Ride a cock horse
To Banbury Cross
To see a black man
Upon a black horse—
“But no, I have confused it. How went it?”
A ring on his finger
A staff in his hand
The queerest magician
Ever seen in the land.
But that did not seem right either.
Zacharias stopped his pacing to puzzle it out, and saw that the gold veins on the leaf had spread out and multiplied, so that golden light lay in shining intersecting lines upon the floor. When he set his foot upon one of the lines, it widened into a shimmering path. He followed the path, and went through the walls of his study as though they were not there.
He ought to have found himself in the air, for his study was on the second floor, but instead he was walking down a dark tunnel. He felt as though he was asleep and dreaming, though his eyes were wide open. The only light was the golden glow from the path beneath his feet; the only sound that of his own voice, as he fumbled for the lyric:
As I was going to Charing Cross
I saw a fine lady upon a white horse
Runes at her fingers and spells at her toes
And she shall have magic wherever she goes—
“But that is all nonsense!
“There is,” Zacharias said, “a great deal in nursery rhymes. I wonder that there has not been a proper study of them. I must propose it to the Committee.”
“Mr. Zacharias Wythe,” announced the liveried eel at the door. “Sorcerer Royal, and ambassador of the mortal kingdom of Great Britain!”
Zacharias stood in a great gilded hall, lit with a profusion of candles, and filled with people—if they could be called people. For amoment he stood blinking in the dazzling light, and the guests stared at him. A brief hush fell.
Then the noise rose again, the chatter as lively as ever. It had been several decades since a Sorcerer Royal had been seen in Fairyland, but time held a different meaning for the inhabitants of Fairy, and given the Queen’s predilections, mortals were not so uncommon a sight as to provoke any lasting astonishment.
Zacharias was only one of many ambassadors waiting to be shown into the antechamber where the King held audience. He wandered around, still dazed by the strong magic by which he had been whisked to Fairy, narrowly avoiding stepping on the toes, flippers and tails of his fellow guests.
His anxiety about his upcoming audience was suspended for the moment, forgotten in the glory of Fairy. He had always hoped one day to see it, and this was such an opportunity as he would not soon have again.
In the mortal realm,Fairylandwas used loosely to describe a number of magical nations which acknowledged themselves subject to the Queen and King of Elfland. The non-thaumaturgical might be even more imprecise, and use the term to describe all magical realms, whether connected to the Fairy Court or not. But of course, strictly only a creature of Elfland could be called a fairy: a being capable of changing its shape, but in its true form a sexless homunculus, pale-eyed and hairless.
Dragons, griffins, phoenixes, cockatrices, unicorns and the like were not native to Fairyland. It was a curious fact that in days past a familiar was more likely to encounter magical creatures of other species in England, in service to its master’s associates, than it was to have met such creatures in Fairy. For in Fairy could be discerned all the divisions of nation and class which subsisted in mortal society.
Though at least Fairy prejudices did not reflect those of English society, and here Zacharias was no more conspicuous than any otherforeign ambassador. He was not even the only person in the hall wearing the form of a dark-skinned man: a novel incident to Zacharias, which felt all the odder for the fact that he knew his mortal sight could not be trusted to discern the true face of things here in the land of illusion. The various beings crowding the hall likely bore a very different aspect at home, and in their own eyes.
Though some were less disguised than others. Zacharias leapt back as a platter of sweetmeats clattered upon the floor before him, brought down by the sweeping movement of a dragon’s tail. A school of piscine footmen rushed to clean the mess, but the offender was unabashed.
“The Court might make better accommodation for its guests!” she exclaimed. “I declare the room grows smaller every year! Do not you think so, sir?”
Zacharias was taken aback to have criticism of his royal host so boldly demanded of him. He replied, in some confusion, that as this was his first visit, he was unable to judge.
“Your first visit?” said the dragon. She raised between two imposing talons a monocle the size of a dinner-plate, and peered through it at Zacharias. “Why, you are a mortal—a mortal English thaumaturge! You are never the creature who came and left us? I thought you might return, but not so soon.”
