Tales From the Fae – Part IV: Songsmith

Chapter 1 – Songsmith

Cailleach sat upon the death shrine stump of a cut redwood, her fingers splayed out over the ages of rings. Like ripples through time, she could still feel the fading tree-song that struggled in vain to hold on to its connection with the Earth Mother. Its body gone, the root-soul of the once magnificent creation wailed like a giant ghost, calling out in desperation to its brothers for help.

Below her down the slope of the mountain, was a massive scar cut across the face of the earth. It stretched as far as the eye could see, and wound around the landscape like the coils of a serpent. Lights danced and traveled along its surface as blood through the veins. Humans. Hundreds per hour moved along those scars, and each day, they claimed a little more of the forest. Each day they took a little more of what was not theirs, and infected and corrupted more and more lands with their filth and refuse.

She hated them. They, with their uncaring attitudes and lack of the most basic respect for the Mother that fed them. They did not deserve to live among her creatures. For centuries, she had been powerless to stop them. Certainly, she had done her part to prune a few, but their numbers only grew with alarming speed. Now, at last, she had a possible means to bring about true change. After years and years of patient waiting, new information had come to her; a new ripple in the fabric of creation.

And she had a plan. She would use the new knowledge with the same patience that she had received it, carefully preparing and positioning her game until the moment was ripe. Then, and only then, would she make her move against the humans, and cut them off at the roots, like they had done to so many of the Earth Mother’s children… Left to a slow, insane death.

Three months earlier…

I cursed in frustration as the spinning collection of energy hovering in the center of the study suddenly began to wobble and then collapse. In a shower of sparks and flashes, the ball glyph abruptly flung itself apart, sending its component structures bouncing off of the walls in quiet explosions.

“Shit!”

“You were very close Mark. Please don’t lose hope,” said Marly, sitting on a stool behind a broad oak desk. She had been carefully transcribing a series of drawings and notes into precise copies. They were my latest spells to go out to the various Principalities for wider distribution into the Fae, and she stopped when she saw me hunched over in obvious mental distress.

“If I could only get the matrix to hold together… It should work, damnitall…”

“Take a break, love. Go get a snack. You always work better on a full stomach. She patted her belly and grinned. At that moment there was a knock on the door.

“Come in!” We said in unison and smiled at each other, knowing who was at the door already.

“Greetings,” said Ananha warmly as she entered and closed the door behind her. She was wearing what Marly and I humorously called “faerie formal”, which meant that she was covered enough to pass as a legally dressed human. On this day, however, the faerie was testing the limits a bit.

“Nice duds,” I commented, eyeing the form fitting tube top and jean cutoff shorts. She also had on a blue tie-dyed bandanna and an assortment of gold and silver jewelry. Her feet were bare. The overall effect made her look like a misplaced, but rich, hippy.

“Thanks,” she replied looking around the room at the fading pieces of magic. “I’m sorry if I interrupted something…” Many of the upper echelon faeries were attempting to get used to clothing lately since they were visiting Brightly House so often. It just seemed safer to keep things from looking too out of the ordinary to the neighbors. You just couldn’t have that much bare flesh prancing about without SOMEBODY noticing. God forbid the cops should come to the door one day. With our luck, Rachael would answer, nude save for her eye ware. I can see it now…”Uh… Excuse me miss, could you please remove your glasses…” At which time the officers would lose a couple of hours and go home with a very warm fuzzy feeling in their pants.

“Where ever did you get that beautiful scarf,” asked Marly referring to the bandanna.

“Grandma Brightly, of course,” replied the Principality with a proud smile. “She said that it was just something she’s had sitting around for a few decades. Do you like it?”

“I love it!” Answered Marly. “Now come over here and greet us properly.” At which point she did. We each kissed her deeply, and were starting to peel her out of her clothing when she stopped us.

“Ummmm… Wait.. I’m on an urgent errand,” she interrupted; my hand was down the front of her pants, and Marly was drawing her back into her splayed limbs like an octopus. Her fingers played with the faerie’s breasts and made her nipples pop out like twin beacons through her tight tube-top. Undergarments were something the Fae folk had not yet figured out.

“Damn,” I muttered and moved my hand up to her belly. Marly wasn’t so easily dissuaded.

Ananha continued while my love stuck her tongue in the faerie’s ear and let her hands roam freely. It was a game of distraction. “Keila says… oh!… she… she needs those n-new spells… ughmmm… as soon as p-p-possible. Ummmmm…”

“She can have them in one hour,” whispered Marly seductively and then slid her hands away. Ananha nearly fell to the floor she was so relaxed. I caught her around the waist and escorted her to the other side of the room.

“Come away, lover,” I said grinning. “Let’s let her work.” It was nice to have Ananha snuggled up next to me, and we walked in perfect synchronicity to the bench directly across from Marly’s desk. When we were seated, she turned to me.

“What in the world were you working on? It looks like you had a food fight at a pixie convention.”

I frowned. “I’m working on a whole new kind of glyph which has incredible potential. But I can’t seem to make it work.”

“You’ll get it,” she proclaimed as though she had foreknowledge. In her case, she just might. The faeries were able to see a lot further into the future than Marly or I.

“It’s called an amplifier.”

“Ahhhhh….” She said, nodding. Then after a moment of silence, “What’s an amplifier?”

I chuckled. I always forget that most of the faeries have little or no recollection of their former human lives. It’s been made even worse now that they have been trying to integrate more with the world of humans. “An amplifier is a device or construct that increases a given form of energy based on harmonic resonance.”

She blinked. “Okay, now once again… In standard Anglic this time, please.”

“Sorry,” I sighed. “Um, imagine a soldier crossing a bridge…”

“Can it be a dwarf soldier? I don’t know much about any others.”

“Sure, dwarves work… I think. So this dwarf is crossing a long bridge, and each time he steps, he puts a little energy into the bridge with his weight. Are you with me?”

She put her finger to her chin. “Yes, I understand.”

“Okay,” I continued. “Now our dwarf is marching at a certain speed across the long bridge, and his steps are regular. That regular march is known as a frequency. As he steps he puts energy into the bridge, and that energy is absorbed into the structure and dissipates into the earth. It might cause the bridge to move up and down a tiny bit, but unless it’s a very weak bridge, you wouldn’t notice. Still with me?”

“Yup,” she replied.

“Great. Now imagine that a whole platoon of dwarves is marching across the bridge, all in step. Now, each time they put their feet down, a whole lot of energy goes into the bridge. If you had enough dwarves, all putting down their feet at the same time, you could probably collapse the bridge, right?”

“If you say so.”

“I do. But if it doesn’t collapse, the energy will dissipate and the bridge will soon return to a still, stable state once again.”

“Okay,” she commented. I was momentarily distracted when she leaned back into me, her legs swinging up onto the bench we were sitting on so that we were both facing the same direction lengthwise along the bench. My back was resting against the wall of the window nook. Ananha’s body was snuggled up nicely between my legs.

“Right… um.. The important thing to remember is that the bridge has a frequency too. When someone steps, the bridge goes down a tiny bit, and then rises again in a set and regular amount of time. The amount that it rises and falls is directly proportional to the amount of energy put into it. Now, if you could know exactly what that frequency was, and step down directly on the downswing and lift on the upswing each time, then the energy that was put into the bridge would not dissipate, but instead multiply.”

“Um, I think you lost me…”

I was gently stroking her bare belly, my fingers slowly and quietly drifting under the top edge of her shorts. “Well, just know that if the frequency of the dwarves and the bridge match, then the bridge will start to buckle. If this goes on long enough, even one dwarf could potentially collapse the bridge.”

“Ummmmm…” she moaned as I caressed the soft, warm fur of her mons. “How does this have to do with your amplifier?”

“The glyph that I am trying to construct would take a given form of energy, find its frequency, and then apply a resonance. The result would be a multiplied output of energy.” I let my digits drift slowly lower.

“UGHN!!…I..I..guess that c-could be useful,” she commented, only half aware of what was happening around her. She closed her eyes as I slipped a couple of fingers within her and gently brought her toward heaven. I noticed that her thighs parted in front of me, and her hands gripped the edge of the bench with enough force to leave marks.

“Ah, but the really interesting thing is that this amplifier can be used on any form of energy… Even magical.”

That got her attention again. Her eyes popped open, and her head rose up. For a second or two, she was very alert. “That would mean…”

I finished for her. “That even the lowest Fae folk could have the same magical capacity as a full Principality, or even greater.”

She thought about this for a moment in silence, but my touch soon caught up with her.

“Ughmmm! Th-that’s incredible!…OH! UGHN! Ummmmm….”

“Yes, it is. IF I can get it to work.”

“I must…AHH!… tell… Oh gods!… Keila… UGHMMM!! AHHH!!! YESSS!!”

Her whole body shivered as she came, and I smiled with shared pleasure. It was a wondrous thing to intimately feel a faerie reach her moment, and I had a sudden brainstorm. I wondered if the amplifier glyph could be used to multiply sexual energy as well? It was an interesting concept, and one that I would definitely have to experiment with. I hugged Ananha and thought that I had at least one willing subject.

“Done,” proclaimed Marly collecting the sheets of parchment around her. “And with ten minutes to spare, no thanks to you two.” She was giving us both a reproving stare at having made so much noise while she was working. Hell, I don’t think I could have done much more than drool with Ananha gasping away like that in the background.

“Sorry,” said the faerie as we approached the desk. She was buttoning up her shorts. Marly stopped her.

“Please leave those as they are. I plan to make good use of my extra ten minutes. Mark, go make a sandwich.”

Ananha’s eyes grew wide, and I started to open my mouth but thought better of it. Patting the faerie on the fanny, I smiled and left the room whistling a happy tune. I wasn’t halfway down the hall before I heard muffled gasps and moans. I’ve learned never to question my redheaded love. The few times I’ve done things my way, I usually ended up bruised, bleeding, or bushed. Don’t fight the inevitable, especially when it comes in such a lovely package.