Ethine Ch. 01

Terror looked down as if searching in his glass for answers. When he spoke his voice was quiet, thoughtful. "Maybe nothing. Maybe everything. He's more organised than any I've seen before. More violent. He's got a lot of people scared." He looked up, meeting Calan's eyes. "And there's another thing, since the deal with Roiben there's been talk...maybe nothing, mind...but talk about Sorrow forging a deal with the Witch Queen."

"The Hag?" Calan said, watching Terror nod slowly. A bogeyman out of nightmare, Hafgan the Hag, queen of witches. Everyone knew the name, nobody believed her more than a legend. But Terror did, obviously. For a long while he thought on that. Then: "What kind of deal?"

Terror shrugged. "Who knows, nobody has ever dealt with the Hag as far as I know. But - if I was a guessing man - when we made our deal with Roiben, we changed the dynamic. My guess would be that he's after some kind of muscle to counter Roiben."

"And you think he's got Ethine?" he said. "Why?"

"Sorrow's been grabbing solitary fay off the streets for weeks. Nobody knows why...or nobody's telling. All I know is that near a dozen have gone in the last few weeks and none have been seen again. I'm sure you don't need me to draw you a map."

Calan gazed into his glass, his face worried. If he was taking solitary fay to trade with the Hag, Ethine was in more trouble than he'd thought.

"This Ethine, she someone special?" Terror said.

Calan looked up, his face pensive. What was there between them? He knew how he felt - how he had felt from the first moment he had set eyes on her. Sitting quietly at the feet of her queen. How from that moment on he'd been lost - pathetically looking for excuses to visit the Seelie Court just so he could see her, his heart beating faster whenever he caught a glimpse of her. But her? He doubted that she even knew he existed.

"Yes. No. Maybe," he said at last, smiling wryly.

"Ah, like that is it?" said Terror, chuckling. Calan found his own face twitching in response.

"So," he said at last. "How do I get to meet this Sorrow?"

"Oh, that's easy," Terror said, grinning. "Join up - he's looking for soldiers to fight the exiles. A knight should have no trouble getting himself hired." He paused. "But be careful, Calan, he's bad news."

"So am I, Terror, so am I," he said, swallowing the cordial in one gulp.

******

Ethine woke with a jolt, a sharp barb stinging her thigh.

She sat up in time to see a spindly hob move on the next prisoner, poking her awake with a long pole topped with a wooden thorn. She rubbed her thigh and her hand came away with a small stain of blood on it. Turiel was sat next to her, rubbing her thigh in a similar manner.

"That hurt," Ethine said, feeling more than a little sorry for herself, though she had to admit that she felt much better following that vile potion that had been forced on her.

"I think it's supposed to," Turiel said.

When everyone was up the hob returned with bowls of gruel, pushing them beneath the bars of the wooden cage. Ethine looked about, the only illumination was provided by torches guttering in sconces on the wall outside the cage - the light they cast dim and flickering - and what it illuminated was entirely unprepossessing.

The cage was large, holding nearly a dozen fay comfortably, with an earthen floor. Its walls and roof were formed of a latticework of thick wooden poles, studded with cruel thorns to discourage anybody from getting too close.

Beyond it, in addition to the hob and the goblin she'd already seen, she saw an ogre strolling slowly about - his face leering and demonic in the flickering orange light. In one hand he held a short crop, in the other a pole topped with a thorn. Fully awake now, she realised that they'd taken her dress, left her in a short-sleeved white shirt and a blue pleated skirt so short it barely covered her ass. Self-consciously she rubbed at the quickly healing marks on her forearms, saw Turiel notice before looking away.

"Where are we?" she said.

"Don't know. Sorrow's Court probably, but I can't be sure. I haven't been outside since I arrived."

Turiel grabbed a bowl of gruel, handing one to Ethine.

"Sorrow's Court?" Ethine said, examining the bowl unenthusiastically, sniffing the thin unpleasant liquid uncertainly. Its smell turned her stomach.

"Yes." She saw the blank look on Ethine's face. "How much do you know about Ironside?" she said at last.

Ethine shrugged. "Next to nothing."

Turiel grinned, swallowing her gruel with a smile. "If you're not going to eat that, I'll have it," she said.

Ethine handed her the gruel, her appetite gone. Turiel spoke as she ate.

"Right, the exiles are fay without the protection of a court, either Seelie or Unseelie," she said. "You know that much?"

Ethine nodded.

"Good. Well those fay naturally group together - for protection from each other mostly, but I guess it's hard to live alone amongst all those mortals. Anyway, those groups they call courts, like the Seelie and Unseelie Courts. Sorrow is the head of one of these courts - the biggest in the Bronx, I think."

Ethine's mind ran with a dozen questions, but over them all was the slowly growing realisation of her predicament. She had run away from the only place she had known in her life, her only home. Nobody knew where she was, nobody was going to miss her - not after she'd driven them all away over the past weeks. She was utterly alone. A wave of self-pity rolled over her and, all of a sudden, she felt like snivelling. She choked it back, rubbing at her eyes furiously.

"Why have they taken us?" she said at last.

Turiel looked up from slurping her gruel. "I don't know. Only that it isn't good. Every now and then they come and take one of us away. When they come back..." Turiel shivered, glancing about warily.

"They're after our names," a voice said, a troll leaning forward. "When they come and take us, I mean. They want our names, our true names."

"What?" Ethine said, baffled. "Why?"

"Control, of course. Over us. As to why, I don't know. Yet."

"Why would anyone give up their name?" Ethine asked.

The troll chuckled. "Girl, nobody gives it up - they take it. They hurt us until we can't take anymore - eventually everyone gives in, everyone breaks."

Ethine shivered.

The troll was called Athinas. She'd been the first fay captured, had given up her name almost two weeks before. Slowly, some of other fay came forward, sharing their stories - an ogress called Elderbany had been captured more recently but told a similar story. Others huddled in lonely misery - eyes wary, hunted. A couple were snivelling, curled in fearful balls at the furthest edges of the space. Ethine saw a couple of other gentry, a troll, an ogre, a couple of goblins, a woman with the ears and tail of a cat, there was Turiel as well as a handful of others. It seemed that very few of the fay in the cage still had their names. With the revelations still heavy in the air, the fat old woman returned, puffing and panting as she slipped into the cage, shadowed by the younger girl. At her approach the cage lapsed into a brooding silence, the fay unwilling to talk in front of the new arrivals.

They were both mortals, she noticed. The old one wrinkled like an old plum, her superficial friendliness shallow and easily punctured. The younger one seemed as much a prisoner as she was - could she be a potential ally? For a moment she considered glamouring them, but it was obvious that they'd be expecting that - the guards vigilant against that eventuality - and she wasn't even sure that she was strong enough to try it.

"So, dearie, you feeling better already?" she said. Ethine nodded. "Good, told you Old Mary'd see you right, so I did."

The woman pressed her hand to Ethine's forehead again, squeezed her cheeks, looked into her mouth.

"Yes, yes, fever's gone, so it has," she said. "You're tougher than you look, dearie. Almost all better, almost just right, so you are."

She patted Ethine's cheek, a little overly hard.

"What's going to happen to us?" Ethine said quietly.

The old woman laughed; it was not a pleasant sound.

"You'll be getting sold, dearie. Good little slaves you'll be, so you will." Her eyes glinted evilly, looking about as if fearing being overheard. Ethine's blood ran cold. "But I shouldn't say any more, oh no. Old Mary'll be getting in trouble, so she will."

Chuckling at some inner joke, Old Mary gathered herself, clinging to the younger woman as she dragged herself to her feet. For just a moment Ethine's eyes met those of the younger woman and the horror she read there chilled her far more than any malicious taunting from Old Mary.

******

Calan did what any Unseelie knight looking for a job would do. Hurt people.

He smashed the head of the goblin to his left into the surface of the bar with a satisfying crunching sound, at the same time the contents of his beer glass were followed into the face of the tall fay to his right by the glass itself, smashing into shards as it lacerated his pale skin. Both of them went down, the keening shrieking sounds they made suddenly loud in the too quiet bar.

In truth the bar itself, the overly grandly named Equator Lounge on Jerome Avenue, was entirely unimpressive. A classically fronted two storey building nestled next to a taller brick monstrosity, its neglected frontage of pale stone overtopped by a tattered blue and white sign. Inside was little more than a dimly lit seated area and a narrow bar with a scattering of stools. The walls were brick, the atmosphere artificial and the music was rubbish - but if Sorrow's boys liked it, who was he to say no.

Leaning on the bar shortly after arriving, a diet soda in his hand, he had glanced around the room, clocking near a dozen fay scattered about - drinking, lounging, making themselves at home. Maybe a dozen more mortals amongst them, some clearly little more than pets. From the way they were staring back, he figured he wouldn't have to wait long for a reaction.

The goblin had started it, the tall fay joining in. Thing was, he had known how it was going to end before it had really begun - which gave him the edge over the both of them. They had tried to goad him, to provoke him - the prelude to violence as much about working themselves up to it as getting a response out of him. He had just gone straight to the violence - no passing 'Go', no collecting two hundred bucks. He was ready, they weren't.

Now he turned, straightening the cuffs on his dark suit, waiting to see who else would take him up on his offer.

At the back he watched a slim fay approach, his stance wary but not intimidated, his hair a slash of midnight against his white skin, his dark eyes like pools of hate.

"Well, what have we here?" he said, standing easily, hands loose at his side. He wore a nicely cut black suit not dissimilar to the one Calan had glamoured for himself. Clearly a pro, then.

"These two have had a little too much to drink," Calan said easily.

"So I see. But this is my bar, what are you doing in it, fay?"

"I heard that this was the place to come if you were looking to find work," he said. "Work of this kind..."

He nodded at the two faeries scuttling away towards the toilets. The black haired fay seemed to think about that for a moment.

"Maybe. But I don't like you, fay, so for you - no vacancies."

Calan nodded slowly.

"I thought as much. Tell you what, how about I make a vacancy for myself. What about your job?"

"As you can see it's taken."

"Indeed." He grinned maliciously, watched the same smile slide over his opponent's face.

"As you wish, fay."

The black haired faerie gestured and a finely curved sword in a sheath was thrown to him from the side, he caught it and drew in one quick motion - the blade shining like starlight in the dim bar.

"Ah. It seems you have me at a disadvantage," Calan said quietly.

The faerie laughed softly and advanced crabwise towards him, the blade dancing gently in his hands.

"I didn't say anything about fairness."

Calan picked up a barstool, saw the fay laugh as he watched him. He backed up, circling slowly about the open area near the bar, stool held defensively in front of him.

The fay lunged, slashing down in a vicious cut with the sabre - little more than a blur in the air. Calan blocked with the stool, releasing it even as it was cut nearly in half, dancing to the side and picking up a second stool - this time throwing it at the swordsman, not waiting to see its fate - grabbed a third and threw that also, a fourth in his hand. He spun about, rushing toward the swordsman - as he'd hoped the fay had used his sabre to slash the stools into kindling, but it had left him open, badly positioned.

Before the fay could draw back the sword for a cut he rushed him - holding the stool across his body like a ram - trapping the sabre in front of the swordsman and driving him backwards. He saw the look of surprise in his dark eyes just moments before he slammed him hard into a stone pillar with a painful grunt of escaping breath. Calan used the rest of his momentum to slam his head into the fay's face, felt his nose crunch beneath his forehead, did it again, driving with his legs - the fay's face softer this time, a low mewling sound coming from him.

He drew back the stool, slammed it into the stunned fay once, twice - drawing a grunt of pain on each occasion - threw it to one side and smashed his elbow into the side of the fay's head, bouncing it off the unforgiving pillar.

He went down and didn't get up - wet gasping sounds coming from his foetal body.

Calan retrieved the sabre and the sheath, looking about easily - scanning for anyone else who fancied their chances.

Somewhere towards the back somebody was clapping slowly. "Now, where did you learn to do that?" said a quiet, cultured voice.

The speaker was a slim faerie in a suit the colour of vanilla ice cream. His skin and hair were the colour of wood, his eyes like pieces of jade. Around him a number of competent looking faeries in business suits lounged in feigned lack of readiness.

"And you would be Sorrow?"

The faerie laughed softly. "Oh no, I'm Thorn. From your little display am I to understand that you're looking for employment?"

"I am." He held the acquired sabre loosely in his right hand, not too obviously ready to draw.

"Well, you may consider this your job interview, so to speak. Your practical skills would seem to be okay," he said, voice like velvet. "Tell me about yourself."

Calan glanced across the crowd surrounding Thorn, considered what he would say carefully - as close to the truth as he could get.

"I was a knight in the Unseelie court under Nicnevin. When the queen was killed I found I had little liking for her replacement. Recently I had cause to leave his service. I hear that Sorrow is looking for swords, I need a place to settle - so here I am."

"Yes, here you are." Thorn stared at him for a long moment. "Fine. I can think of no reason to turn you down - but I find I don't trust you. Keep that in mind. Until you prove your trustworthiness to me, I'll be watching you."

Calan nodded slowly. Sounded pretty fair, it wasn't as if he was going to trust anybody himself anytime soon. "I can live with that. Where do I start?"

"Wait here, we'll take you back with us when we go," he said. "Oh, and Calan, don't break any more of Sorrow's knights, eh?"

******

To Ethine's eye the guards seemed only passingly interested in them. She had come to know the three that seemed to be assigned to watch them. There was a hulking ogre dressed in a thick jacket that looked like some kind of sheepskin, the wool still attached to the outside. Although he appeared most fearsome - his face twisted by the tusks thrusting from his lower jaw and disfigured by scars and warts, his head enlarged by the dark, curling horns spiralling back from his forehead - he was the least malicious, rarely using the crop or the thorn-pole that he carried.

The hob was only four feet tall, half the height of the ogre, his skin like bark - studded with spines - his black eyes lit by malice. He seemed to take the most pleasure in his job, using his thorn-pole to poke the prisoners awake whenever he caught one sleeping, or unawares. He would often wait, leering, around the stinking pit that passed as a toilet - embarrassing anyone unfortunate enough to be using it when he was about.

The last guard was a goblin, his leathery skin moss green, his eyes a watery pink. Dressed in rough leathers, he seemed to regard the prisoners as an inconvenience and patrolled the least - often remaining out of sight for most of the day while the hob and the ogre walked the corridors surrounding their prison. When he did venture out to watch them he was so liberal with his whip that they'd learnt to stay away from the sides when he passed along.

Ethine had established from comments made by the guards that there was only one exit from the prison area - along the corridor in the direction of the guardroom. She had no idea where it went, though the other fay talked of a hall at the top of a narrow staircase.

She still felt weak, weary, but her fever had gone, the ache in her bones receding. Whatever that vile stuff they'd made her drink was, it had certainly worked. There was little iron about and she felt her strength returning quickly. It was her sense of isolation that most scared her, the vulnerability of the lonely. While Turiel was persistent company, sticking by her continually, the company of these strangers - as despairing and lost as she was - made Ethine realise quite how alone she truly was.

Lost in thought she barely noticed the cold draught blow along the corridor from the outside, the fresher air suddenly making Ethine realise how badly the corridor and cage stank. In its wake a frisson of fear swept over the prisoners - fay huddling back away from the door, seeking solace in the shadows. Packed in such close proximity, the fear was contagious and, without knowing why, Ethine found herself huddling like the rest, fearful of whatever might be coming for them now.

Four fay entered the corridor, two wearing black suits, swords slung over their backs, and two in more colourful garb - one wearing a garish yellow suit with matching shirt and tie, his eyes the colour of brass, his hair yellow, the other in a suit the colour of dried blood, his shirt and tie more of the same but his eyes and hair were as black as pitch. The fay in the garish yellow suit seemed to be in charge, she thought before she lowered her eyes. Beyond them she saw the guards loitering in the shadows.

The three entered the cage, standing easily just inside the entrance. Ethine felt their eyes slide over her, over the other prisoners, sensed the other prisoners flinch around her, a collective sight of dismay drifting from the cage.

"Her," the yellow suited man said, pointing.

Ethine cringed back as the two black suited fay came towards her, almost crying with relief and guilt when they grabbed a screaming Turiel -- her eyes rolling in fear - instead. Although she couldn't name it, she felt her fear like a palpable thing - a cold hand about her heart. Petrified, she watched them drag Turiel screaming in terror from the cage, her slender body twisting helplessly in the iron grip of the two fay, her wings beating helplessly in the air.

Just as she was dragged from sight Ethine met her eyes and had to stop herself from crying out - so great was the despair she read in that gaze. The sound of her screams, her pleading, followed her along the corridor, growing fainter and more despairing with distance. Ethine shivered uncomfortably, her skin suddenly covered in gooseflesh.

The guards locked the door behind them, the hob chuckling maliciously, the ogre looking almost shamefaced.