(c) Nin Harris 2010

Millah watched, not without sympathy, as the hapless anthropologist trudged away from her door, his shoulders slumped. He was the third one this week to visit her since the last Ferahian ship arrived on the docks just beyond the Mycologos Protectorate. He would probably be back again tomorrow. She had no idea how or why the Ferahian vessel had picked them up, but, being dedicated ethnographers, they had lost no time in trying to find out more about the city-state. After all, who could resist a multi-ethnic metropolis that had grown around a colony of oversized mushrooms, turned into houses by both humans and non-humans alike? A mushroom colony! How quaint!

Anthropologists who believed they had discovered Faerie were no different from those explorers who had traversed the continents of Asia or Africa centuries past. Millah should know, being one of the more senior members of the city-state who had arrived on Lumen Procellae from Asia, or Africa, or even South America. Somehow, the salient fact of their inherent diversity or their hybrid human population was always overlooked. Somehow, they were always misread as being Continental or even, heaven forbid, medieval!

She remembered a travel-piece she had helped to proof-read by a hippie backpacker, sometime in the late `70s. He had been floundering about the Protectorate, taking instant photographs which were always turning up blank. He wasn’t exactly the smartest human to visit the Protectorate, but he had been rather good-looking in the dishevelled, pseudo-intellectual hippie way that turned her on. Also, she was bored. The backpacker, who was a medievalist by profession in the real world raved in the pamphlet about a “glimpse into the idyllic market places of faerieland”, using various fantastical superlatives. He did not even acknowledge the fact that the proof-reader that he had been happily coupling with nightly for a week was unequivocally a golden brown business woman from South East Asia with a razor-sharp tongue and business acumen enough to have a tiny empire on an island on the edge of the Known World. Her daughter’s father, an addled mathematician who had somehow discovered Lumen Procellae through someone’s unattended laboratory, was no different. He had drifted into her life as dreamily as he had drifted out of it and she was quite sure he had never quite registered the corporeal fact of her existence or the fact that if one did not use protection, even in Faerie, there would be by-blows.

Manfred had ranted about these “wankers who think we’re Fantasy bleeding Island with funny midgets” to her more than once, but she had to admit, they did have a full cast of fantastic creatures, enough to cause cynics to snicker at their predicament. Manfred was one of them. A Tomcatting Fae with the ears to match and a seductive smile to lure the more naive of their female visitors. Some days, just watching the street outside her comfortable home was enough to make her see screaming capitol letters on artfully aged pamphlets. Faerie creatures by the gross! Pirates! Mermaids! Why, even drunken poets, as well. You couldn’t avoid them, or the beatnik artists, or the pretentious performers who quoted Artaud and Brecht as they copulated in dingy cafes. The Mycologos was no different from any place where sentient creatures congregated, actually. They were as much a part of Lumen bloody Procellae as were her sunburnt Ferahian pirates and her Nepalese friends who ran the best confectionary syndicate this side of Faerie.

Detailing the actual and exact racial composition of the Protectorate was a delicate thing. It was also a mess that she wouldn’t wish on any Anthropologist. Not the one who had rang her doorbell earlier, not the one that she had very efficiently taken care of the week before. She had to admit, ethnographers made for the best fertilizers, better than mathematicians or astrophysicists. Her neighbours would be well-fed on her banquets for months as a result of the garden’s yield.

This is a story fragment that is from the Watermaidens novel-in-progress. It no longer fits within the novel but will be reworked into another short story at some point. Consider this the backstory, or supporting scene. A lot of the work I’ve done on Domus Exsulis involves setting up different frames of narration against and behind each other.

(c) Nin Harris 2009

The Arbitrator is in a fuzzy, deep blue bathrobe today, his close-cropped red hair wet as if he has just come out of a bath. He invites me into his home in the South-Eastern Wing of Domus Exsulis, a sturdy retreat built of wood and set atop tall pillars of timber. If I move out of the leadlight adorned doors which open from ceiling to floor, I will be on the hexagonal deck which looks out across the fens to the south, the Mishgalaveri Mountains towards the west. I watch as his eyes widen at how I have changed. I am no longer the voluptuous, dusky-skinned Ferahian scribe and researcher who visited him on odd evenings.

“Yildie, what a pleasant surprise,” he says, a hint of doubt in his voice as he takes my clammy and webbed hands in his big, warm ones.

“More of a surprise than it is pleasant, I am sure,” I say to him, some bitterness and insecurity entering my voice. He laughs, and runs his fingers through my hair, which has grown silky and wild.

“You look like a watermaiden now, my dear, but still you. This is indeed quite amazing. Quite, quite amazing. I have not seen you since the incident with…Conrad. Was that his name?”

“Yes, him.”

I shiver and remove my hands from his warmth, my movements abrupt and jerky. I move towards the leadlight sliding doors and look at the grotesque panel-work on them. They make me feel sick tonight with the scenes of bestial debauchery. I push them apart, the disjointed and rusty protest of the sliding mechanism telling me that I have been too violent.

“Yes, do get some fresh air outside, love. I will be with you shortly. Must get decent for you, mustn’t I?”

Outdoors, the balmy breeze from Alta Exsilii caresses my merling cheeks. It is twilight; I lean my head back against the wood of the wall as I listen to the dragons rumbling overhead. They call still for their queen who is lost in the forest of dreaming. I suppose she would have lost her name as well. Names are a manner in which we lose ourselves, our identities. I say as much to The Arbitrator as he joins me with two full pewter goblets of pinot noir. I accept the proffered goblet, carved with ornate detail and studded with blood-red rubies as he sits down beside me, wearing faded corduroys and a thick black sweater, for it is getting cold. I watch his sharp features and his long, smooth-shaved jaw as his lips move.

“Names are one way in which we can have our selves defined and stolen. But I think what is far more important are the stories behind those names. And this is even more true of storytellers. Why, when you think of it, this entire isle is made up of stories. So, story-theft becomes something so deep, so hurtful that even magic suffers.”

“Story-theft? How is that even possible?”

The Arbitrator taps his nose, carefully and swirls the wine in his goblet.

“I have another ‘name’,” he says, as he lifts the goblet to his lips and drinks. I watch the movement of his throat as he drinks, and still wonder why he fascinates me so, when I know that part of what he does involves being merciless.

“Do I want to know this name?” I ask, not even feigning my apprehension, not even joking about it. He smiles at me a little.

“It is harmless enough. I am the Story Wizard, guardian of a rather arcane cult connected to the craft of storytelling.”

“Since when does storytelling require a Wizard?”

“It does when it is the sacred art of storytelling which goes hand in hand with ritual. There are many storytelling wizards, and then there are Story Wizards, who arbitrate.”

“Go slow, you’re confusing me.”

“One of the things a storyteller learns when he starts is that there are no new stories. And yet, there are new tellings, new variations. But because there are no new stories, proving that there is story-theft can be a difficult thing. This is where magic comes in. This is where I come in.”

The Arbitrator says this slowly as he finishes the last of his wine, I lean towards him, intrigued by what he’s telling me but also by the man himself.

“So a Story Wizard performs a form of magical arbitration?”

I wonder what Freya would think of that, remembering her struggles with both Finora’s and the Orphée’s stories. He smile at me, a questioning expression in his face as he says,

“Precisely.”

I shrug at him, knowing he wants to know what is on my mind, but unwilling to share.

Instead, I ask,

”And this goes back to the cost of arbitration that you’ve told me about?”

He smiles a little; I know he can tell that I am hiding things from him. It is not usually the case between us, but things have changed since I lost my hand. Things have changed in the main Manse as well, between Kieran and me. A particularly loud dragon roars a battle roar. The leadlight panes on The Arbitrator’s doors rattle a little.

“Most storytellers would suffer in silence rather than come to me for arbitration. It involves digging deep into the invisible latticework of stories, appropriation atop of appropriation. It may be that the numen called up to judge the stories may decide that our complainant is a story thief himself or herself. He or she could stand to lose not just their reputation, but their lives. Or worse, sometimes, even the ability to make stories.”

“That sounds rather harsh and unfair.”

He strokes my watermaiden hair and whispers in my ear,

“But nothing is ever fair. Didn’t we already establish this?”

Something about him makes me want to push him away today. And then I realize that this is the first time I’ve seen him since I was maimed by Conrad in the woods. Perhaps, something about him reminds me of Conrad. Or perhaps my watermaiden senses are now rendered nauseous by the warm, meaty smell of human male, even if he is several centuries old and magical to boot. I place the pewter goblet carefully on the polished, hardwood floor, and stand.

“I have to go,” I say. He stands up too, visibly displeased.

“Must you?” He takes my hand, and says,

“I have not told you yet about the storyteller who braved the odds because she felt aggrieved enough.”

I stiffen.

“And what did you do to her?”

My sentence is taut with tension, the implication of power behind his stories had never troubled me before. But today, it does.

“What did I do to her? Why I was quite magnanimous, my dear. I let her go! I did not punish her for being so bold.”

“What do you mean, by that? Was there not a cost of arbitration?”

“There always is a cost. But we found that, like in Hamlet, sometimes there are other ways to trap the conscience of an errant king or storyteller.”

I am riveted, despite myself.

“Will you not say more?”

The Arbitrator smiles at me.

“What, can you not guess already?”

Despite myself I allow him to fill my goblet again with pinot noir.

(c) Nin Harris 2009

Somewhere on the grounds of Domus Exsulis, there is a real thicket of thorns and roses. The wild roses remember a tale; a long time ago, a winged One carried his bride to this isle on the back of Zephyr. The roses remember how a bright-browed One was transfigured by the dreaming of storytellers and poets into a green serpent, and later, a beast with the head of a lion and the paws of a bear. She had not pulled a rose, a rose but barely one. When up appeared her bridegroom, who may be elfin, or draconic, or with a pensive snout on his furry face, looking rather confused as he utters the lines that will determine their destiny.

There is, rather archetypally, a werewolf in this garden. He is a man-sized wolf who seems not to care that you are watching him putter around with his gardening shears, or his rake with wicked tines, humming all the while a chanson that has not been heard outside of this isle for several centuries. His snout is grass-stained, his claws adept, but not as adept as the gardening shears that he handles with an almost religious concentration. If you had called him an archetype, perhaps he will laugh, a guttural, wolfish kind of laugh, you understand.

He does not mind his fellow gardener, a highly strung woman with dark ringlets and a voice that rises and falls in the rhythmic cadences of both Italian and English. Perhaps we shall leave them here, where the roses still dream of the God of Love and his bride. For all Roses dream of that first gardener, who let them grow wild in Zephyr’s breeze.

This may also be true in a warmer clime, where rugosa roses will fight with wanton hibiscuses in a balmy breeze. Perhaps here, our Beauty may be clad in a delicate batik sarong, treading softly along the dewy grass and herbs while another gardener, pensive in his tiger stripes, waits to pounce on any who would dare to pull, a rugosa, a melur, but barely one.

(c) Nin Harris 2009

Every now and then, some of the braver or naughtier children from the Mycologos Protectorate break into the grounds of Domus Exsulis. Their Protectorate was set up, after all, in defiance of The Guardian’s rule. Now, with her demise and with one of their own as the Caretaker of Lumen Procellae, how could they not be even more tempted? Not all the lamias in bedchambers, nor the bogles playing cricket on the lawn or the fighting djinn could keep them away. Not the threat of a wild wolf, somewhere in the rose garden or a shrieking Madwoman who was once a Princess. Not all the foul-smelling purple ogres in the world could keep them away. Particularly not the main, foul-smelling purple ogre who roamed the grounds, looking for intruders. He was rather fond of children, if truth be told, and always felt rather hurt when they ran, screaming away from him. Not the tykes and ruffians of the Protectorate, however. They knew he was an easy mark, knew he would have access to sweets and all manner of treats in the kitchens of the sprawling Manse.

Watch them now as they come tumbling into my kitchen. Watch him sheepishly grin at me as I frown. We’ve been through this several times over the past decade or so. Nothing has changed, really. We may have a new boss, but children will still think of this as the Forbidden Manse. They will still see it as a challenge. They will trip through the polished wooden floors of the main hallway, ooh and aah over the woodcarvings and the shimmer of light reflected off expensive lanterns. They may gape and giggle at some of the paintings. And then, inevitably, the ogre will lead them here, where the smell of spices and baking bread can melt the heart of even the most recalcitrant wizard. And there are sweets of course. Not even the Guardian could have stopped this if she wanted to, but she wouldn’t have. She would have been in the kitchen, and they would not have even known she was there. She would have rolled up her sleeves, made a batch of cookies, another batch of butterscotch, and yet another of coconut candy. Pity she’s dead now, isn’t it?

Or is she, really? Perhaps she’s one of the kitchen helpers over there, perhaps she’s making lamingtons right now as she pretends to glare at the children. Who can tell? Not I! I may have the run of these kitchens, as is befitting a Chief Kitchen Witch, but I can scarcely tell which being wanders in and which wanders out of them. Too many ghosts. Too many sprites. Too many memories of Kitchens past. Only a Witch could work in such conditions. And even I have my moments. I tell the Caretaker he doesn’t pay me enough, and he laughs. I threaten to leave, and he laughs. The next day a cask of some expensive and hard-to-get herb or condiment will magically appear outside my bedroom door. And I am convinced to work for yet another month. But this may yet change. My sweetheart returns from Ferahia next month and he tells me of a new situation vacant there. They are rebuilding the old city which was claimed by the waves. And I’d like to get away from Lumen Procellae, if truth be told. Things aren’t the same on the Isle anymore. Not with the Guardian gone and the Wild Hunt running unchecked. Not with maddened dragons in the sky, daily roaring with anger because their Queen has disappeared into the woods of Nemorosum Somnium.

No, this is not a good time to be on this Isle.

(c) Nin Harris 2009

Yildie liked to visit with the rivermaiden and the kitsune, some evenings. There were times when the Caretaker’s morose moods and the continuous battles between the bogles and the domestic djinn in the hallways drove her out of her mind. Evenings like those were made for roaming, if not the vast and disorganized complex that was Domus Exsulis, then the grounds, or even the forests beyond. But her favourite evenings were with the Arbitrator.

She would climb up the narrow, wooden stairs in the South-eastern Wing that lay beyond the hastily constructed enclosure for the Gaernic Exiles. The South-Eastern Wing had been constructed out of wood and was built on thick, sturdy pillars that had been dug deep into the ground, to counter the occasional flooding of the Mishgalaveri river. Here the Arbitrator lived, a quiet, long-jawed man with black-rimmed eyeglasses, short-cropped red hair and an assortment of colorful quills. He also possessed a cellar of the finest wines on the isle. She did not know why he fascinated her, perhaps it had something to do with the daily fights he had with the notions of justice and honor.

“Is there place for justice in a world governed by magic and dreams?”

She asked him this, more than once. He would often laugh at her as they discussed the many ways justice was and was not a part of their world.

“Everyone feels injured by someone at some point.”

Then, she would ask him if he would have acted the same way as the injured parties if he were in their shoes. He would laugh, shrug and say,

“It’s a fucking nuisance to go through the paperwork I throw at them. It’s my way of providing them with a way out, make the process so tedious they change their mind. Because there is just too much to lose when my brand of arbitration doesn’t work for them. I always hope that will stop them from doing it. But no one does. If it were me, I’d give up. But I’m glad they don’t. I’d be out of a job, otherwise!”

And then he’d wink at her and pour her some more wine, and they would talk, deep into the night. And she would try not to think of the things he never talked about, like the fate that waited for the people who failed at getting what they wanted from his arbitration. Like the price extracted from them by the parties accused of various injuries. Or the price set by the Arbitrator himself. Yildie knew these were things that they would eventually talk about, but she liked him far too much right now to want to think about it.

The next morning, she would have to go back to work, more often than not, with a headache and eyes that squinted over with a hangover because she had forgotten to guzzle down enough water. The Caretaker was never happy when he knew she’d spent the night with the Arbitrator. She sometimes wondered if this was why she kept going back to the South-Eastern Wing. But this too, was something she chose not to question too deeply.

(c) Nin Harris 2009

The rivermaiden had heard of others like her before. Those who were made, those who haunted the banks where they had flung themselves into the rivers. Others yet, daughters of whatever numen lay within the river. She had heard these tales but had never known for sure if she had been made or if she just was. The rivermaiden enjoyed her river, had never once felt the need to haunt its banks, preferring to float along downstream or sometimes upstream, against the current, unseen by all but the fishes and the other rivermaidens. When the rivermaiden was of a mind for company, she allowed herself to be more visible, but more often than not, she preferred to not be disturbed. There is something about the fluidity of a rivermaiden’s form that attracts too much attention from humans. This had become even more of a problem when more and more people thronged the shores of Lumen Procellae, during The Guardian’s benign dictatorship. Things were slightly different now underneath The Caretaker, but not by much. Too many humans, too many souls, too many other creatures, some more predatory than others. It hurt the rivermaiden’s head. But even she, even she had friends.

Sometimes, the river would float her into the sprawling gardens surrounding Domus Exsulis. She would swim and slither her way through the narrow little rivulet that led from the river into the pool that lay at the bottom of the garden. And there she would meet her friends, the three little kitsune who had somehow managed to find their way to Lumen Procellae, in a little fishing boat they had stolen. There, the rivermaiden would allow the kitsune to comb her flowing hair. There, the kitsune would listen to her sing as they played their instruments and drank their cherry blossom tea. And then, she would settle down to listen to their stories, of the exiles that thronged the main Manse, of their homeland which they had fled.

The rivermaiden liked stories. Rivers thrived on stories after all.

(c) Nin Harris 2009

Every garden or grounds has a bottom. This remains true even if it is a postcard sized yard or if your space is cemented, or if everything is perfectly level, or circular or hexagonal. You do not need to know where the garden’s bottom is. The faeries do. We do. Wherever there is a bottom, and a body of water, here we will bide, the garden nixies. We will wade between rushes or grass or moss and we will spy on you. You will be enchanted by the sheen of moonlight against the surface of our watery skin but your conscious mind will not even register our presence. It is enough.

You do not need to believe in us. Like the Garden’s Bottom, we remain true, regardless of whether or not your heart is cemented, or if everything is perfectly level, or if your logic is delightfully circular or hexagonal.

Just a short note that I am finally working on a novel set in Domus Exsulis. The title is Saltwater Orphée and I hope to be done by next September. Wish me luck!