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"From Whom All Blessings Flow"

By E.O. Costello

Certain of the characters and settings in this story are © J.W. Kennedy

*****

(A/* 7/15/2013)

I've always thought the best time for me to walk around Albric Tor is just after dawn.

I hear the protesting cries already: "Who," you say, "is the 'me' that's being referred to? For that matter, what is Albric Tor? And what are you doing up and about when many furs are still in bed?"

All reasonable questions. To start with, the thin lead identity disc around my neck. It states that I am WINTERBOUGH, W 612397 CPL ROEBUCK MEPH. Stated more verbosely, that means I am Corporal Westersloe Winterbough V, serial number 612397 in the Imperial Army of Faerie, a roebuck by species, and a enrolled member of the Mephitist Church. Meaning that I worship the Goddess Fuma, who both defends Hearth and Home, and makes sure that there are furs to defend there.

Faerie is a realm that covers some millions of square miles. A good portion of that is ruled by the High King of Faerie, who is currently Adler of Albric Tor (more on that in a bit). Adler is a rather elderly skunk, and seems to be a bit on the frail side these days. Granted, I've only met him once, so maybe I got him on a bad day.

The reason you Lowfolk have probably not heard of our Empire is that we are "Fairfolk," i.e., elves. Your world and our world do intersect physically at points, but there's not a lot of intercourse between the two, and if you'll pardon me for saying so, I'd rather it stay that way.

Back to me, if you'll forgive the egoism. I'm about 5 foot 4 inches in your measurement system; 5 foot 8 if you count my antlers. Most days, you'll see me in my uniform (summer uniform, linen dyed light green) with either my short-staff or my elven bow slung across my back. They're the two physical weapons I'm qualified in that I actually use. My uniform itself is pretty sparse. Aside from the rank stripes and wound stripe on the right sleeve of my tunic, you'll find a small gold-and-violet ribbon in the middle button-hole of my tunic, a small silver pin in the shape of an eye on my chest, and on my garrison cap, another small silver pin in the shape of a comet.

The ribbon and the two pins each bear a relationship to one another. The eye-pin indicates that I am qualified as a magick user. Among other things, I am capable of drowning 300 heavily armed and armoured cavalry furs, plus their battle-ants, at one time. Whether that was done as a planned result of magick use, is not relevant. In any event, that event came about because of a battle about seventh months ago, to the east of Albric Tor, in a little border town called Mossford, where a small group of Imperial Army soldiers and local militia stopped a greatly numerically superior invading force. This was in spite of the omen of a comet that had appeared in the sky in the days before the battle; as it turns out, the ill-omen belonged to our opponents, not ourselves. Hence the wearing of the sign. As for the gold-and-violet ribbon, that's what recipients of the Valour Medal of Faerie wear. It's the highest award for bravery any soldier, squaddie up to general, can receive from the King.

In my particular case, I got it in part because of that defence in Mossford, and in part for rescuing the officer for whom I used to be a batman from the prison where he'd been held. Captain Sir Jasper Chitterleigh got his V.M., all right, though we had to rush him back to the winter capital so that he could legally get it. They don't award the V.M. posthumously.

Tucked into the inside pockets of my tunic you'll find, among other things, a small tube of salt lick, a pencil and a notebook, a few silver and copper coins, a medal of Fuma, and a small leather case.

If I opened the case in front of you, you would see a flash of violet light, a particular three-note chime, and the image of the Crown of Faerie. Makes for a nice show, and usually scares the hell out of any fur that sees it. See, it's what is called a "Blood Seal," so called because it's made from charging a specially prepared gem with one's own blood. No other fur, wielding this item, can produce the same effect.

Of course, it's not quite the show that scares the hell out of furs. The fact is, a bearer of the Blood Seal has the legal authority to do anything. Absolutely anything. Up to and including killing someone in cold blood, if necessary. I've not had to do that, and I don't know of any of the other Blood Seal bearers having done that, but I have seen a traitor arrested by one, and there's a pretty startling story I heard about what one Bearer did with his "Authority" clear across the Empire, while I was tied up at Mossford.

The Blood Seal, ostensibly, is given to me by His Majesty King Adler, though as a practical matter, I report to his younger brother, His Royal Highness Prince Roland, Marshal of Faerie and field commander of the Imperial Army of Faerie. Unlike King Adler, the Marshal is still in pretty decent health, though he won't be if he keeps putting away the meals he does at the pace he does. I've faced off against dozens of axe- and bow-wielding wolves, but even I'm not crazy enough to tell the Marshal to go easy on the wine and the gravies.

In fact, on the morning I was describing when I started this yarn (see, I did manage to work my way back), I was on my way into the office. "The office," for me, is a small room in the General Headquarters building down the street from the Royal Palace. Surprisingly, this is a small, one-story building built around a cloistered inner courtyard. At any given time, GHQ probably doesn't have more than a few dozen furs working there. The Marshal doesn't like folks under his footpads, and the invasion by the Grand Duke of Mossford and nearby areas aside, plus a few other scrapes other folks can tell you about, in general, the Empire has been at peace for a long time. They call King Adler "The Prudent," and it's not an unfair cognomen. He thinks that there's a lot more to be gained by negotiation than sabre-rattling (or sabre-using). Right now, the Grand Duke is probably pondering this lesson. That is, when he's not dealing with a pretty upset populace not pleased by the fact that he picked a fight with the Empire and lost.

My job description is pretty vague. Truth be told, I'm not sure the Marshal even knows what to do with me. He refers to me as a "troubleshooter." I asked him what that meant. One of the other Blood Seal Bearers, a black-furred wolfess named Captain X (seriously, that's her name, or at least the only name that's ever used around her), explained this as "whenever Winterbough sees trouble, he ought to shoot it." I do get the impression that unlike Captain X (a very experienced magick user) or Meadow Grainmaster (the small mouse femme I was teamed up with before, during, and immediately after Mossford), I'm much more of a blunt instrument in the Marshal's paws, rather than the quiet and subtle knife represented by Captain X or Meadow.

Especially Meadow. I mean, Captain X is pretty large, and you kind of notice a black-furred wolfess. You don't notice a very small mouse-femme, especially one dressed in servant's clothes; Meadow isn't Army, though she still reports to the Marshal for one reason or another. You don't pick fights with Meadow, though. She was the one who arrested that traitor I mentioned above, and she's one hell of a shot with a bow, and no mean battler with a short-staff, even if I can knock her into a pond with one.

I may be biased, though. She's a very good friend of mine, and I'll be frank in saying that it's only because of the facts that I'm a bit uptight, and that circumstances haven't quite been right that certain, well, events haven't happened between the two of us. It's been made pretty clear to me that any time I'm up for it, it's best two falls of three.

But that little train of thought is getting away from the point; besides, the Marshal gets irritated whenever he sees Meadow giving me the glad eye or vice versa. I'm supposed to be, as I say, a troubleshooter for the Marshal.

Getting back to this particular morning: it had rained the night before pretty hard, so the roads and pavements in Albric Tor were still wet. However, the there was still a lingering coolness in the air at this hour, circulated by the mountain breezes that are a big reason this place is the summer capital. Some distance away, you could hear the buzz of the main market-place, where servants at this hour of the morning were probably buying fresh produce and victuals for the tables of their masters and mistresses. For all I knew, Meadow was still in her ostensible role as a servant (to Captain Chitterleigh's widow), and she might be there right now. It would be tempting to go over there and have a leisurely chat with her -- on non business matters -- but that was the kind of temptation that might make me a little bit late.

It would have been out of my way, anyway. One of the advantages of being a V.M. is that you get a decent monthly stipend, which if you're a Corporal is much better than the "36 silver a day, once a month" that's your official salary. Combined with some off-the-books subsidies the Marshal lets me have, I can afford a place that while small, is nestled in the woods above the city, and a short walk past a few of the city's most notable landmarks until I get to GHQ. (It's also near a few of my favourite public houses, too.)

Somewhat conveniently, my daily walks to and fro take me past the Cathedral. This is the seat of the Archbishop of the Mephitist Church, and it's a pretty imposing building. It's not like the little temples of my native Elfhame, which is way off to the north of Albric Tor (and is depopulated to the point where I was one of the few young furs, if not the only one, in the entire district). In Elfhame, you can still see (or could, I suppose), very old temples to Fuma that still had images to her. Mossford, same thing. But here in the heart of the realm, they're solidly orthodox, and a bit iconoclastic.

Which is not to say insensitive to art. The choral and organ music at the Cathedral is first-rate, and let me tell you something, you Lowfolk have not heard anything until you've heard a full, one-hundred-member elven chorus get in voice. As for the artwork, the Church has nothing against intricate design-work in the windows, and some of the glass-smiths are capable of producing designs that almost literally pop out of the glass, in brilliant and varying shades.

If I'm lucky, and if I've timed things right, usually the monks and nuns of the Cathedral chapter are finishing up the early morning prayers. I try to sit in for the closing hymn. I'm a big fan of hymns; always have been, and I know most of the hymnal off by heart. At Mossford, I led what was left of our platoon in a full-throated rendition of "Fuma's Shining, Sacred Land." Good, but nothing compared to when you hear it at early morning service done by the chapter, accompanied by organ. Lifts you right out of your existence, it does.

Either I'd dawdled a bit, or the chapter had finished slightly early, because the cathedral was empty when I walked in, after dipping a paw into the font and giving myself the Benedicto Interphalangeal (what you Lowfolk refer to -- ugh -- as a "noogie"). I headed off to one of the small side-chapels. There are so many in the Cathedral, you can pray at a different sub-altar every day for a month. There's even a sophisticated calendar for some worshipers who want to do it deliberately.

There's a very old one that I like, which is tucked far to the front of the cathedral. In fact, it's one that's not listed in the standard guide-books, in part because it's so small. It's also behind the main altar, so you can't really see it from the main part of the building. Only a few furs can fit in it at once, and the altar itself inside is a slab of granite that's cracked and tilted, making it very difficult to hold a service. Sometimes, if a particularly officious brother is on duty, he'll gently take you by the elbow and steer you toward one of the prettier side-chapels. Another reason to sneak in at the hours I do. I'll pick my own chapel, thank you very much.

I slipped in, took out my little medal, and was in the process of kneeling down when I spotted something decidedly out of place.

Before me, crumpled on the ground, lay one of the brothers, face down. Abandoning thoughts of prayer, I immediately crouched down and felt for a pulse. Thank Fuma, Her sacred place was not defiled by a death, but given the fact that there was a wound behind the brother's ear, and it was still oozing a trickle of blood, it was a near-run thing.