was part of the “hells”, although those terms did not have the same connotations that I had been taught as a child. They simply denoted the rules under which the two universes operated, acknowledging that their magic, and possibly even their physics, worked differently.
“They got constellations,” Ray suddenly said. “They’re just different from ours. See that line of four stars in a row, with three more curving up from it?”
I followed the line of his pointing finger, and nodded.
“That’s Gangleri, the Wanderer. Said to be the ship the gods came here in. The story is that they were like space Vikings, poor adventurer types searching for wealth, lands, people they could conquer—basically anything. They traveled all over their galaxy, plundering the shit outta everybody who didn’t beat them up first—”
“Beat them up? When they were so strong?”
He settled onto his back and put his hands behind his head. “Well, that’s the point. They weren’t that strong then. They were only overpowered when they came here, where the rules are different. They discovered that in our universe they were like, well, like gods. They could beat up anybody.”
“But they weren’t in our universe,” I pointed out. “Faerie is in theirs.”
“Yeah, but it’s the closest world to the rift on their side, like Earth is on ours. Both worlds are a little weird, ‘cause things bleed over. That’s how the gods found us; we’re not that far away, you know?”
I shook my head. I didn’t know. I had never heard this before.
“How did you come to know so much?” I asked.
He shrugged. “The fey. If you wanna do business, you gotta have a meal, drink some wine, smoke some herb. And while you’re doing that, you talk, so they can decide what kind of person you are. They been ripped off before, but it don’t happen often ‘cause they’ve been trading a long time. They’re pretty good at sizing a guy up. But anyway, eventually they talk back, usually telling stories.”
“What kind of stories?”
“Any kind. Every kind.” Ray grinned. “Bullshit, mostly: heroes and villains, epic journeys and daring deeds, damsels needing rescuing from ugly ogres . . . unless it’s the ogres telling the story. In which case it’s usually about light fey trespassers getting what’s coming to ‘em. And about roasting pretty fey princes over a spit until the juices run clear.”
I blinked. “You traded with the dark fey, too?”
“Sure, why not? They have portals. They also got stories, but they’re not so nice. The light fey were the ones the gods interbred with. The dark fey were the ones they experimented on. Guess who was treated better?”
I did not have to guess. Dory had dark fey friends who had fled to Earth, where they were thought of as monsters. Yet they had better lives there.
I looked up at the glimmering constellation, sailing across the heavens. It resembled a Viking ship, with a long body and a raised prow. But judging by what I’d seen today, I doubted it had looked like that at all. Probably a case of the fey interpreting the idea of a ship in a way that made sense to them.
Was that all the gods were? I wondered. Just space vagabonds looking for an opportunity, and finding it because of a happenstance of physics? Like a human walking on the moon could suddenly jump higher because of the difference in gravity.
“What if God was one of us,” Ray suddenly sang. “Just a slob like one of us?”
I laughed; I couldn’t help it. He always seemed to know what to say.
“And then Great Artemis’ spell banished the gods and blocked the breech behind them, preventing their return,” I said. “But it had to encompass Faerie as well, since the ley lines connected it to Earth. Thus, cutting Faerie off from the rest of the heavens.”
“Pretty much,” Ray agreed.
I watched the stars wheel above us. There were so many here, and so close. Maybe it was just the lack of light pollution, but it looked as if someone had pitched a great, glittery tent in the heavens.
One the fey could no longer reach.
I wondered what they thought, looking up at a sky cut off from them forever. At worlds they’d never visit, at a universe they would never explore. I couldn’t imagine what that must have felt like, to be suddenly so alone.