Faerie Wars

The fairy nodded.

'OK,' Fogarty said. 'This shouldn't take long.'

The fairy sat down with his back against the jamjar and watched while Fogarty took down an old shoebox from a top shelf. It was full of tangled wiring and dusty electrical components. Fogarty scrabbled through them, laying out bits and pieces on the kitchen table. Henry noticed they included a tiny speaker from an old transistor radio. He found a half-used tube of instant solder and unscrewed the top to inspect it. 'Nobody uses this stuff any more,' he remarked. 'All bloody microchips and circuit boards.'

Henry watched, fascinated, as Fogarty began to assemble something with the speaker at one end. His old hands were flecked with liver spots but amazingly deft, as if he was well used to intricate machinery.

Halfway through, the fairy got up and walked across to hand things to Fogarty as he needed them. The little creature appeared to have an instinctive grasp of how the contraption was going to work.

When the last piece was in place, Fogarty said to Henry, 'See if there's a battery in the drawer under the sink. Nine volt. Little square thing.'

The drawer seemed to hold nothing but string, but Henry eventually found a battery in the bottom. 'This do?'

Fogarty was making some finishing touches and barely glanced across. 'Yes, that's the ticket.' He took the battery from Henry and wrapped wires round the terminals. 'Talk into that,' he told the fairy, pointing to a button mike larger than its head.

The fairy crouched down at the mike, looked at Fogarty, then at Henry. Lips moved and a tinny voice crackled from the speaker. 'You were very rough on that cat.'

Henry blinked. 'That cat was trying to eat you!' he protested. 'That cat thought you were a butterfly.' All the same he grinned a little. He rather liked cats himself, even great podging cats like Hodge.

‘I could have handled it,' the tinny voice told him.

'Never mind the cat,' Fogarty cut in. 'We've got more important things to talk about. You can understand what I'm saying to you?'

'Certainly.'

'So you speak English?'

'If that's what you're speaking.'

'Of course it's what I'm speaking. Where did you learn it?'

'Didn't have to,' the fairy said.

Fogarty frowned. 'So it's your native language?'

'Wouldn't think so,' said the fairy.

'You trying to be clever with me?' Fogarty asked.

The fairy gave him a look that would have done justice to a sphinx. 'I don't know why you're going on about the language. You can understand me, I can understand you. I need you to help me.'

'We're not talking spying here, are we, because – '

Henry interrupted, 'Help you how?' Maybe the fairy would do something in return. He kept thinking about his parents. He kept thinking of the three wishes business. But he couldn't ask about three wishes in front of Mr Fogarty. Or talk about his parents.

'Get back to where I came from.'

Henry hesitated. 'Like… Fairyland?'

'If that's what you call it.'

'What do you call it?' Fogarty asked aggressively.

They both saw the fairy shrug. 'I don't call it anything much. The realm, I suppose. Or the world.'

'But it's not this world?'

'It's some sort of parallel dimension, right?'

'Yes.'

Fogarty looked at Henry. 'Told you. We're dealing with an alien.'

Henry said, 'What's your name?'

'Pyrgus,' said the fairy. 'Pyrgus Malvae.'

Mr Fogarty went back to the language business, which he seemed determined to worry like a bone. Pyrgus the fairy sighed audibly through the little speaker. 'Look,' he said, 'I don't understand the physics of it very well, but Tithonus once told me – '

'Who's Tithonus? Your leader?'

'He used to be my tutor when I was a child. He told me this world is an analogue of mine. Or mine is an analogue of this one. Or they're analogues of each other – it all amounts to much the same thing.'

'What's that mean?' Henry asked. 'Analogues of each other?'

'Connected,' Pyrgus said. Tithonus says it's like dreaming, except you don't leave your body behind. Dream worlds can be pretty weird, but you always know the language, don't you?'

It made no sense at all to Henry, but Mr Fogarty seemed satisfied. 'So you travelled here from this other world?'

'It's not exactly travelling,' Pyrgus said. 'We call it translating. You don't actually go anywhere. You just move into another state of being. But it feels as if you've gone somewhere,' he added helpfully.

'You people have been translating here for centuries, haven't you?' Fogarty asked casually.

'Some of us,' Pyrgus said. Even through the speaker his voice sounded guarded.

'You mean like not everybody can afford it?' Henry put in.

'Something like that.' Pyrgus moved position, but the mike continued to pick up his voice perfectly. 'Look, I don't know who you two are – '

'I'm Henry Atherton,' Henry told him promptly. He'd decided he liked Pyrgus. The little fellow was feisty.

Pyrgus ignored him. ' – but I don't think I'm going to answer any more questions until you promise to help me get back.'

'You can't get back to your own world?' Fogarty asked, frowning.

Pyrgus said nothing.

'How can we help you if you won't answer questions?'

Pyrgus folded his arms and studied the ceiling.

Fogarty gave in. 'All right, all right, we'll help you. But you're getting nothing for nothing.'

'What do you want – three wishes?'

'We'll work that out later,' Fogarty scowled. 'Just so you know there's no such thing as a free lunch.'

'How do I know I can trust you?' Pyrgus asked suspiciously.

'See anybody else round here who's going to help you?'

Pyrgus glared at him.

'Take my point?'

Pyrgus continued to glare for a long moment, then muttered something that sounded like, 'Can't be any worse than Brimstone.' More loudly he said, 'All right, we'll make a deal. You help me and I'll send you gold when I get back.'

'Hah!'

'Well, what do you want?' asked Pyrgus crossly. 'How much gold do you think I can carry when I'm this size?'

Something about the way he said it made Henry ask, 'Weren't you always this size?'

Pyrgus shook his head. 'Didn't have these stupid wings either.'

'I think you'd better tell us what's going on,' said Fogarty.

Once Pyrgus got started, it seemed as if he couldn't stop. There were details that didn't make much sense and gaps he glossed over. But the story was fascinating.

The Faeries of the Light first discovered the Analogue World nearly five thousand years ago when three families of seed merchants were shipwrecked on a remote volcanic island in the Land of Faerie. The place was barren and they might have starved to death if one of the children hadn't stumbled on something very odd – two basalt pillars that burned fiercely without giving off the slightest heat. The child – her name was Arana – walked between the pillars. Where she found herself wasn't barren like the rest of the island, but lush, well watered and packed with a jungle of enormous plants and flowers. Even more exciting, she'd been turned into a creature with wings who could fly from one giant flower to another.

Arana played for a time in this amazing world, then started to miss her family and plucked up enough courage to go through the fiery pillars again. She found herself back on the barren island. Her wings had disappeared.

When she told her family, they didn't believe it, but she talked her older brother, Landsman, into coming with her to see the fiery pillars. Before Landsman could stop her, Arana ran into the flames. Landsman lunged forward to try to save her and they both found themselves winged creatures in the green land. Landsman was old enough to realise he wasn't surrounded by giant flowers and plants, but had himself shrunk. When he led his sister back through the pillars, they lost their wings and returned to normal size.