Duke Braddock and the Fairy's Market
The Festival Submission for IronAge Media
The throngs of people gathered in the cool air of the summer night, the cobblestone path beneath their feet the last remnant of the old kingdom road that passed this way in ages past. Children laugh and run between the legs of the milling folk, who share quiet tales of their travels here or their lives since last they saw one another. Cups of mulled wine are shared as the moon breaks the horizon of the canopy, casting its white light through the dark leaves and winding branches, a sense of anticipation palpable in the quieting voices in the crowd.
Young children are shushed by their parents, either with sugar-cured fruits or with gentle contact, while the children old enough to feel it quiet on their own and seek out their parents. The air is changing, and where the breeze had a sharp chill for summer before, it now feels billowy and warm and carries on it the promise of strange and exotic scents. As the hush spreads further, a distant sound like soft music approaching beginning to thrill through the leaves on the ground and the silver-white light of the full moon, the soft golden glow of fireflies begin to appear between the trees.
It's only now, in the growing light, that Duke notices the vast diversity among the crowd. Sitting apart from it, on a small rise that gently slopes to the road on the far side from the fireflies, Duke hadn’t quite realized how far people had come to be here. The growing and blatant realization on his face makes Ania smile as she sketches random figures in the crowd, leaned against a tree and straining her eyes to see the black marks on white paper.
Wolf folk rub shoulders with the Sea People, while the chitinous Cuvra make small talk with the blue skinned Nurat. Some groups are people he’s not yet met, while others look almost like people he’d have known back home. Some are dressed in finery and are emblazoned with the sigils of noble houses or courtly logos, while others wear tatters that seem to have barely made the journey. Yet, through it all, no weapons are drawn and no voices are raised. Duke is shocked to see it, after all the bloodshed he’s seen in the past few months.
He adjusts his hauberk, shifting the uncomfortable weight of it from one shoulder to the other as it rattles lightly, scraping at the itchy woolen shirt beneath. He silently laments the loss of his own shirt, so long ago, and the impending doom of his jeans as he idly scratches his thigh through a shredded patch of it, the edges stiff with old blood. He glances to Ania, his voice quiet and almost reverent.
“Hey. Should we, y’know, be here?” He gestures towards the crowd and the growing hush across them as there seems to be a sense of growing excitement. “I feel like I’m interrupting church or something.”
She chuckles, rubbing her eyes with one hand before tucking her charcoals in their pouch, “Of course. All are welcome, obviously.” She tucks the charcoal in the bag along with the sketchbook, “Besides, you are clearly uncomfortable with the Baron’s gift.”
He opens his mouth to speak but is struck dumb as the sound of music breaks through the air like a bubble had burst. It is quiet and pleasant and carries with it a sense of celebration and fun like a children’s song performed by a jazz band. As it does, the moon light and fireflies shift and shimmer, and the empty spaces between the trees begin to flow like pearl-white milk, rolling down the trunks of trees and empty spaces until they slowly coalesce into something more solid. In spaces below and between the ghostly rivers the firefly lights begin to melt out of focus, spreading to fill the spaces with a warm and honeyed glow, casting light out into the crowd in a mottling of warm gold and cold white.
Soon, the waterfalls and rivers are arches of pearlescent marble supported by white alabaster pillars and between them radiant pools of golden light, inside of which shadows begin to form and take shape. Monstrous at first, long spindly twisted forms cast against the light itself from some distance behind, while the sound of music rises with strings and cymbals and bells in a celebratory manner that makes Duke think back to traveling carnivals and state fairs.
Sooner than Duke can reckon what he’s seen so far, the shadowy shapes close in on the golden light and part it like stage curtains, pinning the long golden glowing drapes behind the pillars as the warm light from behind spills out fully across the crowd, showing the world behind is all counters and tables and merchants hawking their wares.
The merchants are garishly colored, some in bright purples or blues or pinks, some pied in a motley of wild and vivid colors. Jugglers move out among the crowd, casting glittering lights in oblique circles to the merriment of children and adults. The people in the crowd’s hush is replaced by the cheers of children and laughter of adults, and then by the hustle and bustle of an immense open-air market. The market itself runs the length of the road in both directions as far as Duke can see, and even the trees above the road seem to cast the moon’s silver-white light down on the milling crowds so as no one is still in the dark.
Except Duke and Ania, who stand on their hill, Ania shifting her bag onto her shoulder with a soft sigh and a smile, nudging Duke in the ribs lightly with an elbow as he stares dumb at the sight he sees, a look of child-like joy on his face.
“This is the Fairy’s Market, Duke.” She motions to it with a flourish, beginning to head down the gentle slope to the road and the crowd, “Now come on, we don’t want to get separated, ayea?”