Chapter 64: Warp Spasm
In Which Strephon emulates one of the Great Irish Heroes and loses a crutch.
“Are you all right, Mister Strephon?” Tobias asked in a low voice.
Mister Strephon did not look all right. He was keeping up a brave face – Strephon was good at that – but Tobias could tell that he was worried. Tobias didn't have the Sight like his Gran, but he had plenty of experience in reading a fare, and he knew Strephon pretty well. At first, when Strephon stood up before the Council Stone to give his testimony, Tobias thought he was waiting for something, vamping for time until the right moment. When that moment didn't come, Tobias began to worry. Maybe Strephon didn't have a plan after all and was desperately trying to think of one. The business with the glasses and the envelope puzzled him. Strephon didn't need spectacles to read, and if he'd had prepared notes in advance, he would have pulled them out right away. That's when Tobias realized that Strephon wasn't waiting for anything; he was steeling his nerve to do something. But what?
Then Strephon stiffened as if struck by a thunderbolt. He teetered a moment on his spindly legs, not even bothering to support himself with his crutches. Tobias rushed towards him to steady him, but before he got to his side, Strephon whipped around, his face as pale as the midnight moon with an expression like someone had ripped his soul out of his body with a meat hook.
“Mister Strephon...?” Tobias hazarded, but Strephon seemed to ignore him. He rotated on his wobbly legs like a top losing its momentum and raised the cane in his right hand like an accusing finger and pointed it at the place in the audience where Lord Melchior and Inanna sat.
“TRAITRESS!” Strephon thundered.
A murmur went up from the spectators and Tobias saw his father make a signal to his other wardens. One of them had already grabbed an emergency medical kit, probably under the assumption that Strephon was undergoing some kind of seizure. Which was a reasonable guess. Melchior just looked puzzled; he seemed to think Strephon was accusing him; but Tobias read fear on Inanna's face.
The hairs on Tobias' arms began to prick up. Powerful magic forces were gathering. Magic was always strong here in the Council Chambers, but usually the Magic was content to just lay there. Now it was doing something, or someone was doing something with it. A faint aura shone around the Council Stone marking the site of the City's magic nexus. He could see an aura glowing around Mister Strephon too. That couldn't be good.
Strephon's body began to rise, pulling his mortal legs with him, until his feet dangled an inch off the floor. Then, with a cry of fury, Strephon flexed his shoulder muscles and a pair of wings emerged from his back.
When Tobias was little, his sister Theodora would always pester Strephon, on the occasions when he visited their family, to show his fairy wings. Gran used to scold her when she did so. “You don't never want to ask the Fair Folk for a favor; not even friendly ones like Mister Strephon!” But when Gran was out of earshot, Theodora would plead with him anyway.
Strephon tended to be susceptible to wheedling by adorable 5-year olds, and Theodora had learned pretty early how to weaponize her cuteness where he was concerned. Nevertheless, Strephon would always look at her very sternly and say, “Have you been very, VERY good?” Sometimes Theodora would get real quiet if Gran had scolded her earlier for filching biscuits; but usually she would earnestly insist that she had been EXTREMELY good. “Because if you haven't been very, VERY, good,” Strephon would continue, “You're not likely to see anything at all. That is, if you are lucky. If you've been really, really BAD...”
“Will I see something scary?” Theodora would say in a hopeful tone, which would make Strephon narrow his eyes.
“The faeries are tricksy, and if you've been REALLY bad, they might play a cruel and nasty prank on you. You remember what happened to Bottom the Weaver.”
Theodora remembered. Dad used to read to them from a copy of Charles and Mary Lamb's Tales From Shakespeare that Strephon had given the family years ago. “But you wouldn't do that!” Theodora would insist. “Gran says that the fairies are the Good People.”
“And so they are. But not all of us are nice.”
In the end, though, Mister Strephon almost always relented and manifested a pair of elegant, shimmering dragonfly wings, to Theodora's delight.
The wings Strephon manifested now looked nothing like the delicate gossamer wings he used to show the Simms children, nor even the regal butterfly wings Lord Melchior had displayed earlier. These looked more like something the Prophet Ezekiel might see coming home after a bender.
Someone obviously had been very, very bad.
The were a hawk's wings, or perhaps the wings of an eagle, with feathers of an iridescent brass. He shrugged his shoulders and a second pair of winds erupted from his back just below the other. His torso bulked up like a bouncer at a bare-knuckle fight; nasty spike emerged from his elbows and shoulders and his hands became claws. A second set of eyes, glowing and green, blinked out of his forehead and more eyes emerged from the upper edge of his four outspread wings. His legs remained unchanged and dangled from his monstrous torso, hovering above his abandoned chair.
It reminded Tobias of the warp spasm that the old Irish folk heroes like Finn McCool and Cuchulain used to undergo in the books Tobias used to read in the school library when he was a kid: a horrific battle-rage which transformed the body into something monstrous and non-euclidean. Tobias had never seen Strephon transform himself like this. But then, it also occurred to him that although he had frequently seen him peevish, waspish, cross and annoyed, he had never seen Mister Strephon really, really angry.
Tobias placed his hand on Strephon's shoulder, hoping to calm him, but Strephon brushed him aside with a swipe of his wings, nearly knocking him off his feet. Tobias's father and his Castle Warders had been holding back, waiting for signs of hostile action. This was the action they had been waiting for, and at Thaddeus's command they charged Strephon.
Strephon crossed his twin crutches before him, then uncrossed them in a violent, slashing motion, striking a couple of the Wardens. He launched himself into the air and towards the spectator area.
Cynthia Vane, the Chairwoman, rapped her gavel against the table. “Mister Bellman! What is the meaning of this?”
Strephon ignored her and flew towards the place where Lord Melchior and Inanna sat. “WHAT DID YOU DO TO HER?” he shouted.
Tobias sprinted after Strephon and tried to tackle him. He succeeded in grabbing hold of Strephon's frail, dangling legs. He thought he felt the bones crunch as he grappled them and hoped he hadn't hurt Strephon too badly. The note in the envelope must have told Strephon that Miss Cassandra was in trouble. That explained his sudden change and his fury. Strephon's legs were too weak to kick at Tobias, but he tried to beat him off with his crutches. Tobias held on like grim death; it was the only thing he could think to do.
“You heard the Chairwoman, Mister Bellman!” Tobias's father had cut in front of Strephon's path barring the way with his mace of authority. But Strephon was beyond reason. Lacking the ceiling to fly above him, Strephon charged right through the sergeant-at-arms. Thaddeus struck Strephon with his mace, discharging one of its specialized hexes. Damn. It was the taser spell. A jolt of electricity ran through Strephon's body and, since Tobias was holding onto him and grounding him, it ran through him as well. It hurt like anything, but it didn't seem to faze Mister Strephon at all. Strephon struck Thaddeus with one of his crutches and knocked the mace out of his grasp.
“Oathbreaker!” Strephon croaked, advancing closer to Inanna. “Perfidious wench!”
“Now, see here, Bellman!” Lord Melchior blustered. “You can't address my assistant like that!”
“Still your tongue, you venomous toad!”
Melchior's eyes bugged out, not unlike a frog. He probably had never been called a venomous toad before by anybody lower in rank than a senior Vice-President in charge of marketing.
Ms. Vane continued banging her gavel. “I must insist, Mister Bellman, that you restrain yourself!”
“Oh, leave him at it,” the stork-faced bookseller, Timmy, said. “This it the most excitement we've had at a Council Meeting in ages!”
Tobias's father grabbed Strephon's arm. “What is wrong with you, Mister Bellman?”
“The warp spasm is on him, Dad,” Tobias said. “It's because his lady friend, Miss Cassandra is in danger. He's beyond reason and can't tell friend from foe!”
His father grimaced. “That's an explanation, not an excuse.” He pulled Strephon's arm close enough that he was able to unlatch the brace on the crutch securing it to his forearm. That got Strephon's attention. “Listen to me, Mister Bellman,” Thaddeus continued. “Whatever complaint you have against this woman, you can bring it before the Council in a civilized manner. You've got to follow the rules, Bellman! It's the basis of an ordered society! You used to be a judge, Bellman! You ought to know better! This is not the place for such boastings as the Gentiles use and lesser breeds without the Law!”
Tobias thought this last quote was probably out of context, but Mister Strephon recognized it and it seemed to awaken something in him. “Kipling...” he husked. Then he turned his attention back to Inanna. “That's right. Rules are important. And the most important rule in Faerie is that Oaths cannot be broken. You swore, Inanna, that you would take no action to harm Miss True, whether in body or soul, is that not correct?”
“And have I done any such thing?” Inanna said; but her voice was unsteady. She wasn't sure, Tobias realized, and she was worried.
Strephon released the grip of his remaining crutch, allowing it to hang from the brace clamped to his forearm, and unfolded the note crumpled in his fist. “Then what is the meaning of THIS?” He thrust the note in Inanna's face.
Inanna's face turned an ashy grey and the iridescent tattoo on the side of her face turned dull and black. “I've never seen this before!”
“Yet it was in the envelope you placed in my hand yesterday; the envelope you insisted I leave unopened until this evening.”
“I had no idea! I was told...” She glanced apprehensively at Melchior, who returned it with a puzzled, “What-Are-You-Talking-About-Woman?” frown.
“By whom? Who told you?”
“I – I cannot say!”
“By your Faerie Oath I command you! Who is your master?” Strephon pressed the tip of his crutch against Inanna's cheek and for a moment Tobias feared that he might release the sword blade hidden in the cane's shaft. No, Dad knew about Strephon's sword canes and wouldn't have allowed them in the Council chambers. But that wasn't why Ms. Inanna was so terrified. She must be caught between two conflicting oaths: her promise to Strephon and her duties to whomever her real boss was. Not Lord Melchior apparently. But she seemed to be in a situation where she could not follow one promise without breaking the other, and among the Fairy-folk, breaking a promise meant death. She was panicking now, desperately trying to find some way out of her predicament, and Tobias could see her form changing too: she seemed to be fuzzing out, like a video game on a bad monitor.
“Tell me!” Strephon insisted.
“I am bound!” The words burst from her lips as if wrenched by force.
“I said tell me!”
“Mister Strephon, stop,” Tobias said in a low voice. “You're hurting her.”
Strephon looked down at Tobias; still clutching on to Strephon's pitiful, palsied legs; with a stunned expression. For a moment he looked almost human again, and a few of his unnaturally surplus eyes retreated back into his body. Then he turned his attention back to Inanna. He took a deep breath, and in a more controlled tone said, “Then you can take me there. Take me to your master.”
Inanna, still quivering, swallowed hard and nodded. She closed her eyes.
Then she and Strephon disappeared.
Tobias and his father fell to the floor of the Council Chambers, as all around him both Council Members and spectators alike burst into a confused babel. Chairwoman Vane repeatedly rapped her gavel shouting for an order which was not going to happen.
The two Simms men looked at each other. Tobias's father said what they both were thinking.
“Your Gran's not going to like this.”
NEXT: In the Belly of the Beast
