*click*
“It is just shy of midnight, so in a few minutes it will be the seventh moon, fifteenth day. We’re on a bridge in a near-winter park, overlooking a large pond where ice skaters frequently practice. The sky is clear. I’m bundled up against the cold, but I can still feel it radiating up from this bench. Hopefully I can get through this interview alright. Would you be so good as to introduce yourself for the recording? A name and a physical description for our demographic data.”
“I am the Duke of Silver Sands. The pond beneath us, and its beaches, are mine. As are the lands to the east, these hills, the curve of the stream, and what lies between. They came with me to this world, and I with them.”
“And what lies upon them? The neighborhoods, the shops and streets and homes? Those hills are beyond the park.”
“They are mine. My duchy, shrunken as it is in this land.”
“So you’re, what, taxing them? Laying laws?”
“Taxes of a sort. And laws, only those that may please my queen. I aim to be no rebel.”
“There are no recognized queens in the near wilds.”
“Amber dear, you are nearly as clever as you think yourself to be. You may call me impressed.”
“I….. can I get a physical description? Please? For the demographic data?”
There’s a sound like tinkling bells, shattering ice, pleased laughter.
“I am tall for my court, seven feet on a good day. Eyes the blue of ice, hair the dark of night, and I’ve taken great care with its braiding tonight. The antennae are ornamental, the wings are not. I’ve been told I have the hands of a poet. I’ve also been told I have the disposition of one, though I’ve never found the knack for the art. My cloaks tonight are rather simple for my wardrobe, and I do not believe the emeralds that decorate them do become me, but they were a gift from one who died on this day long ago and I wear them in remembrance.”
“I’m sorry for your loss.”
“Doubtful. And even so, you shouldn’t. She was a scoundrel, and a mere count besides. I benefited greatly in the settling of her estate.”
“I… okay? What…” a pause, a breath. “You came to the near wilds with your court, you say? What was that like? When did it happen? I hadn’t heard of any new arrivals any time recently.”
“It was ages past, before the portal ring, before foolish courts sold their lands and themselves to the city. It was… marvelous, and terrible. A reckoning.”
“Expand on that.”
“You wish for a story?”
“It’s why I’m here.”
“Ha! Then you shall have one, and you shall remember it. We were a marvelous people once, my elven court. We tamed the earth, our earth, and made it over in our image. The forests were manicured, planted and tended. The wild beasts of the land tamed and brought into our homes. All the world was made docile at our hands. For we were mighty. We were unparalleled. Our enemies knew fear, and knelt at our feet, and were grateful for the roles we gave them. Our allies sang our praises and heaped great gifts upon our queen.
“The world was a pristine garden. The queen’s palace, an eternity of sweeping rooms and secret corners. She was, and still ever is, the most lovely thing our world ever produced. All who saw her wept for her beauty. She moved without sound, more graceful than the softest cloud, and the touch of her gaze upon you would turn you half delirious for the bliss of it. She wanted for nothing for we, her most loyal servants, tended to her every wish. And yet she hungered.
“What can one do, when all the world’s luxuries are heaped at your feet? How are you to fill your days, when the world has already been conquered? For many ages we brought her entertainment. Traveling musicians and actors and storytellers would grace her hallowed halls. Performers of all stripes set up their stages for her court to behold. They played for her, acted out feats and stories. The best were allowed to stay in her presence, blessed to entertain her. We always sought out the best. A paltry performance would need be replaced the next day, and would keep us scrambling with work. A truly talented show might satisfy her for a year or more, and in this way we bought the minutes and hours of our lives.
“But there are only so many shows, are there not? Only so many games, so many stories. And with all the world’s best doctors and mages tamed in her care, our queen and we were to far outlive those stories’ intrigue. Our efforts grew more exotic, and our queen’s tastes with them. More… sensual, more experiential.
“We were dedicated, you see. Myopic. And we hungered for novelty. Our world grew small around us, each corner explored and catalogued. Our queen’s tempers grew chaotic, melancholic, as the years ground everything into uniform banality. And then we found a way out, and through.”
“You became a court.”
“We were always her court, Amber.”
“You became a fae court, Duke.”
“I suppose we did. We combined a world’s worth of knowledge in the pursuit of new experience, and we found our way to something new. And when we grew bored of the curiosities there, we found our way to something ever newer. It was beautiful, in its way. The dance. Do you remember your dance, Amber? From your fallen court?”
“My court collapsed when I was very young. And I doubt it had much in common with yours.”
“And why is that, I wonder?”
“What exactly did you take from the worlds you visited?”
“We are in winter, are we not?”
“For the recording, please, would you expand on that?”
“How very polite. We took novelty, dear. Interest, stories. We took performers, and left them to play out their shows until they collapsed, for even that was at least interesting. We took young minds and ripped the feelings out, passed them around like a fine vintage. We took young bodies, and watched them age. It had been so long since we’d watched anything truly age.”
“You took people.”
“A means to an end. I assure you, if we could have left the meat behind we would have, most times. There’s only so much joy to be gained from watching something rot. We wanted the experience. And I can tell you, the change they brought to our court! The balls we threw in those days, grand celebrations across all the lawns, to amuse and bemuse a lost visitor. They were glorious things. A million gowns shimmering in starlight. A million smiles polished to perfection.”
“Did you ever send them back?”
“Sometimes. When they’d grown insensate and dull. When there was nothing more to wring out of them. Did you ever return the heirlooms you stole?”
“You don’t know my court, Duke. You don’t know me.”
“I know you’re a goblin, Amber. I know you have sticky fingers and sharp teeth. I know the shape of Summer when I see it, and I’ve been on this world far longer than your court has.”
“You’re presumptuous. And it’s my interview.”
“So it is.”
“You’ve told me about becoming a court. But I asked about how your court came to be here.”
“That’s a rather dull story, I’m afraid. We wandered. We explored. We collected great halls of curiosities. We turned inward, and our world shrank around us, and we reached out beyond it to feed ourselves. And one day, we made the fatal mistake of reaching towards the trolls.”
“You landed in the first world?”
“We did.”
“Rookie mistake.”
“Do you want this story or not?”
“I… I do. Please.”
“Hmph. Yes, we landed in the first world. Such curiosities to be found there! Such peoples! We collected a few, quiet as is our way, and delighted them on the other side. Danced our dances around them, pulled their life stories out of them. Years of memory, distilled novelty. And then the trolls came. They found the pinprick by which we’d connected. They circled us in their winding caravan, constructed strange structures overtop of us. Only one was there to see, on the other side, and she fled through before she could see what they did, the coward that she was. Not missed, not forgotten.”
“And they kicked you out.”
“They launched us, unmoored, into the ether. We were not prepared for it. The queen screamed, terrified and delighted to be so, and all the rest lurched into action. We had not closed off the connection from our side, you see. It was wide open, unstabilized, and quickly disintegrated the surrounding land. Great chunks of the palace were sent spinning away into nothingness. Many many members of our court were lost. For ten days and ten nights we worked, fighting back the waves that lapped at our world, holding tight to the pieces that threatened to spill away. Great towers crumbled into the sea. Mountains faded. By my own haggard breath I fought and retained my duchy, pulled each grain of sand back from oblivion, but many others were lost. We were not able to close the gap, but we were able to plug it, to press up against another world and dam the current. Stem the tide. We worked tirelessly to mend the rift, fusing impotently to this second skin. We’d lost much, but we’d gained just as much in the experience. It was so new, so unheard of. We thought we’d be able to repair ourselves and set out again. But when finally it was time to pull away…”
“You couldn’t. You’d tied yourself to the third.”
“We had. And it held us tight, and we could not leave. For a time we sat, and we starved. We argued, vicious arguments, on what to do. We tore at each other for the injury of our own uncertainty. The queen sat stoic above us all, and it was only after many moons that she spoke. ‘We are here,’ she said. ‘We cannot leave. You fear going through, after our last connection. But I fear staying put. And I am growing bored of fear.’ So we pushed through, and found ourselves here, right where you stand. A stranger land than any we had seen before, more varied than any we’d imagined. Spire was small in those days, but I’ve watched it grow until it threatens to surround us. And as our land has melded into this one, we’ve both profited from that proximity and felt the threat of its suffocation.”
“I take it you do not love the city.”
“I do not. I appreciate it. I appreciate the stream of people who pass through in pursuit of it. I appreciate the way it shifts over the years. But I would not suffer my duchy to be sold to it, and I am ever grateful that my queen agrees in this. We are near, but we are wilds yet.”
“Have you been there?”
“Many times. I am not tied to this pond.”
“Have you lived there?”
“I held the seat for one year, many decades ago. In that time I had many obligations in the city each day, and little choice but to spend my nights in its embrace. I would not do so again, unless my court was at great risk.”
“What? You were on the council?”
“I said as such, yes?”
“So you’re already a citizen?”
“I was. For long enough to claim that seat, but I saw no need to continue the service in the wake of that venture. The title faded, the privileges lapsed.”
“Why not pursue it? Why not get the benefits of Spire citizenship, if you’d already begun?”
“I’m a Duke, Amber. A landed noble, small as my slice of the wilds may be. I have subjects here, freedom of movement. I benefit still from the old magics that keep me alive. I have no need for housing, for medicine, for guild admittance, for the sundry trappings of the city of trade.”
“You don’t care for Spire because you’re too busy being a landlord?”
“A duke is of rather higher standing than a mere lord.”
“And if you were to rejoin a jobs track-”
“If that is the only question you have left for me, then I don’t believe you’re listening.”
“Then I guess we’re done here.”
*click*