good, like watercress and fresh shrimp. Perhaps fairies are simply tasty? I slow my pace, and continue along the barely visible way, dangling my ankles seductively in the low water.
By the time the ground firms once more, I have left behind me a substantial trail of corpses, and my hair is beginning to grow back. Foolish delicious fairies. If I think of this as a hunting trip, things are much more satisfactory. By demanding my head on a platter, the Whisperer means to punish, but he has miscalculated. If my understanding is correct, Jenkins will come to life as a lich-cat with the power of all the souls I lose in my sacrifice. That amount should be considerable. He will be a god amongst cats, and I will be proud to gift him such a rebirth.
Sadly, the marsh gives way to the forest once more. A river marks the boundary—the starry river, the fortune teller called it. I can see why. The glow is visible even from some distance. The water is not just water but swimming with light. Little fish? Spirits? I know not, but they are too beautiful to consume. Constellations flare and dart, shooting stars and glowing aurorae bloom in the swirling waters, dancing endlessly.
I stand and watch for a long time before moving on.
Beyond the bridge, the road broadens once more, and the ground becomes firm underfoot. The dirt gives way to rough cobblestones, and the road is joined by others coming from many directions, like tributaries to a stream, growing wider and wider. Once more, tall trees rise on every side, and wings flit overhead.
Horses and airy carriages become my frequent companions on the road, although none of the incumbents notice the solitary barefoot lich standing by the side of the road to watch them pass. That is fine. I will take my dandelion and go. I’m not really interested in getting embroiled with… well, with whatever revelry is going on down here. As long as that obnoxious winged wench stays out of my forest, we are fine.
A break in the trees gives me a view down into the sweep of a valley. Silver spires peek from between the star-kissed green. The silver palace! It is very fine, if a little impractical, with delicate turrets, pointed towers rising from elegant, gleaming pillars. I don’t see any siege engines, and there are far too many windows. As I get closer, I see the main defensive feature seems to be the sharp black thorns which rise from the surrounding ground in a thick, spiked wall. They are made more attractive by the plethora of red roses in full bloom, but the thorns themselves are as long as my thigh and look wicked enough to pierce a man’s heart. No doubt she has other magical defences as well. That or she has her subjects so far under her pretty, fleshly little thumb that it is not needed.
But where are my dandelions? The building is ablaze with colour and light, and set before it is a field full of dancing fae. There, surely? Shrieks and music assault my ears in a sonorous rumble. In my innocence, I had imagined… well, a field. Perhaps a maypole and some musicians, little puffy dandelions underfoot. The party before me now is like nothing I have ever seen. I have to avert my gaze several times, and had I any blood, my cheeks would be the colour of ripe tomatoes.
I approach the entrance with purse-lipped dignity.
The entrance appears to be an ornate gap in the thorns, ringed in plaited roses. It is staffed by an ogre. An actual ogre, the like I have never seen in real life, only in picture books. The ogre is standing before a lectern. Faintly green, the muscles in his arms are the size of watermelons. He is approximately double my height. Half-moon spectacles perch snuggly on a nose the size and shape of an onion, and he mutters under his breath as he checks the list before him.
A queue of fairy lords and ladies in exquisite formal attire wait before him, laughing and chatting. All of them are wearing elaborate masks. The ogre is taking his time to admit the guests. Discreetly, I join the back of the queue.
Chapter 15
The Perfect Dress For Murder
Directly in front of me stand an elven couple clad in stupendous ball gowns. Arms draped around each other, the two women have clearly started celebrating early. It is difficult not to stare at their pointed ears or their finery, but they seem oblivious, so I have a good look at both.
The first elf is a vision in violet and moss, a girdle of flowers cinched about her waist, hair an auburn tumble over left shoulder. Her gown is cut low at the back to leave room for her cream-coloured butterfly wings. The mask covering the upper part of her face is of delicate porcelain, and decorated with blossoms and leaves that compliment the shade of her attire.
Her date is wingless, but with a gown that takes my breath away—metaphorically speaking, of course. Full, wide black skirts with a shining silken net layered over the top in gossamer threads as fragile as a spider’s web. The bodice is accentuated with tiny crystals like suspended drops of dew. I cannot help it, I am overcome. I tap her on the shoulder.
