Harry Gets Lost in the Mittelmarche

The Silvergrey Sea

Part Six: Storms

Harry Gets Lost in the Mittelmarche

* * *

Considering the view below me, I was naturally somewhat reluctant to jump off a stable platform. The grey sky continued down for miles. It darkened the lower it descended. At the very edge of sight, I could see flickers of green—lightning, I thought. I remembered enough of planetary astronomy to deduce I was likely on a gas giant planet. As I would soon learn, I was spectacularly wrong about that.

If I dropped and missed a tubeway I could not see, or was wrong about it existing, my fall would eventually prove fatal. Some kinds of death I preferred not to suffer.

Remaining here and searching for another way out was the cowardly, self-preserving part of my psyche loudly called for. Some perverse desire to be a better man ignored it.

Fixing clearly in my mind the spot where the nails had suddenly sailed off, I held my hat to my head with one hand and jumped.

The good news: I landed in a transparent tube of some sort.

The bad news: it was built for a craft, a not dumbass P.I. with a passive death wish.

I figured the pipe must have been three yards in diameter. The force of the wind that pushed me along was merciless. I was spun, rattled, thrown around like the last peanut in the jar. Were it not for the give in the smooth contours of the cylinder, I’d likely have been battered to death in seconds. As it was, I was disoriented, dizzy, and bruised in the eternity the ride lasted. I couldn’t even get my bearings well enough to tell if I was heading for the right spot. I was also fearful that I’d shoot right past the other island and on to an unknown death.

A problem I never could have anticipated, robbed me of an answer to my worries. The walls of the cylinder got a lot softer. The wind, hitherto howling in my ears, stilled very quickly. I forced my eyes open. The air had acquired a particulate quality, like the sparkle in the sky of the Silvergrey Sea, only much duller. Even as I watched, the sky faded. One swirl of my career gave me a look down. Scrub brush was beneath me—solid earth.

A moment later, I fell slowly to it. The sky overhead was a pale yellow. No clouds, no sun. No sounds, either.

Miraculously, my fedora was still with me. I saw it on the grass just out of arm’s reach. I levered himself to my feet, surprised by the lack of traumatized flesh screaming at me. After pacing to the hat and replacing it on my head, I reached for my smokes.

My smoke, rather. Only one black cylinder was left in the pack.

Great.

Now I had to deal with withdrawal on top of everything else. Determined to enjoy my last hits of nicotine, I stood still and savoured each breath of hot smoke as it traversed my trachea on its way to tar my lungs.

While thus engaged, I had a good look around. Other than purplish mountains off to one side, there was no detail to be seen in any direction. The lack of visible fauna did not bode well for my survival chances. I was a city boy, so they wouldn’t have been all that great anyway, but I’d rather have starved to death trying to kill something four-legged and furry, than while trying to digest grass.

Why the hell did my brat send me here?

Then came the thought that maybe she hadn’t.

I hoped that was not the case. Had my current predicament been intentional, I would be far less worried about my survival chances. The same sensation—that I was moving through water—remained, though this couldn’t possibly be the same world.

If it was, it was no ordinary one.

The sensation that so troubled me when traversing the Silvergrey Sea, crept up on me now.

I did not know where I was. Once again, I wished Mæve were with me. The latter thought produced an erection that was a welcome distraction.

Having finished the cigarette, and wanting another one already, I wandered toward the mountains, trying not to walk funny.

* * *

The landscape was of undulating rises all the way to the beginnings of the foothills.

About an hour into my walk, I crested one and found an opening in the earth. For a long while, I just stood looking at it. It represented a break in the monotony of my current path, but I distrusted it as much as I would have a fifth of whisky lying in the center of a noose.

I’d had time to think; time to conclude that I was likely no longer in the Thirty Aions, hence my distress. The normal rules of physics obviously didn’t apply here.

I’d heard of a place where such things as I’d experienced happened. It was a place under mounds and on the other side of mirrors. Travellers to this place rarely came willingly or even consciously, went the stories. The ones who returned to tell their tales inevitably had to make fearful bargains with one of the inhabitants therein to do so. No one ever recounted what happened to those who never made it out. The number of such vanished people was a matter of speculation, too.

A month ago, I would have dismissed this kind of folklore. I had, in fact. Too much had happened since for me to be sanguine about those denials.

That there not only could be such a place, but that I might very well be in it, and could find someone with whom to barter my way out seemed far from unreasonable to me. My sense of being lost and the resultant fear had obviously skewed my judgement.

With a shrug, I descended the dell to look for a way down into the ground.

The moss-covered flagstone steps winding down into the dark were a dead giveaway. This was a færie mound. This rather brightened my outlook. I’d heard many stories of the fæ, many of them tinged with horror. The one I actually knew—the elf Dævara, a whore at the Red Palazzo—was a delightful creature, full of good humour, charm, and carnal skills rivalled by no other I had ever been with. She put to rest most of nastier myths about the bastard children of the Templars. I found myself almost looking forward to meeting more.

Almost.

Climbing down proved easier than I feared it would. The slopes of the valley were gentle; the grass provided firm ground. The stone steps were covered with a soft, dry moss that made my footsteps sure. The light from above faded as I descended. I made no sound on the padded treads. No sound was there at all.

In a few moments, I was walking in total darkness, and the loudest noise was my own breathing. My sense of being lost rose as I continued. Something was wrong.

I tried to remember the comforting brogue of Dævara as she dismissed most of the horror stories about elves. It didn’t help much.

Between one step and the next, I found myself in a haunted looking forest under a blood-red full moon. Faint, howling voices came from all directions.

Fuck.

No doubt now; I was in the Mittelmarche. My habitual cynical pessimism warred with a desire to panic and run screaming into the haunted night. This was a worse fate than being in the Silvergrey Sea or even Glyph. It was a nightmare of fractured dimensions and inconsistent, ever changing physical laws. It had its dwellers, mostly fæ, but only a fool would trust them.

A flash of insight: I hadn’t been marooned here by the Fyre Child. I’d been thrown here by the detonation I’d been caught in. Somehow, the bits of whatever that mountain had been made of had shredded the Portal and flung me into the spaces inside regular space. That had to mean my wayward daughter was likely somewhere she didn’t want to be, either. For one moment, I found himself hoping my errant spawn would find and rescue me. Then I came to my senses. I’d find my own way out and to hell with that bitch of a daughter of mine.

Slim chance of the former, anyway.

I tried to calm myself, to find serenity amidst this screaming forest. I’d’ve kicked a puppy for a cigarette right then.

I saw someone approaching along the narrow path onto which I happened wander. The moon cast the diminutive figure into silhouette. All I could make out clearly were the gossamer wings.

Well, at least he was small. Hoping it was a friendly færie, I decided to wait in plain view.

She.

Barely over four feet, she had frizzy blonde hair and wore dungarees, a woollen sweater that had seen better days and sturdy work boots. Luminous pale blue eyes, almost white considered me with a look somewhere between apprehension and murderous dislike.

“Lost?” Such bored fatigue in her voice!

“In fact, yes. My name is Harry Tranker.” After a moment’s consideration, I decided not to go for the handshake. “I’m hoping you can show me the way out.”

“First things first.” She took two quick steps forward and made a throwing motion at me. Something like flaming sparks leapt from her hand and covered me before I could duck.

Other than being coated with what now looked like glitter, nothing happened. Her shoulders relaxed. “So, you are mortal.”

“You doubted?”

Her grin elevated her overall cuteness to beauty. “Look around you.”

I had while waiting and agreed that was wise. “I’m in the Mittelmarche, I take it?”

“Spot on. My name’s Jewel¹, by the way.” She made the gesture I’d been too cautious to make.

We shook. Her tiny hand was dry and much stronger than I’d’ve thought. “How did you get here? From Glyph?”

“No.” Harry gave her an abbreviated version of the events of the last few weeks.

Her squarish face assumed that murderous aspect again, as she listened. “I can get you to Glyph.”

Not my preferred destination. I said as much.

“There are other places, but they’re harder to get to. Besides, you really should speak to my Uncle Onyx.”

“I just need to get back to the Silvergrey Sea. A disaster is in the making and I may be able to help stop it.”

“You won’t be able to, not without help. Onyx has much wisdom in matters ancient.”

“Really.” I didn’t hide my doubt.

“He’s the oldest living fæ and has been record keeper for the Pixie tribes for a very long time.”

“And he can tell me how to stop the Templars from being reborn?”

“He was present when the Templars first manifested.”

“Now you’re lying. No fæ could possibly be older than the Templars. The Templars were the parents of the færie races.”

“Were they, now?” A pussycat smile. I began to doubt. This could be a trap, though. This was the Mittelmarche, after all. I clung to the benevolent picture of the fæ Dævara had given me.

“Everyone knows that. It’s well-established history.”

“That doesn’t mean it’s true.”

“What are you saying?”

“What race do you think the Ten Kings were transformed from?”

“The natives of Atalanté, Homo…Hadit?”

“Homo Vadit. But no, those poor sods merely provided the form for the incarnated spirits of the Templars.”

“And those spirits were…fæ! Holy Shit! Why weren’t we told?”

“Ask the Hermetists.”

“Færies made the Templars?”

“Not exactly. We were the clay which Poseidon moulded into the Templars. It was no plan of ours.”

“Why are all children of Templars fæ?”

“All fæ are m-dimensional. That trumps four-dimensional biology every time.”

Made sense. “So, your uncle can help me stop the Sea God?”

“I can’t think of anyone else who could.”

Problem One: could I trust her or her uncle?

Problem Two: could the latter actually help me?

If I decided the answer to either question was ‘no,’ I would either be stuck here or marooned on Glyph. Oh sure, I could probably find my way back to the Silvergrey, but how long would that take? In my current state of ignorance, what could I contribute?

If Jewel were being straight with me, I might obtain the key to stopping this nightmare. If she were wrong, the consequences would be grave for me but wouldn’t really make any difference in the larger struggle. My innate sense of self-preservation again conflicted with my rather mouldy sense of civic duty. After a bitter internal struggle, duty won out. “Let’s go.”

“I cannot go with you.”

“Why?” Suspicion surged again.

“I…I’m expected elsewhere.”

“Glyph is a hyper-dimensional rats maze. I’ll never find your uncle’s home by myself.” That was mostly true. I had an excellent sense of direction and could successfully navigate Glyph’s twisty byways on my own if I had to. Probably. Maybe. But I needed to know if I could trust her, so I fudged a bit.

She bought it. “Aunt Diamond is going to kill me,” under her breath. “Okay,” she sighed. “Come on.”

—Gideon Jagged
Innsmouth, October 2026

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