Authors: J. M. Blaisus
We
settled in our seats politely as Mom lit the two candles, waived her hands over
them, and covered her eyes for the short Friday Shabbat prayer. A few
seconds later, we were digging into a giant meatloaf that was far from Kosher
and heaping piles of garlic mashed potatoes on our plates.
Mom
was tall, with light brown hair touched with grey that fell in waves to her
shoulders. An aquiline nose didn’t detract from her piercing, ice-blue
eyes. “Motherly” was not a word I’d ever used to describe her.
“Self-sacrificing,” yes. “Tenacious,” absolutely. Her father had
had early-onset Alzheimer’s, and her mother had relied on her entirely.
She’d paused her career plans for them, and then she’d paused them for
me. I had the sneaking suspicion if it wasn’t for her family, she’d be
the CEO of a Fortune 500 company by now.
Silence
fell while everyone stuffed their faces, and when the hunger started to recede,
I broke the news. Nick congratulated me and demanded that I use his
credit card to buy myself whatever I needed for the trip. I promised
myself I would actually use the credit card to buy something small. He
would be disappointed if I didn’t.
Thomas
was thrilled. I could tell because he used words instead of noncommittal
grunts and shrugs. “That’s cool. Want me to look after your
apartment while you’re gone?” Granted, I’m not sure if he was more
excited about the “secret” house party he was planning or the fact he got to
use my car for the whole time. He had come down with a bad case of
senioritis, and after my 6 years of higher education, I sympathized and wished
him the most non-alcoholic, platonic fun a young man could get into.
My mother patiently waited until Thomas and Nick had both said their piece,
then zeroed in on me. “I don’t like it. Can you go with a second
group?”
I
suspected something like this would happen. “No, Mom. I’m going.”
“Are
they sending any human guards with you? Do you have any assurance that it
isn’t a trap?”
I
wanted so badly to roll my eyes at her and tell her that she was
overreacting. I took a deep breath instead. “No, and no. This
is the chance of a lifetime.”
“When
I said for you to get a job, I did not mean making a trip into a land of
savages!” Her hands were in fists.
“Penny!”
Nick snapped. “I believe Jan is educated enough to make this decision for
herself.” He met my mother’s glare, and a long moment passed before peace
settled again. I was immensely grateful he had my back, although he had a
rather inaccurate, sunny view of the fey. He thought they were as
harmless as the Keebler
elf.
No
one else mentioned my upcoming trip again at the table. Stuffed beyond
belief, I thanked my mother profusely and took home a good portion of
leftovers. I wanted to tell her everything would be fine, but couldn’t
find the heart to lie.
Leaving
this world kept me busier than I anticipated. It took me three full days
to pin down my boss to request leave. I stopped in to talk on Saturday,
but he was on an extended conference call with Home Office. Without any
other responsibilities that day, Rose came over to my apartment and we chatted
away about what I might expect in Azry while I fought to save the universe
playing
Halo 5.
Jack eventually joined us, bringing a couple
drinks, and I enjoyed the simple pleasure of being with two of my favorite
people.
Sunday,
the store was closed. I considered calling my boss, Darren, but I hated
to bother him on his day off. Every Sunday, he went to church, then spent
the rest of the day with his pregnant fiancé. Darren liked me, but if he
had to hire someone else to fill in, my hours might be cut when I got
back. Then again, as Rose pointed out, needing to pay the rent ought to
light the fire under me that I needed. I should have been job-hunting
months ago for something that I wasn’t horrifically overqualified for
and
paid a living wage.
I
spent most of the day with Jack at his art gallery. The small space
doubled as his home, tiny, dried flecks of every medium imaginable on every
surface. He worked primarily in acrylic, but could produce some stunning
watercolors. His style wasn’t quite my taste, as much as I respected
him. I liked personal, but technically coherent works of art. Many
of his pieces, I had no idea what was going on or what it was trying to
display. Except that he was in pain. Or angry. Or sad.
Jack may have been a modern artist, but his fundamentals were solid. He’d
done a lovely forest scene for my birthday last year. He’d never painted
anything of our world with such care… it had to be his home in Anowir.
Sometimes
when I’d come over, I’d discover empty liquor bottles or the place would smell
like weed. Twice now, I’d spotted other drugs… once, small tablets, and
once, dried mushrooms. If I ever found evidence that he was using harder
stuff like heroin or cocaine, I’d rip him a new one. Then send him
dog-tied to rehab.
The
numerous fans, all on high speed, couldn’t get rid of the sharp odor from
Jack’s newest experiment, creating paint. He bent over his writing desk,
muttering about how I needed to be sure not to eat any nightshade, ignoring his
long hair blowing into his face. Did he not own a hair tie? He
precisely sketched out the sigils from the three prominent clans in Anowir:
Becot, Toran, and Kusay.
“Where
did you learn to be an artist?” I asked instead. I was treading on
a sensitive area, but Jack was divulging more now than he ever had
before.
“It’s
complicated.”
“You
didn’t learn this overnight,” I pointed out.
“No.
Art… made the most sense when I got here. It’s not what I did
before. But it’s a piece of what I used to be.” Jack finally looked
up at me, and a smile touched the corners of his mouth. “Besides, it’s
not like I had a birth certificate or driver’s license when I came here.
I needed cash. And English is not easy to pick up quickly.”
He
returned to sketching the sigils, diligently instructing me in the dangers of his
land and his people. Azry social structure centered on oaths, family
alliances, and debts. I had more to fear from owing a fey than I did from
a dark alley. Casual agreements could become binding oaths if I wasn’t
careful.
“If
possible, get someone to swear to defend your life,” he repeated for the fourth
time, as if I would forget. I hated to tell him that I wasn’t likely to
find a willing knight in shining armor on my vacation.
“Also,”
he told me, “there’s something extremely important for you to know that the fey
have managed to keep a secret.” And by fey, he was obviously including
himself. Sometimes fey was ‘we’ with him, sometimes it was ‘they’.
I don’t think even
he
knew anymore. “We don’t work with four
elements,
we work with five. The fifth allows fey a
degree of telepathy.”
That
was definitely news to me. Psychic elves had not been in any of my
textbooks. “How has no one spilled the beans on
that
one?”
Five elements did explain some of the odd symbolism I’d seen on recovered fey
relics.
His
dark eyes sparkled. “Because
nagali
can find out
who
spilled
the beans and extract their pound of flesh.”
I
shuddered. “Any other scary elements I should know about? Also,
should I be worried that you told me?” I wish I could do a study on it when I
got back, but I wasn’t sure if
nagali
boogeymen would get me.
Better safe than sorry.
He
laughed then, deep and rich. “Jan, I should be the
last
person you
worry about. Half of Exiles lose their minds within the first year.
You think a
nagali
psychic can crack me that easily? I’m a needle
in a big human haystack.”
It
wasn’t what he said that convinced me not to worry, it was how utterly
confident he was on the matter. Jack was guaranteed to be full of
surprises and secrets, and it took hard, long work to get them, usually.
He was a master of getting other people to talk and evading direct
questions. I treasured the secret. I hadn’t even needed to fight
for it.
I
understood why the Exiles would want to hide it. If it scared me, it
would terrify the general public. And panicked crowds were known to do
terrible things. They had, when the gates first opened. The first
three months after we realized Exiles were among us was a black stain on
America’s history. Worst of all, likely to be buried in textbooks thirty
years from now as a sad accident and nothing more.
Monday
came around, and I went in to work, passing security at the Outer Circle so
second nature to me I barely blinked. The Outer Circle was a 15-foot high
steel-reinforced concrete wall with barbed wire at the top, with state of the
art security I could only guess at. The wall stretched the 40 miles
around the compound and had cost tens of millions of dollars. The fey, at
least, had contributed toward it. On first sight, it seemed like a jail,
and in the first years after the gate opened, it really was. Two years
passed before tensions relaxed enough for stores to open and the fey tourism
business to start.
The
Outer Circle clearly valued safety first, convenience second. One guarded
entrance was available for traffic, the other, for pedestrians. Parking
was a nightmare inside, so most of the employees (including me) left their cars
in the vast lot outside of the gate and walked, biked, or skated the rest of
the way. Some entrepreneur offered golf cart rides for a fee, a very
popular choice in poor weather.
Another
reason not to drive in the Outer Circle? Fey. Fey everywhere.
Fey, who didn’t know that green meant go and red meant stop. Many of them
couldn’t even read a “STOP” sign, period. The idea of getting hit by a
moving vehicle was a brand-new concept. After a few minor accidents, the
speed limit had been lowered from 20 mph to 10 mph, and bilingual road signs
installed throughout. Fey roadkill was an interdimensional incident ripe
for exploding into an ugly mess.
The
game store, with its shiny cutouts of action heroes and colorful displays of
the newest first-person shooter, was not busy for 2 in the afternoon.
Today I had the 2-9:30 shift. It was unusual for a store of our
type to close as early as 9pm, but considering most of our customers were fey,
they tended to head back through the gate after the 8pm fireworks… like a
reversed Disneyworld. Most of our sales came from rent-by-the-minute
video gaming stations set up along one wall. Occasionally, fey wanted to
purchase a game as a souvenir or a game manual to practice their English.
We had a small stock of board and card games, but since most of those were in
English, they didn’t sell much better than the gaming guides. A new
selection of miniature gaming figurines had recently gotten some attention from
the fey, and we hoped to see those sales increase.
My
photo ID, color-coded red (for full human), hung on the lanyard around my
neck. I wasn’t shy about it. Fey had blue badges, but tourists were
unmistakable anyway. Both genders wore their hair long, bold colors
declaring their elemental aptitude. Their eyes slanted upwards, ears
ending in a stereotypical point. Legends had at least gotten that part right.
Fey were as tall or taller than the average human, but their build was slight,
and as my ex, Shawn, would say, “not made for moving heavy objects.”
Darren,
my boss, waited for me to clock in before he gave me the rundown of the day,
what needed restocking, and what games I should try out in my down time this
week. He had a purple badge, indicating he’d tested positive for fey
traits, but he tended to stick it on his belt or in the least obtrusive place
he could find. Darren was in his 40s, skinny with sandy blonde hair, and
since I had known him, Cheetos and Pop Tarts had not managed to put a pound on
his frame. I wondered how much of that might be related to his fey
heritage.
“Did
you finally get to 110?” I asked about his Warcraft avatar.
He
grinned. “Of course.”
I
had guessed that. “So, the fey invited me to Azry.”
The
smile vanished from his face as he gaped at me. “NO frelling way.
Seriously? When?”
“Saturday.
Through November 12
th
.” I held my breath.
He
groaned. “I’m supposed to be mad at you for asking for that much leave
that soon, but I can’t
not
be happy for you. That’s
incredible. But do you know someone who could sub for you? Alex is
already taking the 1
st
-14
th
off to see his mother.
And I mean
actually
sub, someone who speaks Anowir.”
I
breathed out, relieved I wasn’t fired, then frowned. After the first two
months of wild gestures and frustration, we’d all had to make a concerted
effort to learn the language of the North American fey. Jack had been an
enormous help expanding my vocabulary and correcting my grammar, but there was
no way he’d qualify for the security pass… being an Exile and all. Rose
was nowhere near fluent. I wrinkled my nose. “Ask Shawn. He’s
in here all the time.”
“Ask
me what?”
I
hadn’t heard him come in. Shawn was my height, with curly brown hair, a
mostly charming personality, except for a distinct lack of punctuality,
ambition, and communication skills. Ironic, since he was
tri-lingual. We’d tried dating when I graduated in May, but after five
months of mutually half-assing the relationship, we’d ended it a few weeks ago.
“Do
you think you could work while Jan’s gone? We can work around your
schedule from Schuman’s.” Schuman’s, the ice cream parlor three doors
down, was how he’d lured me in the first place. Handsome smiles and
chocolate ice cream. I still had a gallon in my freezer on standby for
the next time I had PMS.
“Sure,
where are you going, Jan?” Shawn asked casually.
“Azry,
believe it or not.” I tried not to gloat.
“Sweeeeet.”
His voice cooled. “Is Jack good with that and everything?” He still
assumed I’d left him for Jack. He’d never told me outright that he knew
that Jack was an Exile, but anyone who spent enough time around the fey in the
Outer Circle could spot an Exile when they saw one. Not calling them out
on it was a matter of politeness, and a matter of safety for the Exile in
question.
“I
think he expects me to be drugged, murdered, then brainwashed, possibly in that
order, but he’s not freaking out… too much.” No one laughed, and I rolled
my eyes. “Come on guys, do you seriously think the fey would take out
their first official guests?”
Darren
spoke quietly. “You know, if you don’t come back, that might really set
him off.”
I
hadn’t seen Jack angry. I’d seen him sad, amused, frustrated, and three
sheets to the wind, but never angry. Considering how he’d been trying to
pick up as much spare magic as possible hanging around the Circles, I didn’t
favor the idea. Hell, I didn’t even know what element he favored. I
was
coming back. “Darren, no amount of beautiful elven castles will stop
me from coming back to spend my days in this exemplar of human ingenuity and
creativity,” I teased him.
He
took it in good humor. When employees that could pass a security check
and speak Anowir were as few and as far between as they were, keeping them
happy was high on his priority list. He kept trying to get the Home
Office to pay us more because we had such a specialized skill. They
refused on the basis that bilingualism didn’t pay more at any other store, and
it would be discrimination. We wished together their internet would cut
out in the middle of their next Call of Duty campaign.
“So
they’ve never done this… trip thing before?” Shawn asked.
“They’ve
invited important people into the Inner Circle, but never through the
gate. Exiles have been calling them out on their excuses.” Not that what
the Exiles said mattered one iota to the fey. Politics mattered.
The fey must want an alliance. Was Oradim, the land to their north, causing
them trouble? Oradim didn’t have a gate, but that could always
change. A couple new gates popped up every year around the world.
We knew the fey made them intentionally, just not how. Or why.