The collier drew a pan of water from a small wooden cistern and washed, splashing water on his face and forearms, and then allowed Daniel to do the same. Then he opened the store cupboard. Peering around him, Daniel saw that it was filled with stoppered bottles and jars, all of different sizes. He pulled out a tall beaker-shaped jar and pulled out a wooden cork. He took a drink, paused, and then took another. He handed it to Daniel. “Drink,” he instructed.
Daniel paused. “I was told not to take anything that I didn’t ask to be given to me.”
The collier gave him a nod. “Good advice. Though while you work for me, you won’t need to ask, for you act under my authority.”
“What authority is that?” he asked, curious.
“My own authority,” the collier said simply.
Daniel took a sip from the flask and tasted a rich, spicy, cinnamony drink that was thick and sweet. “It is very good,” he said.
“It is nourishing, that is all.”
Daniel handed the drink back to the collier. “Do you have anything to eat?”
“Food?” the other returned. “Like animal flesh?”
“That, or bread or fruit or something.”
The collier shook his head. “I am not used to entertaining those of the heavy races here.”
“You don’t eat?” Daniel asked.
“Not eat very often-only during festivals and feast days. Try to live on this-if it pains you, I will try to procure other fare.”
Daniel nodded, as if that made sense. “What world is this, exactly?”
“This world is our world, we don’t give it a name. But you stand on a continent that we call Elfland.”
“And so you’re an elf?”
“Yes, I am.”
“And everyone who lives here is an elf?”
The collier nodded.
“I met an elf once, a long time ago. Do you have a king?”
“As you are here, you should learn to speak our language,” replied the collier after a pause. “What was your question again?”
“Do you have a king?”
“Our word for ‘king’ is reesh. In our language, names come first, so you would ask me reesh y’ka?”
He looked at Daniel expectantly. “Reesh y’ka?” Daniel said to him.
“Filliu sa ennym oo reesh.” The collier answered. “That means:
Filliu is the name of our king.”
Propped up against the side of the collier’s hut as its owner sat on a stool, Daniel received his first lesson in the elf language.
Then they rose and went to the wood furnace. Under the collier’s direction, Daniel helped to peel back the layers of baked dirt to reveal the rich, black charcoal underneath. Once done, they started to sift the charcoal, removing bits of wood that hadn’t burned entirely and putting the rest of the black, sooty material into some of a dozen large barrels that the collier wheeled out one by one from behind his hut. The charcoal lumps were sorted, roughly according to size, by the collier himself.
“Filliu,” the collier said abruptly, tossing a double handful of burnt coal into a barrel, “is our king in name only. His father was Ghrian, and he was the last good Elfin king of our land.”
“What happened to him?”
“Ghrian died, and his younger brother, whose name was Aarnieu, took control of the throne in defiance of the king’s son, Filliu, who was away at the time, hunting. The usurping king had nine sons, capricious men who reveled in submitting themselves to every perverted whim. They decreed the beginning of a new era, a new house of royalty. He and his sons styled themselves ‘The F?r Folk of the Fated House.’ ”
The collier spat and then did not speak again. They worked in silence and by the time it grew quite dark, they had done a good deal of sorting, but still had over a third left to do.
“What happened to Filliu, the king’s son?” Daniel asked during the evening meal. Their conversations were in the collier’s native tongue, with halts and pauses for the explanation of words.
“Aarnieu held the funeral banquet for King Ghrian near the king’s burial ground in a magnificent tent that he erected for the occasion. All of the nobles and warrior chiefs attended the feast, no less in love for the fact that honour commanded it. None were armed, except for the nine sons, and the banquet’s servers, who were really Aarnieu’s soldiers. They had knives concealed in their boots.
At a certain moment in the evening, the command was given, and the servers drew their knives and plunged them into the throats of the Elfin lords Aarnieu knew to be loyal to young Prince Filliu.”
There was another long pause as the collier continued with his meal. He finished his food, then took a swig of wine, wiping his lips on his sleeve.
“As it happened, there was a certain lord at the feast, by the name of Nock. He caught a gleam of a knife across the table, and this alerted him to Aarnieu’s plan. He rose to defend Prince Filliu-whose assassin hesitated, perhaps due to conscience or the weight of the moment. This gave Nock the opportunity to defend the prince, and the blade intended for the boy returned to its master, sheathing itself in his bone and breaking. In a rage, Nock reached for a pole that was helping to prop up the tent wall and wrenched it from the ground. With this weapon, he was able to club off the other attackers who came at him only with knives. He broke many arms, legs, and skulls that night, dispatching many evildoers to their final judgment. In this way, he was able to save Prince Filliu. They were the only two of the old regime to escape.”
“What happened to them?” Daniel asked.
“Aarnieu had not counted on any of the lords leaving the table, let alone the tent, and so was unprepared for pursuit, and the two were able to depart without much chase. The next day Aarnieu announced himself the first Faerie king and his sons regents to the throne who would, upon his death, jointly control the kingdom, now called F?rieland.”
For the only time Daniel knew him, the collier smiled. “That night, ‘King’ Aarnieu was found dead, stabbed nine times in the chest.”
Daniel, fascinated though he was at this story, couldn’t keep a yawn from escaping.
“You are weary. Do you need to . . . sleep?” This last word was in English.
Daniel nodded his head. “Yes, I’d better. Aren’t you tired?”
“Elves do not sleep. Our bodies are light-not so leaden as yours. Your essences are always sinking, like earth and stone; ours mingle in the air. We tire and rest but do not close our eyes. Do what you may to make yourself comfortable and come and find me again when you”-he thought for a moment-“stop sleeping.”
And so it was that the evening of Daniel’s second day in Elfland found him in another pile of leaves and wrapped in his new cloak, but in the corner of the coal-maker’s hut and not in the elements.
It was another very long night, punctuated by hours of silent thought where Daniel was able to meditate on his situation and the new language he was learning. Outside he could hear the collier still working, sorting through the charcoal and occasionally going into the forest. It was quite dark, even outside, but Daniel supposed that elfish eyes were better than human eyes. No doubt due to their “airy essences.”
At length Daniel rose, before it was still quite light outside, to find that the collier had finished sorting the charcoal into barrels and was now sharpening two axes with a smooth stone.
He greeted him and handed him a drinking skin, which apparently held the day’s breakfast. Living on the streets, Daniel was used to an irregular diet but wondered how long he could go with no solids.
“Come with me,” the woodcollier instructed, handing Daniel one of the axes. “If you are a good worker, we may be able to start a second pit.”