‘Your face must fit your life. I was in my cups in the Hunter’s Moon, singing a ballad that, by my own admission, was so powerful it moved hardened warriors to tears, when I was spied by the queen’s advisors. If I had known they were there I would have kept myself to myself, I can tell you.’
‘They dragged you off?’
‘I was offered a position of tremendous responsibility. How could I refuse?’ Tears welled in his eyes and he blinked them away. ‘I was immediately dispatched to the Court of the Final Word for this …’ he motioned to his white, grinning face … and to receive my little friend.’ He tapped his head.
Church made a gesture of puzzlement.
‘A Caraprix!’
‘I don’t know what that is.’
‘You don’t know very much at all, do you?’ Jerzy surveyed Church as if he might be dangerously stupid. ‘A Caraprix is …’ He searched for the right word. ‘An associate of the Golden Ones. A small thing—’
‘A pet?’
‘No, no, no, no! Do not say such things! A Caraprix is small, but can change its shape into anything. No one knows how much they think for themselves, but the Golden Ones need their Caraprix. And by turn, I think, the Caraprix need their Golden Ones.’
Church struggled to comprehend. ‘And you have one?’
‘Oh, not in the same way. They put one in my head. It wraps itself around my mind and drinks my thoughts and dreams. If I want to go left it can make me go right. If I want to wake it can make me sleep.’ Jerzy read the disgust in Church’s face. ‘Oh, it is an honour, no doubt.’ He didn’t sound convinced. ‘Very few get to encounter a Caraprix so personally. It is only gifted to those considered very important in the grand scheme.’
‘I understand … I think. They use it to control you. So why are you so important?’
‘Because I am a bard!’ Jerzy replied incredulously. ‘And like any intelligent beings, the Golden Ones know that stories and songs have power. Why, you can change the way things are, and the way they will be, with a few well-chosen words. You can’t have a power like that wandering around without control.’
Church decided he liked the strange character; there was suffering aplenty, but also resilience and spirit. Over the following half-hour, Church explained his own situation, while the Mocker spoke of the Far Lands, how the Golden Ones were the most powerful, but only one of a multitude of races, kinds and types. As Jerzy described some of them, Church realised these were the things that had populated mankind’s dreams and nightmares since the beginning.
And Jerzy told Church of the Golden Ones’ homes, the twenty great courts, each with their own kings, queens, minor royalty, aristocracy and arcane rules and regulations. Each court was characterised by a particular mood or way of thinking, and while there was some friction between the individual courts, only the Court of the Final Word evinced an abiding fear.
Jerzy was about to tell Church why this was so when the wagon ground to a halt and the flap at the rear was thrown to one side. Evgen, the captain of the guard, ordered Church and Jerzy out onto stone flags, where Church was greeted by a sight that took his breath away.
2
The Court of the Soaring Spirit was bigger than any Earthly city Church had ever seen. The caravan had come through a fortified entrance gate at the head of a valley, and the city filled the dale ahead for as far as the eye could see. Despite its name there was something oppressive about the court. The streets were tiny, winding amongst buildings that soared up in every architectural style imaginable, with upper storeys overhanging the lower so that from street level any view of the sky would be minimal. It was a town planner’s nightmare, a jumble of roofs pitched this way and that, the buildings so twisted and deformed they looked decrepit with age. From one view it appeared medieval, from another Tudor, with black-stained wooden beams and dirty-grey stone, bottle-glass windows and crumbling chimneys on the point of collapse. It smelled of open sewers and stagnant water and the accumulated damp of centuries.
The sounds, sights and smells combined to give an impression of whispered plotting and secret politics, of private struggles and misery heaped upon misery as residents attempted to fight their way up from the dark slums to a place where they could glimpse the sun.
‘Isn’t it a place of wonders.’ Jerzy sighed. Intentionally or not, his fixed grin coloured the statement with irony.
Niamh’s grace and glamour were emphasised by the surroundings as she walked towards them from the head of the caravan. Church nodded to the broken-chain banner. ‘I thought your court stood for freedom.’ He didn’t attempt to hide his contempt.