Modern Magick

Music and Misadventure: 6

And so, we went rolling up to the distant Yllanfalen town with an entourage of meadowlands creatures and a mantle of magickal music. One of the more exhilarating experiences of my life, without a doubt.

Shame that our arrival met with only the echoing silence of deserted streets.

Not quite empty, in fact, but close. The silvery gates stood open; we entered a pretty, ancient town, its buildings as tall, slender and elegant as the few inhabitants we saw. I've rarely seen a more verdant settlement, either: climbing vines clambered up every wall, twined with relish around chimney-pots and window frames, and carpeted some part of the stone-cobbled streets to boot. Many of them were in full bloom as well, opening flurries of azure, lavender or ice-white flowers to the sun. The place smelled heavenly.

But it was not populous. We travelled the length of one narrow, winding street before we saw anybody at all, and then we saw only a woman going into what appeared to be a shop. She barely glanced at me, in all my magickal glory.

When the next few people we passed exhibited the same utter lack of interest, I gave up playing.

'Well,' said Jay. 'That was unexpected.'

I nodded, feeling crestfallen and trying not to show it. Honestly, who were these people? Did colourful young women so often prance through the town, wafted on a tide of magick and melody and pursued by an entourage of adoring creatures? Surely not. I couldn't believe it, not even of a place one might reasonably term a part of Faerie.

Jay elbowed me. 'Ves.'

I looked where he was pointing. A lady came towards us down the street — definitely a lady, not just a woman, for she was draped in the finest fabric money and magick can procure, and walked with the grace of a queen. She was decked in jewels to a degree bordering upon tasteless, at that.

Of all her ornaments, it was her necklace that caught, and held, my attention, for strung on prominent display upon a light silver chain was a set of tiny syrinx pipes. Hers were the colour of brass, not silver like mine, but in every other respect they were identical.

'Um,' I said. 'Mother?'

Mother dearest stood in silence for a while, watching the ethereal lady pass. Her face registered something very like personal offence.

I kid you not, tiny flowers bloomed where the lady's feet had lately trod.

'Okay,' I said. 'What's the Faerie Queene doing wandering the streets of an Yllanfalen backwater all by herself?'

'I told you,' said Mother. 'They have no monarchs anymore.'

'Are you sure? Because you don't seem to have seen the duplicate-pipes thing comi—' I broke off because Jay elbowed me again. 'Ow. What?'

'Incoming,' he said, turning me around to face a side-alley adjoining the street upon which we stood. There came another denizen of Faerie, a man this time, wearing long jewel-green robes. He had stars in his hair and magick in his eyes and he, too, bore a set of syrinx pipes on a ribbon around his neck. Gold, this time.

I groaned. 'New plan?'

My mother looked from my silvery pipes to the gold ones worn by the Faerie-King-Who-Probably-Wasn't, and sighed. 'It's just possible these aren't King Evelaern's pipes after all,' she allowed.

'You think?'

The next half-hour confirmed the hypothesis beyond doubt, for we found every inhabitant of that impossible town to be as dripping in grace and glory as those early few, and many of them had pipes. Too many.