Beneath the gleaming skyscrapers and picturesque facade of the City of Redemption lies another city; a community of dark and ancient magic populated by creatures of the night. Strephon Bellman, a semi-immortal half-fae dwelling in Redemption, has been visiting with Melchior Dusk, a powerful Faerie Lord who has created computer games that combine virtual reality with fae illusion. Melchior wishes Strephon to join him, but Strephon is cautious, suspicious of Melchior’s true intentions.
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Chapter 3: Stories and Secrets
In Which Strephon gets to know Miss True better and we learn something about the City of Redemption.
Inanna escorted Strephon back to the ground floor. To his immense relief, she did not flirt with him on the way down. The reporter was still arguing with the receptionist. She pounced on Inanna as she approached.
"I'm Cassandra True of the Daily Oracle; I have an appointment with Mister Dusk..."
"I'm so sorry," Inanna purred, "but Mister Dusk is not seeing anyone else this afternoon. I'm sure you can make an appointment for another time."
"But I made an appointment!!!"
Inanna ignored her and turned to the receptionist. "Please call a taxi for MisterBellman." Then she smiled professionally to Strephon and gave him a business card. "It was a pleasure to have you, Mister Bellman. Feel free to call any time."
The reporter glared at Inanna as she wriggled her way back to the lift. Strephon fidgeted guiltily. He couldn't help but feel responsible for the lass losing her scoop. And he was not looking forward to encountering Inanna again at the party. Then inspiration struck.
"Pardon me, Miss... True is it?"
"Yes?"
"I hope you don't think me impertinent, but may I ask if you are doing anything Monday night?"
"What?"
"Monday night. Mister Dusk has invited me to a dinner party and I hoped you would do me the honor of accompanying me."
The reporter regarded him with a cold, suspicious look. "Let me get this straight. You want me to go on a date with you to some party that Mister Too-Busy-To-Talk-With-Reporters is throwing, is that what you're saying?"
Strephon was taken aback. "Ah... well, yes, that is, I couldn't help but overhear that you wished to speak with him and I thought..."
“...You thought you’d hire me as an escort?”
“No, no! Nothing like that!” Although what she said was technically accurate, the way she said it, and the cold, uncompromising look she gave him made him feel every inch the cad.
"Because it would be a violation of my journalistic ethics for me to just rent myself out for a story like some cheap tart."
"Ah."
"...Not unless you bought me a really expensive dinner first."
Strephon blinked at her, uncomprehending.
"I've been waiting here all afternoon and I'm starving. So do you want a date, or don't you?"
He shook his head. He had just gotten what he wanted; why did he feel like he had just lost the first round? "Well, Miss True, have you ever been to Little Kingston?"
* * * * *
Tobias dropped them off at Tortuga Bay, a small bistro run by one of his uncles. It was in a nicer section of the “Little Kingston” district, the part the tourists usually visited, and it was a colorful place providing a touch of the Caribbean to the usually grey and foggy streets of Redemption. The restaurant was only a few blocks from Strephon's house and they knew him there.
"I hope you don't mind a table," Strephon said as the maitre'd wheeled him to a place in the non-smoking section. "I have difficulty with booths."
Cassandra sat down opposite him. "I beg your pardon for not helping you with your seat," Strephon added.
"You don't have to do that, you know."
"Do what?"
"Remind me that you're disabled. You keep apologizing and making these self-deprecating comments about your wheelchair and your lack of mobility as if you were afraid I'd forget."
"Ah." Strephon paused, unsure how to respond. "Well, then... I apologize for apologizing."
Cassandra chucked at that. After they had placed their order and their waiter brought them their drinks she asked, "So how did it happen? Were you in some kind of accident?" She glanced at the chair.
Strephon had expected this question. "Oh, nothing like that. I had a severe case of polio as a child. It left me crippled."
"Polio?" The reporter frowned. "I didn't think that even existed anymore. They've had the vaccine for ages."
Strephon silently cursed himself. That particular taradiddle had served him well for a long time; it never occurred to him that it might be outdated. "I was never immunized. I guess I fell through the cracks. You know bureaucracy." He quickly changed the subject. "Why don't you tell me a bit about yourself, Miss True."
"Cassandra. If we're going to be eating at the same table we should be on a first name basis."
"Very good. And you may call me Strephon."
"Anyway. I'm a reporter for the Daily Oracle. Ever read it?"
"I usually read the Morning Star, I'm afraid. The Oracle, that's the one with the, er..."
"The girls with the big hooters? Yes that's the one."
"Not the word I was thinking of," Strephon said diplomatically.
"My job is writing captions for the Page 3 Girls. Welcome to the glamorous world of journalism."
"Now who's being self-deprecating?"
"Touché. Someday I'm going to have my own column, though. I'm going to call it True Stories. Maybe even get a shot at the Star."
"Well. Until then, I'll have to pay more attention to the captions."
She arched an eyebrow at him, but he managed to maintain an expression of angelic innocence.
They enjoyed their meal and after a while Cassandra asked "So what's your connection with Melchior Dusk?"
"Family connections. My mother is friends with his aunt and suggested he might have a position for me in his company. Pure nepotism, I'm afraid."
Cassandra took another draw on her rum and coke. "Hell, if you've got the pull I suppose you might as well use it. That guy has an aunt? Scary."
Strephon thought of his own aunts, including the Queen of the Fae. "You have no idea." Then, to steer the conversation back to less dangerous channels, he added, “What led you to choose journalism as a career?”
“Well, originally when I started college I majored in history.”
“What made you change your mind?”
“I took a serious look at what kind of job openings would be available when I graduated for a woman with a History degree. Then I decided to choose something more practical.”
“Ah.”
“In a way, the two aren’t so different,” she mused. “When you come right down to it, both are about stories. History is about the stories we tell about the past, and journalism is about the stories we tell about the present”
Strephon nodded. It was an interesting way to look at things.
A thoughtful expression had come over Cassandra’s face. She set down her fork. “There was a time once in college. I was going through the library’s special collection, looking up something or other -- personal papers of one of the college’s old donors -- when I came across this old book. It was a collection of folk tales and legends printed in the early 1800s or so. Browsing through it, I found the story of how the City of Redemption was founded. Only it was different from the version you usually hear.”
She leaned forward, warming up to her story. “I’m sure you know how Augustine was sent to England by Pope Gregory to Christianize the Saxons.” Strephon was quite knowledgeable about British ecclesiastical history, but he nodded to encourage her to go on. “At the time, Redemption was the site of a pagan shrine, dedicated to a Celtic deity named Togwogmagog. When Augustine’s monks arrived they challenged the priests of Togwogmagog to a contest to prove whose god was more powerful. Kind of a Prophet Elijah and the Priests of Baal type thing. The local priests tried to raise up Togwog, but the monks of Augustine were able to bind the demon with a miraculous display of divine power. The monks laid claim to the pagan temple and re-christened it the Shrine of the Holy Redemption, which is how the city got its name.”
“Yes, that is the story the medieval hagiographers tell,” Strephon said. “But go on.”
“Oh. Yeah.” Cassandra blushed. “Anyway. The book I found tells more to the story. It seems there was this priestess of Togwog named Aithea; and she and one of the monks fell in love. And because of her love, she agreed to sabotage the contest. She cast a counterspell while the other priests were trying to summon Togwog to mess things up and ensure that the monks would win.
“And it did not end happily,” Strephon muttered with a melancholy sigh.
Cassandra frowned. “How did you know?”
“Hm? Oh, a guess. The Victorians liked their fantasy tinged with tragedy. More romantic, that way, I suppose. Or perhaps a moralistic impulse to emphasise that those who dally with eldritch forces will suffer for it in the end. What happened to the lovers?”
“The monks ordered the death of the heathen priests. That included Aithea. She pleaded with her lover to intercede for her. The story didn’t give the lover’s name; funny, that. But he was afraid that he would be punished for violating his monastic vows, and so he betrayed her.”
Cassandra fell quiet, and for a long moment a heavy, wordless silence settled over their table. Finally Strephon broke it. “Well, I can see why they don’t teach children that version in school.”
She tried suppressing a giggle that came out as an unladylike snort. “I suppose so. Anyway, it made me realize how many hidden stories there are, like Aithea’s, that are buried under the things that everybody knows. And it made me want to dig them out and tell them.”
“And did you? Tell Aithea’s story, I mean.”
Cassandra’s face grew somber again. “I wanted to. But it was getting late and the special collections room was closing for the day; and the next time I went to the library the book wasn’t there. I must have written the catalogue number down wrong because the librarian told me the number didn’t exist; and I couldn’t remember the name of the book. I looked around in other sources for mention of the story, but I couldn’t find any. I tried. I began to wonder if I had dreamed it all.”
Strephon nodded sympathetically. “One of those sorts of books,” he murmured to himself.
Cassandra wrinkled her nose. “What?”
“Oh!” He hadn’t meant to say that aloud. “Well… there are some books that are particular about who reads them. Take for example the case of Geoffrey of Monmouth. He claimed to have based his History of the Kings of Britain on a very ancient book given to him by the Archdeacon of Oxford. But no copy of this book has ever been found; nor has any mention of its existence other than Geoffrey’s. It’s as if the book never existed. The hypothetical “Q Document” is like that too. Something like it that the authors of the Gospels used as a source must have existed at some time, yet none of the Early Church Fathers mention it.”
Cassandra regarded him skeptically. “You’re talking like a book has free will. A book can be lost or hidden or even destroyed, but it doesn’t hide itself. In any case, books are meant to be read, and stories are meant to be told.”
“In some cases, yes. Stories may be meant to be told, but Secrets are made to be kept.”
“Them’s fightin’ words. I’m a journalist, remember? The Public has a right to know.”
“Not always. Journalists also protect the confidentiality of sources, do you not?”
“That’s different. If protecting our sources enables us to get at the truth, then that can be a worthwhile trade-off.”
“‘What is truth? said jesting Pilate,’” Strephon quoted. “But as you say, it is a trade-off. If one is entrusted with a secret, then one has an obligation to take care how one uses that secret and to not betray that trust.”
“What if nobody told you the secret? What if you found it out yourself?”
“Then revealing the secret will still have an effect on those who want it kept. And you have to decide which is more important.”
“I don’t see who this story would affect. Except maybe the City’s Board of Tourism. St. Augustine is dead so it shouldn’t bother him, and we don’t know the jerkface monk’s name so I can’t exactly slander him. As for Aithea…” Cassandra pondered a moment. “I think she would like her story to be known.”
Strephon nodded. “I daresay she would.”
NEXT: Who Let the Dogs Out?
