towards him, which made Hal feel a little more at ease.
‘The only real stuff’s in ’ere,’ the crone said, tapping the side of her head. ‘We make the rest of it ’ow we want it to be. Everybody knows that.’ With shaking hands, she grabbed a tiny goblet from the bar and knocked the contents back with gusto.
‘Steady on, Mother,’ the man in the stovepipe said. ‘The poor lad’s a bit disoriented. You know how it is when they first venture into the Far Lands. Give him room to breathe.’
The woman with the snaking hair glided forward, her hypnotic eyes burning into Hal. ‘Even Jack, Giant Killer, was adrift in his first days in Faerie,’ she said sibilantly. She moved a rotating finger slowly towards Hal’s temple, until the blunderbuss man gripped her wrist tightly. The woman hissed at him like a serpent, then pushed her way to the back of the bar.
‘Have to watch yourself round here, good brother. You’re not at home any more. There are many dangers, if you don’t know what you’re doing.’ The blunderbuss man clapped Hal heartily on the back. ‘Come on, drink up!’ he roared. ‘Join in the fun! I’m Bearskin. The fellow in the hat is Shadow John and this is Mother Mary.’
‘I don’t understand what’s going on,’ Hal said. ‘I was walking through my home town, and then somehow I ended up here.’
‘That happens sometimes,’ Shadow John said, resting his long-fingered hands on a silver-topped cane. ‘There are thin places between the Fixed Lands and Faerie. Sometimes Fragile Creatures can just fall through, without even making the transition-’
‘Not just Fragile Creatures.’ A new person had appeared on the fringes of the group who resembled nothing so much as a medieval woodcut of the devil, complete with red-tinted skin, horns, a goatee beard, furry animal legs and cloven hooves. ‘One day I dropped right out of the Far Lands. I had to walk halfway across the Fixed Lands before I found my way back. It was a close call, I tell you. They can be a savage lot when their ire is raised. Followed my footprints up hill and down dale, they did, before I managed to slip back.’
Bearskin thrust the tankard into Hal’s hand and encouraged him to drink with the exhortation, ‘All given freely and without obligation.’ Everyone laughed raucously, though Hal didn’t get the joke.
The beer was the best he had ever tasted, with a vast complexity of subtle flavours and delicate aromas, but after less than a quarter of the tankard he was already feeling heady. Yet while his conscious mind flirted with drunkenness, it unleashed his subconscious to work overtime making connections that began to unveil a hidden picture. Hal decided that here was an opportunity he should seize to glean as much information as he could. So much time and energy had been expended by several ministries in the search for the nature of the Otherworld and what had happened in the days before and after the Fall, and they had found next to nothing. All the knowledge Hal gathered would be vital in the war effort; and perhaps, Hal thought, it would move him a few rungs further up the ladder; he had languished at his current level for far too long.
‘So,’ he began, ‘your world exists alongside my own — the Fixed Lands, is that right? Side by side?’
‘Beside it, behind it and right in amongst it,’ Mother Mary said. ‘Didn’t you listen to any of the old stories when yer were a kid? We was always there, amongst you, sometimes seen, more often than not, not.’
‘You’ve always exerted an influence?’ Hal said.
‘There were some who felt the need to shape and guide,’ Shadow John said.
‘And some who just liked mischief and menace,’ Bearskin added. ‘But make no mistake, we’ve always been around. Played a bigger part in your affairs than you could guess.’
‘Invisible,’ Hal mused, ‘but always there.’ That thought set an alarm bell ringing in Hal’s mind, but the reason why remained irritatingly elusive.
For the next hour, Hal asked many questions, about Otherworld, the Caretaker, the invasion, and while he received some answers of note, many were couched in riddles that left his head aching. Then, as he sipped on his beer, a twinkle of light passed quickly behind the bar. Hal glimpsed Drogoff the barman stooping low, his face puzzled, but after a moment he gave a resounding cheer.
‘What is it now?’ the Devil said with irritation.
‘A hero!’ Drogoff said with arms raised. ‘Our young friend is a hero!’
‘We know that,’ Shadow John said superciliously.
While Hal buried his face in his tankard, Drogoff proceeded to tell the entire bar how Hal had saved the tiny flying woman. Suddenly the attention Hal received was even more glowing.
‘I always knew them Brothers and Sisters of Dragons wos a good lot,’ Mother Mary said drunkenly. She dabbed at one eye. ‘To save one of us… and a miserable lot we are… that’s just…’ She couldn’t find the words and so downed another drink.
‘I didn’t really do anything,’ Hal protested.
‘The mark of a true hero!’ Bearskin proclaimed. ‘More beer, Drogoff! And don’t put any water in this one!’
The rest of the evening passed in a haze of beer, fragrant pipe smoke and stories that made Hal’s head spin. Some were so unbelievable that Hal wondered if the pub’s strange inhabitants were playing games with him. The feeling of being in the middle of a dream grew more potent the longer he was there, and Hal felt uneasily that the longer he stayed the more dreamlike it would become, until he didn’t want to leave. It was compounded when he attempted to check the lateness of the hour, for however much he screwed up his eyes, he could not make out the time on his watch. He put it down to the drink, but the matter niggled away at him.
‘I think it’s time to go,’ he said as he drained the last of his fourth tankard of beer.
A disappointed outcry rose up from the increasingly large group that had gathered around him during the course of the discussions.
‘But you haven’t yet told us any tales of the Brothers and Sisters of Dragons,’ Bearskin protested. ‘We never tire of those.’
‘About how the Giant Killer set up your Brotherhood in the days of the tribes,’ someone called out.
‘The one about the tomb in the Forest of the Night. “ A kiss shall awaken him.” I remember that part,’ said another.
‘I’m sorry,’ Hal replied, ‘but I don’t know any of those.’
‘You don’t know?’ said Shadow John incredulously. ‘But it’s who you are!’
The feeling that he was betraying some great heritage made Hal even keener to go. ‘I’m sorry. Perhaps another time. It’s getting late.’
‘The hour is always late,’ Mother Mary said with a cackle.
Drogoff leaned across the bar. ‘Stay the night, young lad. We’ve got rooms free. A quiet one, if you like, or one where we can send all the pleasures you would ever need.’ He nodded towards three incredibly beautiful women leaning against a post in the middle of the pub, sipping drinks the colour of absinthe from long glasses. They looked quite normal until one raised a hand to wave to Drogoff and Hal saw a third eye embedded in the palm. It winked at him.
‘Some other time,’ he said with a shudder.
Shadow John slipped a friendly arm around Hal’s shoulders. ‘We’ve enjoyed your company, young lad. And for your act of great compassion you may call on us any time.’
‘True, too true,’ Bearskin said. ‘Call on any of us who drink here in The Hunter’s Moon. Right, lads and lassies?’ Loud agreement echoed around the pub. Bearskin grinned, showing two rows of pointed teeth stained with blood. ‘Call on us if you need any help, any time. We’re always ready to help out a friend.’
‘And friends like us you cain’t do without!’ Mother Mary’s shrieking laugh ended in a series of hacking, phlegmy coughs.
‘How do I call on you?’ Hal asked.
Bearskin and Shadow John shared a secret smile, before Bearskin dipped into one of his voluminous pockets and pulled out a shiny red gem that glowed with an inner light. ‘This is a Bloodeye,’ he said. ‘Stick it in your pocket. You’ll forget it’s there until you need it. Then hold it and say “Far and away and here” and whichever of us you need will be just around the corner.’
‘“Far and away and here”?’ Hal checked to see if Bearskin was joking, but he seemed quite serious.
‘Aye. It’s as good as any.’
Hal said his goodbyes and slipped out into the night. It was even colder than it had been earlier, and the chill was exacerbated by the beer. Overhead, Petronus’s glittery trail darted back and forth. Hal pulled his coat around him and trudged in the direction of his quarters, surprised that he felt more alive than he had done in years.
