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Chapter Sixteen They stared at the pool together; the girl, the old enchanted man and the rat. It didn’t appear as wondrous as it had when Ailyth had first seen it, so many months before. Gone was the mist of gold and silvers, gone were the orbs of light suspended in the clearing. Now it just looked like any other clearing in the wood, but duller somehow, as though the spark of light had left it. There was no child-like nymph in the water. “I don’t think this is the place,” Ailyth admitted sadly to Granfer. “No,” he replied quietly. “This is the gateway.” Whether it was because of the injury he had sustained in his fight with Canute or the effects of travelling so swiftly through the woods, Granfer suddenly looked tired. The red glow to his cheeks was, like the clearing itself, listless and fading. If this was the gateway to Albion, as he seemed so sure that it was, then something had gone badly wrong. “What’s happened here?” she asked as he lumbered towards a small patch of primroses which were miraculously still growing, even in September. “This isn’t the place I remember.”
“Nor I,” Granfer said as he tapped the flowers several times with his stick. Glancing up at the trees, he sighed as a brown, lifeless leaf spiralled down to him. “It’s wrong. It shouldn’t be like this, not here. It’s always spring here. It was always spring. Not now. The seasons are changing. The gateway is losing strength.”
“Why?”
“Because of the same reason your world is dying, Ailyth. The plague doesn’t just affect man. It affects life. This place,” he gestured around him, “was life. It was the life of our world. Without the White Hart to protect us...” He smiled sadly at the girl and stopped, knowing that if he were to finish his sentence she would blame herself, and there was no point in blame now that the damage was done.
He looked so crestfallen that she didn’t like to intrude upon his despair, but Ailyth knew that there was a question she had to ask. The answer to her quest lay within the otherworld, and she had to ask him: “Can we still get into Albion?”
He nodded. “The primroses are still growing, and that’s a small mercy. They’re our key, you see, and as long as they still grow, the gateway is still open. But it’s more a question of whether we will be able to get out again. If they die, we’ll be there until our end days.”
“But you’ll be all right,” Ailyth said, attempting to keep his spirits high. “Albion’s your home, after all.”
“Not quite that simple,” Granfer explained. “You’ll see. Albion may be a haven for magic, but even havens can become prisons if you have no freedom to leave it.” He led her closer to the pool’s edge. “Come on,” he said. “We’d better be swift. We don’t have a great deal of time.”
Ailyth understood; the gateway was through the pool. She had just taken a deep breath and was preparing to jump in when Granfer pulled her back.
“Listen to me, before we go,” he said. “This realm may seem familiar to you in some ways, but never forget that it is a world away from Topsham. You must keep to yourself, and do not forget who you are, or why you’re here. Always remember that you are Ailyth, and you are trying to put an end to the plague.” She nodded, to show that she understood, although that was a fair way removed from the truth. “Do you still have the fire-stone that Grethel gave you?”
She felt into the pocket of her cloak, and nodded again. It was there, nesting in the folds of the material as it always had.
“Good,” Granfer said. “As long as you have that with you, no evil faey can touch you. It’s your protection.” Holding onto her hand, he smiled. “Ready?”
“Ready.”
They jumped together, Ailyth bracing herself against the rush of cold water that never came. Opening her eyes a little, she felt as though she were falling through warm cushions of air, although she could see RiffRaff swimming quite happily around her. Her clothes remained dry as she drifted downwards, buoyed by a rose-scented breeze that lowered her gently to the ground. Before she even realised it, she was sprawled comfortably in a garden of flowers.
“There, that wasn’t at all frightening was it?” a tinny voice said to her. It sounded like Granfer, but it was distant, like he was far away.
“Where are you?” she asked.
“Down here.”
Looking towards the noise, Ailyth gave a start as she saw that her guide had shrunk to a faery size. Reaching barely to her shin, and only a little larger than RiffRaff (who had taken a more watery route to Albion, judging by the way his fur was soaked), Granfer was now dressed in a green jerkin and pair of hose, and was wearing a ridiculous red cap that looked like an acorn shell.
“What happened to you?” she asked.
“Ah, yes,” Granfer said, smiling a little. “Well, I’m back in my own world now, aren’t I? I have to look the part.” He was clearly more cheerful than before, and Ailyth guessed that his suspicions were unfounded: the plague had not yet penetrated the gateway to Albion.
Holding out his tiny hands, he pressed a shiny brown nut into her palms. “Keep this with you,” he instructed. “It will stop you from falling foul of evil intentions, and from losing your bearings. I’ll go now, and make some inquiries about this year’s crop of Elzinbraec, but you stay here! Do you hear me? Don’t go anywhere.”
Ailyth nodded, a curious smile on her face. Stay still? How could she do that, when there were so many new and wonderful things to explore. Still, Granfer needn’t know her plans.
With a backward glance and a frown, Granfer disappeared into the lush undergrowth that surrounded them, leaving the girl to take in her new surroundings.
Albion was a garden that would outdo any rival. The colours were brighter, richer than any Ailyth had seen before, and the blooms that surrounded her with a heady perfume were far more beautiful than those that grew in the mortal world. In each of the foxglove flowers that towered over her, Ailyth could see a sharp-faced, pointy-eared faery looking down at her and giggling, and she couldn’t help but smile back.
“It’s lovely here, isn’t it?” she said to RiffRaff as she lay back into grass so lush that it turned her skin a subtle shade of emerald.
“Hmmm?” said RiffRaff, distracted a little. “What did you say?”
“It’s lovely,” Ailyth repeated. “Nicer than home.”
RiffRaff didn’t reply, and Ailyth glanced at him. He sat hunched in the grass and, whilst she luxuriated in the beauty of the otherworld, his eyes were glazed and troubled, and he bore a look of misery on his face.
“Are you all right?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said distantly. “Yes, I’m fine. You’re right Ailyth, this is a beautiful place.” He took a few paces forwards, then turned back to her. “I’m going off for a bit,” he said. “I won’t be long.”
“What?” Ailyth murmured. “You can’t go off, Riff’, he told us not to.” Although, even as she said the words, she realised how ridiculous they sounded. Neither of them were children, they wouldn’t get themselves into any trouble. In fact, trouble couldn’t possible exist in such a peaceful place.
“Ok,” she said sleepily. “Have fun exploring.” Stretching her arms over her head, she thought that he’d probably want to go and visit a few friends, maybe get back some of the memories he’d lost. He did, after all, belong to this place.
This must be the place of eternal summer, she thought, lying back and looking at the sky (the sky? Didn’t we just fall through the pond?) It was so difficult to resist sleep, but if she slept she’d be doing what she’d been told; staying where Granfer had said she should stay.
Or, another thought suggested, you could get up and have a look around. You needn’t be long, and you could get back before Granfer, and he’d never know. She could even find the Elzinbraec herself; he’d described it to her well enough.
Yes, Ailyth decided. That was a much better idea. Pulling herself up from the grass, she drifted forward onto one of the many paths that crossed in front of her and was about to take a step when...
“Hey! You big lump! Watch where you’re going?”
Peering down onto the dusty floor, Ailyth saw a metallic green beetle glaring up at her, its antenae twitching angrily.
“Oh,” she said, recoiling a little. “Sorry.”
“Great lumbering idiot,” the beetle went on, as though it hadn’t heard a word, “traipsing across the grass without even looking down. You were going to squash me, weren’t you? Squash me dead and leave my children orphans. Well, I should make it rain on you, just to serve you right. I control the weather, you know.”
“Really?” Ailyth said, peering down further. “But you’re so tiny.”
“Well, that’s your fault for being so tall!”
The creature was not in the mood to be courteous after such a near-miss, and scuttled back the way it had come from. Ailyth gazed after it, then studied the paths before her, wondering which to take. More laughter and giggling filled the air.
“Where are you going?” a chorus of tinkling voices asked, and the faeries in the fox-gloves flew towards her.
Ailyth smiled stupidly at the beautiful creatures who danced a circle around her, twittering like sparrows yet looking like sapphire children. Where was she going? She was going somewhere, wasn’t she?
“I don’t know,” she admitted after a thought, tittering at her own short memory. “I can’t really remember.”
The faeries laughed again, making Ailyth’s head spin with merriment. “Then it doesn’t matter what path you take, does it?” they pointed out.
One of the delicate, infant creatures flew closer to her ear. “But if you find you’ve taken the path to darkness,” it whispered, although its voice was still like a bell, “call the Pilliwiggins, and we’ll come to you and set you straight.”
Ailyth laughed like a child herself, the sound of happiness infectious to her, and step onto a walkway. Travelling on a path through the mounds, she waved back to the creatures who, already, were gone.
So helpful, she thought joyously to herself. They’re all so friendly here. There was a definite spring in her step as she bounced into the grove of trees, and a feeling of belonging engulfed her. It was like she had been born to live here and finally, after a long journey, she had come home.
The grove of trees, Ailyth knew at once, as she had always known, was a place of worship, and hundreds of different kinds of faeys had gathered there to pay their respect to the trees. Some of the creatures were large, some small, others constantly changing in size and shape as though trying out a new dress and seeing what would fit. She particularly liked the faeys who wore the appearance of animals but hadn’t quite got it right; a fox-like creature with flowers instead of ears, a bear with violet fur. There was even a faey hopping along on frog-legs, to compensate for the fact that its wings were the size of a bumble-bees and couldn’t possibly lift it an inch above the ground, let alone take it into flight.
There seemed to be some sort of scuffle by the roots of an elder tree, and Ailyth was drawn towards it. A crowd of faey, no more than a foot high and looking every bit like old women, were pushing each other out of the way in order to be able to lay their hands on the tree’s bark.
“Hello,” Ailyth said, crouching down to them. “What are you?”
“We’s Gabby Gammies,” one of the miserable looking creatures replied, then launched into a gabbling tirade against no-one in particular. “I’s jus’ comin’ along here, mindin’ my own business to pay homage to the Old Girl, dragging this crop bluebells to give to her, as I do every day o’ my ‘umble life, even though me legs is crooked and me feets are nearly all wore off, and me back is a jabbing at me...oh! me old back, and I does this every day, every day since I been hatched, and there’s big-legs trampling all around us, asking us what we is, what a question, what we is? We is what we is, and that should be enough of an answer, her askin’ us what she could see with her own big eyes, an’ eyes bigger than ours, so she can see what we is better than most...”
“Who’s the Old Girl?” Ailyth interrupted.
“And now I’s got to walk around her, what with me poor feets and legs, and all I want to do is give the Old Girl her posies and not have nobody insult me or get in my way...”
“I’m the Old Girl,” a smiling voice said, and Ailyth looked up to see a pair of eyes gazing at her through the tree’s branches.
“Oh,” Ailyth said, and stepped back from the elder.
Now that she was looking, Ailyth realised that all of the trees had eyes, and faces, and were speaking to those who had come to give them gifts. In the centre of the grove was an oak and, beneath the leaves and the bark, Ailyth could make out the figure of a man, smiling benevolently down at his worshippers and answering their questions with a quiet dignity.
The need to move on lifted Ailyth’s feet, and she picked her way through the hoards of little people, back onto the path. She had a flower to find. As she left the grove of trees behind her, she felt a pair of withered old arms clutch at her.
“Give me some nuts,” a wizened voice demanded, and Ailyth found herself looking into a pair of empty eyes, set deep into the face of an aged woman.
“I don’t have any nuts,” Ailyth said, her eyes flickering along the undergrowth to see if she could recognise a clump of Elzinbraec from Granfer’s description.
“You do!” the old woman shrieked. “I know you do! I am the Acorn Lady, and I can smell that hazel-nut in your pocket. Give it me,” she warned. “Give it me, or I shall make you bloated and cramped!”
Obediently, Ailyth fumbled in her cloak pocket and pulled out the hazel that Granfer had given her. She passed it to the woman, who released her immediately and scuttled away into the undergrowth.
Ailyth stared up the path. Was she going this way? Stupid though she knew it was, she honestly couldn’t recall which way it was she had come from.
As she thought this, the sound of crying drifted towards her, and Ailyth forgot at once what it was she had been thinking. In a trance, she made her way towards the sound until she came to a clearing, and saw a figure sitting on a rock, with her back to her.
“Why are you crying?” Ailyth asked, stepping around the rock to face the girl.
Tearfully, she looked at the newcomer, and her eyes were rockpools in an ashen face. The girl was the living body of woe, from her grey clothes to her silver hair.
“Because I was born to cry,” she whispered, moonstone tears falling down her oval face.
“Don’t be silly,” Ailyth said kindly. “No-one is born to cry.”
“I was,” the girl replied. “I was destined to fall in love with a mortal man, and I can only see him when he calls me to him.”
“Doesn’t he ever call you to him?”
“Oh yes,” the girl replied. “Every day. I can only go to him when he’s alone, for no mortal can know of the love between a man and a faey.”
“But if you see him so often, why are you sad?”
The faey heaved a dejected sigh. “Because every second we are apart, nothing can make me happy.” With that, she buried her face in her hands and began her mournful wailing once more.
Ailyth knew how she felt. She had been in love with a man too, once. But he was gone as well and, for the life of her, she couldn’t think why. The more she tried to bring his face back to her thoughts, the harder it became to retain it, or understand why it was that he wasn’t there too. Mayhap they were the same, this girl and herself. Mayhap they were both faeys, waiting for their loved ones to call to them. It would make sense, she decided. After all, she was in Albion. Why else would she be there, if she wasn’t a faey?
“Tryamour, take your silly weeping someplace else,” a stern voice called, and the girl darted into the bushes like a deer.
At last, Ailyth thought, something I can be sure about. She knew that voice, she was certain of it.
“Stupid wretch,” the voice said, and a woman sat down where Tryamour had been seating. “Always snivelling on about her love who lives in the mortal world. It serves her right. There are plenty of young, healthy faeys she could have set her eyes on but no, she falls for a man. Well, what are you looking at?”
Ailyth was staring at the woman, a look of awe on her face. “You!” she cried, so relieved to see someone familiar. “You’re Morgan, I’ve seen you before. What are you doing here?”
“I would have though it blatantly obvious why I’m here,” she said. “I’m a faey, child. The question is, why are you here?”
Opening her mouth to reply, the words vanished from Ailyth’s throat. Why was she here? She was here for a reason, she knew that, but what was that reason? And, for that matter, how did she come to be here? There was a place; a stone building on the top of a hill, surrounded by fields...shouldn’t she be there? And a journey: she had been on a long journey.
“I’m on a quest,” she said eventually, and was glad when Morgan asked her no more questions, because she knew that she could never answer them.
“Alone? At your age?”
Instinctively, Ailyth felt her shoulder, but didn’t know why. There was nothing there, except her cloak. “No,” she said. “I was with someone, but...I lost them.”
“Then it’s certainly a good job that I found you,” Morgan said, pulling the girl close to her in a hug. “You were heading along the path to misery. Why don’t you come with me?”
Ailyth let the alluring Morgan take her by the hand, relieved that she had been stopped from venturing into despair. She was lucky that Morgan had seen her, or who knows what might have happened.
“Where are we going?” she asked timidly, as they walked back into the grove of trees.
“To find your companions, of course,” Morgan replied smoothly, not taking her eyes from the path.
Foxgloves. She should be at the place where there were foxgloves, she knew that, but when she told Morgan this the tall woman just shook her head.
“No, I wouldn’t have thought that you would want to go there,” she said. “It’s a dangerous place, you’d fall asleep there and never wake up.”
As they passed by the Green Man in the oak, Morgan spat at its roots and the faeys around it began cursing her passionately.
“He gives very bad advice,” Morgan explained, still leading Ailyth on and ignoring the pebbles that were being thrown at her. “Why don’t I show you what I mean.”
As they left the grove, they took a turn to the left and began walking towards a thicket of tangled briar.
“There,” Morgan said, pointing to a fire that burned before it. “Do you see that?”
Watching the fire, Ailyth could see hundreds of small creatures launching themselves off the brambles and into the fire. She gasped as each one dissolved with a fizzle.
“Oh, the fire won’t hurt them,” Morgan said casually. “Each of those foul betrayers are going to their masters, to be their servants and do their bidding. Brownies, Drakes...each of them, slaves to man!” Her face shook with fury. “Tamed little pets, giving gifts of money and magic in exchange for a little bowl of milk and a few eggs, and all the time they are betraying us to the very people who have destroyed the land with their greed, and driven our once noble race into hiding.”
“I don’t understand,” Ailyth said, a little frightened by the woman’s outburst.
Morgan saw the fear briefly light in Ailyth’s eyes, and her face softened. “I’m sorry, child,” she said, “but it hurts me to think that man has taken over our land. There was a time when all of England belonged to the faeries, but now...” Her voice trailed off. “It would have been better if they’d never come here,” she said darkly.
Then, feeling Ailyth quake again, she was sweetness itself once more. “Aha!” she said, reaching towards and apple tree and plucking its fruit from its boughs. “This will please you.” She held the golden fruit up to the girl’s face. “You would like this, yes?”
Ailyth nodded, although she wasn’t hungry.
“And if you want it, you should have it,” Morgan smiled. “Tell me, pretty one, would you like to be beautiful forever?”
What girl wouldn’t, Ailyth thought, reaching out to the apple, but Morgan held it back.
“Not so fast, my dear, for I should tell you, that one bite of this apple will make you beautiful for all eternity. Would you like that?”
“I would like to be beautiful until I die,” Ailyth said breathlessly, still reaching out towards the fruit.
Morgan shook her finger. “No, no,” she said. “Not until you die. You won’t ever die, if you taste this apple. You would stay young, and beautiful, until the day our world ends.”
To be young and beautiful...Ailyth liked the sound of that. But forever? What would it be like to live forever?
Seeing doubt in Ailyth’s face, Morgan leaned forwards. “Think what you could achieve in an eternity,” she hissed. “Think how many quests you could do, without ever worrying about growing old, and getting tired and stiff.”
Eternal life, here in front of her, and all she need do would take a bite out of an apple. Slowly, she took it out of Morgan’s hands and brought it up to her mouth.
Then stopped.
Was eternal life what she really wanted? It sounded like a good idea but, in reality, it would mean watching all of her friends die, and grieving each time she was left behind. It would mean living with the pain of a thousand lost loved ones. And what would people do to her if they saw that she wasn’t ageing? They would think that she was a witch. She’d be jailed and tortured, and burned.
“But you could stay here,” Morgan said. “Then you’d be safe from all of that.”
“No!” Ailyth cried, throwing the fruit at her as a bolt of memory came back to her. “I can’t stay here, I have to go home. I have to finish my quest.”
Morgan watched her storm off onto the path, desperately trying to find her way back to the foxgloves. “What’s the matter, Ailyth?” she asked gently, her voice making the girl slow back into calmness. “Don’t you like it here?”
Embarrassed by her outburst, Ailyth softened at the question. “Of course I do,” she said, smiling. “It’s beautiful here, and magical, and who wouldn’t want to stay here. But...”
“Well that’s good,” Morgan said, cutting her off. “Because this is where you belong. You’re part faey, Ailyth.”
Ailyth laughed nervously. “What?” she said.
“Earlier, you felt like you had come home,” she said. “And that wasn’t just magic talking. You truly have come home, child. Daughter.”
“You’re making it up,” Ailyth said.
Morgan shook her head. “You know what a changeling is, child? A faery baby snuck into the world of man, to replace a human baby.”
“Of course I know what a changeling is!” Ailyth said, anger rising in her. “But I’m not a faey. I can’t do magic, or change my shape, or anything special like that.”
“But you can enter Albion,” Morgan pointed out. “That can’t be done, unless you have faey blood.”
“Then why didn’t my parents notice when I was a baby?” Ailyth asked.
“Oh, they always had their suspicions, Ailyth,” she was told, “but with you it was not so easy to see. Your father was mortal, you see. But they thought you were a little strange, and tried to test you to see if the spirits had gotten to you, but by then it was too late. By the time they noticed, you were five years old and their spells weren’t strong enough.”
Ailyth closed her eyes, and felt the flames of the hearth lick her skin as her parents took her closer to the fire. She could hear herself as a child screaming with fear, until her mother...until Lady Eleanor sobbed, “Stop it! She isn’t one of them! Let her go’, and she ran screaming to her bed.
“I...remember,” Ailyth said as Morgan wrapped her arms around her. “I remember it...”
The faey put a cool hand on her forehead and said soothingly “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to frighten you. Are you upset?”
I should be, a voice in the back of Ailyth’s head said, but the chilled print of Morgan’s hand rested against her skin and she whispered, “No mother. I’m glad I’m back at home.”
“And so am I, my love,” Morgan said, smoothing down her hair. “I’ve missed you so much, and now you’re staying with me I have so much important work for you to do.”
She led the girl down a small path into a clearing filled with flowers and a cloudless blue sky. A white goat ran across the grass, stopping only to nibble the beans than grew around pointed canes, and letting a web-footed fairy comb its beard.
“And now you’re staying with me,” Ailyth muttered, again and again to herself until she pulled away.
“I can’t stay, mother,” she said. “I have to finish something first. I’ll come back though...”
“Finish something?” Morgan mocked. “Why, you can’t even remember what it is that you have to do!”
Ailyth gave a smile of confusion, unsure about her mother’s tone of voice. “No,” she admitted, “but once I’m out of Albion...mayhap it will return to me.”
Morgan shook her head wearily, a mother fighting her wilful daughter. “I can see you are strong-willed,” she said. “I wonder, though, if this might change your mind.”
Ailyth followed her with her eyes as she bent under a small tree and opened the door to a house where, smiling in a long overdue welcome, stood Tristran.
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