Titania wore a long black dress with silver trimmings, and wore it with a careless, heart-breaking elegance. She was lovelier than any mere mortal would ever be, and she knew it, and didn’t give a damn. She was a few inches taller than Oberon, with a skin so pale that blue veins showed clearly at her temples. Her hair was blonde, cropped short and severe, and her night-dark eyes were calm and cold.
Nobility hung about them both, like a cape grown frayed through long use.
“We know you, John Taylor,” said Oberon, in calm, bored voice. “Why do you trouble us?”
“King Arthur’s back,” I said briskly. “That’s him, right there. Isn’t he marvellous? He and his knights have kicked the crap out of the elves Queen Mab sent to devastate the Nightside. He has asked her to parley, to find a way to avoid the forthcoming elf civil war, and she has agreed. He now asks you to parley, in the same cause, and swears he has another, viable option to propose.”
“There still exist ancient pacts, of honour and blood, between the Unseelie Court and Camelot,” said Arthur. “Tell me the elves have not forgotten honour.”
“No,” said Oberon. “The elves still remember honour.”
“But what if we do not want peace?” said Titania. She did not move at all, her rich and sultry voice seeming to hang on the air.
“Would you rather face extinction?” I said. “You know that once the war has started, you’d all fight to the end, to the very last of your forces, rather than admit defeat. You’d use any tactic, any weapon, die to the very last elf and take all Humanity and the Earth with you, before you’d let your hated rival win. Arthur is offering you a way out—a way for the elves to survive as a race, with honour. And if you can’t trust King Arthur of Camelot, whom can you trust?”
Oberon smiled slightly. “Why not? If nothing else, this process should prove ... illuminating. I see you, Mab. What say you, to this offer of parley, and a possible solution to our dispute?”
“No-one summons me anywhere,” said Mab. She turned her unblinking gaze on Arthur. “You don’t have Merlin any more. And without him, your forces failed at Logres.”
“Who needs Merlin?” I said. “We have Arthur and the London Knights, and I can call upon the Lord of Thorns, Jessica Sorrow the Unbeliever, and Razor Eddie, Punk God of the Straight Razor. I could even give the Droods a call ... Do you really want to fight one more useless battle; or shall we try something different for a change?”
“If a suitable neutral ground can be found and agreed on,” said Mab, “I will attend. But only because it has been such a long time since I have seen you, Arthur. One does miss ... old friends.”
I turned back to Oberon and Titania, in their Court at Shadows Fall. But before either of them could speak, another figure appeared suddenly from behind the two Thrones of bone, a face I already knew. A short, stocky figure, almost human-sized, though the sheer scale of the King and Queen made him appear smaller. His body was as smooth and supple as a dancer’s, but the hump on his back pushed one shoulder down and forward, and the hand on that arm was withered into a claw. His hair was grey, his skin the yellow of old bone, and he had two raised nubs on his forehead that might have been horns. He wore a pelt of animal fur that melded seamlessly into his own hairy body, and his legs ended in cloven hoofs. He smiled a lot, but it wasn’t a pleasant smile.
I knew him. He had led me a merry dance across the Nightside, all to protect a Peace Treaty he never had any faith in. He brought me Excalibur. He was Puck, the only elf that was not perfect.
He lounged artlessly against the arm of Titania’s Throne, and she patted his head fondly as he grinned out of the opening in the air.
“And so the call to parley comes, from an old and yet respected human King; and who are we to say no to such a courteous summons? I say, let us go, and talk, for talk is cheap and therefore costs us nothing. After all, nothing shall be decided, nor considered binding, unless both Courts agree on it. And how likely is that?”
“Dear Puck,” said Queen Mab. “Still so wise and so provoking.”
“Let’s do it,” said King Oberon. “For the hell of it. It has been so dreadfully dull round here, lately.”
“But no more than us,” said Queen Titania. “Just us, and no-one else.”
“Of course,” said Queen Mab. “We might want to say and admit things our people would never approve of.” She looked at me. “Assuming, again, that you can find a neutral ground where we cannot be overheard. And how likely is that?”
“Oh, I’ve got somewhere in mind,” I said. “Somewhere that will impress even the King and Queens of Faerie. Certainly a place where I can guarantee no-one will overhear you.”
And driven by the anger that still hadn’t let go of me, I raised my gift again and found the place I’d been thinking of. I used my Portable Timeslip to transport Oberon and Titania and Puck, Arthur and Kae, Mab, Suzie, and myself out of the Nightside and into the future. To the Nightside at the end of the world, the devastated future that I had helped to bring about.
Everyone looked round, startled at their sudden arrival. They hadn’t known I could do that, and until I tried, neither had I. I was deathly tired, all the energy gone out of me, and my head pulsed with a sick pain. Overusing my gift has its price. Suzie was quickly at my side, so I could lean on her if I needed to, without anyone else noticing. I forced myself to stand upright and smile unconcernedly about me. I couldn’t be weak now, not when so much depended on me. Not when I still had so much left to do.
Arthur and Kae moved instinctively to stand back-to-back, staring wildly about them. Oberon and Titania and Mab had also moved together, perhaps for mutual support. And while they towered over us mere mortals, the stark and terrible setting they found themselves in made the elves seem smaller. There’s nothing like the end of the world for putting things in perspective.
I had brought them to a dark place, where the Moon was gone from the night sky, and only a handful of stars still gleamed dully. For as far as any of us could see, the Nightside lay in ruins, broken buildings and scattered rubble, endless silence and a bone-piercing cold. Smashed and abandoned vehicles littered the empty streets, but there were no bodies, anywhere. I could have told them why, told them what happened to all the bodies; but they wouldn’t have thanked me for the knowledge. What light there was came from distant glares and strange lights out in the ruins. The night had a purple cast, as though it were bruised. We all looked round sharply, as some great shape raised itself briefly on the horizon, then it was gone again.
“What the hell was that?” said Arthur. “John, what is this place? Where in God’s name have you brought us?”
“Not so much where, as when,” I said. “This is the future of the Nightside, and London, and Earth. Or, at least, one of its many possible futures. I’ve done everything I can to make this future as unlikely as possible; but the fact that it’s still here suggests it’s not utterly impossible. Nothing lives here now, except the insects. This ... is the end of everything.”
I let them look round some more, let the cold seep into their bones and into their souls. Arthur and Kae were clearly horrified, and even the elves couldn’t help looking impressed. Oberon and Titania held each other’s hands, Mab drew herself up to her full height, and even the Puck had stopped smiling. I could have told them that I was responsible for all this: that this was the world I murdered, in one future time-line. But I didn’t. I didn’t want them distracted from the main issue.
“Welcome to the future,” I said, harshly, and they all looked back at me. “This is what the world will look like when all the wars are over.”
“Am I back in Hell?” said Mab. “Such desolation of the spirit ...”
“This is a dead world,” said Puck. “There is no life here, only ... things like life.”