Excerpt: Farewell to Fairyland (Once more, with feeling)

from BACKSTORY...
The Magic Circle...
The child Gladiola watched the water in delight as her swirling index finger left a trail of silver spirals. They rose, tiny platinum spheres -- each no bigger than a spider's egg -- to the surface of the pond and exploded in a series of soft pops. She bent her ear to listen.
Spry as a grasshopper, she drew her knees to her chest on the sun-warmed rock. The reeds rustled in the summer wind and parted to reveal her friend.
"Robyn!" she sang.
Robyn Forsythe, weed tough and twice her size, stood shoulder high to a dandelion. He flopped down on the rock beside her and grinned.
For the rest of the morning they lay on their bellies and spied on tadpoles and minnows that darted among the water weeds. Delicate as lace, the weeds undulated to invisible currents.
Young Gladiola was fascinated by all the creatures who dwelt below the pond's surface and by the midges and dragonflies that flew in formation above.
Tell me a secret, Robyn.
Robyn, blue eyes sparkling, turned to her and laughed. Water nymphs, he confided, turn into dragonflies. She tried to catch one, but he slapped her hand away in alarm.
"No, Your Highness!"
"What'd you do that for?"
"We don't capture innocents. Not a frog, not a single midge. The Queen forbids it."
"But everything in my mother's realm is mine." Gladiola scowled.
"They're her guests," he said, patting her head. "If they grew homesick for their own worlds and were not allowed to leave, your buddy Robyn might lose his favorite yellow weskit and be banished to the south kingdom for leading the crown astray. And THAT would make me homesick."
Gladiola considered this a moment while studying her older friend's face. "What other worlds?"
Robyn sighed and settled himself more comfortably. And so Gladiola learned small life forces that changed--tadpoles into frogs, naiads into mayflies, nymphs into dragonflies--were from that other place. Because they were mutable, they could cross the boundary between Faerie and mortal lands with ease. Change was in their nature, and Faerie drew them. Unlike the Big People, who were clumsy, loud and immutable, these tiny creatures recognized kith and kin and could retrace their magical roots [on an instinctive level] with ease.
"We mustn't bind them, Gladiola. The Queen will never allow such cruelty."
"But what about the humans?" Glad persisted. "Why don't they come?"
"For humans, time is short." Robyn hesitated. "Life for them, as for the merry mayfly, is fleeting by the way we measure time. They change so slowly they appear not to change at all, and then they are gone."
"That's horrid!" The child recoiled. She felt the warm rock against her back and the flat of her hands as she rolled over.
Robyn leaned forward and chirped. He pressed his palms to Gladiola's temple and chanted. "Wink in. Wink out. Wink in, wink out."
Slowly, her eyes closed, and stray thoughts bobbed on the warm surface of sleep. She drifted from one to the next. First, she chased pixie crickets. Next, she saw clouds, whirling, sherbet tinted, and topped with lightning. At last, she floated into the warm oval of Robyn's embrace. He eased her back in his arms and rocked her gently back and forth.
"Why must the humans die," she murmured, persistent even as the enchantment deepened.
And Robyn, wearing his sad, songbird face, hovered above her dream and chirped a reply. "If your choices were raspberry ice, chocolate cream and barley sugar, would you settle for one? Wouldn't you instead, clever girl, choose them all? My greedy young friend, you'd shove the whole banquet table in your mouth if you could."
An image bubbled up within her, of tadpoles, sleek bodied and flippered, growing legs, losing tails, and she remembered something her mother said.
Humans trump change by choosing death. And so they are able to go where we cannot.
The reeds whispered and danced. A breeze blew hot across her cheek and dried a tear. Another rolled down to take its place, and she scrubbed at it with an impatient hand. She opened her eyes. Brimming with more tears, they magnified a world that had become a brilliant mosaic of water lilies, green leaves and dainty damselflies.
"I'm hungry," she said, sitting up.
"Me, too."
Robyn took her by the hand. Together they skipped off the rock, Gladiola and her faithful guardian, who had taken on the appearance of a naughty, mud-stained boy.
"Let's shift ourselves!" he laughed. Still clasping hands, they raced up the gentle slope, away from the pond, running so fast their feet left the dirt path. They flew over the tasseled grass, their white wings beating until they gained altitude. They soared across the meadow, joyous shrieks echoing across the valley floor.
They reached the palace, two children again, landing on light feet to clasp hands and race across the pavilion as the great doors to the audience chamber opened onto a sunlit terrace. They giggled as they ran between the silken hose and billowing skirts of the assembled gentry, Glad chasing after Robyn to the doors and across the sparkling tiles of gold and mica.
Now she could see the dancing tide beyond, wave upon rolling wave, each wearing a white bonnet as it dipped and curtseyed toward the gleaming shore.
The great gulls of Summerland screamed above the surf as the two stopped in wonder at the sight before them. Robyn's sagging yellow hose competed for brightness with the noon sunshine. The children clapped their hands, admiring the banquet spread for the Fairy Queen's retinue.
Servants had swept the terrace and spread trestles with snowy linens to hold a fairy feast for the assembled guests within, who even now poured through the open doors. Platters piled high with crystalized ginger, violet honey and cocoons of spun sugar, baskets of white bread as light as cloud, bowls filled with berries in cream--all awaited them.
"I want to try everything," Gladiola breathed, reaching for her friend's hand. "How will I know which I like best if I don't try them all?"
"Wise child." Robyn nodded and bowed as the Queen approached.
"Indeed," Queen Litha agreed. Gladiola saw that her nanny and her school teacher flanked her mother on either side.
"The child has appetites," said Nanny Bice. Her harsh voice betrayed both her disapproval and her ruminant ancestry.
"Ah, you detect a flaw in her character," the Queen laughed.
"But Nanny Bice, be charitable. Her flaws, after all, are but talents in need of taming."
"As you say, Your Majesty," Nanny Bice bleated and, bowing deeply, stepped aside to allow the rest of the Royal Court to flock around their monarch.
The Queen laughed again and beckoned the rest of her guests to take their seats at the feast. Glad made eye contact with her teacher, Miss Katydid, whom she disliked even more than her nanny. Miss Katydid wore her hair in a tight little bun that squatted on the back of her skull like a squashed beetle. At the moment her brows pointed upward in such a fierce frown, Glad mistook them for antenna.
Miss Katydid brandished her walking stick, causing Glad to wonder if her teacher planned to turn her into something that her beetle bun might find tasty. She had not been a model student. She played hooky often and had failed to learn how to build anything larger than a small moon. The other students were older and further along, but Queen Litha insisted her child learn the basics despite her age.
As her teacher advanced, Glad planted herself and tightened her grip on Robyn's hand.
"She doesn't see well," she whispered. "I'll bet a stick of barley sugar her spell misses me and hits you instead."
Some people had all the luck.

***

Katy advanced, dire purpose in her gait. But she passed Glad. "Interloper, she hissed like a cockroach. She grabbed Robyn by the back of his collar, and dragged him across the lawn.
"Stop, Katy!" Robyn cried. He struggled briefly, groaned, and stretched himself to new height. "I was invited!"

***
CHAPTER 3: TALLER THAN THEIR SHADOWS
After a meeting in the Fairy Queen's private chambers, Glad and the queen strolled across the grass in the royal gardens and continued to discuss the dangers of the road ahead.
Glad's companions, wanting to give them privacy, walked a little behind, all preoccupied with their own thoughts.
Essie, still reeling from the knowledge that in a past life she had been a binary star in another galaxy, was consumed with thoughts about her star children, who might all have survived the cataclysmic explosion when she and her twin sister collided.
Rudy, whose lurching stomach had startled a nearby chipmunk, tried to think of food that wasn't yellow, since yellow appeared to be in short supply among the fairy folk due to Robyn Forsythe's mysterious disappearance.
Kel divided his thoughts between concern for Essie and helping Rudy figure out how to use the Horn of Plenty, which Queen Litha had said they could borrow for their quest. The Horn would provide whatever food they wished so long as it existed somewhere in the world. At present, the only foods it would not produce were yellow.
And the Witch Fortuna, bringing up the rear, studied Rudy's back with unwavering purpose. Caught up in the scrapbook craze and her own peculiar collector's passion, she wondered how she could coax him into her Pressed People Book without Glad finding out.
"We'll need provisions, enough for several days at least," Glad said. "That Horn of Plenty would short-circuit in a day trying to feed all five of us."
Yes, provisions! Rudy thought, eavesdropping despite himself. Frantically, he tried to pry the engraved silver lid off the Horn.
"I'll arrange for the Royal Buttery to send supplies." Queen Litha nodded. "Mind you attain some elevation before the shadows lengthen, else all could be lost.
"My children are lost, but they're still in the Horseshoe Nebula somewhere. If only my twin hadn't gone super nova."
"If only I had a grilled cheese sandwich."
"Essie looks like she could use a friend. Here, Rudy, let me help you with that. You have to unlatch the top first."
"After this, Glad, I want some time off to go look for my daughters. It's not a lot to ask. You gave Death a time out."
"I thought I saw the Seekers Orb in your private chambers, Your Majesty. So much time has passed, do you think it would help tracking Robyn's last whereabouts?"
"I haven't even had my coffee yet. This can't be good for my blood sugar."
"An excellent idea, Daughter! I'll have the Orb sent to you. As luck would have it, the instrument was designed to find people, as well as things that have been stolen."
"So unless he went willingly, the Orb might give us an advantage, eh? But even if we find him, what then? What if he's mad? What if he doesn't remember me?"
"What if I can't think of another color? I've wracked my brains but I can't think of any foods that aren't yellow. Is that fair? Why did it have to be yellow?"
"Rudy, you've got to prop the lid up or nothing will fall out. How about a roast beef sandwich? That's not yellow. Ask for that."
His butt could be bigger. But he has nice shoulders. He'll make an excellent specimen. Would he object if I took his measurements, I wonder.
"Oranges, yellow squash, waxed beans, casaba melons. All these come readily to mind. But-They're-Yellow!" Rudy threw the horn of plenty to the ground. "Phooey! Who the hell is this Robyn Forsythe anyway. Some hot shot from Glad's past? I'll bet he's touched. The ones who leave, the artistic ones? They're always touched."
"Just ask for something red and remember to say the magic word--"
"Yes, I know. Please!"
"Hey, Rudy. Wait up. Mind if I measure your shoulders?"
"People, stop! I can't think straight." Glad clapped her hands over her head.
"Oh, like I can? I just learned that my kids may have survived a nuclear meltdown when my sister and I collided, and you say you can't think! I'm telling you, I want a leave of absence!"
"I never think straight. As a rule, I don't dream in color either. Now all I see is yellow."
"How do you feel about becoming two-dimensional, Rudy?"
"I hate astronuclear physics!"
"Good people, this is where we say our goodbyes." Queen Litha raised her arms and blessed the group. "Take care of one another, and all will be well. I have seen this. Daughter, you are the Sword of Balance. To you is entrusted the weight of the world."
"Gee, thanks."
The queen stepped back. She began to fade. First her crown, then her face, then the rest of her body, like an after image, slowly collapsing inward in a shimmering bowl of rainbows.
"What if he's changed?" Glad shouted. "What if I don't recognize him? Should I use my powers to change him back? What if he's hurt?"
The last remaining evidence of the queen's transmutation, an amber arc of light, vanished on the wind.
Several packs containing provisions and a small silver globe surrounded with an intricate overlay of silver wire appeared in the grass before them.
"Well, folks, we're on our own." Glad picked up her pack. Let's see if we can make the mountains before nightfall."
"Are we going to eat when we get there?"
Glad spun around and pointed her cigar at Kel. "Show him how to work that thing. But whatever you do, keep moving."
"Why, what's the rush, Glad?" Kel grabbed the horn and pushed Rudy ahead of him.
"You know that thing I was telling you about earlier? The reason children are afraid of the dark? It's out there somewhere, between us and the mountains. We need to get past and above it while the light holds. While our shadows are still shorter than we are."

***

LAST SCENE: On the backs of dragons...
The Faerie Queen knew the change was imminent. She could feel it, a bell sounding from the deepest recesses of her/an ancient self/awareness. from the deepest recesses of an ancient awareness.
She had expended a great portion of her residual magic to hold fast the world before the chaotic forces beyond tore all asunder. And though she knew herself to be a creature outside the slipstream of time and therefore impervious to its ebb and flow, she was not immutable. Change would come and, although through eons her own integrity had altered imperceptibly, she knew her exertions had accelerated the process. Only a little time yet remained to her. If she tried to prevail, the world she had worked so steadfastly and assiduously to build would shatter.
And so one day, she left the palace and walked alone among the hills beyond. She wandered through fields and meadows, looking for the one creature she knew to be immutable -- who, because his natural state was one of perpetual change, could always, impossibly, remain constant to his true self.
She found him high up on an outcropping. He had been waiting for her.
"Greetings, Child of Chaos," Litha called.
Gilgamesh inclined his head. "My queen."
"You don't come to our hall to join the celebrations," the queen observed as she hoisted herself up to rock platform. "Why do you not?"
"You know why." The dragon shook his head and looked out over the valley. "Will she be well?"
The queen finished her climb and rested her hand on the dragon's foreclaw. "Child of Chaos, I've always known your nature." She followed his gaze. Below them but high above the meadow, a flock of swans arrowed toward the lake. Litha tilted her head and looked into the dragon' eyes. "And I know your heart." She raised her arms, arched her back and stretched. "Gilgamesh?"
"Yes, my queen."
"Change is coming. My daughter will need your strength."
"I will remain."
"That's not what I mean. When my apotheosis is done, go to the meadow. You will know the time. Share your truth, this once, O Master of Disguises, my Lord Gilgamesh, and you will have your answer. I promise you." The queen reached into a gossamer fold of her sleeve. "Here," she said, holding out her hand. The dragon studied her open palm a moment.
"Is that what I think it is?"
"It's a piece of petrified rock," the queen said. "She shook it out of her boot. Give it to her when I am gone. She thought she had failed the quest."
"You knew otherwise."
"I've always known." The queen looked up at the sky. "Foreknowledge is the lot of every World Builder eventually. It becomes a wearisome business. So much to hold in one's head. So many lives at stake. I would spare her that, given a choice, but even if I tarry, she will face it one day." The queen stood abruptly. "I must go. If you won't join the party, at least do a fly by. You won't want to miss the spectacle."
Litha spread her arms. Her transformation happened instantly. A white falcon fell from the dragon's ledge, caught an air current to soar out over the valley then beat her wings toward the castle keep. When she reached her private balcony, the Queen backwinged twice and landed a woman. Excitement welled up in her. All the pieces were falling into place. The strings of the puppetmaster remained taut and true. She had but one last task to complete, and then her final transformation would be done.
She grabbed her scepter from its pedestal in the alcove off her bedroom and exited her private chambers. Her heart beat wildly. At last, at last, it sang to her. At last, at last. A part of her mourned the imminent departure from this life. Spirit, though, trilled with joy.
She swept into her audience chamber. All her loyal subjects stood in their usual groups of three or five, awaiting her command. It was the hour when she normally received petitions from visiting dignitaries, but this evening, she would give them something extraordinary.
She crossed the hall and climbed the dais. The great Rose Quartz Throne, a pulsing, living crystal, thrummed on its foundation, echoing her inner excitement.
She turned to face her subjects.
"My people," she began, capturing the room with a sweep of her arms. "I must take my leave of you."
Audible gasps washed over the throne room, and she spied her daughter, Gladiola, shoving her way to the front through a group of courtiers.
"Mother, wait!"
Queen Litha smiled at her daughter. It warmed her heart to know that at the last moment, her daughter, unawares, would attempt an intervention.
"Abide." The queen held up a hand, and all the room grew silent. Gladiola stumbled and stopped.
"Gladiola, my daughter, guide well the people of this world," she intoned. "Dear people, guard well your new queen."
"Mother!"
The queen smote the floor with her scepter.
"Let's finish this," she said. The gem in her staff glowed and grew brighter, blooming into a sphere of ruby light that expanded outward, first engulfing the queen, then the Seat of Adamant, then the entire platform on which the great Rose Quartz Throne had stood since the live seed crystal from whence it came first germinated and grew.
The light pulsed, and her attendants murmured and stepped back. The queen ascended and slipped her scepter into the arm of the living crystal. It too began to pulse, first deep inside the core, then expanding. Soon the light of the throne overpowered the yellow light of the fire fairies in their sconces, casting the entire hall in its ruby glow.
The queen raised her arms, looking toward the great dome of the Audience Chamber, where she had, from time beyond memory, given witness to the judgments and negotiations of her Royal Court.
The crystal throne began to shimmer like water. It threw off sparks of light. The coruscated light shot upward in a concentrated beam and punched an opening through the dome. People cried out, but the sound of their wonder was blotted out by another sound.
There came a great rustling as of leaves in a wind. The light spread from the dome like an inverted waterfall. The spillover raced across the ceiling of the chamber to turn every surface translucent. The dome, too, began to shimmer and grow opaque beneath the assault of light. It became clear as glass, and the courtiers gasped at the sight now visible in the late afternoon sky. High above the palace spires there appeared a giant comb of rainbowed light, a Fire Rainbow. One had not been seen near the palace in an age and only when the Wild Hunts escalated into civil war. Now the rainbow appeared to mark a rent in the very fabric of their world. Even as they watched, the comb of colored rainbows pulled apart to reveal a blackness beyond, devoid of light. No stars had ever shone in that void.
The queen looked down at her daughter and smiled. "Gladiola, my bright sword," she spoke above the rush of wind. "Time to build a new universe."
Queen Litha lifted her head and gazed at the tear in the sky above. Her body began to sparkle and melt into the living crystal. Even as her people watched, the throne poured out and around the queen's body, encasing it in a monument of liquid quartz. Just before it closed over her beautiful face, she sought her daughter's eyes and spoke once more. "Love."
In a blast of light, the giant, seed-shaped crystal pulsed once more then shot from its marble base and soared through the ceiling, leaving in its wake a fan of light like a comet's tail. The Fire Rainbow folded back, covering the dark void into which the seed crystal had disappeared, and all they could see was the cerulean blue of a summer's sky.
As they watched, tattered clouds crowded the area above the shattered dome, forming the letters:
Y-O-U-R--T-U-R-N
Then the letters dissipated. The Fairy Queen was gone.

***

Glad, looking up, shook her head. "Okay, that's it."
She spun on her heel then hesitated. Everyone in the throne room was staring at her. Some were starting to bow their heads and kneel.
"Oh, for the love of--" She gestured, taking in the entire room. "Get up. Get up. Stop this nonsense."
No one listened, of course. Instead, more of the Queen's subjects began to kneel.
Glad sought the faces of her friends and traveling companions, but they, too, were smiling and bowing. Essie had the decency to look sad, but even she swept into a curtsey as they made eye contact.
"Crap."
Glad shoved past a nobleman. With a strangled cry, she grabbed her hat from Rudy, who had picked it up from where it fell during the wind storm when the ceiling opened. She began to run. Someone cheered. To Gladiola’s prejudiced ears, it sounded like "Hail to Her Mad Ass Tea!" But Glad hear no more. She bolted the last few steps, slammed through the great throne room doors and kept running until she was well away from the palace grounds.
She slowed to a walk when she reached the high meadow where Robin Forsythe had initiated his final transformation and released his corporeal body to the mountain winds. She could feel his presence even now, and it comforted her. She looked out over his signature flowers, the yellow buttercups and daisies, dandelions and fireweed he had cherished for their color. Even Robin's namesake, the forsythias, ran a band of gold in full glory along a cultivated field, although it was not their season.
Glad looked up and started at the sight of a youth standing at the high end of the meadow. As she approached, she could see that though his face was young, his lidded eyes were ancient and full of preternatural intelligence. He looked vaguely familiar, but she didn't recognize him. Tall as a young sapling, straight as a spear, he stood motionless and inscrutable, watching her.
"Hello?" Glad pushed back her hair and waved.
The youth smiled at her and extended his hand, but a flicker of pain skipped across his face, and she paused.
"What have you there?
He appeared to struggle with conflicting emotions. Never taking his eyes from hers, he strained to open his hand, but to no avail.
"I can't, Gladiola," he whispered. "My hand will not open. This shape will not obey me."
Now she remembered. This was the youth, standing in the familiar flower meadow, she had seen in a vision rising from the tarot deck in what now seemed to her another age. She had meant to use the cards to forestall a future she did not wish to manifest while fighting her nemesis, Todt of Thanatos, Lord Death. And in her haste to grasp the message of the reading, she had overlooked the more powerful message the cards unveiled in a visual image that rose above the spread.
Now that she recognized the youth from that vision, she crossed the distance that separated them, still puzzled, and cupped his hand in hers. She gently uncurled his fingers. "What is it? Who are you? How do you know my name? Are you unwell? Are you under an enchantment?"
"None but my own." The stranger gritted his teeth, straining to keep his hand open.
She looked at it and gasped. There, lying flat against his palm, was the striated stone she'd picked up during the quest to free Robin. How this man had come to possess it she had no idea. "Did you steal this?"
"She asked me to give it to you should you come by this way." He spoke as though it tortured him to do so, in a rasping voice fraught with smoke and fire and something else. Glad recalled pounding surf and the crash of cymbals.
"Gilgamesh?" A thought flashed through her. "The queen. She arranged this."
"I cannot hold this shape much longer," he rasped. "Even now the reversion to my dominant shape begins. Hurry, Gladiola! Take the crystal. It will grow for you the Seat of Power you need to rule. It will give you your throne."
Glad took the stone. She could see the effort to retain human shape was costing him. Lavender sprang from his brow in a fine mist, and his limbs began to melt and extend. She backed away in alarm. Wisps of lavender smoke rose from his clothing.
As she watched, the man collapsed in upon himself before quickly morphing through a series of images -- young men, forest animals, mythic creatures -- all the past identities Gilgamesh had assumed over the eons. Then his body slowly reclarified and he was simply Gilgamesh the Dragon once more.
She showed him the rock. "It's a lump of petrified wood."
"Not for long." Gilgamesh took the pebble in a strong foreclaw and curled his talons around it. She heard the crunch of ground stone. A puff of dust escaped between his claws. After a moment, he relaxed his grip and dropped the stone. Glad picked through the grass until she found it.
"Your seed crystal, Gladiola. You see? You didn't fail after all."
A small, dark crystal of smoky quartz glittered in the palm of her hand.
"Gilgamesh--" she said, "I don't want to do this."
"I hope the throne it grows is worthy of you," Gilgamesh said. He looked sad. With a swing of his tail, he spread his wings, readying to spring aloft.
"She's gone, Gil. Mother's gone."
He hesitated. "I saw her ascend."
Glad scrubbed her face and gave the dragon a fierce scowl. "Will the world die, do you think, now that she's left us?"
"That is entirely up to you."
"Damn dragon! I knew you'd say that."
"Then you have acquired a dragon's wisdom. Litha created a new dimension, a new universe so that she could complete her apotheosis. What happens here is your decision. Our kind has a saying: On the backs of dragons."
"You lost me."
"Because dragons once carried the weight of the worlds, because we once offered to share our knowledge when the Ethereans accepted the burden of rule, because on the backs of dragons such weighty matters have oft been considered," Gilgamesh lashed his tail, "we remain. But what I speak of was a custom of old."
"I've still got a lot to learn, a lot to let go," Glad said slowly, with great reluctance. "All my life, I've played craps with the Universe. And then I made a wish that set Chaos in motion."
"You speak like a dragon."
"Then how about I hitch a ride? One last tour east o' this and west o' that before I assume the Throne of Adamant?"
He threw his head back and roared, a dragon's laugh.
"I'll take that as a yes." Glad climbed up the dragon's foreleg, settled herself between his shoulder blades and clamped her arms tightly against the sides of his neck.
"Indeed, let us ride the midnight wind and leave these noisome fairy folk in our wake!" Gilgamesh roared once more, and the powerful muscles of his hind quarters bunched to spring aloft.
"Together they soared heavenward, and passed beyond the moon.

THE END