Trepidation | Trepidation Trilogy | The Empty World Sequence

Thirty-Eight

The Sidhe had left Paris more quickly than they had come, fading out of sight just before dawn of the next day and leaving a bewildered city of mere mortals wondering how they had directed the power that constructed buildings or resod parks in flashing of light. Bent time perhaps, only in specific areas and in varying amounts within each small space...however impossible that sounded the fact was thick well-rooted trees stood where none had before, rocks had shifted up from beneath the earth to pave a city full of streets and walkways, and glass and metal had seemingly wrought themselves from molten state to finished archtectural element.

      They had left apart from the strangely grown structures only two of their number, David and Sascha. She had been unable to move at all when Elzbieta found her, until Claudia brought her frame.

      Now Paris was growing in population. Whether it was the speeches given or the news footage of miraculous growth inside and outside the city couldn't yet be determined, but ex-residents returned daily. Their new Premier had set up temporary offices within a structure half composed of faerie-stacked stones and windows. Even the floors lived in some rooms. It was the building the Faerie had left in the most complete state of repair, apart from those which had already stood whole before that night. It was relatively close to the park, closest to the center of the magics still marked by ring of mushrooms.

      Furnishings unlike the building itself had been brought in from other parts of the city so that Martyr had a more conventional office than John had, still living out of a trailer. The boy leader sat behind his scavenged antique desk with glass top covering the deep scars of the wooden top where falling rubble had buried it. In this room sunlight came in through colonnade of trees just outside and window etched with intricate knotwork motif, the light made Martyr's grey eyes look a little like silver. "I think it's going to be a real rebirth from the city," Martyr said as John listened from a corner. "Faye says it is clear to her they left these resources for us to use. I feel she is right, yet it is also a test. It is a tremendous gift, but not without some price. You see?"

      "They will watch?" John asked.

      Martyr shook his head and frowned. It was John's mood. He couldn't shake the sense of doom he'd been feeling since the Faeries had been there. Martyr continued anyway as Michael popped his head in the door. It was a door that had once been in building elsewhere and had just appeared in this one with the rest of the structure. "I feel we are meant to prove ourselves worthy of the gift of such resource in such short time by using it wisely and without destructive manner. I am a child, and well, children are told faerietales. They usually have a moral." Martyr waved Michael into the room. The man was no longer head of the Metro Noir, only a member. His job now was vice minister or somesuch which meant he was Martyr's continued advisor and added an older face to the leadership of this new Paris.

      "Go on," Michael suggested.

      Martyr nodded, "In faerietales, often a magical creature teaches a mortal a lesson. Sometimes they do not so much teach as punish the foolish and greedy and reward the noble and kind. So, I'm sure that I must lead my people in existing within this strange city without damaging what the Faerie have offered. We may fell certain trees, move the stones perhaps, even pick the fruit or kill some animals to feed ourselves. But the moment we make waste of the animal we slay rather than use every part of it, or tear down a building such as this, pave over their mushroom ring, I expect it may all fade and fail to sustain itself."

      "I have to agree," John said. "I'm trying," he said when he saw the boy was distraught with his mood. "Really, I find beauty in what they have done here. Your people are happier than I have known them to be before. This building you stay in is magical. It's just they wounded me. I'll get over it. Claudia will make me."