P. Wilson - Imperative

“Maybe I can fix that.”

Bob jerked back from me. “Why would you?”

I laughed. “You know us wizards. We like to meddle in everything. Beside what is bad for the fairies is bad for everyone.”

His eyes gleamed. “You can end the Sidhe?”

Fairies were kind of in the moment creatures and didn’t understand the larger picture. I guess it comes from being tied to seasonal things like flowers. “No. It’s not good to end anyone. It’s better to stop them, but not end them.”

“Okay. What you want to know?”

“The Sidhe are paying the fairies to kill humans, right?’

“Yes, they want us to kill with poison. Harder the better. More pain more payment.”

“What is the payment?”

“Breeding, only fairies who kill for Sidhe have babies.” Bob’s face crinkled.

I took a few more candies out of the bag. “Do you know why they are doing this?”

“Yes.” A tear dropped off Bob’s eyelash. “My wife wants babies. I don’t want to kill humans.”

“Tell me what you know.” I put the whole bag of candy on the bench between us. Maybe I could stop the Sidhe before Bob had to make a choice.

“Fionuir found some way to stop baby fairies coming. Now we have to give her human spirit power to get okay to breed. That’s all I know.”

“Thanks, Bob.” I pushed the bag of candy toward him. “Let me see what I can do.”

Damn Sidhe, I thought as I walked home. They are like spoiled teenagers. Never caring about the repercussions of their actions.

Like I told Bob, all I needed to do was stop the killing. And do that before the humans found any clue that led to a Real Folk perpetrator. There is way too much history about humans and things they don’t understand. We may have magic, but they have bullets. Bullets win every time.

So, I had to talk to Fionuir and she wouldn’t just let me walk in and chat. She was the queen and all the other Sidhe obeyed and protected her, or else. Getting an audience with Fionuir could be easy if she liked you. I’m not sure she had any feelings for me- yet. The Sidhe could be cruel and cold, but they could also be charming and funny. I just had to figure out how to get on Fionuir’s charming side.

I needed a contact.

The only one I had in the court was Melbe. He’s a sprite with a talent for management who runs the Sidhe household. And he owes me.

I grabbed my crystal ball off the shelf. It’s not like you think, a big round globe of clear crystal. It’s a roughly round dingy pink lump of crystal. It gets clear when it’s ready to deliver the goods. I put the crystal on a black cloth which covered the dirt part of the floor and then I sat.

Now I had to get my questions in order. I knew the Sidhe would be monitoring information requests and the longer I was on the crystal, the easier I would be to locate. And if I got caught, Melbe would also be caught- and he would be hurt.

I cleared my thoughts and brought his face to mind. Sprites all look pretty much the same, only one or two differentiators exist. Mainly size; they came in all ranges from eighteen inches to the size of an ancient sequoia. If you know what to look for, you can recognize individuals at a glance. Melbe had a notch in his left ear from a duel with a pixie.

I breathed on the crystal and whispered his name.

The crystal cleared and then faded again. That usually meant someone was ignoring me. I breathed on the crystal again and whispered, “Melbe.”

“Go away. I am busy.” Melbe’s brown face frowned at me. “Oh, it’s you. Just give me a minute to get someplace private.”

I saw the background move nauseatingly for a second then Melbe’s face came back into focus. “I can only give you a few minutes before someone will come looking for me. What do you want? And whatever it is, we’re even right?”

“Okay yes, we’re even. I want to know what’s going on with this fairies thing?”

He nodded. “Ah, the breeding plan?”

It bothered me that he seemed so blase about it. “There’s got to be more to this than trying to control the flow of baby fairies. What else is Fionuir up to?”

He glanced sideways. “What do you know about the Sidhe succession?”

“Not much, they keep pretty much to themselves and most of us find that to be a good thing.”

He chuckled. “Yes, I understand why. Anyway, they choose a queen every fifty years. They can choose the same queen or a new one.”

“So this is the end of the fifty years?” A political fight wasn’t going to be easy to resolve.

“Yes, Fionuir does not want to give up power so she came up with a plan to make herself the best choice.” He glanced around again.

“And that involves killing humans?”

He didn’t turn back to face me, but I could still hear his words. “Yes. You know how lazy the Sidhe are. Well, the killing is giving them power for no effort. So far it seems to be working.” He turned back to me and I could see the tension pinching his face.

I wondered if I could find an ally in one of the others, although no Sidhe could really be trusted. “If Fionuir is taking this much risk, the other contenders must be strong. Who is she most worried about?”

Melbe glanced sideways again. “I have to…” He faded from the crystal. Whatever made him leave must have been dangerous, it would have taken all his power to break the summoning. I hoped he was fast enough not to get caught.

At least he gave me some information. I could probably find out who the other Sidhe was and maybe she would be willing to stop Fionuir without extracting too big a price.

I wrapped the cloth around the crystal and put it back on the shelf. I was thinking about a cold beer when the rapping on my window started again.

I let Olan in the front door.

“Did you get any information?” He asked as he climbed onto the kitchen chair.

After I told him what I’d learned from Melbe he smiled and said, “So the Queen is worried. I’m sure she has reason to be. She’ll have made a few enemies while in power.”

I shrugged, that was like saying rain was wet. “I still don’t get why the fairies are suddenly becoming barren. What if it’s permanent? What happens when sprites can’t reproduce, or wizards? Or, pixies?”

Olan bobbed his head. “I’ve no expertise on fairy husbandry, and pixies are not having any problems in that direction. I doubt Fionuir is the kind to wait for fate to give her an opportunity. It’s my guess she created this whole situation.”

He had a point. This seemed like too much of a coincidence to me, too. I really wanted it to be more than a coincidence because I can’t do anything about fate, but I can stop a Bean Sidhe; maybe. “I need to talk to Fionuir. If I can get an audience, I might be able to get her to reconsider whatever the reason is for this.”

Olan snorted and hopped down to walk into the living room. He jumped on the coffee table and stood on tiptoes so he could look out the window.

I got tired of waiting for him to say what he had to say. “Do you know anything I can use to get to Fionuir?”

He turned back to me. “Well, I’m thinking you don’t have to do this alone.”

This was going to be a problem. I didn’t like to put other people in danger, and Olan was just unreliable. “I work alone. I could use information, but that’s all. This is going to be dangerous. Really dangerous.”

“Yes.” Olan turned back to me. “I was here when the Sidhe arrived. That’s, what? Five hundred years ago? I knew they’d be trouble then. I’ve been proven right more than once since. Remember when they thought Father Bear was mocking them?”

Father Bear was one of the old Pacific Coast Folk. They had been around since time began. Literally, they started time. “I’m only three hundred years old. What happened?”