“What was that?”
“The Lord and Lady Eagle,” Asher said in a whisper, his mind seemingly occupied. “They were the first Faë to be given authority by their kin to rule this world.”
“When was that?” Phinnegan asked. But Asher paid him no mind. Instead his gaze was fixed on the book between them, more precisely, on Phinnegan’s hand, which rested atop the book.
“How long have you born this Mark?” Asher asked quietly as he lifted Phinnegan’s hand from the book with one hand and placed a pair of spectacles atop his nose with the other.
“Only a day or two,” Phinnegan said, squirming in his chair.
“Where did you get the Warber that made this Mark?” Asher asked as he peered at the Mark on Phinnegan’s finger.
“I…I don’t know. It fell out of my pocket.”
Asher cast a skeptical glance at Phinnegan over his spectacles.
“Fine,” he said with a small smile. “Keep your secrets.”
“But I honestly do not know,” Phinnegan insisted.
“Settle down, settle down,” Asher mumbled under his breath.
“Do you know what it means?” Phinnegan asked, leaning forward in his own chair. “She said you would know what it meant.”
“Who is she?”
“Mariella. A pixie.”
“Mmmmm,” Asher grunted as he took one last look at the Mark.
“I’m afraid I haven’t a clue.”
“Oh,” Phinnegan managed, crestfallen.
“Now, now,” Asher said rising from his seat. “I didn’t say I couldn’t figure it out. What kind of Guide would I be if I couldn’t?”
Phinnegan straightened, his face taking on a look of hope.
“What do you do anyway? Besides keeping up with all these books, I mean.”
“The same thing you would expect any ordinary guide to do. I help people who are lost to find their way.”
“Do you think I am lost?” Phinnegan asked. Asher responded with a raised eyebrow.
“Do
you
think you are lost?”
I suppose I am.
Phinnegan shrugged his shoulders meekly, but otherwise ignored the question.
“But how do people find you?”
Asher looked down at Phinnegan, a wry smile touching his lips.
“How did you find me?”
Phinnegan pressed his lips firmly together.
Good point.
“What else can you show me in these books?”
Asher smiled at Phinnegan’s quick change of subject.
“Ah, well, what sort of thing tickles your fancy?”
“I like stories,” Phinnegan said.
“Stories, is it? And I bet you like the ones that relate the most to magic, don’t you?” Phinnegan nodded that he did. “Well then, let’s see.”
Asher left his place beside the table and went to a corner of the room, where two stacks of books rested on the floor in front of a corner bookcase. He pushed the stacks out of the way and began to peruse the shelves. Before long he had gathered several books and had placed them on the table closest to him. Phinnegan amused himself by watching the quill, which again moved to draw a graceful script across the new pages in the black leather book. When Asher returned to the center table some minutes later, he had several small, thin books in his hand. Phinnegan saw that they all looked new, each thin and bound in dark leather of varying shades of brown and grey.
“Here we are, here we are,” Asher said, sitting the books down on the table between them. “Many good stories in these two,” he said as he passed two of the books, both covered in black leather, to Phinnegan, who opened each to the first page to read the title.
“’Seven Tales of the Silver Autumn’,” Phinnegan read the title aloud from the first book before turning to the second. “And this one is ‘The Five Lives of Prince Cadmium’.”
“Aye, both contain quite a few good tales of magic and what not. Now this one,” Asher said, handing Phinnegan a book bound in soft, grey leather, “is rather dry on the whole, but there is one story in particular that you should read. Page ninety-eight I believe it is.” Phinnegan flipped carefully through the pages to the page Asher suggested.
“’Scourge of the Night Wolf,’” Phinnegan read aloud. He grimaced slightly, looking across the table at Asher.
“It’s about the Faolchú isn’t it?” he asked, drawing a surprised look from Asher.
“You know of them?”
“Yes,” Phinnegan said. “I was nearly killed by them.”
“You’ve
seen
a Faolchú?” Asher asked, his eyes wide and his mouth agape. “And lived? My dear boy that is quite an accomplishment! How did you manage to escape?”
“I had a little help,” Phinnegan said, and then proceeded to tell Asher an abbreviated version of his trip through the Darkwater Forest with Periwinkle and how Crimson saved them with arrows that released a poisonous gas. He left out the part where he nearly died.
“Remarkable,” Asher said, with a wide grin. “That is truly remarkable. We should put it down.”
“What do you mean?” Phinnegan asked.
“I mean put it down. I don’t just read these books, you know. I add to them, when I can. Whenever I hear a particularly interesting tale, I put it down.” Asher carefully closed the old book in front of him and grabbed a dark blue book from the shelf behind him. He turned roughly two-thirds through the book before laying it open on the table and moving the quill onto it.
“There we are. This quill also transcribes what you say, well, what
I
say. With some embellishments of course. Now go ahead, tell it again, from the beginning.”
Phinnegan awakened from his nap on one of the sofas in the cottage’s sitting room and rubbed the sleep from his eyes.
It had been a long day.
The two passed the entire afternoon in the library together, breaking only once when Asher insisted they have afternoon tea outside underneath several large apple trees behind the cottage. Phinnegan had again been astonished to see that from the outside the cottage looked quite small and quaint, altogether different than the size it appeared from the inside.
After tea they had returned to the library where Asher continued to coax the story of Phinnegan’s trek through Darkwater Forest from him while at the same time repeating the words, with some embellishments of course, to the quill. By the time they finished it was getting into the evening and Phinnegan was growing very tired. Asher had insisted that Phinnegan take a nap while he prepared dinner.
Phinnegan had not asked what they were to share for dinner, but his groggy mind still retained enough sharpness to identify the savory smell of braised lamb on the air. With a yawn, he rose from the sofa and rounded the corner into the eating area and looked into the kitchen.
Asher was busy around the fire, his dirty clothing of earlier replaced by a slightly less dirty robe, which was cinched about his waist with a thick cord.
“Smells wonderful,” Phinnegan said as he took a seat at the table, where a fresh baked loaf of bread rested on a tarnished silver platter.
“Who’s that, who’s that?” Asher asked, glancing over his shoulder. Upon seeing Phinnegan he quickly smiled.
“Ah, yes, young Phinnegan. I apologize; I was deep in my thoughts. Very deep.” He turned back to the fire where he hovered for a few moments.
“Do sit down, it is almost ready. Just a minute or two longer.”
Phinnegan seated himself at the table, in the same chair he had used earlier that day for elevenses. Asher came over soon thereafter, setting down two goblets, one in front of Phinnegan and the other in front of where he would sit. He poured a black liquid into both goblets from a small carafe, and then placed the carafe beside the loaf of bread.
“House wine,” he said with a wink. “You’ve already eaten the berries that I used to make it. It is a very peculiar quality of those berries that they should be so edible during the day and so rancid at night, yet, they make a perfectly wondrous wine. Provided one drinks it after sunset, that is.”
Phinnegan tilted the goblet towards him and surveyed the inky black liquid. He sniffed its contents and found them quite pleasant. He had rarely had any wine, it being a luxury in his own home, and he being young besides. He tilted his head back and sipped the wine. He had no expectations of what a good wine should taste like, but he decided that he did in fact like this one.
“Yes, it’s quite good,” he complemented. Asher nodded approvingly as he approached the table, a platter holding four braised lamb foreshanks before him. He sat the platter on the table beside the bread and wine and seated himself opposite Phinnegan.
“Ah! The potatoes!” Asher exclaimed, jumping quickly from his seat and trotting into the kitchen. He returned with a rough-hewn wooden bowl which was filled two-thirds full with creamed potatoes.
“Can’t have supper without potatoes,” he said, passing the bowl to Phinnegan, who used the provided spoon to shovel a heavy portion onto his own plate.
“It all smells delicious,” Phinnegan said, his stomach growling in anticipation.
“Eat up, eat up,” Asher said with a smile as he used a meaty hand to grab two of the lamb shanks from the platter between them.
Once the two had set upon the food, they uttered not another word. There were noises of course, the scraping of forks across the plate, the tearing of bread and the drinking of wine, but the two themselves, they were quiet.
When they had finished eating, Asher pushed himself back from the table, patting his rotund belly fondly.
“That hit the spot, indeed, indeed.” He poured himself the last bit of wine and then gestured towards Phinnegan with his goblet.
“Tomorrow I shall be busy,” he said. “I’ve got a lot of reading to do to find out about that Mark.” He inclined his head in the direction of Phinnegan’s right hand.
“All right. Can I help?” Phinnegan asked, but Asher shook his head.
“Nay, lad. The best thing you can do is just leave me to it. You’ve got a pile of stories to read besides.” Standing up from the table he began to clear the plates. When Phinnegan tried to help, Asher stopped him.
“Ah, don’t trouble yourself with these. You are looking tired already. Best you get some sleep.” Asher piled the now empty platters, save for the bones of the shanks, atop one another and carried them to the kitchen.
“I’ll leave breakfast out for you, but you shall not see me until dinner.” Asher smiled and then shooed Phinnegan with a kindly gesture.
“Off to bed now. I’ll see you tomorrow for supper.”
Phinnegan smiled and turned to exit the room, but stopped, turning back to face Asher.
“Asher? May I ask a question?”
“Certainly, but make it quick,” Asher said, already busying himself with pouring two buckets of water into a large washtub.
“Why do all the Faë have colors for names?”
Asher stopped and looked straight at Phinnegan.
“Don’t be silly. How else would they do it?”
A House of Many Secrets
Phinnegan spent his entire second day at the cottage outside, reading and walking in the gardens that surrounded it. He found the stories interesting, but, after the excitement of his own adventures these past several days, books had lost their intrigue. His exploration of the gardens yielded much more pleasure, seeing the strange plants and vines intermingled with the familiar.