An Artificial Night

The mist was gone, leaving the land around me visible. Looking around, I found myself almost missing the gray.

I was in the middle of a vast plain. Dry, cracked earth stretched out in all directions, studded with jagged rocks and snarls of hostile-looking brambles. Mountains cupped the plain on all sides, looming over the land, and the sky overhead was solid black without a star in sight. Only a few thin clouds broke the darkness, shoved along by a wind I couldn’t feel. The air on the ground was chilly but motionless.

Shivering, I wrapped my arms around myself. I don’t normally mind the dark. The fae aren’t fond of the sun, and the Summerlands exist in a state of near perpetual twilight. There are always shadows in Faerie. It’s just that they’re normally warm, open shadows, the kind that create a welcoming sort of darkness. This wasn’t a warm night. It was a night for endings, and for monsters.

There was something wrong with the perspective. The problem didn’t seem to be with the land around me, hostile as it seemed—it looked entirely proper when I didn’t try to think too hard about what I was seeing. There was something wrong with the way I was looking at things, like I was somehow out of proportion with the landscape. Something—

The candle blazed abruptly upward, forcing me to flinch to keep from setting my hair on fire. I wound up holding it at arm’s length, watching the blue flame burn higher and higher. The Luidaeg said the candle was my map; if it burned out, I might have problems a little more pressing than my slightly warped perspective. I tried blowing on it and shaking it, but there was no change. Finally, desperately, I said, “All right! I won’t think about it! Okay?”

The flame immediately dwindled to an ember. Whatever was wrong, the Luidaeg—or at least her candle—didn’t want me thinking about it. I glared at the candle. I hate riddles, and I hate them even more when I’m forced to play along. I’ve always preferred the direct method: hit the riddler upside the head until he gives you the answer. Maybe it’s more likely to get you hurt, but it’s also a lot less confusing. Still, if they wanted me to play, I’d play. It wasn’t like I had a choice.

I turned in a slow circle, studying the landscape. A forest stretched off toward the mountains some distance behind me, made up of the sort of tall, gnarled trees that act as a natural barrier against the world. It managed to look even less welcoming than the plains, and that meant it was probably where I needed to go. Sometimes dealing with fairy-tale clichés is even more annoying than dealing with fae manners. If I ever meet any descendants of the Brothers Grimm, I’m going to break their noses and possibly a few other convenient body parts.

Maybe I had to play along with this stupid scenario, but that didn’t mean I had to like it. “I am so tired of this gothic crap,” I muttered. “Just once, I want to meet the villain in a cheerful, brightly lit room. Possibly one with kittens.”

Blind Michael’s lands seemed unlikely to supply me with anything resembling an airy sitting room, and any cats I encountered would probably be of the four-hundred-pound, man-eating variety. I was willing to bet that a cat the size of a Sherman tank would bother even Tybalt. I shook my head, trying to make the image go away. Blind Michael’s realm was obviously in the Summerlands. It was probably an Islet, a bubble of space anchored between the Summerlands and one of the deeper, lost realms. Reality is malleable in the Islets. You can’t change it with a casual thought, but fears and phobias have a distressing tendency to come to life. If Blind Michael didn’t have giant attack-cats, I didn’t want to be the one who gave them to him.