The Walls of the Fast Have No Gate

## Ch 1

*The walls of the Fast have no gate,* that's what he was always told, but he doubted this. He slithered through tall grass and the occasional straggling sunflower at the foot of a five meter tall solid black iron slab, ears full of barking hounds, nose full of dirt and blood, head full of screams. His eyes wouldn't keep still, begged him to close them, *lay down, take a nap*--he blinked and shook his shaggy head, looking back to the east and finding rays of the sun stabbing fields of sunflowers and date palms beyond the city behind him.

*of course you're going to die alone*

He kept moving until his boot made a splash. *creek creek follow the creek* He knew there had been a creek. How could he forget the creek? *the Exhaustion is about to hit  just delay it get sun into your eyes shock yourself you can't let yourself get killed yet* He scooped up its cold water and threw it into his face. The creek would not throw off dogs' pursuit regardless of scent interruption. This wall would still be the most logical place for him to be near.

*where is the damn gate or a grate or anything for crying out loud*

The creek ran into the wall.

*running into the wall into the wall how is it not pooling at the wall and running around it*

He threw himself flat into the water. Weeds swayed around his body as it closed over his head, the current slamming him against the cold iron. He kicked his feet into the air and dived down, further down, feeling the barrier for any gap. His veins lit on fire for lack of air and down he still dived.

*a drain to an underground cistern no the current still goes into the wall*

Then his hand broke the surface and felt a cold breeze. *bullshit I dived at least ten meters how the fuck is this a thing* He grasped at weeds still swishing about him. His breath escaped as his head followed his hand. He crawled out of the creek on his belly, sputtering and gasping, a little less ready to sleep for the next minute. And then--

"FLAT ON THE GROUND. HANDS BEHIND YOUR HEAD. DO NOT LOOK UP."

Something pointy and cold grazed the skin behind his right ear. By the feel of it, a boot pressed down between his shoulder blades. He obeyed the order. Several voices shouted from a direction he could only describe as "not down" just before a string of nine small explosions. A woman's voice boomed out with impossible volume, "THERE WILL BE A COUNT DOWN FROM TEN, AT WHICH TIME HELIOPOLITANS WILL SUFFER CASUALTIES IF THEY ARE NOT RETREATING THE WAY THEY CAME. TEN...NINE...EIGHT...SEVEN..." Three more explosions, almost at the same time. "THAT WAS ALSO YOUR LAST WARNING. THE NEXT TIME WE. WILL. NOT. MISS."

*that voice that can't be her*

He could barely breathe past the mud and grass in his face. Someone patted him down one side and then the other, stopping to remove a clip from his belt. The same man's voice said, "He's armed." They then removed something else from his coat. Then his boot. And the other one. Then his coat collar. Then his three rings. Then his belt itself. The sound of its contents made small thunks on the soft ground. He heard the step of boots, of loafers, *thong sandals?* approaching him. The scent of niter stung his nostrils by the time anyone addressed him again. This was after the pointy thing quit touching his neck and the boot came off his back. "Stand him up," another woman ordered.

"Hands will remain behind the prisoner's head with fingers interlaced," said the man's voice. "The prisoner will attempt to stand. If the prisoner resists, he will face unpleasant physical consequences. Is this clear? Please reply yes or no."

"Yes," he replied.

Someone helped him up with their small hands under his armpits. "Steady now--oh!" A different woman's voice. "I think he's harmless."

"Heliopolis just chased him here using a full security squad. Illegally. I doubt he's harmless."

Someone wiped his eyes and mouth with their gentle fingers. "There, the mud's off. You can look at us."

"I wish you would let me give the orders, ma'am."

"And this is why *you* call *me* 'ma'am' within these walls."

"May I open my eyes or not?" the prisoner asked quietly.

"Open those pretty peepers! Wow! He's not human."

She had no hair and one eye square in the middle of a burnished-copper forehead in addition to the standard two in the normal spots. "I could almost say the same about you. Ma'am."

She laughed. "Silly elf, we're all human here, except for you."

The other woman stepped in front of him and pushed her stringy blonde chin-length straight hair out of her dark eyes. Her lips stretched tightly over her teeth. "Unseelie?"

"Faerie."

"Where's your tribe? What's its tree or grove?"

"I don't have one anymore." He looked about for a second. Except for a young man in black leather with a really scary looking polearm that resembled the world's most homicidal can opener and the less-than-pleased woman in ivory leather with a sheathed sword which he instantly hated, everyone else he could see wore the same sort of business attire, suits and power dresses, that people in a bustling city might wear conducting office work early in the day.

"Banyan refugee?" the woman with three eyes asked. He nodded.

"Eyes on me," said the woman in ivory leather. "Why were they chasing you?"

He shrugged as well as he could with his hands behind his head. "Maybe because I'm not human?"

"They saw you as an existential threat." She stepped closer, touching the hilt of her sword. He flinched, and this surprised him. At first he thought he just had to urinate, but the hot rising dread didn't remain in his bladder. It bubbled up through his chest and gripped his throat. "What's going on? Are you going to kill me?"

"Are you nervous?"

"I am very nervous!"

"There's the existential threat." She drew her sword. He shrieked at the way it snarled at him. The young man in black grabbed the back of his collar. "He's a wyr. Hold him still, I'll make it quick."

The bald woman stepped very calmly between him and the woman in ivory leather. "He's not a wyr." She looked to a man wearing a bowler hat and spectacles over a hooked nose on a face the elf could only describe as not-old, standing near her side. In his hands he had an open book and a blue wooden pen. "Varolus, tell her."

"It's impossible for him to be a wyr," Varolus said.

"They don't always know they've been infected--"

"Only humans, Kith, and Kindred can be infected," Varolus insisted.

"Are you positive? He's really freaking out now."

"Please don't kill me!" The elf dropped to his knees, sobbing.

"No one is going to kill you here," said the bald woman. "Sedna, what's the one defining physical trait of a wyr?"

Sedna scoffed. "This is not the time for a Nerd lesson--"

*"~What."* She held up her finger. It sparkled slightly. "Is the one defining physical trait, other than having significant human ancestry, that all wyr share after infection?"

"Fine, I'll play with you. They all turn into uncontrollably violent carnivores corresponding with moon phases."

"You could say that their bodies undergo rather dramatic po-ly-morph-ing," she enunciated this with a pointed glance toward the elf, "couldn't you?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Please back away a few steps. Faerie."

The elf choked out, "Yes, ma'am?"

"Did you understand a damn thing I just said?"

"Yes, ma'am!"

"Demonstrate why a wyr-biting weapon would activate near your person."

He hung his head. "Please don't make me--"

"He's all yours Sedna."

As Sedna stepped forward with her naked sword *that is screaming for my blood* he raised his face. Sedna stopped cold. The people hanging around, including the man holding his collar, voiced in wonder as the man kneeling and begging for his life no longer appeared to be a ragged elf. A human man with amber skin and dark brown ringlets around his face sobbed in the mud with his hands behind his head and his clothes fitting much too tightly.

*\*this is a problem\*fifty-five fifty-five fifty-five\*he's dangerous\*fifty-five fifty-five fifty-five fifty-five\*just like his dad\*fifty-five fifty-five fifty-five fifty-fifty-five fifty-five\*he needs to vanish\*fifty-five fifty-five fifty-five fifty-five fifty-five\*I can't do it in front of everyone\*fifty-five fifty-five fifty-five fifty-five fifty-five fifty-five fifty-\**

"And there you have it. A little interrogation goes a long way toward saving an...uh...innocent life." The bald woman pulled an exaggerated grimace and turned away. "Looks like your secret boyfriend of the past seven months, doesn't he? Return to the skin you were born with, Faerie. Everyone else, get going, this is under control now."

He quickly obeyed her before the man holding his collar hoisted him back to his feet.

Sedna blinked twice, then backed off and put her sword away. A second young man in black tossed her a sack which sounded to the prisoner a lot like all of his weapons and rings together in a sack. She caught it easily. "I would look at the dagger, Dame." After a nod, she reached into the sack, pulled out a black leather-sheathed dagger with a dark blue wooden handle like Varolus' pen. With her eye fixed on the Faerie, she said, "We're going to talk about this after you're cleaned up. Take him to the baths and don't let him out of your sight. I want two uniforms on him at all times."

"Yes, Dame."

The first young man guided the Faerie's arms down behind the small of his back and bound them with steel handcuffs. The bald woman sidled next to him for a moment and whispered in his ear. The Faerie could hear, "...find out what you can." He nodded and turned to the Faerie. "Let's go."

"So, a bath!" the elf sniffled as he was led to the pavement. "I should get captured by the Fast more often."

The young man chuckled. "After you disrobe, I'm going to cuff your good hand to the pipes, and then hose you down. You will put soap where soap is needed, scrub until you shine, and then I will hose you down again to remove the grime and soap. You will dress in the linens provided. Do you understand these instructions as I have provided them, yes or no?"

The elf sighed as he stepped along. "Yes. So I take it no small talk."

"I didn't say that. But if you annoy me I will ensure the water is ice cold."

"So the amity of my treatment here depends upon how acceptably I behave."

"You're a smart one, moon--sorry. Faerie. The baths are about two more minutes' walk. It would please me not to be your enemy by then."

"You were about to call me a moon child."

"I regret that I entertained using that phrase in the first place." Robbert took a deep breath. "I strive to remember that it is beneath my station to use such disrespectful language."

"How long ago did you leave Heliopolis?"

The other young man laughed. "He nailed you to the wall, Robbert!"

*isn't that cute let's just laugh while they live walking on our bones*

"But he gets me, he really gets me." Robbert laughed back. "Yeah, Faerie, I like smart people so I'm starting to like you. Just keep showing me how smart you are by not trying to escape or vex me. You can vex Keem all you like."

"Let him escape. See how long it takes for him to find the gate." Keem snorted.

"That's just mean, and we'd get reprimanded. But it would be funny."

"What's so funny about it?" the Faerie asked.

The two guards looked at each other, and then said in unison, "There is no gate."

"I've heard that before, but that's got to be an urban myth, right? Is it warded from vision or something?"

"When the prisoner does not accept this soldier's truthful answer, vexation begins to form in this soldier," Robbert replied with a new, sharp edge to his voice.

"Message received." sigh He took in as much of the view as Keem and Robbert would allow. Single-story, reinforced brick structures and blue wooden siding dominated the architecture. All buildings were arranged in a neat and tidy grid aligned with the cardinal directions. They all sported numbers on their northwestern and southeastern corners and a thermal chimney on their eastern walls, like certain fingers raised at the city in that direction. "This place is what my boring hair color would look like if it were a community plan."

"We are through discussing the details of the Fast. Let's talk about you."

"I'm about as interesting as a sack full of bronze spoons. You could use my life story to cure insomnia."

"I know you're lying and that's fine. But I'm sure you heard what the Seer told me to do."

"Why, what did she tell you?"

"Those long ears and yet the prisoner didn't hear a word this soldier said out loud to him about vexing me."

"She told you to find out about me. And you are. I'm a tremendous pain in the ass. And boring."

"I just watched you single-handedly save your own tricky skin by embarrassing *the* Crown's Own Justicar Dame Sedna Fedraxx in front of the top staff of this facility while in a state of nearly mindless panic. I would not call that boring; though you may be on to something about the pain in the posterior. Turn east here."

The morning sun peeked just above the wall and stabbed the elf in his eyes as he turned. The light cleared his head enough to keep his eyes from trying to wiggle from Exhaustion again.

"Stop here. Open the door, Keem."

Keem did as ordered, and entered a low-slung, brightly lit, and very steamy brick hut placed directly beneath the water tower. "Sorry ladies, I hate to interrupt your hygiene, but as you may have heard we have a prisoner who requires some cleaning. Keep your curtains closed." Several female voices groaned with annoyance. Keem then added, "Oh, and he's an elf."

"Wait, what?" several female voices then arose, with much less annoyance.

"Seriously?" Robbert frowned at Keem, who shrugged.

"They needed to know the risks involved," he answered.

"Let's test your big ears again, Faerie. Do not address the ladies. Keep your cute little fox eyes on the floor. Follow our orders and the water just might remain comfortable. Is that clear?"

"Yes." He followed Robbert's orders without wavering.

The women chose not to follow Keem's, according to their excited whispers. "Careful," Keem sang out, "if you distract him, he might disobey and get the cold hose. You know what *that* causes."

"Shrinkage!" they all called out in unison before laughing. The elf counted six voices.

With his eyes still on the floor, he asked, "Is this really necessary?"

"Yeeessss," said two of the women.

"For the record I'm asking you, Keem."

Keem replied, "Yeeessss."

"Here's where we stop, Faerie." Robbert unfastened the cuffs. After he cleared his throat, he continued, "The prisoner will now disrobe. Any move to escape will be met with unpleasant physical consequences. Does the prisoner understand?"

"Yeeessss."

Women laughed.

"Seriously, ladies," Robbert called out, "he isn't here to entertain you. Start disrobing, Faerie. We're on the clock here. You let me worry about your audience."

"Robbert, that's a little insulting," said one of the women. "I'm not interested in fucking him. Elves are pretty and I'm curious about him."

"Yeah that's me too," said another. She sounded older. "Maybe we can help get him ready."

"No, and I mean that. East Of Here thinks he's dangerous, and we don't know his motives yet."

"When you put it that way." Their bare feet retreated across the white tiles. "See you later, elf man."

The prisoner peeled off his clothing, his eyes still on the floor, until he had on nothing left but a ragged sleeve of mismatched cloth dressings around his right forearm held in place with a leather thong. He kept his eyes on the floor but moved them slightly to the left. On his own left breast he saw three glowing concentric circles. *no one's asking guess they can't see it fine with me*

"That too," Robbert said, pointing at the elf's covered right forearm.

The elf looked at Robbert. "Please," was all he said.

"The prisoner will remove all clothing."

The elf didn't look at his cobbled vambrace while he doffed it. White scars slashed all over the pale skin beneath it. The same anatomy on the left was relatively pristine. After a nearly inaudible gasp from one of the men, Robbert cuffed the elf's left hand to vertical metal pipes that led to a small system of overhead hoses. *hot damn he picked up on that* He heard Robbert pull one hose down and adjust its valve. The elf braced himself against the cold, but the water hitting him was warm. He watched it vanish into a steel-grated drain by his feet. Keem handed him a bar of soap and a soft boar bristle brush. The soap smelled like lavender.

"Thank you," he said.

"No, thank you," Robbert replied. "You've told me a lot about yourself already."

"Have I?" He used the slippery soap to pull twigs and grass out of his tangled taupe hair. "And what have I told you, other than that I'm a very boring pain in the ass?"

"That you don't want anyone to know you."

He paused for half a second before running the brush over the soap and using it to scrub between his toes. "Maybe it's better that way."

"You're way older than I am. Maybe you're wiser. Maybe you're right."

The elf glanced at Robbert. "You don't want anyone to know how deviously clever you are."

"Inaccurate. I just don't feel the need to crow about it. You crow your desire all the time. But you're cooperating. Tells me you don't *want* to be alone, but you feel like you *have* to be alone, like you're protecting us from a disease you carry. You aren't the first person in the Pit of Melancholy that I've met." Robbert chuckled. "No one can catch that from you, don't worry."

Keem chuckled as well.

"I feel heard," was all the elf replied to that. Everything inside him sang one note during that moment.

"I'm going to tell the Seer all about this conversation and I really don't care how you feel about that. Now hurry up and polish your pretty dancing skin so we can let Sedna talk with you. She is going to want to get to know you a whole lot."

\* \* \*

Varolus stood outside the bath house when Robbert and Keem emerged with a very clean elf dressed in an ill-fitting, nondescript whitish linen shirt and trousers and handcuffs. His feet remained bare.

"Sedna talked with Commancer Fedraxx," Robbert guessed.

"Because of course she did. Conference Room 5."

"Got it. Thanks!"

"I'm coming with."

"Because of course you are. Let's go. This is a three minute walk, Faerie. You remember the drill?"

"I do."

"Sedna wants me to record some information on the way," Varolus said as they began to move. Out of what looked like a sewing bag with brightly embroidered sunflowers from white to deepest maroon, he pulled his book and blue wooden pen. "You're not a Mentat, are you?"

"Why would--no, I'm not a Mentat."

"Noted. So, since you can lie, would you be so kind as to respond without lying?"

The elf nodded. "The name is Stanley Traqueljax."

"Wait--you said you're Faerie."

"I am."

"That's not entirely a Faerie name."

"You are correct. My surname is Unseelie, and my chosen Outer Name is in Yrqhash. However, I can assure you I was corded to the Great Banyan, when it stood."

"He's got an Unseelie parent," Robbert added. "Probably his father, since I saw that he does have a tribal mark, but it's under his heel."

"So how come--" Varolus began.

"Is it part of the questionnaire?" Stanley snapped in reply.

Varolus scoffed. "All right, Stanley, place of birth?"

"A vagina, I will guess."

Varolus mumbled while writing, *"Subject claims to be a mammal*. Do you claim citizenship within Regula?"

Stanley stopped in his tracks and raised his right foot behind himself. On the bottom of his heel he had a black tattoo of a tree with several vertical trunks descending from its canopy. "As Robbert mentioned, I'm corded to the Great Banyan."

""The Great Banyan hasn't existed for fifty-five years. *Subject is a survivor of the Great Banyan genocide."*

"I'm legally Yrqhatha, Faerie, and Unseelie."

Varolus rolled his eyes. "Because of course you are. Do you have any family members you wish to contact?"

"I have a family member."

"And they are?"

"My father. An Unseelie in Arena."

"Oh. *Him?"*

"Yes."

"You *do* know we can verify this very easily. Winter and he share a Mirror."

"I'm not surprised."

"Were you sent to Heliopolis on official government business?"

"No."

"Unofficial government business?"

"That's tricky to answer if I'm not supposed to lie."

*"Subject's mission was of a clandestine nature.* Did anyone else accompany you?"

After five steps of silence, the elf dipped his shaggy head. "No one living." *focus on now breathe look at the rocks in the pavement don't fall in the well right now ooh is that amazonite*

*"Subject's companion or companions were slain during the mission."*

"Oh that's rough, Stanley," Robbert said softly. "I'm sorry."

"I think that's enough," Varolus said before shutting his book with a loud snap and putting it and the pen away into the sewing bag. "Sedna can conjure her own damned answers from there."

\* \* \*

Building 17 held Conference Room 5. It seemed all the rooms in Building 17, except for the privy, were conference rooms, six in total. The privy did not have a blue wooden door like the conference rooms. Stanley asked to use it.

"That's fine, but I'm going to be in there with you," Robbert told him.

"I need to shit."

"And I won't deny you the opportunity to do so in that privy. However, I was ordered to keep eyes on you at all times. This is a time. However, it's your lucky day. Wasn't the bluewood privy seat one of your dad's inventions?" In response to Stanley's silence, he continued, "I don't think I've seen a white face like yours turn so pink so fast. Keem, tell them the prisoner needs to make a bowel movement first."

Keem nodded and went to relay the information to the occupants of Conference Room 5.

"Thank you for the humiliation."

"You're welcome. I wish we could watch it unfold on Sedna's face. I won't tell anyone how silly an elf's face looks while pooping."

Stanley managed a small grin when they entered the private chamber.

"Just for your edification," Robbert continued after Stanley assumed the position, "I mean, I don't know the extent of your skin trick, but if you decided to turn into a little bitty creature and fall down the drain to escape, that's a very toxic environment down there and you'll die. In a septic tank full of everyone's poop. I doubt that's the sort of dignified exit you wish to make from this world. But I suppose were you capable of such a trick, you wouldn't be here in this privy, right now, using your father's amazing invention. I can't even hear what's going on under your rear end. Your dad...what a clever son of a bastard. I can see where you get it from. First time I used one of these, I was like, I could never have had a cleaner anus if I scrubbed with bleach."

"Does it work if I put my ears in there?"

"Sorry. To answer your question from before, I defected a year ago. Today, in fact. I'm still not quite used to it. Done? Let's go."

Robbert marched Stanley into Conference Room 5, a five meter long room paneled in bluewood with a raised dais on one end; Sedna sat on the sofa there with an older man who looked like her except he wore a suit that looked very much like Varolus'. Everyone else sat at a square table in the center. Stanley and Robbert didn't have a seat. Keem shut the door and stood in the hallway. Everyone else included the Seer, Varolus, a middle-aged pale ginger human man with filthy fingernails, and an old woman with ropy arms and salt-and-pepper hair pulled back into a tight bun. The latter two both wore denim overalls, black boots with rubber soles, and undyed leather aprons; the rest in business attire as before. The old woman's eyes widened when she saw the prisoner. He glanced at her, and then to those seated on the dais.

*~is~that~who~I~think~it~is~*

*I  can't believe it's her no wait she that doesn't sound* Whatever the grammar, a spark began to glow hotly in the center of himself.

"Thank you for joining us, Stanley. I am Winter Fedraxx, Commancer of the Fast, and I run this place especially when my daughter is here."

Sedna took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

"That is, if you really are Doctor Traqueljax's son. You may have been informed that I consult with Lorinni by way of Mirror."

"He consults quite a few in your profession." He glanced at the old woman while she was looking away at Winter. The spark turned into a gleaming point.

"So you won't have any problem with me," Winter picked up a case at his feet and opened it, extracting a mirror with a bluewood frame draped in black silk, "contacting him right now."

"You might want to wait an hour," Stanley said, his attention distracted from the white-hot thread reaching out from the innermost caverns of his mind toward the old woman.

"Are you really his son?"

Stanley raised his brows and pursed his lips. "Mirror him and find out."

Robbert's elbow gently met Stanley's ribs. Stanley replied with a tiny nod. The Seer watched this exchange with rapt attention. Winter unveiled his Mirror, then drew his fingers over its surface, tapped it three times, and said, "Lorinni? It's Winter, are you awa--"

The sound of ecstatic moaning filled the room. "Hold on, I heard something." "But I'm almost finished." "It could be official--whoops!" Something glass broke. Winter, his face fully flushed, slowly turned his Mirror away from his face and toward everyone else but his daughter.

An elf's fair face, not at all unlike Stanley's, grinned sideways from the glass, sandwiched above by a human man's and below by a human woman's head. A spray of hair escaped from his braids and splayed over his face, shimmering like an undulating rainbow, plastered by a scattering of sweat.

"My son!" cried the other elf. "Wait, I thought I heard Winter--"

"You make immortality a curse, dad."

"I love you too, my boy. Meet Brenya and Bram, darling couple. Wait, is there *another* national emergency?"

"Hi Stanley!" Brenya called out with a little hand wave.

Stanley smiled kindly and cocked his head side to side as his hands were still restrained behind him. "Hi Brenya. Yes Dad, you heard Winter just now."

"Awkward! Turn us around, Winter!"

"No, Lorinni, that's fine, I can hear you just great."

The old lady clapped her hands and let out a hearty laugh. The Seer leaned cockwise across her side of the table, cheek to the heel of her hand, all three eyes fixed at a space slightly above Robbert's head. The ginger man covered his face with his hands, shaking his head no slowly. Varolus had his pen and book out, transcribing everything. Sedna stared at the white stucco ceiling, jaw clenched. Robbert stoically chewed on both his lips at once.

"Are you all right, beloved? You look like you're in prisoner garb."

"I *am* in prisoner garb, dad."

"What did you do *this* time?"

"Got caught running away from Heliopolis."

"It's a good place to run from. Can't see why *that's* a crime."

"I think they had to shoot boomsticks at the people chasing me, and they might be cross about that."

The old woman waved her hand dismissively. "Field tests are never unwelcome." She smiled warmly at Stanley. He wanted so much to smile back. She looked as if she knew this.

"Oh hey there Fjalle. You're still as beautiful as the day we--"

"Hi Lorinni," she interrupted, with a big smile directed at the Mirror, lashes fluttering.

"Are you really all right, Son?"

*"All right i*s a little subjective at the moment, dad. I would say I need very desperately to sleep but I'm not sure now that's ever going to happen with this memory branded indelibly into my brain." Stanley smiled broadly, exaggerating blinking his eyes.

"You know I like to wake up with some vigorous--Bram! My son is right there!"

"I'm pretty sure Varolus wrote down that I tried to warn Winter."

"I *sure* did," Varolus said without looking up or stopping his pen.

Stanley looked at Winter. "Are you satisfied?"

"Not yet," Bram breathlessly answered.

"I wasn't talking to--"

"Gotta go, son, good luck!" The Mirror went silent and reflected Stanley's own image back at him.

*~don't~leave~her~again~*

After full three minutes of perfect, excruciating silence, Sedna wordlessly stood up, walked to the door, opened it, and exited Conference Room 5.

As soon as the door closed, Stanley's eyes rolled back into his head and his legs buckled under him.

One Elf Of Indeterminate Sex