The Line of Kings

                                                                        The Line of Kings

The fairy court was a tumultuous place but none more so than in the reign of Oberon, King of the Fey. It is probably rather impossible for the mortal mind to comprehend the spectre that was court. It was a spectacle that put all else to shame. I pray you, be patient with me while I try to describe what my young mind saw when my father took me to court for the first time. I was, as you would call your young males, a boy. I glided behind my father’s graceful body bedecked in shimmery dark blue velvet, the colours of my father’s line. My hair had not truly grown from its childish habit of curling and I had a mop of inelegant brown ringlets tangling around my pointed ears. To this day I wonder if my father knew what I was and if he had planned to take me to court because of it. I will never know but if he did it gives me pride to think that even at my young age my father had enough conviction in my courage and curiosity to take me there.

The forest that acts as passage and barrier to the Fey Court is unlike any a mortal would ever see. It is a canvas come to life, a majestic collage of every feat that Nature herself could boast of. We, who are enamoured by all that is Nature, bowed in the face of all she could do. From the mountains that formed in the East and the waterfalls that were abundant throughout, to the daisy carpeted hillocks in the South and the ivy curtains that parted graciously to expose an enchanting lagoon. We fairies only ever travel on foot because we do not need shelter so we do not see the necessity of travelling anywhere fast. We do not travel on horseback and we do not pack provisions, we leave our homes as we arrive at our destinations, perfectly ordered. Coldly calm and aloof. Yet for our lack of passion the Fey Court is a wild opposite.
My father calls me to his side when we step out of the forest and walk a stretch of emerald green lawn, perpetually sparkling with dew in the eventide light. The huge arched doors were made of white wood set between two white marble pillars shaped like oak trees. Their huge sprawling tree tops meet in an arch above the doors and amongst the branches were carved birds and squirrels. I pointed out to my father the fox carved between the roots of the tree.

“They used to move,” he said softly, “a long time ago.”

I said nothing in response and the doors opened for us and we walked into the Fey court as one with my uncles following behind us. The blue of our robes looked dull against the outrageous show of colour that abounded behind the doors. The floor was made of glass that had a pinkish hue to it and was cold against our bare feet, it was intersected by lattice pattern made of pearl. My father said that there was one gold line among the pearl that looked like sunlight amongst the stars. Whoever could see it would do great things.
The vaulted ceiling was so far above us that it took five swift glances before I realised that it was painted a deep, rich gold and spread like liquid down the titanic pillars. The walls as far as I could remember were a medley of shifting colours, crimsons and oranges are two that I remember. I think they were the colours because we were on the cusp of autumn and the Fey court regulated itself to the rhythm of the seasons. What caused me much discomfort was the array of writhing bodies that were splayed about. Our skin is the colour of moonbeams made solid, our hair is valued most highly when it is so fair it is almost white. I felt the shame of my dull brown locks once more by seeing the perfection of the nude bodies around me and for a moment I forgot the mortification I felt at what they were doing for the embarrassment of my defects.
To stop my eyes wandering I looked towards the throne and gasped. When I had heard tales of King Oberon I had always laughed. I liked him in the stories. The outrageous King that flouted tradition and made the court a more colourful, fun place to be. I did not think he was mad or a villain, I thought he was a little different, like me, and I felt a kinship to him because of it. Yet bile burned the back of my throat when I saw the Ice Throne, so called because it was given as a gift to the first Fey King by the Dwarves in the midst of winter as a sign of allegiance and submission to his rule. The superb craftsmanship of the Dwarves was dishonoured and hidden by the pelt of a bear. The decadence of the Fey court was suddenly made clear to me, it was clearer now even though I had seen the perversions being carried out by the naked courtiers. The bear had been hunted and killed for its pelt, to hang as an ornament over the Ice Throne. Oberon had broken the most fundamental law of the Fey and he was flaunting it in the faces of all and no one save myself seemed to care. Well, myself and my father. His face and hair would not have been out of place in this court yet his expression was one of contempt as he stopped before the steps that led up the throne. My father and two uncles were triplets and I could only imagine that the look on my father’s face was mirrored in his brothers who stood behind us.

“King Oberon,” my father greeted the King with respect but barely inclined his head, my uncles copied my father and so did I. Though I believe I bowed deeper than the other three.
“Bannadare,” Oberon said my father’s name but it did not sound like a greeting, the King’s cold eyes flicked past my father’s broad shoulder to my uncles. “Dennameer, Barronoth.”
The King allowed his lips to relax into what I assumed was a smile and yet it chilled me. Like tales of the night Goblins and the Boggarts that lived in foreign lands, King Oberon scared me. I looked down at my feet, not wanting to see the King’s ghastly smile nor the sorrowful sight of the bears pelt.
“And who do we have here?” the King asked, my shoulders tensed I looked up at my father in horror. Fey court etiquette dictated that I be called ‘son of Bannadare’ and not by my first name as a sign of respect to my father and his house.
“Speak up!” The King shouted and I thought I had died of fear before I realised my heart was pounding too hard for me to be dead yet still I did not answer until my father gave me a nod. I put my head down, with eyes to the floor.
“I am Sorrendame, Son of Bannadare.”
I think, though I am still unsure to this day, whether I heard my uncle Dennameer laugh appreciatively at my gall.
“Sorrendame,” The King sneered mockingly at my father, “named for our Elven forebears. Sorrendame, the traitor. Sorrendame, the thief. Sorrendame, the sneak, the supplanter –“

“The overthrower of kings,” my father interrupted with clipped tones. I struggled to breathe, thinking in my young mind that I would witness my father and an uncles die before meeting my own death. I stared hard at the floor, praying that my father’s unfortunate choice in names would not earn me an early death.
“Why do you expect leniency and respect in my court when you speak out so openly about your disdain of it, Bannadare?” Oberon demanded.
I traced the line on the floor with my eyes to distract myself from the King’s furious voice, following the sheen of pearl here and there.

“I want law and order to reign once more,” my father boomed back at the king, a silence fell amongst the courtiers. “I want sanctions placed on the houses that break our laws if you will not punish them in the old ways. I want a treaty made with the Dwarves once more, I want the common folk to be safe from attack. I want an immediate halt to the seduction of mortals and the theft of their young.”
I did not look up but in that moment I had never been more proud of my father.
“You dare to demand of me!” Oberon cried, he was livid. I felt my father push me behind him and I stumbled into my uncle, as he caught me my eyes focused on the floor and what I saw froze the breath in me. The gold thread, like sunshine given form, shining out of the sea of pearl. My uncle set me behind him and my thoughts were consumed by the thread I saw. Even while my father and the king raged at each other, I watched in fascination as pulses of white light zinged through the line of gold. I followed the length of the line with my eyes and saw that it left the room and with an inward prayer that my father would forgive me, I left my uncle and father to follow the line.

I followed it for what must have been a quite a distance but I found its origin. Down long corridors I tracked it, into dark spaces, and down long steps into the catacombs. Further and further into darkness until it stopped and so did I. I stopped before a statue made of black diamonds, carved exquisitely into the shape of a man. A regal man that should be sitting on a throne of ice but was given up to the shadows. I breathed hard through my mouth as I reached out with trembling finger to touch the outstretched hand of Kinfallar, the first Fey King. My father had told me the legend of Kinfallar all my life and it was on the journey to the Fey court that he regaled me with the tales of Kinfallar and finally his death. I never liked hearing of how Kinfallar died, it was too sad but my father liked to tell it. Kinfallar, king of kings, brought the Fairies from the depths of barbarism and ignorance to the light. We were savages, a monstrous and cruel tribal people, wielding our powers like wanton devils. Kinfallar showed us reason, law and honour. The strength and honour of our race was embodied in the tales of Kinfallar. It was his trusted aid, Sorrendame, son of a lowly commoner that helped him overthrow the cruel clan leader and place Kinfallar on the throne.

A feeling of loss overwhelmed me at that moment and I was too young to put into words just why I cried but I did. I sobbed as I got down on my knees in reverence to my true king. Kinfallar died when a cruel and deceitful fairy conspired with a rogue, outcast Dwarf to trap Kinfallar in a suit of black diamonds. I touched my fingertips to his and heard the deafening crack as the diamonds crumbled. I scrambled back frantically, terrified that I had destroyed a priceless artefact but was even more astonished when from the rumble and rising dust stood Kinfallar in the flesh. His skin was not the creamy white of my people but a golden shade like a summer child. His hair was as black as the diamonds that had encased him and his eyes were green like the forest. He flexed his hands and then brought them slowly before his eyes, he clasped them together lovingly like they were old friends he hadn’t seen for a long time. He turned his eyes on me and I trembled, he got down stiffly on one knee and put a hand on my shoulder.
“I have waited for you for a long time,” Kinfallar said, “my truest warrior and dearest friend to be reborn. You followed the line, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” I croaked through a sand dry throat.
“We had it placed there you and I,” Kinfallar said, stroking back my curls that suddenly no longer thought of as ugly. “Enchanted it so that only you and I would see it. The line that one of us would follow to find the other so that we might rebuild our world once more.”
“I’m not brave enough, my King,” I whispered shakily, “I am not … worthy.”
“My dear friend, only you who are above us all could think that you are not worthy.”
Kinfallar rose to his tremendous height above me and held out his hand.
“Come,” he instructed and I placed my hand trustingly in his, “grave times are ahead of us, my warrior. We must pull back from the human world, forsake them until we can once more be of use. I fear war will come between us Fey but it is necessary.”
Kinfallar spoke as if his heart was breaking, I squeezed his hand.
“We must be the guardians we once were, the humans will sink in to terrible despair when we close ourselves off to them. It will take centuries to undo what Oberon has wrought but we will fight, My dearest Sorrendame, and we must win.”
“Yes, my king,” I whispered.
“Now,” Kinfallar’s eyes took on a gleam that could only be described as hungry, “take me to this false king, Oberon. I have much to say to him.”
                                                              ~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In the years that followed there was war as Kinfallar predicted and much suffering both for mortals and Fey kind. We did as Kinfallar said, shut ourselves off from humans. Even though it broke his heart to do it Kinfallar knew we would only damage the mortals more if we stayed while we were so fractured. I watched from afar as the centuries moved by, what was only decades in our world was hundreds of years to the mortals. They forgot us, they laughed about us, we became stories and myths to them. Kinfallar had enchanted lines placed across the whole of the Fey world. The enchantment, so it was explained to me was not just for me, Sorrendame, to find my friend but to find the true King. Kinfallar says that it’s time to restore ourselves into the lives of men. Finally the time has come for them and finally the door has been opened once more. We are coming back …