The Faerie Knight

Chapter Five (Part 1)

Of Knights and Gnomes

1

Gwen awoke to the sound of birds. Theirs was not the joyous twittering of songbirds. Rather, they honked and barked in a way that was neither harmonious nor discordant, a familiar melody that evoked contentment.

She fought the urge to return to sleep. She dragged her eyes open, expecting to find herself a feast for scavengers, and blinked wearily at the blue-papered walls of a small bedroom. The window was shuttered, but narrow sunbeams crept in, adding warmth to the dimly lit room. And on her chest sat a bundle of white that watched her with a twitching nose.

Gwen's lips quirked with bemusement. "Bannog?"

Her voice was hoarse and raspy, but the rabbit knew his name. His whiskers a-quivering, Bannog darted forward and nipped Gwen's chin with sharp-toothed affection. Though no blood was drawn, she flinched all the same.

She laughed brokenly, sweeping Bannog into her arms and kissing his forehead. "But how did you get here, Bannog? Where are we?"

This was not Mister Rhys' farm, this much she knew for certain. The room's proportions were off. The doorway was shorter, the window lower, and the simple furnishings miniature; her feet stuck out the end of the bed, clothed in fresh sheets. And over there was a little fireplace that smoldered quietly, and the floor was padded with rugs. The door was shut.

She was alone.

Her arms moved like lead, her fingers clumsy as thick sausages as she wiped the sleep from her eyes. Her hands, she noticed, were smooth and whole and entirely free of scrapes and blemishes. Her fingernails, still torn cringeworthily short, had been tended to. She was clean and—startlingly—healed.

With no small amount of difficulty, Gwen sat upright, her unbound hair tumbling about her face, and the sheets falling to her waist. With unease, Gwen found herself nude, and the realization awakened her fully. With another glance toward the closed door, she cast aside the bedsheet and stood on wobbling legs, almost bumping her head on the low ceiling. She stumbled to the dresser and threw it open, pulling out anything that looked her size, which, to her surprise, everything was. It was quite the collection, all expensive colors and fine stitching, and new, too. Until she knew where she was, she would skip the dresses, because it was harder to do battle in so much fabric, and chose instead a linen undershirt, soft blue tunic, and woolen stockings the color of charcoal, and she took the pair of tall, slender boots she found beside the dresser.

She dressed with almost frantic haste, and only afterward did she let herself relax a fraction, though she wished she had her sword at her hip. Her muscles moaned as she stretched her limbs.

Bannog stood on his hind legs, begging Gwen to hold him. She scooped him up and cuddled him, his very presence doing more to reassure her than aught else. She went to the sun-leaking window and one-handedly unlatched the shutters, swinging them wide. She was forced to bend to give a proper look.

Beyond the mystery of her room she beheld a familiar city. Afallach sprawled across its three mountains, climbing hills, perching upon ridges and dipping into valleys, like a meadow of undulating wheat frozen in time. The city rose in several ringed tiers, the lowest nestled in the valley between the mountains, and the highest mingling with the clouds that played among the snowcaps. Everywhere were stairs that climbed and bridges that spanned, interconnecting all the levels in a marvelous maze of architecture. The roofs were shingled in reds and oranges and blues, dotted with innumerable smoking chimneys and furnaces. Not so distantly, Gwen could hear the rushing of water and the cranking of industrial machines; overhead, a bevy a swans soared.