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Oct 4th, 2015
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  1. “Oh God, you’re in one of your moods again, aren’t you?” said my secretary, Cathy. “I don’t know why you ever try to sound cheerful; you know you’re no good at it. I, on the other hand, am always bright and cheerful and charming because I am young and fresh and still relatively unsullied.”
  2.  
  3. She had a point. Cathy was so unrelentingly cheerful I used to think she dosed herself morning, noon, and night with every drug known to man, but no, it was just her. There ought to be a law.
  4.  
  5. “What do you want, Cathy?” I said patiently. “You’re interrupting my quality time.”
  6.  
  7. “Oh, you’re not going to believe this one, boss.”
  8.  
  9. “What have you done this time?”
  10.  
  11. “Nothing! Or at least nothing you need to worry about. But you won’t believe who just phoned the office, looking to hire you... An elf! Really! You could have knocked me down with a French tickler. Not only has an elf lord come to the Nightside, which is weird and scary and disturbing enough in itself, but he wants you to solve a case for him! How cool is that?”
  12.  
  13. “Which particular elf lord are we talking about here?” I said, since one of us had to be practical and professional in this conversation, and it clearly wasn’t going to be Cathy.
  14.  
  15. “Says he’s the Lord Screech; but you can bet good money that’s not his real name. Elves lie like they breathe. They only come into our world to mess us over.”
  16.  
  17. “Of course,” I said. “It’s all they’ve got left. What exactly does this putative Lord Screech want me to find for him?”
  18.  
  19. “Wouldn’t say,” sniffed Cathy. “Too far up himself to discuss details with a mere underling. Says he’ll be at the Dragon’s Mouth for the next two hours if you’d care to drop by for a little chat. No mention of money. But... he’s an elf! When did you last hear of one of them lowering himself to ask a mere human for help?”
  20.  
  21. “Never,” I said. “Which would suggest that not only is this case going to be impossible, unethical, and quite mind bogglingly dangerous, but I’ll probably end up stabbed in the back by my own client.”
  22.  
  23. “Well, of course,” said Cathy. “I thought that was all understood when I said, Your client is an elf. But come on, boss, we are talking major bragging rights here! You could dine out on this for months! John Taylor, the private investigator so special that even the high-and-mighty elves come to him to solve their problems! We could have new cards made!”
  24.  
  25. “Still,” I said, “why the Dragon’s Mouth? That’s a seriously unpleasant place, even for the Nightside. What would an elf be doing there? Or does he know... that I know the Dragon’s Mouth? That once upon a time, I knew it very well.”
  26.  
  27. “You used to frequent the Dragon’s Mouth, boss?” said Cathy, somehow managing to sound scandalized and delighted at the same time. “But it’s...”
  28.  
  29. “The Nightside’s premiere drug den,” I said. “You never knew me in my dog days, Cathy; when I was down-and-out and on the run from everyone, including myself. I swore I’d never go back... but if that’s where the elf is, then that’s where I’m going. If only because I can’t have our crafty and underhanded elf lord thinking he has an advantage over me. No-one tells me there’s somewhere I can’t go, not even me.”
  30.  
  31. “You’re weird, boss.”
  32.  
  33. I shut down the phone and put it away. I’d gone out into the night looking for changes, and it seemed I’d found some. I’d been thinking about my future, but it seemed my past wasn’t finished with me yet. I thrust both hands deep into the pockets of my trench coat, took a deep breath, and headed for the Dragon’s Mouth, and the deepest, darkest part of the night.
  34.  
  35. Never trust elves. They always have their own agenda.
  36.  
  37. ==========================================
  38.  
  39. He was sitting alone at a small table, smoking opium through a hollowed-out human thigh-bone. Just because he could. There was a circle of open space around him, despite the crowded conditions of the Dragon’s Mouth, because even the kind of people who habituated a place like this didn’t want anything to do with an elf.
  40.  
  41. Long and long ago, humans and elves lived together on the Earth, sharing its wonders and resources. But we never got on. There were battles and wars and horrible slaughters, and in the end we won by cheating; we outbred the pointy eared bastards. They gave up and left our world, walking sideways from the sun, moving their whole race to another world, another reality. The Sundered Lands. The few elves you see walking the world today are rogues, outlaws, remittance men. They live to screw us over because that’s all they’ve got.
  42.  
  43. This particular elf watched me approach and lazily blew a perfect smoke ring at me. Followed by half a dozen increasingly complex smoke shapes, culminating in a great ship perched on a rising wave, complete with billowing sails and shaking rigging. But he was only showing off, so I ignored it. I pulled up a chair and sat down opposite him, careful to keep the whole of the table between us.
  44.  
  45. “So,” said the elf, in a voice like a cat drowning in cream and loving every minute of it, “here you are. Lilith’s son.”
  46.  
  47. “Actually,” I said, “I take more after my father. I’m John Taylor.”
  48.  
  49. “Of course. And you can address me as Lord Screech, Pale Prince of Owls.”
  50.  
  51. “But that’s not your real name.”
  52.  
  53. “Of course not. To know the true name of a thing is to have power over it. But for the purpose of this transaction, Lord Screech will do.”
  54.  
  55. “Because the owls are not what they seem?”
  56.  
  57. “Quite.”
  58.  
  59. I looked him over. Screech was inhumanly tall and almost impossibly slender, with the usual slit-pupilled cat’s eyes and sharp, pointed ears. His skin glowed like fine porcelain, so pale as to be almost colourless, and his quick smile showed pointed teeth behind the rose pink lips. He wore long oriental robes of a shimmering metallic green, complete with a stiff high collar that rose behind his head, and his long white hair had been swept up in tufts on either side of his elongated skull, like an owl’s. I was tempted to make a Flock of Seagulls joke, but he wouldn’t have got it.
  60.  
  61. And besides, it would have dated me.
  62.  
  63. “Why ask for me?” I said, directly.
  64.  
  65. “You have a reputation for arrogance, style, and occasional viciousness,” said Screech. “You might almost have been an elf.”
  66.  
  67. “Now you’re just being nasty,” I said. “And why meet here, of all places?”
  68.  
  69. “Because I do so love to watch humans degrade themselves,” Screech said easily. “Throwing their lives away for such pitiful rewards. No elf would ever lower himself to anything as small as this; even our sins have to be magnificent.”
  70.  
  71. “Tell me what you want,” I said. “Or I’m out of here.”
  72.  
  73. “Always so impatient,” said Screech, laying aside his bone pipe. “Always in such a hurry. Comes of being mortal, I suppose. Very well, Mr. Taylor, I shall talk, and you will listen, which is of course the proper state of affairs between elf and human. I am presently passing through the Nightside on a matter of importance. It is imperative I complete my journey without being stopped or in any way detained along the way. I am an emissary between the two warring factions of Faerie.”
  74.  
  75. “Hold everything,” I said, leaning forward despite myself. “Go back, go previous; run that by me again. The Fae are at war with each other? When did that happen? And why haven’t we heard about it?”
  76.  
  77. “Because it’s none of your business.”
  78.  
  79. “It is now,” I said. “Or you wouldn’t need my help.”
  80.  
  81. “Life is imperfect,” said Screech.
  82.  
  83. “All right; why pass through the Nightside at all?”
  84.  
  85. “Because this appalling locality is the nearest thing we have to neutral territory. I can see I’m going to have to fill you in on a few of the background details. How very tedious. In the beginning, long before human history began and we were all myths and legends... Queen Mab ruled over the Fae, and she was mighty and magnificent and terrible to behold in her glory. Under her rule we spread and prospered; but it didn’t last. How could someone of such a magnitude as Mab have foreseen the rise of the vermin called Man? She underestimated you, and lost the war, and was deposed, by Oberon and Titania.
  86.  
  87. “They dragged her off her Throne and threw her down into Hell; and there she stayed for many centuries, while Oberon and Titania ruled the Fae in her place, in the Sundered Lands. But Mab got out; and after so long in the Houses of Pain, her vengeance was terrible to behold. She cast Oberon and Titania down, to take her place in Hell, and re-established herself as the one true rightful ruler of the Fae. Or as many of us as were left after she’d finished purging the unfaithful.
  88.  
  89. “But then Oberon and Titania fought their way out of Hell and took up residence in Shadows Fall, in the land under the hill, and have since amassed a mighty power of rebellious elves, determined to take back the Sundered Lands by force of arms. Aren’t families embarrassing when you have to explain them to strangers?
  90.  
  91. “Anyway, civil wars are always costly, in all too many ways, and both sides have been persuaded to step back from the brink. For the moment. I have been acting as emissary between the two rival Courts, and after much ... discussion, we have a Peace Treaty. It won’t last—such things never do—but hopefully it will buy us time for more reasonable voices to make themselves heard. Or perhaps some public-spirited person will assassinate one or other of the Courts. I need you, John Taylor, to find me a safe way across the Nightside, from this distressing location to the furthest boundary, and the Osterman Gate. Where I might finally take my leave of this ... human world, in favour of some more civilised reality.
  92.  
  93. “You must understand, Mr. Taylor, there are many here who would like nothing better than to see me dead, and the Treaty destroyed, for a whole variety of reasons. These unprincipled villains include certain elves on both sides who want war for personal and political reasons, who can’t or won’t forgive past slights... and then there are all those people who hate elves and would delight in the spectacle of our slaughtering each other. This very definitely includes the Nightside’s current Overseer, Walker; who has set his people to harrying and threatening my progress. Apparently he has decided it is in Humanity’s best interests that the elves remain divided and, preferably, destroy each other. A very ... practical man, your Walker.”
  94.  
  95. The elf stopped talking and looked at me. I considered the matter, taking my time. My first impulse was to get up and leave. Well, actually, get up and sprint for the exit. Getting involved with elves is never a good idea, and getting caught between two warring factions struck me as only marginally less dangerous than playing Russian roulette with a fully loaded gun. There’s just no way you can win. And on top of all that ...
  96.  
  97. Never trust an elf.
  98.  
  99. I’d heard rumours about Queen Mab’s return, and everything Screech had said had a dreadful plausibility to it, but he had to be lying about something, even if only by omission. Because that’s what elves do.
  100.  
  101. “Why should I help you?” I said bluntly. “You and your kind have always been the enemies of Humanity. Maybe Walker’s right. Maybe elf killing elf is in our best interests.”
  102.  
  103. “What makes you think our war would take place in the Sundered Lands?” said Screech, smiling pleasantly. “No; we’d fight our battles in your world, where the extensive collateral damage wouldn’t bother us in the least.”
  104.  
  105. “Good point,” I conceded. “All right; suppose I do take this on. How do you propose to pay me?”
  106.  
  107. “Not with any of the usual means of payment,” said Screech. “You wouldn’t trust any of them, and quite rightly.
  108.  
  109. “I propose to pay you... with information. I know something you don’t know. Something that you definitely need to know. Because it involves a real and present danger to the whole of the Nightside and because it involves you personally. Something very old and very powerful and quite appallingly terrible has come to the Nightside. You’ll know the name when I say it; though it isn’t what you think it is. Get me safely across the Nightside to the Osterman Gate, and I’ll give you its name. Believe me, John Taylor; you need to find this thing before anyone else does.”
  110.  
  111. I looked at him thoughtfully, saying nothing. Never trust an elf...
  112.  
  113. “If you wanted to pass unnoticed through the Nightside,” I said, finally, “why come as an elf and draw attention to yourself ? Why not hide your true nature behind a glamour and pass yourself off as just another tourist?”
  114.  
  115. “Appear as a human?” said Lord Screech, looking down his nose at me. “I wouldn’t lower myself. I have standards. Do we have a deal, Mr. Taylor?”
  116.  
  117. “You’re almost certainly not who you say you are,” I said. “You’re probably not even what you claim to be. And you’re proposing to pay for my services with a secret that may or may not turn out to be of any practical use. Have I left out anything important?”
  118.  
  119. “Only that any number of truly unpleasant individuals will quite definitely try to kill the both of us all the way to the Osterman Gate,” the elf said cheerfully. “But then, that situation’s normal for you, isn’t it?”
  120.  
  121. “What the hell,” I said. “I’ve got nothing else interesting on at the moment. But if your precious secret turns out to be a crock of shit, I will quite definitely rip both your pointy ears off and use them as can openers.”
  122.  
  123. “Oh, it’s a wonderful secret,” said the elf, smiling. “Vitally important and damnably significant. You’re really going to hate it.”
  124.  
  125. I got up from the table, and Screech rose to his feet in one long, graceful movement. He was still smiling, which is always a disturbing thing in an elf.
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