In which Queen Mab makes her presence felt

My Dear Alwyn,
 
I still have not made plans for where I will travel next, but for now, we all remain in Drynna. That has given me the opportunity to spend a bit more time with Rebur, and try to learn more from him about the nature of the bardic arts. Over the past few weeks I have more and more had the sense that there is magic there to be drawn out, but I haven’t ever been able to sustain it for more than a moment. I hesitate to impose on Rebur, but I think that he enjoys demonstrating, and certainly he makes it look easy. It is all very unfamiliar to me though, and I have yet to grasp even the basic knack of it. The opportunity just to practice is a very welcome one though, and it has been a restful few days, all in all.
 
As I mentioned that I was planning to do, I asked Marten Loriette to visit Althia, and he said that he would do so, and take his young daughter Elspeth along as well. She is a lovely child - she has been assisting Father Pickleknot to care for the sick at the Light Temple - and I am sure that hearing first hand from her about how much the medicines she sent have helped will be a comfort.
 
Zeni and Enessa have spent a good deal of time with the villagers, offering what assistance they can in getting people back on their feet - the council here did settle some money on them, enough for a few weeks I should think, but for those without friends or relatives to assist them, it’s not much. I don’t think that the idea of a new settlement is likely now to come to anything, but they do still share a bond, and I hope that they will look out for one another in the weeks and months to come.
 
Orlando has been spending time with Sprocksmith, whose leg, I am glad to report, is on the mend. Between them they have constructed a fine new metal hand for Orlando to replace the one mangled by the croc, and they seem to have about a hundred ideas for how to improve on it as well, once they have the time and the resources available. It’s good to see them both so excited by a new project, and I’m rather looking forward to discovering what the end result might be.
 
Arin has been working hard for several days now, brewing potions from some of the plants gathered in the swamplands or retrieved from Barithia’s stock. Sabali spent some time with him earlier in the week, restocking that strange healer’s kit he carries I would imagine, but since then he has been otherwise engaged. Some of the time he has been off in town, spending time down by the docks, or so Wind tells me at any rate. Otherwise he has been amusing himself by driving everyone else a little crazy. It’s harmless enough, and all in good sport, but if I were him I might be a little more careful what happens to Orlando’s hat in future.
 
Wind and Raphael have been away most of the week too, off in town on business of their own. I’m quite sure that Wind has been getting into some sort of mischief, but what sort exactly I can’t say.
 
If you have noticed the date of this letter, then you will recall I think that only a few days ago it was rhe Night of Ascension. Out here it is nothing like in Vasselheim of course - in fact you would hardly know it from any other day for the most part - but to my surprise, Raphael invited us to witness his personal observance of the festival out in forest beyond the boundary of the town. I was, to be honest, rather reluctant to go for a number of reasons, but Orlando was curious to see it, and I was not about to allow him to walk into a potentially dangerous situation alone. In the end, we all agreed to go, although Wind did not look particularly thrilled about spending yet another night out in the elements.
 
We set off from the inn in the late evening. It was full dark by then, and the night was almost moonless, making the forest gloomy and sombre. We walked quickly and quietly, keeping close together as we followed Raphael to some spot he was apparently already familiar with. As we went, we could hear the harsh screeches of owls hunting, and the occasional rustle of animals in the undergrowth, but no one seemed to feel much like talking. The Night of Ascension is a holy time, certainly, but most of the rituals associated with it can be eerie and unsettling. As we made our way deeper into the woods, everyone could feel the strange energy of the Night I think, even those who had no understanding of why it should be so.
 
Coming at length to a small clearing, Raphael called a halt, and, reverently, he laid out his stones in a broad circle on the ground. Before he placed the final one, he explained to us that he was attempting to summon Queen Mab, and that if she chose to appear, he asked that we should please treat her with the respect due her station. He seemed a little nervous, as well he might, but also, I thought, rather proud of what he was able to do here. Understandably, I suppose, to have a Queen come at your invitation is no small thing.
 
After placing the last stone, he turned and sat cross legged on the ground with his eyes closed, while the rest of us stood around in a sort of semi-circle towards the edge of the clearing, wondering what, if anything, might be about to happen. Raphael spoke some words aloud in Sylvan, and we all waited with baited breath. No-one really knew what to expect I don’t think - certainly I did not - but the atmosphere was tense with anticipation. I muttered a quiet prayer of protection, just in case there was to be any trouble.
 
I’m not sure how long we all remained that way, but probably only a few minutes. The rushing sound of the wind in the trees was hard to ignore now that we ourselves were still, and as we waited I anxiously scanned the dark spaces across the clearing for any sign of movement. I imagine at least some of the others were doing the same, but a few paces away from me I could hear Wind tapping her foot impatiently.
 
At least as far as things go out here, the night was considered a chill one, and people were dressed accordingly. I myself had a warm cloak over my mail shirt, and yet even so I gradually found myself growing uncomfortably cold. My breath was visible in the air before me, and, looking down, I saw that frost glittered on the grass and on the stones of the ring of stones. I noticed at the same time that the sound of the wind had died to nothing, and the night air was now very still indeed.
 
Somehow, between one breath and the next, and with no-one later able to describe exactly how it happened, Mab appeared in the circle. She was a most remarkable sight - possessed, just as Raphael had said, of an unearthly beauty. She appeared as an elven woman, her face neither young nor old, but somehow ageless, with very pale skin and hair like moonlight. Her gown was simple and elegant, and she went barefoot on the now frozen ground. Her power too, was obvious and undeniable. All in all, she was quite unlike anything I had seen before, or had even imagined might exist.
 
Raphael, clearly sensing her presence, came first to one knee, and then, at her nod, to his feet and stood before her, waiting, head bowed. The frost, which had been creeping over the stones, had by now spread throughout the clearing, turning the ground a thick sparkling white, and riming the leaves of the trees at its edge. It was a truly lovely picture, and very much like something brought to life out of a bard’s tale, but I was still very much on my guard. After all, stories are partly there to warn us that many foul things can and do seem beautiful at first glance, especially in those tales which involve the fae.
 
Mab spoke then, in a voice which was deep and melodious, naming Raphael as her knight, and sweeping her eyes over the rest of us in turn. Most people seemed a little stunned, but Orlando removed his hat and sketched a courtly bow - a very gallant gesture indeed, given the way the temperature had fallen. I inclined my head in greeting as she looked at me, and tried to keep my face as neutral as possible. This was Raphael’s sacred rite after all, and I had no wish to disturb it in any way, whatever I might think of things.
 
Raphael invoked the blessings of the sacred night, and then thanked Mab for the information which she had provided about the mysterious stone which we had taken from Barithia. She replied that the outcome in that case was not one that anyone would have wished, but that, in her view, we had dealt with the matter well.
 
Now, what to make of that, I’m not sure. In truth it is hard even to speculate about what she might have regarded as a more optimal conclusion. The idea that she had been watching us was not a very pleasant one however.
 
Looking toward the rest of us again, Mab said that she would allow three questions, if we wished to ask any. People shuffled awkwardly at that and I resolved to keep my peace - although there were of course several matters which I was very curious about, none of my questions were very tactful ones, and I did not want to do anything to upset Raphael's observance of his holy day.
 
Wind, determined, I think, to show that she was not afraid, started to babble some nonsense queries and for a moment everyone just stared at her in disbelief. Raphael’s eyes went a little wider with alarm as Mab, the gracious smile on her face now rather fixed, raised one eyebrow at him. He swiftly turned his back on Wind, and spoke to Sabali, inviting him to ask about Captain Drakkar, the pirate who had abducted him and Zeni.
 
Sabali did indeed begin to broach the subject, but his questions were not terribly clear ones, and instead of answering, Mab somehow deflected the conversation onto the topic of the Shade Temple, where Sabali had trained until quite recently. The Temple’s goals, she said, were often aligned with those of Winter, by which I took her to mean those of the Raven Queen’s adherents. Neatly sidestepping a question about what those goals might be, Mab seemed to grow somewhat impatient with this line of enquiry. I thought that perhaps she would leave then, but instead she did the absolute last thing that I expected.
 
Stepping from the circle, she moved toward the opposite side of the clearing, and then turned back and, with great courtesy, invited me to walk with her. Not the group, just me. My heart was thumping a bit at that, but I knew well enough that if she had intended to threaten me then she could do it just as easily right then and there, and there wouldn’t be thing anyone could do to stop her. I had no desire to get involved in whatever this was about, but it would have been very rude to refuse her, and so, with some trepidation I followed her into the darkness of the trees. I could still see the others back in the clearing, and I assume that they could still see me which was reassuring, but I think that we were far enough away to speak privately.
 
This close to her, I could feel more strongly the impact of her presence. The air was icy cold, almost painful to breathe, but at the same time it was somehow potent and invigorating, as a cold clear day in the mountains often is. She and I were almost of a height, at least in the form which she had chosen for this meeting, and she met my eyes with what appeared to be a disarming frankness. I waited for her to speak, and when she did so her voice was soft and courtly. She knew who I was - my church name at least - and she told me with a rather enigmatic smile that the trace of divinity she sensed in my blood intrigued her. Flattering as this might have seemed, it was not welcome news - I had no wish to come to her particular attention and to be frank, I don’t think any sensible person would desire such an interest.
 
She asked me if I was aware that the fae cannot lie - now, at the time, I was not sure of that at all, but I have since checked with Arin and apparently this is indeed the case. Which makes the rest of what she said very interesting, but also difficult to interpret in places, carefully phrased as it was.
 
We spoke for a few minutes then about the nature of lies, and also about good and evil, as it might apply to the fae in general, and Mab in particular. Although I had not asked, she was at pains to tell me that she did not regard herself as bound by the ‘mortal rules’ of morality. She almost, but not quite as far as I recall, went so far as to say that she did not believe that good and evil actually existed in relation to her actions. Following hot on the heels of a digression about the biggest lies being the ones people tell themselves, I found this a very curious choice of topic - there can be few more significant self deceptions than that one, after all. I did not say as much to Mab though, for she is no fool and I do not, in truth, believe her subject to such an error. My guess is that to give that impression serves her purpose in some way, although what that purpose might be, I have no idea.
 
Instead, I limited myself merely to observing that all creatures with free will, even the very gods themselves, must face the reality of that choice. Her power might mean that she is free to act without obvious or immediate consequence, but such indifference would do nothing to actually change the substance or meaning of what had occurred. We agreed to disagree on this subject, she smilingly dismissing my arguments as dogma, which they are, of course, but no less true for that. Her power might be great, but even Bahamut’s reach does not stretch quite so far as that.
 
Arguing metaphysics with a fairy queen was not how I had expected the day to go, I will confess.
 
After all, if Mab had wanted to debate philosophy then there were certainly far more qualified scholars of that art than myself, and I felt confident that this was not why she had chosen to speak with me. Sure enough, glancing back toward the clearing where the others still stood, she asked me about Raphael. Had I qualms about him, or with his lack of openness for instance? This was very awkward, but I tried to be as diplomatic as possible. No-one wants to be lied to, I replied carefully, but I could understand why his tale was not one he would want to share at first meeting. I really felt for Raphael at this point - I don’t know what he had hoped for from this evening, but I strongly suspect that it was not this. Besides, if I had qualms, they were far more about Mab herself. I resolved to say as little as possible, and conclude this interview as soon as I could reasonably and politely do so.
 
However, she seemed somehow to know almost exactly what I was thinking, and, her eyes sharp on mine, she asked me directly whether it was in fact her that I had doubts about. Conscious both of Raphael’s request that we be respectful, and also of just how far out of my depth I really was here, I was wary about answering this question frankly. I got the impression however, that she had asked it because she wanted an honest answer, and that she would be more displeased by evasion than by the truth. So, I met her gaze as calmly as I could, and I said that yes, I did have concerns, based on the tale that Raphael had told, which I recounted very briefly, and which she at least did not immediately contradict.
 
I told her what I thought, that swearing a man to one’s service when he has no choice in the matter, either through magic or by physical necessity, is not an honourable course. I tried to phrase it as respectfully as I could, stressing that I may not be in possession of all the facts, but in the end, it is a serious accusation that is hard to sugar coat.
 
To my relief, when she replied, she was still calm and conversational. In fact, she seemed almost pleased by my concern for Raphael’s interests and welfare, even if the threat I anticipated was herself.
 
She told me then more of that tale than Raphael had done, and perhaps rather more than he knows of it himself. What she said did allay some of my most serious concerns, but it raised a host of other questions. It also made me think that a couple of details of Raphael's story which I had previously dismissed because they sounded so absurd and hyperbolic, might actually have some substance to them.
 
Mab admitted readily enough to requiring an oath when the only other option Raphael had was to die of cold alone in the Frostweald. She clearly regarded that choice as a meaningfully free one, and so in a limited sense, I would concede that it was, if mind magic was not involved. Or it would have been, if not for the loss of memory, which complicates matters in ways I have yet to fully think through. Coercion of this sort, so she said, is routinely used by the fae, which is a disturbing thing to learn but not terribly surprising I suppose, given all the tales of the fair folk and their ways.
 
What she did say, quite categorically, was that she had not used a charm to bend his mind in securing his oath, nor had she herself created the conditions which had led to him being out there alone and defenceless in the first place. In fact, she said that she did not know how it had come about.
 
Of course I still don’t like it, it is degrading to both parties to take a man’s oath under such circumstances. But, it is certainly true that there is a difference between that and outright compulsion.
 
The other parts of the story which she told were, if anything, even more curious. She said that she had been ‘called by the entity known as Frostweaver’ to the Frostweald where she had found a man, half crazed and starving, crawling from a snowy grave. Frostweaver had directed her attention to this man, and she had recognised in him some sort of potential (although potential for what she did not say). She had presented him with the sword, not on her own initiative in fact, as Raphael had told it, but at the request of the sword-entity, and had then sworn him as her knight.
 
This raises a significant question - what exactly is Frostweaver? Or perhaps I should say who. From this account, it sounds very much like a sentient being of some sort, and presumably quite a powerful one at that, if it is able to call on Mab and have her respond. I know of only a few stories of such sentient swords, but they are generally dark tales, and to my knowledge, not one of them ends well for the sword’s bearer.
 
Mab seemed rather proud of what Raphael has made of himself since that day - lauding the nobility which he has claimed for himself and made his own with the invented title of Neverwood. I wish I knew what to make of that. I know she cannot lie outright, but nobility is one of those words that means a lot of different things to different people. From someone as removed from ordinary society as her, it could mean almost anything.
 
I think that she intended sincere praise, but I was rather reluctant to hear a lecture on nobility from someone who would force an oath of service from a dying man, or who speaks of her people merely as instruments in her hand, to be molded or discarded at her will.
 
Before we concluded, she asked me whether there was aught else that I would know. If so, now was the time to speak. I asked her whether, if Raphael did choose to leave her service, she would let him go. I was interested in the answer to this question for its own sake, of course, but I also asked it because I thought that the answer might tell me something important about which parts of her earlier speech could be taken to carry most weight. I might learn here, for instance, something of what nobility actually entailed for her.
 
She paused for several seconds before answering, and it felt like a long time after the quicksilver flow of her previous conversation. Then she said carefully that none of her knights had ever before willingly left her service. I was a little reluctant to press her, but this was no sort of answer to the question, and I said so. She smiled at that, and said that she had invited me to ask, not promised that she would answer. At length, she said that if Raphael were to desire to renounce his oath then that would be a conversation that he and she would have together. I could hardly object to that, after all, if the oath was valid, as she clearly took it to be, then honour would dictate that it was a private matter between the two of them. It was more than fair as an answer, and yet it told me very little. It was nicely played, all in all.
 
Throughout, she had seemed keen that Raphael and I continue to travel together - she wants to make him, so she says, into a scalpel rather than a blunt instrument, and believes that my presence will assist that project in some way. To be frank, I find it hard to imagine how that might be the case. The problem, although I did not tell her this, is that he will neither trust me, nor behave in such a way that I can trust him. He tells lies without consulting or even informing the rest of us, and that really makes things impossible. At some point when I have more time I will tell you what happened with Barithia's journal in the end.
 
I said nothing about any of this to Mab, but if Raphael intends to continue to sharpen the edge of his deceptions on me, then I will have to take steps to prevent things from going too much further. I have no interest in that sort of arrangement. Whatever this is about, she will have to find someone else to use as the whetstone for her blade. I have not the patience for it.
 
I was conscious that thus far Mab had been both generous with her time, and forbearing about my very limited understanding of the situation. Once it was clear that she had nothing further that she wished to say, I thanked her, as formally as I could without knowledge of her rites, for sharing her holy night with us, and for taking the time to speak with me. To my surprise, I discovered that I meant those thanks genuinely, rather than simply as a gesture of politeness. As she had led me away from the others, I had been prepared for several possible outcomes, ranging from the merely tense to the outright fatal, but not really for the fact that I had rather enjoyed our conversation.
 
Mab is unnerving, certainly, and her power greater and stranger than anything I have encountered before, but even so I found that, against all my expectations and better judgement, I actually rather warmed to her. It seems like an odd thing to say I know, and it’s hard to explain why - perhaps simply more of an instinct perhaps than anything else. When she said that she had no quarrel with Bahamut, nor he with her, I believed her.
 
Returning to the clearing, and seeing the rather worried faces of my companions, I smiled to reassure them that all was well. Mab placed a hand on Raphael’s shoulder and drew him off into the trees, this time walking much further in until they disappeared entirely from sight. We all waited rather uncertainly at the edge of the treeline, but it was only a few minutes before Raphael returned alone. Little time seemed to have passed, but then I recalled that in the swamp he claimed to have had an entire conversation with Mab in what had seemed to us to be the blink of an eye, so who knows how it had been from their perspective.
 
As we made our way back towards the inn people were chatting excitedly about what they had seen. It was as though the sudden release of tension required expression, and certainly what we had seen was well worth talking about. Raphael and I both walked in silence though, and he seemed to be as reflective and inward looking as I felt myself. I hoped that he did not regret bringing us to share in the honour of his sacred night - it was a very odd experience, to be sure, but, looking back at least, it was not one that I would have wanted to miss.