"You don't have to go," Uncle Tef insisted, even as I packed the last of my belongings in the cloth bag. "We need you, Coln --"
I barely kept a snarl from my face as I turned to the stout little man who almost reached my chin. I knew my height annoyed him. Very many things annoyed Uncle Tef, probably everything I did.
"The commission is only five miles away," I said as I shouldered the bag. "Do you really want that trouble?"
"You could hide."
"They have a seer with them. I do not intend to get caught. Good luck with the farm."
I am happy to say that Tef was not actually my relative. Neither was his son Jeff, which was even better. The kid glared at me just as he had when I first arrived. I had been too weak and injured to do more than notice when my friends left me off here.
I'd expected them to come back. I was more than a simple lost fae. Something might have happened across The Veil. In fact, there seemed to be trouble everywhere, which was why I left my temple to take this journey.
A few days ago, I'd taken an arrow in my leg and still had trouble doing more than hobble along despite the amount of magic I'd used to try to heal the spot. Eventually, I just had to let nature take its course. I had helped Tef with the farm and harvest—more than Jeff did. The boy was spoiled and indolent.
Tef and I did not discuss him, but I knew he could see my dislike for the boy. Jeff was not a child. In a couple years, he would come of age.
I was glad that I wouldn't be around.
And that was the last I thought about the people who had taken me in, even knowing I was fae and the Commission was out in force hunting down anyone with magic.
I wasn't ungrateful. They'd done something dangerous. I had repaid that debt by using little bits of magic to make the farm produce better and take care of some of the dull day-to-day work neither father nor son wanted to do. However, I soon realized they wanted far more than that help. They wanted magic to make them rich and famous, and I had to sidestep their persistence at every turn. I kept hoping my friends would return, but the longer it took them, the more I feared they'd fallen to the Commission.
Jef followed me as I left the farm, sneaking from bush to bush, thinking I wouldn't notice. I began to walk a little faster and then took the first trail heading north. As I expected, he didn't come that far with me. I hate to say that I mistrusted them, but after half a mile on the northern trail, I cut across the country and headed east instead. I was back toward the area where my friends and I'd been blown from the Fae lands into this blighted human realm that didn't even seem to have pixies.
I had never found a realm without pixies. They're a lot like cats—they just show up, and no one knows how they got there. Now that I was away from Tef's house, I hoped to see some of the little pests.
I wanted to use magic to see if I could find anyone, but The Commission would pick that up, as every Fae trapped here knew. The Commission was manned by human mages, and they mistrusted anyone else with magic. Their war against the Fae—who would have liked help getting home—had been tireless from the start three years ago.
I knew they would track me if I used magic.
"Tell me you're one of the lost."
The unexpected voice came from my right, but there was no one there—at least, I thought so until I saw a little movement on one of the branches of a bush. A small face looked out at me, frowning slightly.
Pixie!
"Are you lost, too?" I asked, almost too surprised to say anything coherent.
"Not exactly. My partner and I came from The Watch to help the lost here find their way home. Do you know about The Watch? It hasn't spread to all the magical realms, but we are trying to get the word out to everyone."
"I have heard of it," I said, hoping this wasn't just some kind of odd hallucination from being ill for so long. I hadn't talked very often with pixies, and this one certainly seemed a lot brighter than any of those past pixies. She looked at me as though she knew I was judging her, and I suppose, given her work, that was common.
"If you see a wolf running this way, don't panic. That would be my partner, Silver. He doesn't change to wolf often, but that group following you were very close, and he thought he might scare them off."
Somewhere closer than I liked, I could hear shouts of surprise and fear. A wolf howled.
"I am dreaming this, right?"
She gave an unexpected laugh and fluttered to my shoulder. "I hope we can find a portal close by. Physically, this isn't a bad world, but I dislike the humans here. You are lucky your friends remembered where they left you in such detail, and the report got to us. I am surprised the human took you in, though.
"I am sure Tef and his son were hoping for more than help on the farm, but I did get lucky to be there at all."
"I am Rose," she said, taking off from his shoulder. She looked worried. "I hope Silver isn't in trouble."
The wolf howled again, followed by shouts of anger.
No comments:
Post a Comment