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Stories from the Verse
A Dozen Verses
Chapter 148: Cooper 121
Table of Contents
Previous chapter: Kondor 307
It took Brian considerably less than an hour to compose his three questions, but he reviewed everything in his mind for a bit longer before asking. After all, if he thought of a more important question after he had asked, he was out of luck. Finally he said, “O.K., I’m ready.”
Tom seemed to nod, and said, “Ask.”
“My first question is, how did the fey come to power?”
Tom looked at Sarah, and then she answered. “They invaded through cracks in the Dreaming World which led from the Lands of Mist to the DW to this Earth with its varied small magics. With the aid of Human collaborators in positions of power, they caused confusion, and also they had a sudden massive attack with no mercy, they being physically and magically superior. The humans had few guns privately, as the collaborators had arranged to have private ownership of guns outlawed and the guns collected. Cities were cut off and loyal units were betrayed, sent on wild goose chases, or slaughtered.”
Dreaming World? Lands of Mist? DW? Cooper had no idea what she was talking about. He looked at Jack, and then at Sarah, but it did not appear that they had any better notion. He wanted to ask for an explanation--but that would be another question, and he only had three. This was like so many stories of oracles, who gave cryptic answers to questions that the questioner had to figure out. Sometimes they did, sometimes they didn’t, but in the end the answer was always true, just not easily understood. He would have to think about this one.
“Second question,” he said. “What keeps them in power?”
This time Tom answered. “They’re brutal, organized, and if you raise your head it gets handed to you. They are brainwashing the people in the cities. They instituted the Reign of the King of each area, appointing Humans, but forcing them to bow to the local Fey Lord or Lady. This gave them authority and allowed them to stay in Earth.”
That, he thought, actually did make sense, and might help. “Third question,” he said. “How can they be dethroned?”
Tom stared at him for a moment, and looked at Sarah, and Cooper was certain she shook her head. Then the response came.
“We don’t know.”
“Wha--” Brian started to exclaim, but realized that this could be construed as a question. Catching himself, he twisted it into a stutter, “what this means, I think, is you owe me an answer to a question.”
The dogs looked at each other, and Sarah said, “I guess you’re right.”
He nodded. “I’ll be sure to ask,” he said, “when I think of it. About now, though, it looks like it’s gotten dark outside, and I’d wager it’s time to get some sleep.”
He had been provided a mat on the floor, and removing his belt and shoes stretched out on it. The two hounds, Tom and Sarah, joined him on the blanket-strewn mat right. Jack had ordered them to sleep in their regular corner, but as soon as the lights were out and Jack went to bed they made their move. Given the cool air drifting under the doorway, with the likelihood of worse later in the night, Barrelmaster did not chase them off. Instead he fell to sleep with one portable heater on each side of him. He was dreaming of his home in California when something nudged him. Opening his eyes, he saw Tom standing by his bed mat.
“What?” he murmured, trying to avoid waking up Yolanda or Jack. Tom whined, and turned about, and Cooper sighed. The dog wanted to go outside and do his business. Donning his shoes, he rolled to his feet and let the dog out, grabbing his swordbelt before following into the chill and frosty air where he put it around his waist. Here, unlike on the Island, he could see stars he had grown up with, or at least their designs since this was not his actual world. That got him wondering if stars existed in more than one dimension at a time.
A short yip from the edge of the cleared space under the tree drew his eyes to Tom. The dog was showing no sign of going to the bathroom, instead, he looked directly at Cooper, and then yanked his own head around making as if to go into the woods at night. These woods were partially clear, but laid with many uncertain spots, vines, roots, sudden dips, and climbs. In the shadows, despite the moon and the clear sky, following Tom would be rough. The dog barked again, once, but concern was in his voice. Cooper followed him into the gloom under the tree branches.
Perhaps ten minutes later he pushed aside a branch and looked ahead. Uphill he saw a girl, he thought. She was facing away from him, and talking to someone. Was that Yolanda? Had she slipped out in the middle of the night? If so, why? He looked at Tom, and Tom looked back at him. The message was clear.
You’re the Man, do Man Stuff.
Not trying to be overly quiet, he pushed on, but even as he got closer he did not see her turn. It was definitely Yolanda, and he could hear another voice bubbling and murmuring. Getting still closer he finally heard Yolanda speak.
“I need the True Names. Plague and Pain and Cutting and Staying.”
A rippling laugh came back, filled with dark things.
“Child, sorceress. You cannot pay the price for the name of a Horseman.”
“They force us to bow to the dust. They take our strongest and make of them mindbent warriors. They hunt us for sport in the hills.” Yolanda’s voice became shrill.
“I know, daughter of the land, I know. I too hate them. For that, I will give you the name of Pain. You already know enough to make the runes for Cutting and Staying if you but dare. You will be able to enchant the spears of your warhost, as many as your strength allows, for at least one battle.”
“But, Pool, I need more.” Cooper had come within ten feet of Yolanda, and he saw she seemed in a trance. Nor was there another with her. Instead, there was a small elliptical pond full of rotted trunks and similar leaves, and it bubbled as the words came back to her. He felt a clinging sense of horror grip him, but his faith shoved it aside like a man might an empty shopping cart.
“I know.” There was horror in those smug words. “I can give you the first syllable of Plague’s True Name. With it, inscribed on the spearheads, with the other runes, each time a spear strikes the Fey, it will cut through their shielding and bring the bane of Tetanus, which is harmful to Men, but a great deal worse to the Fey for it is of Iron and Rust.”
“Yes!” She jumped up and down, and caught a glimpse of him from the corner of her eye. Shocked, she looked at him, and turned back to the Pool. “Thank you, Pool.”
“But the cost.” He felt misery chuckling to itself in those words as tension drew tighter, and Yolanda grew still. “It will bring a Plague into the Lands of Men as well. Also, I’m afraid you must stay with me, daughter of the Land. You will have seven days and then you must come back here, and sleep among my logs on the bottom of my pond.”
“I’ll die.”
“Yes.”
“No, I forbid it,” Cooper interrupted the dread negotiation.
“You have no right to do so, stranger. You are not this girl’s father, or brother, or uncle, nor a mayor or lord put over her to protect her. Now, Yolanda, agree quickly lest the stranger spoil things.”
It went against Cooper’s grain in one way, and totally with it in another way.
“I have the right of force majeure.” He drew his sword, and lit it on fire, and began to stab it into the rotted pool. Hissing steam mixed with screams of pain, and anger until finally all that was left was a visibly shrunken pool that suddenly drained down to the bottom to reveal the skeletons of many humans laid in the roots, and the flopping about of loathsome fish.
“You’ve doomed us all,” Yolanda accused him, and ran back to the treehouse. Cooper came back and informed Jack of what had happened, and Jack spat furious words at his sister, and gave an order to Tom and Sarah not to let her out of the room of her bed. He then took rags, and ‘precious fuel my fool sister knows we need’ and with Cooper went back and burnt the pool with gasoline, rags, and The Sword. After that, they used a shovel to bury the bones another place where Cooper said some words, and put up a cross over them.
Coming back, he waited under the tree, and gestured Cooper to do likewise.
“My sister would take the whole world on her shoulders. She has practiced sorcery, but not with such dark spirits before, I am sure.”
Barrelmaster thought and then spoke deferentially.
“I am not sure any talking to spirits is good.”
“But you pray.”
“True. I suppose I should say, God has proven Himself to be just and kind. This rotting pool, it had perhaps some kind intentions, but also--to me it seemed to pretend to have more than it did, and in the end what it really wanted was horror and madness.”
Jack nodded.
“There are many small magics in these hills. Lucky men, and guitar players who can get birds and foxes to obey them, and those who can raise fog, or see the dead, or have a bump of direction, or can tell where to put the well with a dowsing stick. There are those with the blood of the ancient tribes in part who can commune with the Thunderbird who takes souls to Heaven. Few there are of Sorcerers who can treat with any spirits, and make binding deals for runes or True Names. More common are such like me, Jacks.”
“I thought that was your name.”
“Oh, it is, but it's also a description. Jack be nimble, jack be quick.” He did a quick jig, and then flipped in the air twice which was impressive enough. What made it more so was that he had his eyes closed and hands in his back pockets when he did it. “I’m not of the truly great, a Hero or a Wizard, but I can run fast, and dodge quicker, and I’ve a quick wit. But, my friend, and after saving my idiot sister I will call you my friend, will you or won’t you, my wit is not the deep wisdom of a Wizard. We ride to our doom in but a few days. The last ride of the Free Men of these hills. Perhaps others in farther parts of the continent will hear, and will take heart.”
“What of the Speaking Animals?”
“Pfft. Few of them, and none that care for Men, and often enough if they are not stealing they are hunting Men. In older days we had almost driven them to extinction, but with the decline in Law that comes with the Fey, we find the Speaking Animals rise. I would not be surprised if they were part of the Traitors that let the Fey into this world, and bound our armies with confusing orders.”
Cooper thought to himself. It was true, perhaps if he had not held the Sword, the cougar would have tried to eat him.
“The Fey--they have great magics. A Fey Knight on a Nightmare is a match for a Hero. If I see a Knight out on a hunt for humans, I run.”
Feeling woeful, Cooper went back in, and spoke softly to Yolanda from the open doorway, acknowledging her bravery, but telling her that what she wanted to do would be wrong. How did he know? He pulled out Bible verses. He told her the tale of Abraham and Isaac.
“Your spirits may want things from you, but God, King of all gods and spirits, He needs nothing from you. He wants your friendship.”
She cried and confessed that she had talked to another of the darker spirits as she named them, and “it”, for it was neither male nor female, had wanted her to mutilate herself to make herself not female. This had tempted her because being a young teenage girl was very confusing at times, but she had put it aside to go to the Rotting Pool.
As he waited, she began to unburden herself, explaining many things she had done. It was fascinating for Cooper, as it answered various questions like why had the locals not risen up with guns. The answer to that was that a year before the Fey had arrived, secret traitors had gotten the government to ban all guns, and to send agents to go from door to door with an infantry platoon to back them up to collect all guns. After that, each suspected house had its backyard scanned with something called deep radar. She was not sure what that was; she had been born after the Fey had arrived.
Her magics had started with what he recognized as possibly benign spirits who made deals he recognized as possibly beneficial to the young sorceress. She could have stayed there, but the needs of her community had pushed her to take further risks, and she flushed, ‘to be honest, I was proud to be seen as a sorceress, even if not a very good one. And I began to make up for my lack of talent by being reckless.’ He listened, and saw that she had gotten out of several situations because her older brother’s clever ideas had saved her. Further and further she had gone until the notion of going to something like the Rotting Pool, which manifested in many different places and was thoroughly disliked by all, was not that much of a step further.
She had starved herself for two weeks, cut herself with blades, and taken a potion of madness to make herself think she was a man who could fly like in the old picture books. Thankfully she had resisted climbing up to a high point, and leaping off. All this, though, had given her power. She knew True Names, how to apply and misapply them, how to use their English lesser equivalents, how to speak to the cold, and the trees, and to convince swords always to be sharp, and to cleanse her house with a word, and many other things even if at times her spells would turn in her hand or mouth.
Suddenly she spoke after several quiet minutes.
“If I become a friend of Him, will I have to give up my magic?”
“I would expect so, but it's not up to me, it's up to Him. Still, I would recommend you do so now.”
She began to chew the ends of her hair, and then waved at him goodbye. Recognizing that she was deep in thought and had an important decision to make, he went back to his bed where he had to scoot a resistant Tom out of the way because the hound had taken the exact middle of the bed mat.
As to the old stories that have long been here:
