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He gave a short bark of a laugh. “She’d like you. From everything I ever heard, she’s vane as hell. But no, she’s only half.”
I thought about that. It made me wonder how we mortals were supposed to fight beings sired by the gods. Even space vagabond gods. It did not seem fair.
But Ray would not have an answer to that any more than I did.
“Why did she leave her court?” I asked, instead.
“No clue.” His face was focused, as he was trying to light the moss without lighting himself. “Nobody has one. Least not the villagers, who started buying in bulk from people like me because, all of a sudden, the rules changed. And not the courtiers who—
“Ow, shit!”
A spark had hit his thumb, and despite the fact that it went out almost immediately, it left an inch-long wound. I frowned at it, even as it began to close up. “Let me,” I said, and took the flint and striker.
He made a be-my-guest gesture and I rolled onto my stomach and inched up to the little mound of moss. It was damp, which was why he was having so much trouble. I pushed it aside and substituted some small, dried twigs instead, one of which I crumbled almost into powder.
“What were you saying?” I asked.
“Just that her courtiers are fighting each other over the throne, ‘cause there’s no direct heir. Her loyal people are busy trying to keep the treasury from being plundered, and her armies are scattered. Some of the troops are with her, wherever she is; some are with her nobles—half of which went over to Aeslinn’s side after she left, although what they’re doing now is anyone’s guess; and some just fucked off and started raiding the common folk—”
“Hence the need to buy weapons from smugglers,” I said, concentrating.
Ray nodded. “The dark fey have started a surge, too, from what I hear, using the chance to get back some of their stolen lands. They’ve been raiding light fey villages, who have been raiding back, and the whole thing is devolving into a free for all. And what’s Nimue doing?”
“I have no idea,” I said, before blowing lightly on a promising spark.
“Nobody has any idea, that’s the problem.”
“Have you told the senate about this?” I asked, looking at him over my shoulder, because he had backed up, out of the spark zone.
Ray barked out a laugh. “The senate don’t seem real interested in my opinion.”
“But . . . it’s important information, isn’t it? They’re always saying that the war is hampered by the fact that they know so little about Faerie, yet you seem well informed—”
“About the common folk,” he said sardonically. “They don’t care about the common folk. Some villagers’ problems don’t mean a damn to the high and mighty senate.”
“But Dory—”
“I told Dory. And she tried to inform them, but nobody cares. If it’s not about the nobles or the court, they’re not interested.” His mouth twisted. “It’s another thing our worlds got in common.”
I thought about that. It seemed shortsighted on the part of the senate, but maybe it was simply that they found Faerie overwhelming, too. There was so much we didn’t know, and what we did seemed so fantastic . . . perhaps it was easier, focusing on the actions of a few people at court, rather than the masses beyond.
“Simpler ain’t smarter,” Ray said, and then he paused and pointed. “Ha! Ha, ha, ha!”
I looked back at the would-be fire to find a small flame flickering in the middle of the kindling. I held my breath, waiting to see if it would last, and another gust of wind threatened it. But I hunched my hands around it and the small fire held. Ray came over and slowly added larger and larger sticks, until he had a teepee of them, burning merrily.
Then he sat back and sighed in relief. “I hate camping.”
I thought it was rather fascinating, so far.
He just shook his head. “You ain’t done it enough. You might feel differently by the time we get out of here.”
I thought that entirely possible. Although I also thought that he might feel differently, too, had he seen her. But he had seen only the fluttering of images in his mind.
They had apparently been much clearer and more vivid than those I had experienced, perhaps because they had been aimed at him. They had blocked him from interfering in my and Nimue’s conversation, and essentially stunned him. Of course, we had traded memories since, but I was too tired to do a proper job of it. Yet what he’d shown me had been wonderful, just wonderful!
He had seen deep, underwater caves filled with almost no light, except for massive, bioluminescent fish. He had seen waves crashing onto distant shores above shallow lagoons, where the spears of sunlight from above made the coral reefs almost as bright as day. He had seen enormous flooded castles filled with treasures beyond imagining, guarded by people with the same fish tails that she had offered to me.
He had also seen other things that had made no sense, and which he’d only glimpsed: shipwrecks and storms and a mass of people with air bubbles magically affixed over their heads, holding those same energy spears we knew so well. They had been swimming downward, and swimming hard. But a kelp forest, as vast and dark as anything on land, had suddenly engulfed the scene, hiding them from view.
