And then I thought about the Circle and Senate. Or the Circle and the covens. Or the whole damned supernatural community, for that matter, which seemed impossibly divided. And too busy squabbling and bickering and fighting each other to worry about the greater threat.
I guess maybe I couldn’t say anything to the fey, after all, could I?
“Because of their past,” Pritkin said, looking around, his face alight with wonder. And then he glanced at me. “Don’t you know how the fey were made?”
I shook my head.
“They’re all the same, really. Even the lordly Svarestri, although they’d likely string up anyone who said so. But it’s true.”
“What’s true?” I asked, watching fire-me now scream my way down a raging river. At least they were consistent.
“That they were all born of the gods.”
It took me a second. The big plunge over the falls was coming up, and I’d been tensing like everyone else, despite the fact that I knew we didn’t die. And then what he’d said sank in.
And I tensed up some more.
“What?” I twisted around to look at Pritkin. His face had gone back into shadow, as the darkened tunnel scene tempered the light somewhat, but his eyes still shone with reflected sparks. And with the enjoyment of telling me something I obviously didn’t know.
“The old gods,” he repeated. “The ones out of legend. It’s said they came from another world, or worlds, far away. They discovered faerie first, before earth. And when they did, they sought to make servants for themselves, but none of the then-fey would do. And you know the gods . . .”
“Randy little bastards,” I said blankly.
He nodded. “They inbred with some of the inhabitants who were already here—most of them, in fact. In some cases, that resulted in what they viewed as positive changes. Proper servants to cater to their every whim. But in others . . .”
“They got monsters,” I said, recalling a few of the creatures that had attacked me.
“Or what they viewed that way, yes. The dark fey, as they became known, were forced out of the cities and into the hinterlands, to make their own way or starve. Many starved. But a few survived and bred with each other, and with the remaining original inhabitants, and with the occasional member of the so-called privileged races. . . . The result is the huge variety you see today.”
I stared around, suddenly remembering my mythology. And all the stories about the gods siring monsters as well as heroes. For every Perseus there was a Medusa; for every Odysseus a Cyclops. But it had never really occurred to me to wonder why.
I guess I’d always assumed, if I thought of it at all, that the monsters were just some sort of demon. And maybe some of them were; the gods had certainly had monstrous opponents, said to be from the Underworld. But that ignored the monsters who were on their side. Where had they come from? Why get a Theseus one time, and a giant the next?
Maybe because of who you slept with.
“But that doesn’t explain why they can’t unite,” I said. “If anything, what you just said should give them more in common.”
“It might have,” Pritkin agreed. “But resources were scarce, and new groups were arriving all the time to contest for them. And whenever several groups did band together and begin to gain power, the gods intervened, starting wars and disputes to keep them disunited.”
“I’m surprised they didn’t wipe them out entirely!”
“They might have, b
ut they had discovered earth by then and become distracted. And some of the dark fey were useful for doing jobs their lighter counterparts wouldn’t touch. Thus, they survived, until the day the gods disappeared, vanishing as quickly as they had come. And the world changed.”
“There was a war.” I didn’t even have to guess.
Pritkin nodded. “One so terrible, they don’t even sing about it. Some things, no one wants to remember.”
“And the dark fey were part of it?”
“Everyone was. But the main combatants were the two leading light fey families, the ones favored by the different groups of gods.”
“Different groups?”
“The Æsir, gods of battle, and the Vanir, gods of nature, who were at each other’s throats more often than not. The Æsir were worshipped by the Svarestri, who remain as martial as their forebears. The Vanir were worshipped by the Blarestri, which is why the Sky Lords’ lands are said to bloom like a garden, despite being high in the mountain fastnesses.”
“And once their masters left . . .”