Harry Gets Some Answers

The Silvergrey Sea

Part Six: Storms

Harry Gets Some Answers

* * *

Jewel¹ the Pixie and Harry Tranker passed out of the haunted woods. “The spirits here are mostly just for effect,” she told Harry, at one point, going on to describe the battle that had happened in Dunswollem Wood at some length, to the evident interest and horror of the lost human she was escorting. His reactions, she admitted to herself, were quite amusing.

A plain, looking undead under the haunted moon, had a monolith at its center.

With more confidence than she felt, the pixie strode straight to the standing stone. The sigil, silver in the moonlight, still gave her the shivers. Taking Tranker’s hand she shad, “Stand close to me.”

“I’ve used Portals before,” Harry said. As if she didn’t know.

Thinking of the sound of dying wind and the smell of boiling cabbage, she said, “Tomato omelette.”

Harry snickered. She couldn’t blame him, really.

An orange trumpet bell of sparks spiralled out of the stone, making cold pinpricks wherever it touched her. The familiar roaring accompanied it.

A deep breath and, “Quickly now!” to be heard over the noise.

They stretched, twisted, and fled the Mittelmarche.

* * *

The pair came out in a market. Jewel parted a leather curtain, and the pair entered a large square roofed by a translucent, flattened dome that was spider-webbed with iron bars. Beneath its protection, stalls in twisty rows held hawkers of what looked to be types of small mechanical devices. The collective cacophony of their sales pitches was near the pain threshold.

Instead of attempting to talk, she turned and gestured to Harry to follow.

Grimacing at the noise, P.I. followed her.

Ten very long minutes later, they finally exited the square and entered a winding narrow alley, where the buildings seemed to lean on one another, denying them the sky. As the shouts faded, they both sighed audibly.

“I hope you know where we’re going,” Tranker said. The wider street the lane ended at showed them a sky filled with pink spheres, slowly moving to their left.

Feigning confidence, she replied, “I’ve been here many times before, Mr. Tranker.” In fact. the exit of that familiar Portal had changed for the first time in over a century. She was sure she could find Uncle Onyx, but it was likely to take some time. Finding a familiar landmark was the key—she hoped.

She chose right because the spheres were coming in blue in that direction.

The neighborhood seemed residential, with only the occasional small shop to break up the monotony. No help in finding out where they were. After several turns and many streets, she decided to ask.

A very nice old, blue-skinned lady pointed the way to the Avenue. Jewel knew how to find Uncle Onyx’s street from there.

 Tranker was noticeably quiet during the trip. Glancing at him occasionally, the pixie noticed he was trying not to look up. He was also perspiring though, as it generally always was, the day was cool. His hand kept reaching into his pocket and coming up empty. Each such gesture was accompanied by a slight grimace.

Finally, as they approached the helical street that Uncle Onyx lived on, she stopped him and spoke up. “What’s wrong with you, Harry?”

He started and tried to reclaim his world-weary look. It almost worked. “I don’t like this city much.”

“Why? It’s not my favourite place, but it is one of the wonders of the Pleroma.”

“The Thirty Aions, you mean.”

“It’s the same thing, surely.” Jewel smiled.

“No, it isn’t. The Pleroma died with the last of the Templars thousands of years ago.”

“What are you so out of sorts about? It can’t be just a distaste for Glyph, odd as I find that.”

Tranker sighed. “I’ve always been uncomfortable not knowing where I am, relative to someplace…real.”

“Ah, I see. You’re missing something though. You keep reaching into your pocket.”

At that, a smile—not the cynical one she’d become used to, but the genuine article—bloomed. “I’m out of cigarettes.”

She smiled in turn. “I can remedy that, at least.” She reached into her pants pocket and pulled out a pipe and a leather pouch of tobacco.

Her grin widened as the look of bliss crossed the P.I.’s face. Quickly grabbing a pinch from the pouch, she thumbed it into the bowl and lit it with a finger snap. After a quick pull, she exhaled and held it out to the detective. He took it and dragged eagerly. After two more lungsful, he handed it back with, “That calms the shakes.” Again, that smile. “Don’t have any whisky on you, by chance?”

“’Fraid not. I’m certain Uncle Onyx does, though.”

“What are we waiting for?” Together, they began the spiral trek.

The road wound around a large tower, without climbing, three times. Jewel, used to this typical topographical impossibility, watched for Harry’s reaction, smiling inwardly.

He didn’t disappoint. “What the blazing hell…? I really hate this place. You knew, didn’t you?”

“Of course.”

“Could have warned a fellow.”

She laughed. “Come on.”

Soon enough, the road straightened, and Uncle Onyx’s three-storey stone house came in view; black stone, reddish slate roof and a door on the corner facing the intersection. Warm, yellow light spilled out onto the step and the cobbles beyond. Through the deep violent gloom of the spheres above, the two crossed to the left side of the road and approached the home.

Jewel glanced, as she always, did at the roads that led off in the three directions before her. Ahead, the tree bracketed road curved as it descended. In the distance was a cluster of low towers of deep blue timber. She’d always meant to visit it and see what it was. Part of her was happy to just speculate, fearing the reality would be a poor substitute for her fantasy. The road that crossed it held more residences, each one an obsessive testament to individuality. To the left, it snaked lazily until it met the high wall that cupped the city. In the other, it continued straight for a bit and seemed to disappear, giving her a tree-framed view of the city.

While she stood thus in the middle of the crossing, the door to her uncle’s home opened. She turned, a smile already blooming when his cheerful bass called out, “Jewel, my dove! What brings you and your friend to my humble portal?”

The pixie fairly skipped the distance into his arms. As she hugged him tight, Jewel heard Harry’s leisurely pace approaching. Relinquishing the embrace, she held on with one arm and turned to her companion, “Harry, this is Onyx, archivist for the pixie tribes of the Midnight Forest. Uncle, this is Heinrich Tranker, Private Investigator, and hopeful Pleroma Saviour.”

Harry gave her an old-fashioned look as he took Onyx’s outstretched hand. “It’s not quite as dramatic as that, but I’ve heard you may be able to help me on a matter of some urgency.”

Onyx smiled as he gripped P.I.’s hand. “I’m surprised someone as remote from the Hermetists as you would be involved in an attempt to fight Poseidon.”

If Harry was surprised at the remark, he hid it well.

“Please come in,” with a sweep of his hand, Jewel’s uncle welcomed them both into his home.

They went to Jewel’s favourite room.

The sitting room was paneled in darkly stained hardwood and floored in umber slate. The wall farthest from door was lined with books. The plaster ceiling tinted in fantastic rainbow-hued designs arced overhead, depicting the homely woods of Midnight. Yellow crystal sconces along the walls warmed the space. The fireplace crackled with a cheery little blaze.

Uncle Onyx gestured to a deep leather chair facing the fireplace at an oblique angle. Harry took it, Jewel another, leaving the middle one for Uncle. “One moment, my friends,” and disappeared through to the pantry. He soon returned with three snifters of brandy, setting one on each of two small tables between the chairs.

As he sat with a contented sigh, directly in front of the tamed flame, Jewel reflected that the only other time she’d been served brandy at her uncle’s home had been after the death of her grandfather Chrysoprase some eighty years before. She took the first sip in the latter’s memory.

Harry brought the glass to his nose and inhaled deeply before taking a measured sip. The pixie had assessed him as more of the gulping sort of fellow. “You seem to know more about this than most, Onyx. Tell me frankly, then. What the hell is going on?”

Onyx glanced at the private eye. Jewel could see Onyx’s right eye crinkle and the corner of his mouth turn up. “Perhaps it would be better if you told me what you know, first.”

Tranker raised an eyebrow but didn’t comment. Over the next ten minutes, he laid out the situation as he understood it. The report was terse and well organized. After his first sentence, Uncle Onyx’s smile disappeared. By the end, it had become a thunderous frown. Harry ended with, “Your niece tells me the original Templars were bonded to fæ. It stands to reason that they would need to be again, if the goal is to resurrect the Pleroma.”

For a few moments Onyx was silent, staring at the fire. If Harry was impatient, he hid it well.

The room seemed colder and darker, now.

The elder fæ broke his silence. “We were betrayed by one of our own.”

Jewel knew the history of the fæ, but this was news. Feeling suddenly fragile, she sat forward, attending to her uncle’s words.

“Who?” asked Harry.

“Poseidon, of course.”

“Poseidon is a fæ?”

A nod from Uncle. “There is a flaw in he whom you call the Sea God. He does not feel as we feel. There is no sense of the world in him. He is cut off from Nature.”

“How do you know what he feels?”

“All fæ, no matter their tribe, can sense all the others. We are connected. With Poseidon, that connection is one way. We can sense him, but he is deaf to us. It happens, sometimes. It is always a tragedy, when a spiritually deaf fæ is born.”

“What happens to them?”

Uncle sighed and returned his gaze to the fire. “For many years, the Tribes of the Fæ sought a way to heal this terrible disability, often at great cost.”

“You failed.”

Another slow nod.

“What do you do now?”

“Give them a merciful release.”

“You kill them.” Tranker’s voice was flat, his expression one of great sadness. “Is that really the best course? Couldn’t they—?”

Onyx turned to Harry, his voice harsh, “Great pain and loss has been caused by such malformed fæ. Wars, genocides. Their pain makes them desperate to have what they have been denied. The Sea God wants to be in touch with all things. This is why he made the Templars. Through them, he can feel the world. The Pleroma was his way of connecting with Nature.”

After a moment, Harry asked, “Why has he been quiet for so long?”

“The end of the Templars was caused by an alien called the White God. This being took the Templars away from Poseidon. He tried to get them back, fighting their allegiance to their new Lord. At the end, in desperation, He even trying to kill them all. He failed. After that, he retreated beyond our ability to sense him. Some of us hoped he had died. Sadly, that was not so. Almost four hundred years ago, he began to revive. Since then, we have been worrying and trying to plan a way to stop him trying to remake the Templars.”

“Any ideas?”

“Some fæ are greater than others. We call them ferals. The Sea God was very strong even for a feral. We were unable to kill him last time but killing him is the only solution we have.”

“This time you have an advantage. You know what he’ll have to do. Can you prevent him from capturing more fæ?”

A sad smile. “The tribes are everywhere, friend Harry. We live far beyond the limits of the Pleroma. There is no way to protect all of us, for we are limitless.”

“So, there’s no way to safeguard all the fæ.”

A shake of Onyx’s head. “This close to the end, it’s almost certain Poseidon already has the fæ he needs.”

---

—Gideon Jagged
Innsmouth, October 2026

© Gideon Jagged
All Rights Reserved