Gunpowder and Wild Magic by KeLP
He felt a tug on his right arm, the one holding the rifle, and a voice said "Help me", and a soft wind tousled his hair. Something fell down his face and no longer was the land green and bright, but a strangely shimmering twilight, and to his left, there, where before the buckbrush stood rooted in the red clay, there was a black hole in the mountainside and something was carrying something into it.
He sprinted after them, barely hesitating before ducking into the hole. Inside, it was dense foliage for ten feet or so, then opened onto a path sloping gently downhill through a tunnel of the same plants. The same twilight glow lighted the way.
The tunnel was so low, he had to crouch as he ran, and when the path finally straightened for a long distance he saw the larger figure was leaving him behind even though its victim was struggling. So he dropped to one knee, raised the rifle quickly, and fired at its feet.
The rifle blast was more than deafening, beyond sound: the air around the rifle's muzzle turned red and yellow and the sphere violently rippled outward. It struck him physically, pushing him down to slide on his back a few feet, while the sound was a high piercing scream that echoed and echoed long after he'd quit sliding and lay still.
Slowly, he rolled to his right side and looked at the rifle, deciding it must have exploded. But it was intact and his ears were ringing so loud he could barely hear himself talk. "What was that?" he asked, expecting and getting no answer.
He sat up and looked down the path. Nothing was in sight. "Well, I've lost them," he said, mostly to reassure himself that he could hear, if poorly.
There was nothing to do except continue down the path, he supposed. In for an penny, in for a pound, as his grandma would say. Standing, he brushed his clothes off, then started down the path at a trot.
He stopped as suddenly as he had started, for coming up the path toward him was a diminutive creature, small as a child and slender, yet even in the twilight he could see the white hair and wrinkles of age. It--no, she--was dressed in a gray gown that flickered like stars in the dim light, and she was motioning him back and speaking, but he could hear only the buzzing in his ears.
He stood fast as she approached, her voice now coming as a faint whisper as she stood a mere yard away. He judged her age as 70, 80 maybe, in his years.
"I am sorry, " she was saying, "I should not have involved you. But I did not know you would . . . and now . . . they are coming, you must leave."
"Leave?" he asked, his voice strange through the buzzing background.
"They are coming, " she said again. "You can hear the horns." But he heard nothing but the buzzing. "You should not have -- you must hurry." She pointed back up the path.
He looked over his shoulder where she pointed, then back to her.
"You must hurry. I will try to stop them, tell them you did not know . . . but you must be gone before they arrive. "
She grabbed his left arm, said "Leave the necklace on a tree branch outside the entrance. Hurry!" and pushed him gently.
Necklace? He reached up and fingered the loose band around his neck. So that is how he could see these things.
She was pushing him again and repeated, "Leave it on a branch outside! Go!"
So he went.
#
He went slowly, after he was beyond her sight. The tunnel of green plants was fascinating. He plucked a few sprigs and admired the symmetry of the leaves. He noticed small flowers here and there and picked a few, tiny things they were, less than half an inch unfolded. They had no discernible odor.
The wall of plants was so dense, he could see nothing beyond it. He tried reaching through, but could feel naught but the stems and flowers.
The path itself was interesting. Gray in the twilight, it had little dust, for years of use had packed the soil hard. Here and there you could make out a footprint in the softer soil next to the plant roots. Little footprints, mostly, and not always human looking.
He strolled leisurely, tried humming a tune but it sounded odd beneath the constant buzzing in his ears, so he just walked and tried to think through what had occurred.
Finally his mind went to the necklace. He bent his chin down and drew the necklace up to see it. It sparkled in the twilight, brilliant gems strung between beads of gold and silver. He could make out runic symbols etched on the beads, the source of the magic, he supposed. For it had to be magic. Elf magic.
The thought of elves made him turn about and look back up the path as if he could see her, far behind. Instead he saw a troop of warriors armed with pikes and spears and, worse, they saw him.
He whirled about and began to run, but forgot to bend and the plants ripped at his forehead and pulled his head back. His feet flew out from under him and he landed on his back. He rolled to his stomach, still clutching the rifle, and glanced back up the path. THEY were nearer, much nearer, so he did the only thing he could. He cocked the rifle and fired toward the host.
Again the red and yellow wave came, but he was already on the ground and expected it this time. As it passed by, he leapt up and ran and ran and ran and finally the end seemed blocked with plants, but he pushed through them to the world outside. Only then did he look back, quickly, but only the hole in the mountainside did he see, and he ran some more.
#
Somehow he'd reached home. He was vaguely aware of driving, his old pickup bouncing down the dirt road, then down the pavement, then the recognition of his house and the sliding stop. Somewhere along the journey he'd ripped the necklace off and stuffed it in a pocket, but the twilight had given way to darkness then, and he'd driven off the road into the brush before fumbling the lights on. The windshield cracked and one headlight never came on, but he'd continued driving fast, too fast. He thanked God the traffic had been sparse.
It was irrational, he knew, this fear. Yet he sat and trembled, the doors locked and curtains drawn tight, waiting for daylight, for surely they wouldn't, couldn't come in daylight.
#
Night and fear gave way to Day and a fitful sleep at the kitchen table. He awakened with a start about noon, and the Fear tried to return, but he fought it off. There were preparations to make.
He reloaded the rifle, then brought out his handgun and holster and buckled it on. As a security blanket, mostly, he figured, for what good were bullets against magic? Yet he did feel safer.
He needed to know what he was faced with. So he pulled Halsted’s Anthology of Elves and Fairies off his bookshelf, returned to the kitchen, and read and skimmed, looking for something, anything, that would tell him what to expect from the elves.
As the day progressed, he came to doubt what had occurred. Perhaps he hallucinated, dreamt it all. But the constant buzzing that still dulled his hearing, that was real. Then he reached into his coat's great pocket and grasped the necklace and once again the colors dulled and everything became sharper in that peculiar twilight.
He flipped the necklace onto the table before him. Colors brightened and he stared at a roughly knotted string of tiny acorns. He snatched it back and held again the gems and beads of silver and gold.
Dropped it.
Acorns.
Held it.
He laughed. Elf magic, indeed, as real as he was sane. He wondered if he was, briefly, then put the necklace in his pocket and returned to Halsted’s.
But neither Halsted’s nor the encyclopedia, nor any other of his books, even hinted at his situation. They only agreed on one thing: Good Elves of the Seelie Court, or Evil Elves of the Unseelie Court, they always repaid a wrong. So when the shadows of evening reached the room, he slipped the necklace over his head, and waited.
#
The noise was behind him; above the dull buzz, lessened but yet constant, he heard a jaunty whistle. He kept his eyes on the kitchen door the rifle muzzle was aimed at. How many? he wondered, fearful of being struck from behind.
The whistle grew louder, passed to his left, and continued past in the form of a small brown man. Not merely brown-skinned, but dressed in brown; pointed shoes, breeches, shirt, even the conical hat flopped over at the point, all was the same brown hue.
He watched the little man, maybe two-and-a-half feet tall, lightly scamper up the cabinet faces to the countertop, then walk briskly to the clock on the old kitchen range. The whistling ceased, replaced by a chuckle as the clock cover was deftly popped off, the minute hand moved back two minutes, and the cover replaced.
Pivoting in the chair, and shouting “Gremlin!”, he whirled the rifle and thrust it forward. The creature turned, mouth gaping in shock, but moved too slowly as the barrel struck its chest and pinned it, hard, against the backboard. An unearthly scream filled the room, then the little brown man slumped, held up only by the rifle’s pressure, gasping shallowly.
He checked an impulse to withdraw the gun, just eased it back a bit so the body slid down to sit on the range top, still gasping. “Gremlin?” No response. “Gremlin?” he repeated.
The head lifted a bit, eyes open part way. In a low, grating voice, “I’m not a gremlin.” Then the eyes were wide as the realization hit. “You can see me!”
“Yes, gremlin, I can see you.”
The little man seemed to have no pain now as he stared at the necklace. “You’re the one! I heard about that.” He looked to the gun barrel, then returned his gaze to the necklace. “I won’t tell, I promise.”
“Tell what?”
The little brown man’s eyes were yellow, cat-shaped, unreadable, but the slight hesitation in answering betrayed a certain craftiness. “Tell where you are.”
“Tell who?”
The creature grinned. “The Elves, of course. They’ll be coming for you, you know.” He dropped his voice to a near whisper, the buzz partly drowning it. “ . . . all . . . venge . . . killing . . . know.”
Killing? So his shot, fired in fear and desperation, had killed an elf. Halsted’s tales, if true, told only ill could come of that.
He sighed, “What am I to do with you, gremlin? You’re not a leprechaun, so I can’t get a pot of gold.”
“I’m not a gremlin!”
“Maybe three wishes? No, that’s genies. You’re not a genie, are you?”
“No. And I’m not a gremlin!”
What did Halsted’s say about gremlins? He could remember nothing for sure, but reasoned as they must belong to the Seelie-Unseelie Courts, so they should be bound by promises, for that was a general rule of the Fairy Peoples. If Halsted’s was correct.
“I’ll make a deal with you. You stick around me until you answer twenty questions, then you’re free to go. Deal?”
“ Twenty questions? What kind of questions?”
“Any questions. Truthfully answer. Promise and you go free. Otherwise . . . “ he pushed a bit on the rifle.
The little man smiled, an unsettling smile for some reason. “Yeh, sure. I promise. Why not?”
He eased the rifle back, praying Halsted’s was right. The little man stood up, brushed his clothes as though they were dusty, leaned back, crossed his ankles, and smiled expectantly.
Putting the rifle back on the table, the muzzle again to point towards the door, he said “Tell me everything you know about this necklace.”
The little brown man stood smiling, silent.
“Tell me about the necklace,” he repeated.
The smile disappeared. He shrugged.
He rotated the rifle to point towards the range. “We have a deal. Why don’t you answer?”
“That’s one!” the creature shouted. “You didn’t ask me a question, those were commands, and I only promised to answer questions, not obey commands. And, “ he added, “that’s the truth.”
It looked to be a long night.
#
Fifteen questions later, he had enough knowledge to understand where he stood. The Trolls and Elves were bitter enemies. To capture an Elven Princess to ransom (if she was a princess, but weren't they always?) was not uncommon; to involve a Human was; to involve Gunpowder was inexcusable.
Gunpowder had an uncanny effect on the very atmosphere of the Fairy World. Incompatible with magic, the ignition of the sulfurous mixture unleashed wild magics, the red and yellow screaming waves of energy he'd experienced, waves that traveled nearly undiminished across the whole of their underground kingdoms not to dissipate until encountering their counterpart on the opposite side of the globe.
Some wild magics had been known to reverberate through the Fairy World for days, never meeting a canceling waveform. They affected everyone who was in touch with any type of magic, such as his necklace.
And he'd unleashed two waves of wild magic.
They punished trespassers with ill luck, sickness, and death.
He was a trespasser. A trespasser who'd unleashed two waves of wild magic.
He could probably rule out ill luck and sickness.
He ignored the gremlin's pleading to ask the four remaining questions. "Go to sleep!" he told it, and removed the necklace. The acorn string would be perfectly safe on the kitchen table, for the Elves could only ask for its return: to steal it back would destroy the magic it contained. He pondered how the rules of Magic were so contrary to the rules of, what, Real Life? He had too many things to consider, too many plans to make, and he was too tired to even be scared. He laid his head on the table and slept.
#
When he awoke, it was late morning. The buzz had diminished into a background hum, and if he popped his ears just right, it went away for a fraction of a second. He ate some brunch, thought about his situation, showered, shaved, and thought some more as he dressed in his best denim pants and shirt, buckling on his gunbelt. He checked the revolver. Loaded and ready. And after thinking, thinking, thinking until his head ached, he had a plan.
Or rather, he had decided what attitude to adopt, how aggressive to be, and hatched an idea to thwart the Elves if they got the necklace.
He hoped he had enough time. He checked the kitchen range clock, then on a hunch compared it to the living room wall clock. It was seventeen minutes slow. He cursed the gremlin.
#
The gremlin sat crosslegged on the table, watching him as he closely scrutinized the necklace. He dropped it, looking now at the acorns strung on a rough twine with a crude knot. As he touched the knot, it transformed into the gold and silver beads and gems, with no obvious knot or splice. "Okay," he muttered, and walked off, coming back with a pair of scissors.
As he moved the scissors toward the necklace, the gremlin scooted across the table. "Stop!" he hissed. "What do you think you're doing?"
"I don't answer questions," he replied, but refrained from cutting the necklace. "How else . . . " he caught himself before the sentence was uttered. "Good try, gremlin."
The little man held his hand out. "Gi'me it. No reason to ruin a perfectly good necklace."
He grudgingly offered the necklace, but kept a loose grip as the gremlin maneuvered it. A few deft movements and it had two ends. Removing two beads, he offered it again to the gremlin, who retied the string.
"I'm not a professional at this, mind you," the gremlin said, "but it'll do."
He could see no connection, no discernible ends, just as before. Two tiny acorns sat on the tabletop.
"Thanks," he mumbled. He dropped the necklace over his head, pulled a couple of cartridges from the loops of his pistol belt, grabbed some pliers, and sat about prying off a bullet. The gremlin watched, amused and puzzled, to judge from its expression.
"In the long run, what good does it? They are coming, you know." The gremlin smiled, but it was a sad smile. And added, almost whispering, "Nothing you do can change the outcome."
"Maybe not. But I can try."
"Give back the necklace."
"And they will go away for ever and ever, sure they will." Sarcasm.
"Possibly. That's the offense that still ties you to them. The rest . . . "
" . . . they will forgive?"
The little brown creature sighed deeply. "No, I don't think they could ever do that." And in a small, sad voice, without gloating, added, "That's seventeen."
#
He sat at the kitchen table again, awaiting the Elves, but this time his back was to the kitchen door and the rifle pointed towards the living room where the gremlin had walked in from. The brown little man again sat on the range, nibbling on corn chips, a delicacy it had discovered in his pantry. He wanted to ask it where the entrance was, but didn't want to waste a question, so he just sat and watched.
A gray, furry paw grasped his forehead and covered his eyes, the rifle was jerked from his hands and clattered onto the floor, and other paws, many, many furry paws, pulled and twisted his arms and then also his legs, bound and tied him, and then he found himself tied onto a board, immobile, even his head tied fast. The board was angled behind some creature and dragged, a primitive version of a travois. In seconds, they were outside his house and, seconds later, all he saw, looking back and up, was the green foliage of a path into Fairy World.
He could hear them, up ahead, the guttural voices of the furry-pawed and a softer voice he recognized as that of the gremlin, but the language was unfamiliar. The old horror was back and he tried to calm, but his voice trembled a bit as he called out.
"Gremlin! What's goin' on?"
The voice was at his left ear now, but still ahead, out of sight. "Since this is question eighteen, I'll give you the long answer. You killed a Troll. They want justice. Troll justice."
"Torture, you mean? They could have killed me then and there. Torture?"
"No, no." said the brown man. "Troll justice. They've lost the labor of one Troll; you will replace that labor. It's only fair, in their eyes. And that's nineteen, by the way."
So he'd be a slave! For how long, he wondered. He wanted to ask, but then the gremlin would be gone, and he'd be alone with these things.
The gremlin had fallen farther back, so he could see him now. It leaned towards him and spoke softly. It was as if it'd read his mind.
"They are a crude race, but not overly cruel, not by your standards, anyway. But not refined like the Elves. Speaking of Elves, they still want that necklace back, you know. And maybe they'd feel some obligation to help a soul that helped one of them." He stroked his chin, then continued, "But how would they know where you are? Who could tell them?"
"You could," he said. Time passed, long, long seconds, the brown man staring expectantly at him, then he finished it. "couldn't you?"
The gremlin smiled. "Twenty," was all he said. Then he reached across him, and the revolver fell from the holster, and as he was dragged up the trail, the gremlin picked it up, waved it in the air with a grin, and vanished through the wall of plants.
#
Eventually the green foliage walls vanished, replaced by a sky of brown and grey earth as the party entered a huge cavern. He was dragged past earthen huts, and furry little creatures, Troll children, ran up to him and prodded and pulled and laughed as he went by. They stopped, dropped the travois from off what he now could see was a small horse, and a Troll released his right arm and immediately clamped a jewel-encrusted bracelet on it. The head straps were slid off and the Troll fingered the necklace, then held his paw out flat, in the universal gesture for "give it here". He shook his head, so the Troll retied his arm and walked off.
Time passed. Periodically a Troll, maybe the same one, for he couldn't tell them apart, would come by and gesture for the necklace, sometimes offering water. Again and again he'd refuse, and it would walk away. But thirst and fatigue grew as he lay bound, and finally, reluctantly, he nodded "yes" and handed the necklace to the Troll.
Once unbound, and his thirst satiated, the Troll motioned him to follow, and they walked through the village and beyond, on a path that slanted upward to a seeming cave, but reaching its mouth, it was the familiar tunnel of green foliage. The Troll motioned him ahead, so he stepped past and it was dark, black, ebony, pure dark, and his shirt grew taunt and he was gently guided backward into the twilight. The Troll gestured him once more to follow and started back to the village.
He understood. The jeweled wristband, a magical wristband, failed to work beyond the cavern's edge. He had no revolver to fight his way out, curse the gremlin, and no idea where to go if he could. Dejectedly, he shuffled back down to the village, the Troll outpacing him but never even looking back.
#
The Trolls weren't cruel, not even close to it, but maddeningly indifferent. They'd gesture to some work to do, in their scraggly gardens, or drawing water from a well-hole, working the ponies in the fields or mills, anything they might need done when he was available, and if he did the work, fine, and if not, fine, only then he'd get no food or drink. That was all; no whips, no chains, no torture, just the indifference and withholding of victuals.
Days, weeks, he lost track of time. There was no sun, no moon, no dark or light, just unending twilight in the cavern. The Trolls did sleep, yes, but not in any discernible rhythm. If tired, you slept, that was all.
He was given no residence. He slept wherever he found it comfortable, was given food and water by whichever Troll set him to work. If he hadn't worked, they offered nothing, yet did not stop him if he drew his own water and picked raw plants from their fields.
He came to recognize different Trolls, gave them pet names like Bigwig and Fiver and Shaggy and Scooby, some even seemed friendly at times, though perhaps he imagined their fleeting smiles. The Troll children might stare, but all his attempts to interact with them resulted in their running away. He guessed Troll parents told their offspring tales of the human boogymen.
There was lots of work, not really hard, and no overseer pushing him to complete it. Eventually, he found himself repairing dilapidated huts, or digging the dry well-hole deeper to reach the water table, or a myriad of other chores none asked of him, but which needed doing. At times, almost bored, he joined the Troll females in clothmaking or cooking, just to learn the trades.
And there were curiously some missing trades and crafts. They had metal goods and weapons but did no metalworking, had leathergoods they crafted but didn't slaughter animals or tan hides, had no wood and dug no coal, yet had fires for cooking. They must have bartered for the products, yet they seemed to have no interest in developing the means to produce their own.
From the repetition when Trolls talked to each other, he even learned a few words of Trollish, as he named it. They never talked to him, just motioned and walked away. If he questioned what they wanted, they mimed it, then left. It was in many ways the cruelest they could have been. If he said "thank you" for a kindness, or better, used a Trollish word, they gave no recognition of it, though then is when he glimpsed, he told himself, those smiles.
The tribal existence of the Trolls was a monotonous series of unvarying weeks, sharply broken when a raiding party returned victorious with loot and captives, or, less often, broken and defeated in their raid. Then came a few days of excited activity, brokering the hostage ransoms and divvying the acquired bounty. Strangely, he never saw a funeral service, no burial or cremation. Their warfare seemed relatively bloodless, though not without injury.
He helped bandage wounded Trolls, without being asked. He could think of them as enemies, slavers, yet they had also become fellow tribesmen to him. He was no longer a hairless ape, he mused, but a hairless Troll.
But even as a hairless Troll, he wanted free. What he needed most, a map to the Real World, the Trolls did not have. He'd wandered, undisturbed, ignored really, into every hut in the village and found no maps, nor indeed any papers at all.
#
He went through a period of despair, then resignation, but as his situation became more clear, he began to plan. His gunbelt he'd given to a Troll leathercrafter that used the holster and loops to hold small tools; he'd kept the cartridges with their gunpowder, for what good that did him, because he was afraid the Troll might accidentally release their wild magic. Now he might have a use for both the cartridges and wild magic.
His guess was that the tunnels of foliage eventually entered the Real World if you followed the path to its end, so he merely had to walk out. There were side paths, if you knew what to look for: the gremlin's disappearance proved that. That posed a danger since he knew not what signs to look for nor what creatures could be met.
Time and distance he could not even guess at, but, hey, the pioneers traveled for months over three-thousand miles. If they could, well, maybe he could.
The Trolls' neglect to oversee his actions was a plus, He could wander anywhere and do almost anything without raising suspicion. So he hoarded a quantity of the bland fried vegetable cakes that were the staple of the Troll diet and kept them wrapped them in a cloth bundle. An animal-skin water bag was easily acquired and filled. Those were the necessities.
He had grander plans, born of anger and shame, for a kind of revenge, to which end he acquired, a stick at a time from this hut and that, a pile of kindling. He wrapped it too in cloth and hid it beneath bushes near the foliage tunnel he'd chosen to leave through; wood was a scarce item, and he feared punishment if they found him in possession of any. His freelance work joining the Troll ladies in cooking paid off, for he now had possession of fire-starting stones, and was proficient in their use.
And he had a final test to make, to see if leaving was even possible. At the foliage entrance one day, after tying a small cloth strip loosely around his left middle finger, he pulled the ten cartridges from his pocket. Two were different, special: they bore a ragged, imperfect crimp around the bullet. He chose one and twisted and wriggled the bullet until it came off, then dumped the contents in his palm. It was not powder, but a single gold bead with runic marking, a bead from the Princess' necklace.
He inserted the bead under the cloth, pulled it tight and knotted it securely. Taking a deep breath, he stepped across the tunnel entrance. Twilight. He walked a few steps in. Twilight. He laughed. His wristband jewels were a dull gray, lifeless, but he could see because he was in touch with Magic, even that little Magic in a single bead.
From that day on, he wore the cloth/bead on his finger. If the Trolls asked, he'd say he bandaged a cut. Of course, they never asked, never even acknowledged they noticed it.
Courage was the hardest item to acquire. The devil you know, he remembered hearing, is preferred to the one you don't. He was, if nothing else, comfortable now with the Trolls. Their benign neglect was easier to face than whatever lay outside the cavern. So he procrastinated, made excuses not to leave. Until the day his wandering thoughts for some unknown reason remembered Stockholm Syndrome, and he realized he had to leave now, he just had to leave now, or he never would.
#
In this land of perpetual twilight, there was no sneaking out under cover of darkness. He knew he could move with impunity, knew the Trolls would ignore him, yet the nagging doubt remained and his heart pounded as he gathered the food bundle and the water bag and hiked to the foliage tunnel.
He recovered the kindling, refused to take a last look back although it strangely brought up feelings of guilt, and strode into the tunnel.
He walked slowly, pacing himself. With no day/night cycle to judge by, he had no gauge for progress, could only walk and walk until too tired, sleep, then walk again. Here and there he spied a depression through the greenery and could make out the path that veered off the one he'd chosen, so maybe the Fairy denizens judged distance by those offshoots. Of course, you'd have to know how far apart they were or read signs that to his eyes were nonexistent.
Stopping for the fourth time to rest, legs rubbery and head aching, he felt the need to sleep. He wiggled into the plants, rooting some from the soil as he crawled along, three, four feet away from the hard pathway. He knew it would be obvious something entered there, but hoped nothing would want to check what creature it was. Needless to say, he slept fitfully. He'd open his eyes and flickering lights would skitter away through the leaves, and he thought of Tinkerbell and Pixies and little flower Fairies, and so he beseeched them silently, prayed to them really, please don't tell the Elves or the Trolls, please, please don't tell.
When he awoke for good, he crawled back to the pathway, ate a vegetable cake, and walked on.
It was maybe a hundred yards more and he came to an end. No, he thought, not so soon, it can't be! He pushed through the plants and emerged into the familiar scene of a Real World two-lane roadway just yards away.
He cursed. "I could have crawled this far, dark or no dark," he muttered bitterly. He could have felt his way this far. But he also remembered that total, total blackness, and could feel the fear, and knew he could not have.
And he had yet his revenge to carry out.
Quickly, he pushed back inside. He unloaded the kindling about five yards in, stacked it for burning, and lit it with his fire-stones. As it increased in intensity, he loosened the knot on the beadcloth so it was a simple one-twist slip-knot. He sorted the cartridges, put the special one back into his pocket, and dropped the remaining eight onto the fire. Quickly, again, he exited the tunnel, pulled the bead and cloth off, and let them fall to the ground.
The outside world, the Real World, was bright and cheerful, vibrant colors, like the scene when Dorothy entered into Oz, more Real than real could be imagined. He sat down, free at last, no more twilight, no more fear. And he chuckled at his last act, eight waves of Wild Magic. They'll think twice before messing with us again.
He stood and started to the highway, when The Pain brought him back to his knees, and the world was twilight-bright-twilight-bright-twilight-bright as his right hand and wrist throbbed and contracted and wrenched. His wrist was twilight/jeweled, then void of wristband, then twilight/jeweled as the wild magic washed across. It eased, then a second wave struck, and The Pain was greater, and he lay back and howled, and then the third wave, and the fourth, and he looked at his hand, swollen and red, then blue, white, black, aching, unbearable numbing Pain, and a fifth, sixth wave. He collapsed, screaming, screaming, then unconsciousness.
#
A couple driving past saw him lying near the roadside and stopped to render aid. He had awakened just before they reached him. Thinking quickly, he told them he'd been hiking and injured his hand, that his ride back to town wasn't due for two days. He ascertained his hometown was nearby, and they kindly drove him there and dropped him off at the local medical center.
His hand throbbed, was contorted, reddish and swollen, yet he didn't enter the medical center; a doctor couldn't remove the wristband, couldn't even see it, so why see a doctor? He was a long ways from home, but in the right town, and he could walk, so he did.
It was dusk when he reached his home. He walked up the porch steps and stopped before his door. There was a crime scene notice saying not to enter, and a notice of foreclosure stapled over that. Someone must have missed me, he mused. He looked around and spied his homemade windchime still dangling over the porch rail. It was made of metal pipes and old keys, and one of the keys was his spare for the house. He untied it, awkwardly, with his left hand, tore the papers from the door, and inserted the key into the lock. It worked, the door pushed open, and he was home, Auntie Em, home.
Ignoring the dust, he sat onto his sofa. On a whim, he tried a lamp, but, of course, the power had been turned off. Now what? he asked, and the more he thought about it, the angrier he grew.
He'd lost his job, of course, after all this time, and his crippled hand might preclude regaining a good job. He would, also, lose the house, for he had no way to pay the arrears in the mortgage. Bankruptcy was his only option.
And what was he to tell the cops? The truth? Yeah, that'ld land him in the loony bin.
Okay, he thought, okay, you ruined my life, Fairy People; let's see what I can do for you!
He had no money, and the cops surely had confiscated all his credit cards and cash when they searched his home, but he did have things in the house he could pawn. And how much could black powder cost, anyway?
#
Poetic justice, he called it. With the silver bead from the Princess' necklace taped to his finger, he could see the opening in the hillside where the whole thing began. There was the buckbrush, there the black opening with its plug of plants. He dragged a galvanized jug with twenty-five pounds of blackpowder up the hillside, lefthanded. His right hand was so contorted, so swollen, it was useless.
It hadn't been easy, hitch-hiking from town out into the backwoods, but he'd done well enough, coming up with a plausible tale about why he was out this way with an old three-gallon metal water jug.
He pushed through the plants, back onto the hard gray path. Far enough, just inside the Fairy World proper, he thought. This is for you, Elves and Trolls, enjoy the Wildest Magic you've ever felt. He struck a match and started the fuse burning.
Calmly, he stepped outside. He'd left a tab on the tape, so he could grab it with his teeth and pull it off. As the world brightened, he crumbled the bead and tape together and shoved it into his pocket. Now, any time now, he expected The Pain, expected it to be so severe, he might have his hand fall off. Do your worse, he thought, and he held his right hand up.
A soft wind tousled his hair, and something fell down his face, and the world dimmed into the familiar twilight. Immediately, he clutched the necklace as a voice said, "I would like all of it back, please." He turned his head left toward the voice, saw the Princess, wearing the same flickering gray gown as before, standing by him, felt a pull on his right arm, swiveled his head right in time to see a green-suited creature, five-feet or so tall, an obvious male Elf, holding his jeweled wristband.
"That will be returned," the Princess said.
He looked back to her, mouth agape, at a loss for words. She wasn't.
"You have caused enough sorrow. Return all of my necklace, and this can end. The last piece is in your pocket."
"But I left a piece . . . "
"We have it all except the piece in your pocket."
He dug in his pocket, and handed her the tape and bead.
"Princess . . . ?" he started.
She laughed, looked to the other Elf, and said, "Humans. They always think we're princesses." Back to him. "I'm not a princess."
"Okay," he said, only half-hearing, "But, Princess . . . ?"
"Yes?"
"What happened to my bomb?" he asked.
A voice from behind him said, "It failed. And that's twenty-one."
"Gremlin?"
As she lifted the necklace over his head, the not-a-Princess leaned near and whispered, "He's not a gremlin."
#
End
He felt a tug on his right arm, the one holding the rifle, and a voice said "Help me", and a soft wind tousled his hair. Something fell down his face and no longer was the land green and bright, but a strangely shimmering twilight, and to his left, there, where before the buckbrush stood rooted in the red clay, there was a black hole in the mountainside and something was carrying something into it.
He sprinted after them, barely hesitating before ducking into the hole. Inside, it was dense foliage for ten feet or so, then opened onto a path sloping gently downhill through a tunnel of the same plants. The same twilight glow lighted the way.
The tunnel was so low, he had to crouch as he ran, and when the path finally straightened for a long distance he saw the larger figure was leaving him behind even though its victim was struggling. So he dropped to one knee, raised the rifle quickly, and fired at its feet.
The rifle blast was more than deafening, beyond sound: the air around the rifle's muzzle turned red and yellow and the sphere violently rippled outward. It struck him physically, pushing him down to slide on his back a few feet, while the sound was a high piercing scream that echoed and echoed long after he'd quit sliding and lay still.
Slowly, he rolled to his right side and looked at the rifle, deciding it must have exploded. But it was intact and his ears were ringing so loud he could barely hear himself talk. "What was that?" he asked, expecting and getting no answer.
He sat up and looked down the path. Nothing was in sight. "Well, I've lost them," he said, mostly to reassure himself that he could hear, if poorly.
There was nothing to do except continue down the path, he supposed. In for an penny, in for a pound, as his grandma would say. Standing, he brushed his clothes off, then started down the path at a trot.
He stopped as suddenly as he had started, for coming up the path toward him was a diminutive creature, small as a child and slender, yet even in the twilight he could see the white hair and wrinkles of age. It--no, she--was dressed in a gray gown that flickered like stars in the dim light, and she was motioning him back and speaking, but he could hear only the buzzing in his ears.
He stood fast as she approached, her voice now coming as a faint whisper as she stood a mere yard away. He judged her age as 70, 80 maybe, in his years.
"I am sorry, " she was saying, "I should not have involved you. But I did not know you would . . . and now . . . they are coming, you must leave."
"Leave?" he asked, his voice strange through the buzzing background.
"They are coming, " she said again. "You can hear the horns." But he heard nothing but the buzzing. "You should not have -- you must hurry." She pointed back up the path.
He looked over his shoulder where she pointed, then back to her.
"You must hurry. I will try to stop them, tell them you did not know . . . but you must be gone before they arrive. "
She grabbed his left arm, said "Leave the necklace on a tree branch outside the entrance. Hurry!" and pushed him gently.
Necklace? He reached up and fingered the loose band around his neck. So that is how he could see these things.
She was pushing him again and repeated, "Leave it on a branch outside! Go!"
So he went.
#
He went slowly, after he was beyond her sight. The tunnel of green plants was fascinating. He plucked a few sprigs and admired the symmetry of the leaves. He noticed small flowers here and there and picked a few, tiny things they were, less than half an inch unfolded. They had no discernible odor.
The wall of plants was so dense, he could see nothing beyond it. He tried reaching through, but could feel naught but the stems and flowers.
The path itself was interesting. Gray in the twilight, it had little dust, for years of use had packed the soil hard. Here and there you could make out a footprint in the softer soil next to the plant roots. Little footprints, mostly, and not always human looking.
He strolled leisurely, tried humming a tune but it sounded odd beneath the constant buzzing in his ears, so he just walked and tried to think through what had occurred.
Finally his mind went to the necklace. He bent his chin down and drew the necklace up to see it. It sparkled in the twilight, brilliant gems strung between beads of gold and silver. He could make out runic symbols etched on the beads, the source of the magic, he supposed. For it had to be magic. Elf magic.
The thought of elves made him turn about and look back up the path as if he could see her, far behind. Instead he saw a troop of warriors armed with pikes and spears and, worse, they saw him.
He whirled about and began to run, but forgot to bend and the plants ripped at his forehead and pulled his head back. His feet flew out from under him and he landed on his back. He rolled to his stomach, still clutching the rifle, and glanced back up the path. THEY were nearer, much nearer, so he did the only thing he could. He cocked the rifle and fired toward the host.
Again the red and yellow wave came, but he was already on the ground and expected it this time. As it passed by, he leapt up and ran and ran and ran and finally the end seemed blocked with plants, but he pushed through them to the world outside. Only then did he look back, quickly, but only the hole in the mountainside did he see, and he ran some more.
#
Somehow he'd reached home. He was vaguely aware of driving, his old pickup bouncing down the dirt road, then down the pavement, then the recognition of his house and the sliding stop. Somewhere along the journey he'd ripped the necklace off and stuffed it in a pocket, but the twilight had given way to darkness then, and he'd driven off the road into the brush before fumbling the lights on. The windshield cracked and one headlight never came on, but he'd continued driving fast, too fast. He thanked God the traffic had been sparse.
It was irrational, he knew, this fear. Yet he sat and trembled, the doors locked and curtains drawn tight, waiting for daylight, for surely they wouldn't, couldn't come in daylight.
#
Night and fear gave way to Day and a fitful sleep at the kitchen table. He awakened with a start about noon, and the Fear tried to return, but he fought it off. There were preparations to make.
He reloaded the rifle, then brought out his handgun and holster and buckled it on. As a security blanket, mostly, he figured, for what good were bullets against magic? Yet he did feel safer.
He needed to know what he was faced with. So he pulled Halsted’s Anthology of Elves and Fairies off his bookshelf, returned to the kitchen, and read and skimmed, looking for something, anything, that would tell him what to expect from the elves.
As the day progressed, he came to doubt what had occurred. Perhaps he hallucinated, dreamt it all. But the constant buzzing that still dulled his hearing, that was real. Then he reached into his coat's great pocket and grasped the necklace and once again the colors dulled and everything became sharper in that peculiar twilight.
He flipped the necklace onto the table before him. Colors brightened and he stared at a roughly knotted string of tiny acorns. He snatched it back and held again the gems and beads of silver and gold.
Dropped it.
Acorns.
Held it.
He laughed. Elf magic, indeed, as real as he was sane. He wondered if he was, briefly, then put the necklace in his pocket and returned to Halsted’s.
But neither Halsted’s nor the encyclopedia, nor any other of his books, even hinted at his situation. They only agreed on one thing: Good Elves of the Seelie Court, or Evil Elves of the Unseelie Court, they always repaid a wrong. So when the shadows of evening reached the room, he slipped the necklace over his head, and waited.
#
The noise was behind him; above the dull buzz, lessened but yet constant, he heard a jaunty whistle. He kept his eyes on the kitchen door the rifle muzzle was aimed at. How many? he wondered, fearful of being struck from behind.
The whistle grew louder, passed to his left, and continued past in the form of a small brown man. Not merely brown-skinned, but dressed in brown; pointed shoes, breeches, shirt, even the conical hat flopped over at the point, all was the same brown hue.
He watched the little man, maybe two-and-a-half feet tall, lightly scamper up the cabinet faces to the countertop, then walk briskly to the clock on the old kitchen range. The whistling ceased, replaced by a chuckle as the clock cover was deftly popped off, the minute hand moved back two minutes, and the cover replaced.
Pivoting in the chair, and shouting “Gremlin!”, he whirled the rifle and thrust it forward. The creature turned, mouth gaping in shock, but moved too slowly as the barrel struck its chest and pinned it, hard, against the backboard. An unearthly scream filled the room, then the little brown man slumped, held up only by the rifle’s pressure, gasping shallowly.
He checked an impulse to withdraw the gun, just eased it back a bit so the body slid down to sit on the range top, still gasping. “Gremlin?” No response. “Gremlin?” he repeated.
The head lifted a bit, eyes open part way. In a low, grating voice, “I’m not a gremlin.” Then the eyes were wide as the realization hit. “You can see me!”
“Yes, gremlin, I can see you.”
The little man seemed to have no pain now as he stared at the necklace. “You’re the one! I heard about that.” He looked to the gun barrel, then returned his gaze to the necklace. “I won’t tell, I promise.”
“Tell what?”
The little brown man’s eyes were yellow, cat-shaped, unreadable, but the slight hesitation in answering betrayed a certain craftiness. “Tell where you are.”
“Tell who?”
The creature grinned. “The Elves, of course. They’ll be coming for you, you know.” He dropped his voice to a near whisper, the buzz partly drowning it. “ . . . all . . . venge . . . killing . . . know.”
Killing? So his shot, fired in fear and desperation, had killed an elf. Halsted’s tales, if true, told only ill could come of that.
He sighed, “What am I to do with you, gremlin? You’re not a leprechaun, so I can’t get a pot of gold.”
“I’m not a gremlin!”
“Maybe three wishes? No, that’s genies. You’re not a genie, are you?”
“No. And I’m not a gremlin!”
What did Halsted’s say about gremlins? He could remember nothing for sure, but reasoned as they must belong to the Seelie-Unseelie Courts, so they should be bound by promises, for that was a general rule of the Fairy Peoples. If Halsted’s was correct.
“I’ll make a deal with you. You stick around me until you answer twenty questions, then you’re free to go. Deal?”
“ Twenty questions? What kind of questions?”
“Any questions. Truthfully answer. Promise and you go free. Otherwise . . . “ he pushed a bit on the rifle.
The little man smiled, an unsettling smile for some reason. “Yeh, sure. I promise. Why not?”
He eased the rifle back, praying Halsted’s was right. The little man stood up, brushed his clothes as though they were dusty, leaned back, crossed his ankles, and smiled expectantly.
Putting the rifle back on the table, the muzzle again to point towards the door, he said “Tell me everything you know about this necklace.”
The little brown man stood smiling, silent.
“Tell me about the necklace,” he repeated.
The smile disappeared. He shrugged.
He rotated the rifle to point towards the range. “We have a deal. Why don’t you answer?”
“That’s one!” the creature shouted. “You didn’t ask me a question, those were commands, and I only promised to answer questions, not obey commands. And, “ he added, “that’s the truth.”
It looked to be a long night.
#
Fifteen questions later, he had enough knowledge to understand where he stood. The Trolls and Elves were bitter enemies. To capture an Elven Princess to ransom (if she was a princess, but weren't they always?) was not uncommon; to involve a Human was; to involve Gunpowder was inexcusable.
Gunpowder had an uncanny effect on the very atmosphere of the Fairy World. Incompatible with magic, the ignition of the sulfurous mixture unleashed wild magics, the red and yellow screaming waves of energy he'd experienced, waves that traveled nearly undiminished across the whole of their underground kingdoms not to dissipate until encountering their counterpart on the opposite side of the globe.
Some wild magics had been known to reverberate through the Fairy World for days, never meeting a canceling waveform. They affected everyone who was in touch with any type of magic, such as his necklace.
And he'd unleashed two waves of wild magic.
They punished trespassers with ill luck, sickness, and death.
He was a trespasser. A trespasser who'd unleashed two waves of wild magic.
He could probably rule out ill luck and sickness.
He ignored the gremlin's pleading to ask the four remaining questions. "Go to sleep!" he told it, and removed the necklace. The acorn string would be perfectly safe on the kitchen table, for the Elves could only ask for its return: to steal it back would destroy the magic it contained. He pondered how the rules of Magic were so contrary to the rules of, what, Real Life? He had too many things to consider, too many plans to make, and he was too tired to even be scared. He laid his head on the table and slept.
#
When he awoke, it was late morning. The buzz had diminished into a background hum, and if he popped his ears just right, it went away for a fraction of a second. He ate some brunch, thought about his situation, showered, shaved, and thought some more as he dressed in his best denim pants and shirt, buckling on his gunbelt. He checked the revolver. Loaded and ready. And after thinking, thinking, thinking until his head ached, he had a plan.
Or rather, he had decided what attitude to adopt, how aggressive to be, and hatched an idea to thwart the Elves if they got the necklace.
He hoped he had enough time. He checked the kitchen range clock, then on a hunch compared it to the living room wall clock. It was seventeen minutes slow. He cursed the gremlin.
#
The gremlin sat crosslegged on the table, watching him as he closely scrutinized the necklace. He dropped it, looking now at the acorns strung on a rough twine with a crude knot. As he touched the knot, it transformed into the gold and silver beads and gems, with no obvious knot or splice. "Okay," he muttered, and walked off, coming back with a pair of scissors.
As he moved the scissors toward the necklace, the gremlin scooted across the table. "Stop!" he hissed. "What do you think you're doing?"
"I don't answer questions," he replied, but refrained from cutting the necklace. "How else . . . " he caught himself before the sentence was uttered. "Good try, gremlin."
The little man held his hand out. "Gi'me it. No reason to ruin a perfectly good necklace."
He grudgingly offered the necklace, but kept a loose grip as the gremlin maneuvered it. A few deft movements and it had two ends. Removing two beads, he offered it again to the gremlin, who retied the string.
"I'm not a professional at this, mind you," the gremlin said, "but it'll do."
He could see no connection, no discernible ends, just as before. Two tiny acorns sat on the tabletop.
"Thanks," he mumbled. He dropped the necklace over his head, pulled a couple of cartridges from the loops of his pistol belt, grabbed some pliers, and sat about prying off a bullet. The gremlin watched, amused and puzzled, to judge from its expression.
"In the long run, what good does it? They are coming, you know." The gremlin smiled, but it was a sad smile. And added, almost whispering, "Nothing you do can change the outcome."
"Maybe not. But I can try."
"Give back the necklace."
"And they will go away for ever and ever, sure they will." Sarcasm.
"Possibly. That's the offense that still ties you to them. The rest . . . "
" . . . they will forgive?"
The little brown creature sighed deeply. "No, I don't think they could ever do that." And in a small, sad voice, without gloating, added, "That's seventeen."
#
He sat at the kitchen table again, awaiting the Elves, but this time his back was to the kitchen door and the rifle pointed towards the living room where the gremlin had walked in from. The brown little man again sat on the range, nibbling on corn chips, a delicacy it had discovered in his pantry. He wanted to ask it where the entrance was, but didn't want to waste a question, so he just sat and watched.
A gray, furry paw grasped his forehead and covered his eyes, the rifle was jerked from his hands and clattered onto the floor, and other paws, many, many furry paws, pulled and twisted his arms and then also his legs, bound and tied him, and then he found himself tied onto a board, immobile, even his head tied fast. The board was angled behind some creature and dragged, a primitive version of a travois. In seconds, they were outside his house and, seconds later, all he saw, looking back and up, was the green foliage of a path into Fairy World.
He could hear them, up ahead, the guttural voices of the furry-pawed and a softer voice he recognized as that of the gremlin, but the language was unfamiliar. The old horror was back and he tried to calm, but his voice trembled a bit as he called out.
"Gremlin! What's goin' on?"
The voice was at his left ear now, but still ahead, out of sight. "Since this is question eighteen, I'll give you the long answer. You killed a Troll. They want justice. Troll justice."
"Torture, you mean? They could have killed me then and there. Torture?"
"No, no." said the brown man. "Troll justice. They've lost the labor of one Troll; you will replace that labor. It's only fair, in their eyes. And that's nineteen, by the way."
So he'd be a slave! For how long, he wondered. He wanted to ask, but then the gremlin would be gone, and he'd be alone with these things.
The gremlin had fallen farther back, so he could see him now. It leaned towards him and spoke softly. It was as if it'd read his mind.
"They are a crude race, but not overly cruel, not by your standards, anyway. But not refined like the Elves. Speaking of Elves, they still want that necklace back, you know. And maybe they'd feel some obligation to help a soul that helped one of them." He stroked his chin, then continued, "But how would they know where you are? Who could tell them?"
"You could," he said. Time passed, long, long seconds, the brown man staring expectantly at him, then he finished it. "couldn't you?"
The gremlin smiled. "Twenty," was all he said. Then he reached across him, and the revolver fell from the holster, and as he was dragged up the trail, the gremlin picked it up, waved it in the air with a grin, and vanished through the wall of plants.
#
Eventually the green foliage walls vanished, replaced by a sky of brown and grey earth as the party entered a huge cavern. He was dragged past earthen huts, and furry little creatures, Troll children, ran up to him and prodded and pulled and laughed as he went by. They stopped, dropped the travois from off what he now could see was a small horse, and a Troll released his right arm and immediately clamped a jewel-encrusted bracelet on it. The head straps were slid off and the Troll fingered the necklace, then held his paw out flat, in the universal gesture for "give it here". He shook his head, so the Troll retied his arm and walked off.
Time passed. Periodically a Troll, maybe the same one, for he couldn't tell them apart, would come by and gesture for the necklace, sometimes offering water. Again and again he'd refuse, and it would walk away. But thirst and fatigue grew as he lay bound, and finally, reluctantly, he nodded "yes" and handed the necklace to the Troll.
Once unbound, and his thirst satiated, the Troll motioned him to follow, and they walked through the village and beyond, on a path that slanted upward to a seeming cave, but reaching its mouth, it was the familiar tunnel of green foliage. The Troll motioned him ahead, so he stepped past and it was dark, black, ebony, pure dark, and his shirt grew taunt and he was gently guided backward into the twilight. The Troll gestured him once more to follow and started back to the village.
He understood. The jeweled wristband, a magical wristband, failed to work beyond the cavern's edge. He had no revolver to fight his way out, curse the gremlin, and no idea where to go if he could. Dejectedly, he shuffled back down to the village, the Troll outpacing him but never even looking back.
#
The Trolls weren't cruel, not even close to it, but maddeningly indifferent. They'd gesture to some work to do, in their scraggly gardens, or drawing water from a well-hole, working the ponies in the fields or mills, anything they might need done when he was available, and if he did the work, fine, and if not, fine, only then he'd get no food or drink. That was all; no whips, no chains, no torture, just the indifference and withholding of victuals.
Days, weeks, he lost track of time. There was no sun, no moon, no dark or light, just unending twilight in the cavern. The Trolls did sleep, yes, but not in any discernible rhythm. If tired, you slept, that was all.
He was given no residence. He slept wherever he found it comfortable, was given food and water by whichever Troll set him to work. If he hadn't worked, they offered nothing, yet did not stop him if he drew his own water and picked raw plants from their fields.
He came to recognize different Trolls, gave them pet names like Bigwig and Fiver and Shaggy and Scooby, some even seemed friendly at times, though perhaps he imagined their fleeting smiles. The Troll children might stare, but all his attempts to interact with them resulted in their running away. He guessed Troll parents told their offspring tales of the human boogymen.
There was lots of work, not really hard, and no overseer pushing him to complete it. Eventually, he found himself repairing dilapidated huts, or digging the dry well-hole deeper to reach the water table, or a myriad of other chores none asked of him, but which needed doing. At times, almost bored, he joined the Troll females in clothmaking or cooking, just to learn the trades.
And there were curiously some missing trades and crafts. They had metal goods and weapons but did no metalworking, had leathergoods they crafted but didn't slaughter animals or tan hides, had no wood and dug no coal, yet had fires for cooking. They must have bartered for the products, yet they seemed to have no interest in developing the means to produce their own.
From the repetition when Trolls talked to each other, he even learned a few words of Trollish, as he named it. They never talked to him, just motioned and walked away. If he questioned what they wanted, they mimed it, then left. It was in many ways the cruelest they could have been. If he said "thank you" for a kindness, or better, used a Trollish word, they gave no recognition of it, though then is when he glimpsed, he told himself, those smiles.
The tribal existence of the Trolls was a monotonous series of unvarying weeks, sharply broken when a raiding party returned victorious with loot and captives, or, less often, broken and defeated in their raid. Then came a few days of excited activity, brokering the hostage ransoms and divvying the acquired bounty. Strangely, he never saw a funeral service, no burial or cremation. Their warfare seemed relatively bloodless, though not without injury.
He helped bandage wounded Trolls, without being asked. He could think of them as enemies, slavers, yet they had also become fellow tribesmen to him. He was no longer a hairless ape, he mused, but a hairless Troll.
But even as a hairless Troll, he wanted free. What he needed most, a map to the Real World, the Trolls did not have. He'd wandered, undisturbed, ignored really, into every hut in the village and found no maps, nor indeed any papers at all.
#
He went through a period of despair, then resignation, but as his situation became more clear, he began to plan. His gunbelt he'd given to a Troll leathercrafter that used the holster and loops to hold small tools; he'd kept the cartridges with their gunpowder, for what good that did him, because he was afraid the Troll might accidentally release their wild magic. Now he might have a use for both the cartridges and wild magic.
His guess was that the tunnels of foliage eventually entered the Real World if you followed the path to its end, so he merely had to walk out. There were side paths, if you knew what to look for: the gremlin's disappearance proved that. That posed a danger since he knew not what signs to look for nor what creatures could be met.
Time and distance he could not even guess at, but, hey, the pioneers traveled for months over three-thousand miles. If they could, well, maybe he could.
The Trolls' neglect to oversee his actions was a plus, He could wander anywhere and do almost anything without raising suspicion. So he hoarded a quantity of the bland fried vegetable cakes that were the staple of the Troll diet and kept them wrapped them in a cloth bundle. An animal-skin water bag was easily acquired and filled. Those were the necessities.
He had grander plans, born of anger and shame, for a kind of revenge, to which end he acquired, a stick at a time from this hut and that, a pile of kindling. He wrapped it too in cloth and hid it beneath bushes near the foliage tunnel he'd chosen to leave through; wood was a scarce item, and he feared punishment if they found him in possession of any. His freelance work joining the Troll ladies in cooking paid off, for he now had possession of fire-starting stones, and was proficient in their use.
And he had a final test to make, to see if leaving was even possible. At the foliage entrance one day, after tying a small cloth strip loosely around his left middle finger, he pulled the ten cartridges from his pocket. Two were different, special: they bore a ragged, imperfect crimp around the bullet. He chose one and twisted and wriggled the bullet until it came off, then dumped the contents in his palm. It was not powder, but a single gold bead with runic marking, a bead from the Princess' necklace.
He inserted the bead under the cloth, pulled it tight and knotted it securely. Taking a deep breath, he stepped across the tunnel entrance. Twilight. He walked a few steps in. Twilight. He laughed. His wristband jewels were a dull gray, lifeless, but he could see because he was in touch with Magic, even that little Magic in a single bead.
From that day on, he wore the cloth/bead on his finger. If the Trolls asked, he'd say he bandaged a cut. Of course, they never asked, never even acknowledged they noticed it.
Courage was the hardest item to acquire. The devil you know, he remembered hearing, is preferred to the one you don't. He was, if nothing else, comfortable now with the Trolls. Their benign neglect was easier to face than whatever lay outside the cavern. So he procrastinated, made excuses not to leave. Until the day his wandering thoughts for some unknown reason remembered Stockholm Syndrome, and he realized he had to leave now, he just had to leave now, or he never would.
#
In this land of perpetual twilight, there was no sneaking out under cover of darkness. He knew he could move with impunity, knew the Trolls would ignore him, yet the nagging doubt remained and his heart pounded as he gathered the food bundle and the water bag and hiked to the foliage tunnel.
He recovered the kindling, refused to take a last look back although it strangely brought up feelings of guilt, and strode into the tunnel.
He walked slowly, pacing himself. With no day/night cycle to judge by, he had no gauge for progress, could only walk and walk until too tired, sleep, then walk again. Here and there he spied a depression through the greenery and could make out the path that veered off the one he'd chosen, so maybe the Fairy denizens judged distance by those offshoots. Of course, you'd have to know how far apart they were or read signs that to his eyes were nonexistent.
Stopping for the fourth time to rest, legs rubbery and head aching, he felt the need to sleep. He wiggled into the plants, rooting some from the soil as he crawled along, three, four feet away from the hard pathway. He knew it would be obvious something entered there, but hoped nothing would want to check what creature it was. Needless to say, he slept fitfully. He'd open his eyes and flickering lights would skitter away through the leaves, and he thought of Tinkerbell and Pixies and little flower Fairies, and so he beseeched them silently, prayed to them really, please don't tell the Elves or the Trolls, please, please don't tell.
When he awoke for good, he crawled back to the pathway, ate a vegetable cake, and walked on.
It was maybe a hundred yards more and he came to an end. No, he thought, not so soon, it can't be! He pushed through the plants and emerged into the familiar scene of a Real World two-lane roadway just yards away.
He cursed. "I could have crawled this far, dark or no dark," he muttered bitterly. He could have felt his way this far. But he also remembered that total, total blackness, and could feel the fear, and knew he could not have.
And he had yet his revenge to carry out.
Quickly, he pushed back inside. He unloaded the kindling about five yards in, stacked it for burning, and lit it with his fire-stones. As it increased in intensity, he loosened the knot on the beadcloth so it was a simple one-twist slip-knot. He sorted the cartridges, put the special one back into his pocket, and dropped the remaining eight onto the fire. Quickly, again, he exited the tunnel, pulled the bead and cloth off, and let them fall to the ground.
The outside world, the Real World, was bright and cheerful, vibrant colors, like the scene when Dorothy entered into Oz, more Real than real could be imagined. He sat down, free at last, no more twilight, no more fear. And he chuckled at his last act, eight waves of Wild Magic. They'll think twice before messing with us again.
He stood and started to the highway, when The Pain brought him back to his knees, and the world was twilight-bright-twilight-bright-twilight-bright as his right hand and wrist throbbed and contracted and wrenched. His wrist was twilight/jeweled, then void of wristband, then twilight/jeweled as the wild magic washed across. It eased, then a second wave struck, and The Pain was greater, and he lay back and howled, and then the third wave, and the fourth, and he looked at his hand, swollen and red, then blue, white, black, aching, unbearable numbing Pain, and a fifth, sixth wave. He collapsed, screaming, screaming, then unconsciousness.
#
A couple driving past saw him lying near the roadside and stopped to render aid. He had awakened just before they reached him. Thinking quickly, he told them he'd been hiking and injured his hand, that his ride back to town wasn't due for two days. He ascertained his hometown was nearby, and they kindly drove him there and dropped him off at the local medical center.
His hand throbbed, was contorted, reddish and swollen, yet he didn't enter the medical center; a doctor couldn't remove the wristband, couldn't even see it, so why see a doctor? He was a long ways from home, but in the right town, and he could walk, so he did.
It was dusk when he reached his home. He walked up the porch steps and stopped before his door. There was a crime scene notice saying not to enter, and a notice of foreclosure stapled over that. Someone must have missed me, he mused. He looked around and spied his homemade windchime still dangling over the porch rail. It was made of metal pipes and old keys, and one of the keys was his spare for the house. He untied it, awkwardly, with his left hand, tore the papers from the door, and inserted the key into the lock. It worked, the door pushed open, and he was home, Auntie Em, home.
Ignoring the dust, he sat onto his sofa. On a whim, he tried a lamp, but, of course, the power had been turned off. Now what? he asked, and the more he thought about it, the angrier he grew.
He'd lost his job, of course, after all this time, and his crippled hand might preclude regaining a good job. He would, also, lose the house, for he had no way to pay the arrears in the mortgage. Bankruptcy was his only option.
And what was he to tell the cops? The truth? Yeah, that'ld land him in the loony bin.
Okay, he thought, okay, you ruined my life, Fairy People; let's see what I can do for you!
He had no money, and the cops surely had confiscated all his credit cards and cash when they searched his home, but he did have things in the house he could pawn. And how much could black powder cost, anyway?
#
Poetic justice, he called it. With the silver bead from the Princess' necklace taped to his finger, he could see the opening in the hillside where the whole thing began. There was the buckbrush, there the black opening with its plug of plants. He dragged a galvanized jug with twenty-five pounds of blackpowder up the hillside, lefthanded. His right hand was so contorted, so swollen, it was useless.
It hadn't been easy, hitch-hiking from town out into the backwoods, but he'd done well enough, coming up with a plausible tale about why he was out this way with an old three-gallon metal water jug.
He pushed through the plants, back onto the hard gray path. Far enough, just inside the Fairy World proper, he thought. This is for you, Elves and Trolls, enjoy the Wildest Magic you've ever felt. He struck a match and started the fuse burning.
Calmly, he stepped outside. He'd left a tab on the tape, so he could grab it with his teeth and pull it off. As the world brightened, he crumbled the bead and tape together and shoved it into his pocket. Now, any time now, he expected The Pain, expected it to be so severe, he might have his hand fall off. Do your worse, he thought, and he held his right hand up.
A soft wind tousled his hair, and something fell down his face, and the world dimmed into the familiar twilight. Immediately, he clutched the necklace as a voice said, "I would like all of it back, please." He turned his head left toward the voice, saw the Princess, wearing the same flickering gray gown as before, standing by him, felt a pull on his right arm, swiveled his head right in time to see a green-suited creature, five-feet or so tall, an obvious male Elf, holding his jeweled wristband.
"That will be returned," the Princess said.
He looked back to her, mouth agape, at a loss for words. She wasn't.
"You have caused enough sorrow. Return all of my necklace, and this can end. The last piece is in your pocket."
"But I left a piece . . . "
"We have it all except the piece in your pocket."
He dug in his pocket, and handed her the tape and bead.
"Princess . . . ?" he started.
She laughed, looked to the other Elf, and said, "Humans. They always think we're princesses." Back to him. "I'm not a princess."
"Okay," he said, only half-hearing, "But, Princess . . . ?"
"Yes?"
"What happened to my bomb?" he asked.
A voice from behind him said, "It failed. And that's twenty-one."
"Gremlin?"
As she lifted the necklace over his head, the not-a-Princess leaned near and whispered, "He's not a gremlin."
#
End