CHAPTER II
He was lying on his side, one arm curled under his head and blue moonlight all around him. Bright moonlight: one could read newsprint in such an illumination, he reflected in the first half-second of returning consciousness, and then write to Ripley about it. Somewhere in the “Believe It or Not” collections was the statement that the feat was impossible. If . . .
He became aware that the fingers of the hand underneath were touching grass and heaved himself to a sitting posture, now bolt wide-awake. From beyond his own feet the face of the dream was grinning under knobbed antennae, which pricked eagerly toward him like the horns of a snail. Behind, Barber was conscious of other crowding figures as he tried to concentrate on what Knob-horns was saying.
“. . . mickle bit o’ work, moom.” Knob-horns spread his arms and let the hands dangle from a pair of loose wrists, slightly swaying like a tight-rope walker. “ ’E were that ’eavy. ’ic.”
There was a little ripple of suppressed amusement behind Barber, with a clear contralto voice rising out of it: “Wittold! Is’t so you were taught to address the Queen’s Majesty? What said you?”
The mobile features regrouped themselves from a grin into an expression of comic and formidable sullenness.
“I said ’e were ’eavy.”
“Aye. One needs not your ass’s ears to have caught so much. But after that?”
Barber swiveled. The contralto belonged to a beauty, built on the ample lines of a showgirl chorus he had once seen, justifiably advertised as the “Ten Titanic Swede-hearts.” He caught a glimpse of patrician nose, masterful chin, dark hair on which rode a diadem with a glowing crescent in front.
The being with the antennae replied: “I said nowt after that, ’ic.”
Barber experienced the odd sensation of being informed by some sixth sense that the individual was not quite sure of his own veracity. The tall lady had no such doubts: “Ah, ’tis time for a shaping, indeed,” she cried, “when my husband makes messengers of louts that lie barefaced! What is’t, I asked, some new form of address in mock compliment from my gentle lord? You said Ic!”
Antennae shifted his feet, opened his mouth and abruptly fell down. The others clustered around him, twittering, babbling and pushing, a singular crowd.
Some were as tall as Barber, and some small, down to a foot in height, and their appearance was as various as their size. Many, especially of the smaller ones, had wings growing out of their backs; some were squat and broad, as though a gigantic hand had pushed them groundward while they were in a semi-fluid state. An individual with a beard and walleyes that gave him an expression of perpetual surprise was dressed like a Palmer Cox brownie; others wore elaborate clothes that might have been thought up by King Richard II, and some had no more clothes then a billiard ball.
Pink elephants, thought Barber, or am I going nuts? One half of his mind was rather surprised to find the other considering the question with complete detachment.
“What ails yon wight?” demanded the regal lady, who had not condescended to join the crowd.
The brownie looked around. “A sleeps; plain insensible like a stockfish, and snoring.” There was a chatter of other voices: “An enchantment, for sure—send for Dos Erigu. . . . The leprechauns again, they followed the king. . . . Nay, that’s no prank, ’tis sheer black kobbold malice . . .”
“Peace!” The contralto cut sharply across the other voices, and she extended her arm. Barber saw that she held a slender rod about a foot long, with a point of light at its tip. “If there’s sorcery here we’ll soon have it unsorcelled. Azam-mancestu-monejalma—sto!” The point of light leaped from the tip of the rod, and moved through the air with a sinuous, flowing motion. It fit on the forehead of the antennaed one, where it spread across his features till they seemed to glow from within. He grunted and turned over, a fatuous smile spreading across his face, but did not wake. The tall lady let arm and rod fall.
“Pah!” said she. “Like a stockfish, you put it? Say a stock rather; here’s no enchantment but a booby with barely wit enough to live. Oh, I’m well served.” She gazed down at Barber, with an expression of scorn on her delicately cut features. “And here he’s brought this great oafish ill-favored creature, beyond doubt the least attractive changeling of the current reign.”
Barber was being scrutinized. “Think you His Radiance will accept the thing?” inquired one doubtfully.
The tall lady sighed. “We can but try. Mayhap ’twill find him in his mad humor and so suit. See to the object; we return within an hour.” She swept off into a little grove of trees through which the pillars of some structure gleamed whitely.
The one who had spoken last, a winged female about four feet high, bent over Barber, examining his pajamas. “He has arrived without his clout,” she said. “Have we one?”
A square of whitish cloth was passed from hand to hand. The four-footer folded it diagonally and tried to roll Barber over.
“Hey!” he protested. “What’s the idea?”
“The changeling speaks,” said one of them, in an astonished tone. “Faith, and well,” replied another, admiringly. “What precocity! His Radiance will, after all, be pleased.” And half a dozen of them went off into peals of gay, tinkling laughter.
Barber could see neither rhyme nor reason to it, but he was not granted the opportunity, as at the same moment he was seized by a dozen pairs of busy hands. They were trying to diaper him; the idea was so comic that he could not stop laughing enough to resist. But neither could these queer little people control his movements well enough to get the diaper on, and the struggle ended with three or four of them collapsing on top of him in a tangle of arms and legs.
The four-footer said gravely: “Marry, ’tis no small problem with so lusty a babe. A very Wayland or Brian of Born when a gets growth, I’ll warrant. Yet stay, friends; this is a wise, intelligent brat that talks like a lawyer, that is, never but to his own profit. He merely protests that we put the clout on over his breeches when it should go under. Come, once more!”
She gave a little leap, flapping her wings in excitement, and was bounced a dozen yards into the air by the effort. Barber gaped, following her with his eyes, and felt his pajamas seized by hands eager to tear them off him. He clutched, turned, swung his arms in good, angry embarrassment, then broke loose—even the largest of them did not seem very strong—and backed a few steps against one of the trees, a torn pajama leg dangling about his feet. Half a dozen of those with wings were in the air. He could hear the whisper of their flight behind the tree, and a chilly hand, small like a child’s, plucked from behind at the neck of his too-light upper garment.
“Listen!” he cried. “Unless this is one of those nightmares where you go down Fifth Avenue without your clothes, my name’s Fred Barber, and I’ll keep my pants, please. You can trust me not to disgrace them. Now, will someone tell me what this is all about, and why you want to put that thing on me?”
He pointed to the enormous diaper, which had slipped from the hand of its holder and lay spread and tousled on the grass. There was a momentary silence, through which one or two of the aerial creatures planed lightly to the ground, spilling the air from their wings like pigeons. Through it the observant part of Barber’s mind shouted to him that in dreams one does not speak but communicates, thought to thought; nor do the fantasies born of head injury follow from step to step. This must, then—
The brownie with the walleyes had stepped forward, pulled off a striped stocking-cap and was bowing to the ground. “Worshipful babe,” he said, in a high, squeaky voice, “you do speak in terms rank reasonable; which, since all reason is folly and I am the court’s chief fool, to wit, its philosopher, I give myself to answer in the same terms. As to your first premise, that you dream, why, that’s in nature a thing unknowable; for if it were true, the dream itself would furnish the only evidence by which it could be judged. You will agree, worshipful babe, that it’s not good law, nor sense either, that one should be at once judge, jury, prosecutor and condemned in his own case. Therefore—”
He was thrust aside in mid-speech by the little winged creature, who cried: “Oh, la! Never speak reasonably to a philosopher, Master Barber; it leads to much words and little wit. What this learned dunce would say in an hour or two is that you find yourself at the court of King Oberon—”
“As mortals have before,” chorused half a dozen of them, singing the words like a refrain.
“—About to be made a present of to His Radiance—”
“Do you mean this is really fairyland?” Barber’s voice was incredulous. There was a great burst of laughter from the queer little people all round him, some holding their sides, some slapping knees, others rolling on the ground with mirth till they bumped into each other. Inconsequentially, they turned the movement into a series of acrobatic somersaults and games of leapfrog, laughing all the while.
“Where thought you else?” demanded the winged lady.
“I didn’t. But look here—I’m not sure that I want to be a present to King Oberon, like a—like a—” His mind fumbled for the impressive simile, all the time busy with the thought that, in spite of its sequence and vividness, this must be some special kind of hallucination. “—Like an object,” he finished lamely. Over behind his interlocutor the playful hobgoblins were slowing down like a weary phonograph record. She held up two little hands with jewels flashing on the fingers.
“Oh, la, Sir Babe, you to question the desire of a crowned king? Why, put it if you must that it’s a thing natural, like being born or having two legs. You have no election in the matter. Nay, more—no mortal ever but gained by doing the King’s will of Fairyland.”
Once more Barber experienced the operation of that curious sixth sense. There was something definitely untrue about that last statement. But this was his game; this was the land of verbal fencing he had been trained in, and if this whole crazy business were an illusion, so much the better, he could argue himself out of it.
“No doubt,” he said evenly, “I shall benefit. But why pick on me? Certainly there must be dozens of people willing to be—pet poodles for King Oberon. You say it’s a natural thing. Well, after all, nature has laws, and I’d like to know under what one I was kidnapped. And I’m not a babe.”
Once more there was the paroxysm of laughter from the crowd, and the ensuing antics. The winged lady looked bewildered and seemed about to burst into tears, but the brownie philosopher struggled from the grip of a dwarf who had been holding a hand over his mouth, and stepped forward, bowing.
“Nay, Lady Violanta,” he said. “By y’r leave, I’ll speak, for I perceive by my arts that this is a most sapient babe, so well-versed in precepts logical that he’ll crush your feather spirit like a bull a butterfly. Let me but have him; I’ll play matador to his manners.” He bowed, addressing himself to Barber.
“Masterful babe, in all you say, you are wrong but once; that is, at every point and all simultaneous, like fly-blown carrion. Item: you do protest your age, which is a thing comparative, and with relation to your present company, you’re but a bud, an unhatched embryo. Hence we dispose of your fundamental premise, that you have years and wisdom to criticize the way the world is made to wag; which is an enterprise for sound, mature philosophical judgment.
“Item: ’tis evident advantage to everyone, man or moppet, when the world wags smooth. Indeed, whatever tranquility exists in individual doings is but show and false seeming, like the bark on a rotten apple tree, till those matters that concern the general be at rest. How says Cicero? ‘Obedience to reason, which is the law of the universe controlling high and low alike, is the effort by which man realizes his own reason.’ Now since there lies a coil between our king and queen that can only be dispersed by the presentation of a changeling from Her Resplendency to His Radiance, the said changeling should take great heart and good cheer at having introduced into the world some portion of harmony that cannot but reflect or exhibit itself in what concerns him more nearly. Now—”
“Yes, but—”
“I crave your grace.” He bowed. “Item the third: it is good natural law and justice, too, that you should be chosen. For by old established custom it is demanded of those mortals who have commerce with us that they offer the geld or set out a bowl of milk on St. John’s Eve. Now, since your parents failed of this duty, worshipful babe, when snoring Sneckett yonder came he was clearly possessed of the right of leaving an imp or changeling in your room.”
“Marry,” broke in the winged fairy, “an’ that’s not all he was possessed of, to bring such a great, ugly hulking creature!”
Scholastic logic, Barber told himself; if this whole queer business were hallucination, this part just might be something his mind had dredged out of the subconscious memory left by college days. There was no use arguing with the old fellow; he’d crawl through a keyhole. No, that way out wouldn’t do. However, there was a test that could be applied to the reality of the experience. The senses of touch, hearing, sight could be deceived, but—
“You needn’t rub it in,” said Barber. “I know I’m no beauty. But I am hungry.”
The winged fairy said: “That’s a malady we can mend. Who has the bottle?”
A milk bottle with a rubber nipple appeared, and was passed to Barber. He examined it at arm’s length for a moment, grinned, pulled off the nipple, and emptied it in a few large gulps. It was milk; he could taste it. Hooray! He felt better. The fairies were murmuring astonishment.
“Thanks,” he said, “but I’m still hungry. How about some real food?”
The fairy looked severe. “Sugar-tits have we none. Is’t possible you’re schooled to sturdier meat?”
“I’ll say I am. I’m schooled to bacon and eggs and coffee for breakfast. How about it?”
“Coffee? Oh fraudulent Sneckett! He told us that the folk of your land drank tea.”
“They do. I’m just peculiar—lots of ways. I prefer coffee.” Barber ground the words a trifle, the suggestion of tea for breakfast capping his annoyance over the constant references to his babyhood. In the service, where one obtained a senior consulship only through white hair and the ability to compare digestive disorders with other old sots, he had been known as “Young” Barber.
Violanta shrugged and spoke into the crowd. A gangling sprite with pointed, hairy ears shuffled up with a tray which contained nothing but a quantity of rose petals.
“What the devil!” exclaimed Barber.
“Your eggs and coffee, sweet babe—or since it’s a mortal child, would I say Snookums?”
“Not if you value your health, you wouldn’t. And this stuff may look like food to you, but to me it’s just posies. I might go for it if I were a rabbit.”
“Stretch forth your hand.”
He did so; the rose petals turned into a substantial breakfast complete with silver in a recognizable Community pattern. He picked up the coffee cup, sniffed, and peered at it suspiciously. It seemed all right. He squatted on the ground with the tray on his lap and tasted. The result made him gag; it was exactly the rose-flavored coffee served in Hindu restaurants, and a thrill of fear shot through him as he realized this was the perfect pattern of hallucination, the appearance of one thing and the actuality of another.
Violanta caught his expression of dismay. “Your pardon, gracious and most dear Barber-babe,” she said, “if the flavor wants perfection. A knavish shaping has turned our spells to naught, and all here have lived on flower leaves since.”
“Not very nourishing, I’d say,” remarked Barber, sniffing hungrily and remembering that dreadful Yorkshire supper he had toyed with in what now seemed a past a thousand years deep.
“Oh, as to that, fear nothing. ’Twill nourish you featly, though it have the taste of adder’s venom.”
It might just as well, thought Barber, munching away and trying to forget the heavy, sweet flavor that went with the meal. At least the texture was real enough, indubitably that of bacon and eggs. And the coffee did have the familiar reviving effect of coffee. He finished and laid knife and fork on the tray with a little clink just as the crowned woman came sweeping through the grove again. Barber laid aside the tray and stood up, making the courtliest bow he could manage with a torn pajama leg dangling around one ankle.
“May I offer my respects to Her Most Resplendent Majesty, Queen Titania?” he said in his best diplomatic manner. “And offer her my services to the small extent of my powers?”
She looked so pleased that her expression became a positive simper. “So young and so well taught!” she said. “I perceive my Violanta has not wasted time. Why, aye; since your offer is fairly made it will be as gladly accepted, and you shall be my messenger of amity before His Radiance. Would that delight you?”
Barber bowed again. “I can’t think of anything I’d like better.” He might as well, he told himself, play out the string; behave as though this whole crazy business were real and as much a part of his life as, say, the Luftwaffe bombing London. He would have thought that idea crazy, too, if anyone had mentioned it as imminent a year or two back.
“Then let’s away,” said the Queen. “My coach!”
A wide-mouthed imp, dressed in a blue tabard with an intricate design of silver crescents woven onto it, dropped from the tree branch where he had been sitting, and shouted in a voice of surprising volume: “Ho! The Queen’s coach!”
Somewhere among the trees another voice took up the cry, then another and another off into the distance, “The Queen’s coach! The Queen’s coach!” The coach rolled into the glade before the last shout died away, a structure like that used ceremonially by the Lord Mayor of London, if anything more elaborate, more gilded, and drawn by six white horses.
Two footmen leaped down from the tail; Barber noted with a jar of surprise that they were enormous frogs, in appearance and costume duplicates of those Tenniel had drawn for Alice in Wonderland. He was diplomat enough not to allow this to upset him, but stepped forward and handed Queen Titania in. She smiled graciously, and opened her mouth to speak, but just at that moment the outrider beside the frog-coachman lifted a trumpet and blew a series of piercing notes. The Queen motioned Barber to join her; he hopped in, the horses started, and they moved off, surrounded by running, flying and shouting fairies. Barber’s last glimpse of the glade where he had landed in fairyland showed him the brownie philosopher, engaged in a startling series of Catherine wheels behind the vehicle.