The Realms Thereunder

4

Daniel found the routine of charcoal-making satisfying and an easy style of living to fall into. It was a twenty-four-hour-a-day job-or however many hours there were in this new place, Daniel still wasn’t sure. At first he found it hot and sweaty work, then he found it strenuous and exhausting work.

When he had met the collier-the name, Daniel found, for charcoal-makers-he had been entering the final stages of the process, intently studying the smoke issuing from the top of the mound, waiting for the right moment, when the smoke was thin and started to turn blue. As soon as this happened, he went around the mound and closed the ventilation holes. Then he climbed up the side of the mound and told Daniel to hand him some more thick sections of turf, which he piled onto the top. The air supply completely cut off, they waited for the furnace to cool.

He welcomed Daniel into his hut, which was spare but comfortable- no more than a wooden room dug partway into the ground with earth piled on top of it. But it was good shelter. It contained no bed or bedding material, only a ring of stones in the centre, creating a fire pit, and a hole in the ceiling to let the smoke out. There was a wooden box pantry of stores adjoined to a small stable that contained one massive horse that stood patiently, thoughtfully chewing oats.

The collier drew a pan of water from a small wooden cistern and washed, splashing water on his face and forearms, and then allowed Daniel to do the same. Then he opened the store cupboard. Peering around him, Daniel saw that it was filled with stoppered bottles and jars, all of different sizes. He pulled out a tall beaker-shaped jar and pulled out a wooden cork. He took a drink, paused, and then took another. He handed it to Daniel. “Drink,” he instructed.

Daniel paused. “I was told not to take anything that I didn’t ask to be given to me.”

The collier gave him a nod. “Good advice. Though while you work for me, you won’t need to ask, for you act under my authority.”

“What authority is that?” he asked, curious.

“My own authority,” the collier said simply.

Daniel took a sip from the flask and tasted a rich, spicy, cinnamony drink that was thick and sweet. “It is very good,” he said.

“It is nourishing, that is all.”

Daniel handed the drink back to the collier. “Do you have anything to eat?”

“Food?” the other returned. “Like animal flesh?”

“That, or bread or fruit or something.”

The collier shook his head. “I am not used to entertaining those of the heavy races here.”

“You don’t eat?” Daniel asked.

“Not eat very often-only during festivals and feast days. Try to live on this-if it pains you, I will try to procure other fare.”

Daniel nodded, as if that made sense. “What world is this, exactly?”

“This world is our world, we don’t give it a name. But you stand on a continent that we call Elfland.”

“And so you’re an elf?”

“Yes, I am.”

“And everyone who lives here is an elf?”

The collier nodded.

“I met an elf once, a long time ago. Do you have a king?”

“As you are here, you should learn to speak our language,” replied the collier after a pause. “What was your question again?”

“Do you have a king?”

“Our word for ‘king’ is reesh. In our language, names come first, so you would ask me reesh y’ka?”

He looked at Daniel expectantly. “Reesh y’ka?” Daniel said to him.

“Filliu sa ennym oo reesh.” The collier answered. “That means:

Filliu is the name of our king.”

Propped up against the side of the collier’s hut as its owner sat on a stool, Daniel received his first lesson in the elf language.

Then they rose and went to the wood furnace. Under the collier’s direction, Daniel helped to peel back the layers of baked dirt to reveal the rich, black charcoal underneath. Once done, they started to sift the charcoal, removing bits of wood that hadn’t burned entirely and putting the rest of the black, sooty material into some of a dozen large barrels that the collier wheeled out one by one from behind his hut. The charcoal lumps were sorted, roughly according to size, by the collier himself.

“Filliu,” the collier said abruptly, tossing a double handful of burnt coal into a barrel, “is our king in name only. His father was Ghrian, and he was the last good Elfin king of our land.”

“What happened to him?”

“Ghrian died, and his younger brother, whose name was Aarnieu, took control of the throne in defiance of the king’s son, Filliu, who was away at the time, hunting. The usurping king had nine sons, capricious men who reveled in submitting themselves to every perverted whim. They decreed the beginning of a new era, a new house of royalty. He and his sons styled themselves ‘The F?r Folk of the Fated House.’ ”

The collier spat and then did not speak again. They worked in silence and by the time it grew quite dark, they had done a good deal of sorting, but still had over a third left to do.

“What happened to Filliu, the king’s son?” Daniel asked during the evening meal. Their conversations were in the collier’s native tongue, with halts and pauses for the explanation of words.

“Aarnieu held the funeral banquet for King Ghrian near the king’s burial ground in a magnificent tent that he erected for the occasion. All of the nobles and warrior chiefs attended the feast, no less in love for the fact that honour commanded it. None were armed, except for the nine sons, and the banquet’s servers, who were really Aarnieu’s soldiers. They had knives concealed in their boots.

At a certain moment in the evening, the command was given, and the servers drew their knives and plunged them into the throats of the Elfin lords Aarnieu knew to be loyal to young Prince Filliu.”

There was another long pause as the collier continued with his meal. He finished his food, then took a swig of wine, wiping his lips on his sleeve.

“As it happened, there was a certain lord at the feast, by the name of Nock. He caught a gleam of a knife across the table, and this alerted him to Aarnieu’s plan. He rose to defend Prince Filliu-whose assassin hesitated, perhaps due to conscience or the weight of the moment. This gave Nock the opportunity to defend the prince, and the blade intended for the boy returned to its master, sheathing itself in his bone and breaking. In a rage, Nock reached for a pole that was helping to prop up the tent wall and wrenched it from the ground. With this weapon, he was able to club off the other attackers who came at him only with knives. He broke many arms, legs, and skulls that night, dispatching many evildoers to their final judgment. In this way, he was able to save Prince Filliu. They were the only two of the old regime to escape.”

“What happened to them?” Daniel asked.

“Aarnieu had not counted on any of the lords leaving the table, let alone the tent, and so was unprepared for pursuit, and the two were able to depart without much chase. The next day Aarnieu announced himself the first Faerie king and his sons regents to the throne who would, upon his death, jointly control the kingdom, now called F?rieland.”

For the only time Daniel knew him, the collier smiled. “That night, ‘King’ Aarnieu was found dead, stabbed nine times in the chest.”

Daniel, fascinated though he was at this story, couldn’t keep a yawn from escaping.

“You are weary. Do you need to . . . sleep?” This last word was in English.

Daniel nodded his head. “Yes, I’d better. Aren’t you tired?”

“Elves do not sleep. Our bodies are light-not so leaden as yours. Your essences are always sinking, like earth and stone; ours mingle in the air. We tire and rest but do not close our eyes. Do what you may to make yourself comfortable and come and find me again when you”-he thought for a moment-“stop sleeping.”

And so it was that the evening of Daniel’s second day in Elfland found him in another pile of leaves and wrapped in his new cloak, but in the corner of the coal-maker’s hut and not in the elements.

It was another very long night, punctuated by hours of silent thought where Daniel was able to meditate on his situation and the new language he was learning. Outside he could hear the collier still working, sorting through the charcoal and occasionally going into the forest. It was quite dark, even outside, but Daniel supposed that elfish eyes were better than human eyes. No doubt due to their “airy essences.”

At length Daniel rose, before it was still quite light outside, to find that the collier had finished sorting the charcoal into barrels and was now sharpening two axes with a smooth stone.

He greeted him and handed him a drinking skin, which apparently held the day’s breakfast. Living on the streets, Daniel was used to an irregular diet but wondered how long he could go with no solids.

“Come with me,” the woodcollier instructed, handing Daniel one of the axes. “If you are a good worker, we may be able to start a second pit.”

Daniel followed him eagerly into the wood, walking behind as he pointed out the trees that needed felling. These were usually trees that were damaged or diseased, or ones that posed a threat to other plants around them.

“This is why the forest allows me to take from it,” the woodcollier explained. “I remove what is harmful to the forest-what is dead and decaying. The forest thanks me for this and allows me to stay.”

“What would it do to you if it didn’t want you to stay?” Daniel asked.

The woodcollier didn’t answer. He was looking up instead at the treetops where a large limb of a tree had splintered away and was caught in the upper branches.

As easy as anything, the collier went over to a tree and started scaling it, as fast as walking, and with one hand still holding an axe.

“Are you coming?” the collier asked Daniel when he was already halfway up the tree.

“I don’t think so,” Daniel said. He tapped his chest. “Heavy, remember?”

He thought he heard the collier grunt and continue up to the branch. Daniel tried to see what he was doing. There were chopping noises and some creaks.

There was a call for him to look out, and then the sound of branches creaking and giving way. Daniel took several leaps back as the large tree limb landed before him with a loud crunk.

The collier descended and went to the branch, straddling it.

“Watch what I do,” he said, raising the tool above his head and bringing it down at the base of a large branch. He did this a few times, placing one cut over another, until the branch gave way completely.

“Now you,” the collier said, dragging the branch away and gesturing to a branch of the same size on the other side of the tree.

Daniel moved into position and hefted his axe.

“Stop,” the collier commanded. “Already wrong. Stand here.

Cut upwards with the grain. Strike here.” He pointed across the branch.

Daniel did as he was directed. The head of the axe lodged in the wood and sent a rough vibration up his arm.

“Good, but don’t push the head into the wood-put some force into it and let the axe fall of its own. Use a strong, steady hand with a gentle touch. Continue.”

Daniel made more strokes, some of which went embarrassingly wide of his mark, and finally, after about fifteen blows, managed to cut the branch away while the collier looked on.

“Good, keep going,” he said, and then started working the other side of the tree, laying into a particularly large branch.

After a while Daniel asked, “Do the nine sons of Aarnieu rule Elfland now? Or F?rieland, rather?”

“The Faerie Princelings, yes, they do. They used the death of their father and the disappearance of Filliu as an excuse to hunt down and kill the remaining supporters of the late King Ghrian. It was plain to anyone with half a brain what had happened, but the populace decided to play along with a comfortable lie rather than fight for a difficult truth. This has opened the royal court up to any number of flatterers and extorters. There is one I’ve had several run-ins with-Agrid Fiall, who is particularly devious.”

Daniel had managed to remove two more branches and started on the third when the collier said, “Stop, you are weary. Never swing an axe in that state. Rest a moment.”

In truth, Daniel’s arms, particularly his shoulders, were nearly falling off. Daniel laid his axe on the ground and moved off to lean against a tree.

“Wait,” the collier commanded. “Never leave any tool just lying around. That is dangerous, disrespectful of both the instrument and your craft, and speaks badly of the craftsman. Always keep it with you. If you must leave it anywhere, for any reason, leave it like this . . .” He raised his axe and struck the fallen tree with it where the trunk was thickest. The handle stuck out at a 45-degree angle.

Daniel crouched against a tree, out of the way. He rested there, sweating hard and studying the collier’s form as he attacked the tree with a smooth and graceful confidence born out of experience.

“The Faerie rule is vast and now encompasses all the Elfin cities and villages. Only the farthest territories and hardest-to-reach places remain beyond their rule. At least, beyond their interest.

Unfortunately, I cannot say that of this forest. The Faerie territories are ruled by the nine princes, who have all degenerated into frivolous perversities. Two hundred years ago, on a whim, each of them wed nine sisters who they pass around among them, with as little sense of proprietorship-not to say love-as dumb beasts.”

When Daniel felt that he had cooled and rested enough, he rose and started working the tree again, at the woodsman’s side.

“What about the Elves in Exile?” he asked.

“We don’t speak of them here,” the collier said curtly. And that was the end of the conversation for another couple hours, until the tree was fully stripped and they made their way back to the hut.

“The Elves in Exile,” the collier said, as they ate lunch in the shade of his hut, “is the name of the court of the true king of Elfland-they preserve the royal line, unbroken for over eight thousand years. They believe that one day, when the people most desire it, they will storm the Elfin palace and reclaim the throne.”

By now Daniel was tired and exhausted. Daniel explained about his own time and the length of days, and the collier let him sleep some of the afternoon at the hut. He felt sure that he had been awake a full day, but the sun was still high in the sky.

When Daniel awoke he found another pile of branches, but no collier. He set about stripping them again. Then, as it was getting towards evening, the collier returned with the actual tree trunk itself, which had now been cut into three sections.

The collier taught Daniel how to saw and split the wood in the proper lengths, and he did this until it was too dark to work. They took dinner then and Daniel dozed off as they sat outside the hut together, in silence, under the stars. That was Daniel’s third day in Elfland.

The days after that continued much the same way-long periods of work that involved going into the forest to fetch wood and then cutting it into lengths appropriate for the charring pit. Daniel steadily improved his skill at talking to the collier in his own language and was pleased at his growing fluency.

After two more days they had gathered enough wood to be able to build the pits. This was done by first scraping the current pit, then uncovering an old one in the same clearing but on the other side of the hut. Grass had grown over that one, which was to become useful later. The collier cut the turf into rectangular sections with a thin, flat shovel, and Daniel helped to lift these sections up and set them to one side. The bottom of it was then raked flat, and a thin base of the powdered charcoal was laid down on both sites. The two pits were carefully and cleverly piled with logs of various shapes and sizes, arranged in a circle, with a round gap or chimney at the centre. The collier took a thousand pains to ensure that the pits were built to a perfect standard, often giving logs just a minute turn so that the space between them was exactly so.

Then they set about covering the woodpiles with the cut turf, tightly packing it close together everywhere except the very top, which was for the chimney. Dry soil was spread over where the turf did not extend.

It was getting late in the evening when the collier was satisfied enough to light them both. He made a small fire with charcoal from the previous batch, and once that was burning nicely, he divided up the coals with his shovel and, with orange sparks dancing high into the night sky, tipped them into both of the bonfire’s chimneys, where with a quiet crackle and a rich, musty smell, they started to kindle the rest of the wood. Then they sat back and watched.

It was vitally important that the piles burnt steadily, evenly, and not too hot. The collier took constant turns around the piles, laying his hands upon the turf walls, checking the vents, and gazing into the smoke that had started to billow from the two chimney holes. Daniel followed him around. There were a few energetic moments when fire broke through the turf wall and they had to hurry to repair the breach.

After these first few hours, the collier judged that the stacks were burning well enough that they could relax and take dinner- which was from a different bottle this time.

They drank and watched the piles. Daniel gazed up at the stars, which were strange and unfamiliar. None of the constellations he learned when he was young were there, which was disturbing but also exciting.

He had to get back to Freya.

Exhaustion overcame Daniel then, and he fell into a deep and well-earned sleep.