Modern Magick

Music and Misadventure: 4

'Why do I feel like this isn't going to be nearly as nice as it sounds?' said Jay.

Fairyland does sound lovely, doesn't it? The word conjures up sweet, diminutive creatures with gossamer wings, flower gowns and stars in their hair, living in buttercup houses and feasting upon ambrosia and honey.

Most of this is nonsense. Look farther back; listen to the tales the trees tell, that the lakes and the stones remember. The Fair Folk, as they are always called in their various ways, are as diverse — and, in their own ways, as destructive — as humankind. Tolkien made bright, noble heroes of them, and sometimes that is exactly what they are. Sometimes (as with humans), the fair façade hides a rotten core.

If one is unwise or unlucky enough to set foot in Fairyland, one ought to remember this simple principle: tread with infinite care.

Having feasted my eyes upon the seductive beauty of that echoing hall, I turned them, with less satisfaction, upon my mother. She, alone of the three of us, did not seem surprised. Nor did she seem either sufficiently awed or sufficiently wary for my taste. 'Mother, dear,' I said. 'Would you like to tell us what we are doing here?'

She looked sideways at me, a shifty look if ever I saw one. 'Why, we are here to explore.'

'By accident or by design?'

She gave a short, huffy sigh, and looked up at the ceiling. 'Always so suspicious.'

'Rightly so, in this case?'

'Yes, if you must know.'

'I thought you were on Sheep Island looking for a lost gnome village.'

'So we were. But the fact that we were doing so in Cumbria was not by chance. I've devoted years to digs across this county, hoping that, one day, I'd find a way back.'

'A way back? You've been here before?'

'When I was approximately your age.'

I gave a sigh, too, and sat down near to her. Jay stood looming over us, hands on his hips, glowering in a way that ought to have disconcerted my mother if she had an ounce of feeling about her.

She didn't.

'Where are we?' I demanded of her.

'We are in the halls of the Tylwyth Teg, specifically one of the kingdoms of the Yllanfalen,' said my maddening parent. 'At least, I hope we are. It looks right.' She cast another glance up at the long windows, through which twilight and starlight softly shone. 'More specifically than that I couldn't yet say, but I hope we're in Ygranyllon.'

'Is Ygranyllon deserted?' I said, casting a meaningful look at the echoing emptiness around us. 'If so, I'd say the signs are favourable.'

'Parts of it. Their monarchy fell when King Evelaern passed, and for reasons best known to themselves they have never chosen another. They live principally out in the valleys, now, and edifices such as this are used only for occasions of ceremony.'

I nodded along with growing impatience. 'Very well; and why did you want to come back here?'

'Those pipes,' she said, looking suddenly at me. 'Do you know anything about them, Cordelia?'

'I know that they are classified as a Great Treasure, and that they are accounted too precious for the likes of me,' I answered, feeling obscurely nettled. 'But I received them from the hand — so to speak — of a unicorn, and since Milady has always been in favour of their remaining with me, I do not consider myself an unworthy guardian.'

'I do not question your right of ownership,' said my mother, rolling her eyes. 'I asked if you know anything about them.'

I took a breath, counselling myself to patience. 'I know that they saved our backsides from the lindworm just now, and from griffins before that. They've performed similarly at other times, in the past. But principally I use them to summon Addie.'