The world was warm and soft about the edges, someplace dark, lit only by the light of one flickering candle. Hob rolled his hips and felt a pleasure like melting wax, dripping down his spine and settling low in his belly. There was no urgency, and no discomfort of any kind. All his limbs felt both present and weightless.
Soft skin, joined with his, as smooth and pale as ivory. Hob sighed into a collarbone that brushed gently against his lips. He had the passing sense that he lay between the branches of a birch tree, solid, but soft to the touch. He could hear the wind murmuring through the leaves. But no, this wasn't a tree- this was him.
"Mmm, there you are, love," Hob murmured, or maybe he said nothing at all, maybe it was only a thought. He kissed the pale expanse of the white throat presented to him, rolled his hips again, felt that slow shockwave of deep pleasure. Fingertips, pleasantly cool to the touch, ran through his hair, he felt them spread out across his scalp. He couldn't have said if it was the wind he heard this time, or a quiet little laugh.
"What?" Hob chuckled the word into a pale cheek. He had never felt so comfortable. "What's so funny?"
"You would dream of this, Robert Gadling?"
Hob hummed, and then kissed the shell of a white ear. His nose brushed against dark hair that tickled him there like a feather.
"Yeah, I suppose I would."
What other answer was there?
~
The times, they were a-changin'.
Not that they ever weren't- the immortal Hob Gadling had learned that much, with almost six centuries under his belt.
The war was over- the worst war he had ever seen- and what was left in its wake was a kind of mad giddiness, a delirium that possessed the upper classes while the lower sank further (as always) into the dust. The War to End All Wars, they said, as they downed glasses of pink champagne- but Hob had been alive for too long to believe that. Hob wondered if next time (for there would certainly be a next time) he should go to the United States- or better yet, Canada- somewhere cold and quiet and remote. He had spent so many years at war, he was sick enough of it- and the devices of these new ones…he did not think he could bear to watch that again.
Besides, if he was going to move, now would be a good time. At the moment, Hob was in flux- another Robert Gadling recently buried, his finances scattered, his personal affairs to be reordered. It was just a matter of deciding how the next one was going to set up shop. He had done this task so many times now, and with each repeat he wondered how he could have forgotten how exciting it was- and how exhausting a chore.
But Hob had other things on his mind these days.
Most notably, there was that bird.
Hob was sure he had first seen it at the flea market off Drury Lane, perhaps, two weeks ago now. It had caught his eye then, for it was an unusual sight- a raven with a white breast. Like an oversized magpie. Unusual enough for him to take note- unusual enough for him to notice when it kept appearing, again and again. In the tree of a park as he walked through. Overhead at the train station. Outside the window of the little flat he was renting off Cheapside. Either London was seeing an epidemic of white-breasted ravens, or this one particular bird was…
…was what? Following him? That seemed absurd. It was only a bird, after all. Yet still, Hob had the disquieting feeling that he was being watched, which was precisely the opposite of what he wanted, given his current state of affairs.
Still, in the daylight, he told himself he was being superstitious. It was only a bird, only a coincidence. He would leave the country before long and the matter would be a distant memory.
(At night, this assertion was harder to maintain- something about it made him think of dreams he had dreamt centuries ago, decades ago, back when he had still dreamt. A nostalgia that felt almost paranoid.)
Just a bird, Hob thought, when he heard the scratching of a beak outside his window. Just a bird.
~
The tavern was a mix of time periods, a haze of memory. In shape- judging by the ceiling- Hob supposed it not unlike its current form under Queen Elizabeth, but the chairs and tables were from older worlds. Laid upon them in heaps was food he hadn't eaten in decades- in centuries. The fireplace spun in the corner of his eye no matter where he turned his head, and though he could hear the wordless chatter of a crowd all around him, it seemed he was alone.
Well, not completely alone.
The stranger lay reclined on a fainting couch that had never been there in real life- Hob thought he recognized it from a home a few lifetimes ago. His lithe figure was wrapped in only a dark cloak, the fabric made more of shadows than anything else. His eyes were closed, their pale lids flickering back and forth, watching something Hob himself could not see.
Hob knelt at his side and placed a hand against his cool forehead as though checking for a fever. His knuckles skimmed down through that long mess of feathery hair- so soft it almost hurt. Eyes opened, blue and glassy, and Hob smiled.
"Again?" He didn't sound irritated- moreso, surprised.
"Always," Hob told him, and when he leaned in to kiss the stranger met him halfway, a cold palm rising to the stubble on his cheek. He was eager this time, Hob knew it with a little thrill that he felt all the way down to his groin, and his own fine clothes melted like so much butter in a pan as the cloak of shadows fell softly away.
Then there was skin on skin and all the world faded to what little the firelight could reach, and Hob thrust inside with a thought of the word 'home'.
~
It was almost midnight, Hob guessed, which made it early to bed for him. He wasn't nearly so drunk as he was capable of becoming, not needing to watch his feet in order to put them in the right places; it was nice, being able to breathe the cool night air and look around himself without becoming sick. He should get into the habit of indulging a little less- surely he'd learned that after nearly six centuries…
This train of thought was derailed by the sound of wingbeats in the quiet overhead. He felt something hot prickle on the back of his neck, like a breath- not this again. It could be anything, he reminded himself, any old crow or jay or sparrow-
-but when he looked up, he saw the white-breasted raven, perched on a street lamp overhead. He could see the glint of its beady black eyes. It was looking dead at him.
"Oh, for Christ's sake," Hob mumbled, and he began to walk a little faster, eyeing the raven as he went. It hopped from one lamp to the next, a flutter of wings and a scrabbling of claws, and when he veered off into the darkness of a nearby walking park it pursued him there also. He felt his head instinctively, the collar of his jacket- did he have something shiny on him? Did he smell of food? This was not normal behaviour for a bird.
He reached a bench, dark black wood wet from the mist, and the bird landed there. That was quite enough.
"Alright," Hob said out loud, exasperation and paranoia driving him to words. "I see you. What is it? Why are you following me?"
His hands waved out a little wildly on this last phrase. This was ridiculous. He felt silly, punch-drunk, he was shouting at a bird, a bird that couldn't possibly understand him, and couldn't possibly be following him anyway-
-a bird that cocked its head at him, opened its beak, and spoke.
"You are the immortal, Robert Gadling?"
For a moment he didn't believe he'd heard it. He looked behind himself, then out through the shadows- looking for the young woman whose voice had seemed to emanate from the raven. But there was no one. He was alone in the park- alone, save the talking bird.
(Bloody hell.)
"You are- aren't you?"
Her voice sounded a little panicked now. Hob ran a hand across his hair and sighed- whatever this was, madness or magic, he was committed to it now.
"Yes, I am. Hob Gadling, that is."
"Oh, good," said the bird, and she ruffled her wings. "That's very good. I wasn't sure- you see- his Majesty has never, erm, mentioned you, not to anyone. So no one was sure what you looked like-"
"'His Majesty'-?"
"-but Lucienne found your journals in the library-"
"Who- my journals? I've never-"
"Yes- well, the journals you would have written, all five hundred and thirty-three volumes-"
"Five hundred and-"
"-and they revealed the nature of your, erm, relationship with his Majesty, which is very good, because you are here in the Waking world and he needs your help."
There was a pause; Hob had given up on interrupting. He looked at the bird, who looked back at him expectantly, and he felt another sigh bubble up in his chest. This was the strangest thing that had happened to him in a long time, which was saying something- but he wasn't about to run screaming. Still, he took another self-conscious look around the park, and when he saw no one watching him strangely he brushed some water drops from the bench and sat down.
"You'll have to help me out here," Hob said to the bird, who cocked her head attentively. "A little more slowly, yeah? To start, who- and what- are you?"
"My name is Jessamy," she answered promptly. "I am one of his Majesty's Ravens- and his favourite."
She said the latter part of this phrase with a certain modesty, fluttering her wings in a way that brought to mind a bashful shrug.
"Alright. Nice to meet you, Jessamy." Hob made a vague handshaking gesture in her general direction, which felt foolish but, well. "And this 'majesty' you keep talking about, what- do you mean King George?"
Stranger things, Horacio.
"No! I mean Lord Morpheus- King of Dreams and Nightmares!"
And that was quite the weighted sentence- nevermind that it came from the beak of a talking bird. Stranger things, indeed.
"Okay," said Hob, and he looked up at the moon, a dim sphere refracted through the night's smog. "Morpheus."
Hob had studied the classics, oh, about eighty years ago now- it had been so strange a feeling, looking farther back into history than he had ever been. So yes, he knew the name, Morpheus, the Greek god of dreams- the fashioner. Not exactly a major character, not something he had paid any attention to at the time, and yet- and yet-
-something about it seemed to ring true. And Hob had lived almost six centuries on Earth with very few supernatural encounters…save one.
(A thrill ran down his spine- he felt suddenly as though he were standing on the edge of a precipice. At the door to a vault of long-lost treasure, about to step inside.)
"Would this 'Morpheus' be about…" he held a hand high over his head, "...yea-high, black hair, uh, very pale…?"
"That would be a description of his Majesty's physical manifestation, yes," said the raven, and Hob nodded. Helplessly, he felt a grin tugging at the corners of his mouth- that secretive bugger, he had a name at last!- and then, slowly, the rest of what had been said began to sink in.
"You said that he needs- he needs my help?"
A note of incredulity that he couldn't hold back. But the bird fluttered her wings and hopped closer on the bench, beady avian eyes watching him with unmistakable earnestness.
"Let me explain," she said, and so he did.
~
Hob kissed at the stranger's neck and ear with familiar ardour- he loved being touched there, Hob knew it, had known it for some time. There was a white tunic and nothing else to cover that fair figure, and Hob grasped at it, thinking it wouldn't take much to tear it off. But the stranger felt like stone under his wandering touches this time, oddly unyielding; when an earnest kiss to his mouth elicited little response Hob pulled back to find his eyes open but far away, the white lights at their centers distracted and flickering.
"Hey, sweetheart," Hob murmured, brushing a lock of black hair behind a white ear. "Where are you?"
The eyes sparked to meet his, now sharply aware, and Hob felt a grin tugging at the corner of his mouth. Always a thrill, being with him, always so good it felt impossible-
"I don't have time for this," said the stranger, and his hand pushed lightly to the center of Hob's chest. The world spun away in a swirl of colour and scent and Hob came to himself in a wooden chair with a drink in his hand and raucous laughter in both ears. There was a weight in his lap and it was a girl he had known once, her breasts bare and warm in his face.
It wasn't a bad memory- indeed, Hob knew it to be a good one- but even as his awareness melted into it something felt sour. After all, this wasn't what he had wanted.
~
There was quite the crowd outside the manor of Roderick Burgess, which Hob observed as he tried to pull his automobile into the long drive. He was lucky, he supposed, he hadn't gotten around to selling the car just yet- although it was becoming an older model now it still suggested 'status', and so did his dandy attire. That, and a touch of mysterious charm, he had figured would be enough to get into a party like this one, but perhaps he was wrong.
The manor's great double doors, after all, were crowded with people- young and old, men and women, all unmistakably wealthy. A whole horde of admirers and potential patrons, here to see an audience with the great-and-mighty Magus. Something in Hob's stomach churned.
"Imprisoned by a rogue wizard…a glass cage with no air…"
Jessamy's explanation from a week ago echoed in his ears, each word a sour note. He could hear the voice of his friend, also, that warning from so many decades past:
"You could still be hurt- or captured."
He hadn't asked the bird how long it had taken her to find him- how long Morpheus had been locked up, unable to breathe. He wasn't sure he wanted to know.
(But still- the name! Dire circumstances or not, it sparked something in him, to be able to use the name.)
Hob moved his way through the chattering crowd by the entrance, the scent of alcohol on the air, of sweat, of money. The doors were manned by a pair of brutish-looking security guards, and he didn't doubt there were more within. He had always supposed himself charming, but he didn't think he would be getting in like this.
Overhead, the fluttering of wings, the flash of a white breast- Jessamy landed in a tree top, cocked her head, and then flew around the side of the house. After checking to make sure no one was watching too closely, Hob slipped into the shadows and did the same.
The manor was huge, comparable to Hob's own back when he had been a knight. There were many windows looking in on the party, so Hob had to duck his head as he went by, hoping no one had the presence of mind to look out. Eventually he came to one that opened upon an empty, darkened room- and Hob supposed this chance was as good as any.
Assuming that the merrymaking would disguise the noise, Hob found in the grass a decent sized rock, and lobbed it through the window.
Crash. He winced. The latch was undone and the rest of the window hiked open.
Hob's feet had just landed on the plush carpet when he heard a voice from the corridor beyond-
"I think it came from your study, Father," said a young man, and Hob launched himself behind one of another set of oak double doors with all the practice of a man who had spent decades as a thief. The electric lights came on, and he held his breath, sucked in his gut where the open door nearly brushed it. There was no way he wasn't going to be spotted, this was obscene- and at his side there was an ornate candlestick, heavy iron. Hob lifted it in one sweating palm.
"The window," came the voice of an elderly man. "Bugger it. Someone's broken in."
He sounded afraid, Hob thought. An aristocrat's fear of disturbance- Hob had both felt it and been it, many times before.
"Probably just trying to get into the party," said the young man timidly.
"No. Put the guards on high alert. I want them caught."
Hob raised the candlestick, expecting the door to swing past his face at any moment, exposing him- but both pairs of footsteps were already moving away.
In the lull, Jessamy flew through the broken window and landed, scrabbling, on the desk.
"What next?" Hob hissed at her, stepping out from behind the door with the candlestick raised.
"The entrance to the cellar is three doors down to the left," she said. "Go- I'll distract the guards."
Hob put the candlestick down and followed her, running a palm through his hair to smooth it, straightening his fine jacket. There were lights in the corridor, echoing sounds of assorted conversation. High ceilings, rich tapestries, gilded paintings- but not of the subjects one might expect. Amidst the opulence of English upper class living, there were stains of the occult. Something for the masses to ogle- but something with a touch of honesty, as well.
Hob walked as casually as he could manage down the corridor and in a few wingbeats Jessamy was ahead. He heard a caw, and then a woosh- a lady screamed.
"Watch out!"
"It's that bloody bird again-"
Hob saw the door in question, the guard before it was walking into the next room with his baton raised- Hob could pick a lock, sure, but he couldn't say if he'd have enough time- his hand found the doorknob, and it turned.
Providence.
Amidst the pandemonium of cawing, shrieking, and burning tapestry, Hob vanished into the shadows of the stairwell.
~
There was grass beneath Hob's bare back, or maybe it was moss, either way it was green and softer than any fine spun silk or animal fur, so plush it seemed that with every roll of his lover's hips he was in danger of being swallowed down into it, never to return.
This was a sight to behold. The pale stranger rode him with verve and it felt like being taken, helpless to it, there only for the pleasure of his partner. Hob's fingers found places to hold on in the divots of sharp hip bones, in those slim white thighs- but 'hold on' was all he could do.
'He's beautiful,' was his only thought, or at least the only thought that mattered.
The grass was so green and the sky above them so blue and the stranger was so, so white, all these colours seeming to sing in a way Hob had never before known them to do. The air smelled of an approaching spring rain, so sweet and fresh it must have come from another world- a world without all the decay and staining of the human Earth. The stranger shuddered, his lips parting in some particular pleasure, and Hob took his hand and kissed the palm, the root of the thumb, the crown of blue-black veins at the end of a white wrist…
…Hob had thought he was a demon once, perhaps even the Devil himself, but if that were so then his beauty would be a lie, a trick, and Hob didn't think it was. His strange, inhuman loveliness could only be intrinsic. And here, in the sweet grass and under the impossibly blue sky, Hob thought he knew it, felt the truth come to him with sudden, intense clarity. They must be in Faerieland!
(Why not? With the way his life had gone, Hob would be a fool to shy away from a belief in magic.)
And then, as though his thoughts had summoned it, there came a change: from his partner's back there suddenly unfurled gossamer petals, each as big as a man itself, like a flower blooming with the sunrise. A pair of ephemeral butterfly's wings, precisely the colour and shape of moonshine.
"Ha, I knew it," Hob said, and he felt a surge of tenderness. "I know what you are."
His companion turned to look at his wings, seemingly surprised himself to have found them there, and Hob used the lull to sit up in the embrace, to bring a hand to the soft black hair at the nape of that long neck.
"I doubt that," said the stranger, his beautiful fairie; but when Hob kissed him he accepted it with no reservation, cool arms folded across Hob's shoulders, and his wings beat a gentle wind into the air around them, so Hob knew he was pleased. It seemed, in that moment, that it would take nothing for either of them to fly away.
~
Hob closed the cellar door behind him, and silence fell in the same breath. The stairs beneath his feet were stone, damp and gritty, and the darkness extended to a point of light a good distance below. His breath felt clammy before his face. Perhaps he should have brought that candlestick.
There was nothing for it. Hob made his way down the stairs at a rapid clop, not bothering to disguise his footsteps much. When he reached the bottom of the stairs another man in a guard uniform stepped out, holding his baton loosely at his side.
"What's with the commotion up there, Jerry- hey-!"
"Not Jerry," Hob said ruefully, and he snatched the baton from the other man's grip before his shock could dissipate, and clobbered him soundly on the head.
A hundred years as a soldier, give or take, and at least a hundred years more of living rough- Hob knew his way around a fight.
The first guard dropped like a sack of bricks, and then there was a second running at him- and he hadn't raised his baton but rather his gun, so Hob ducked with a yelp as the muzzle went off. A flash, a whirr, and the stone cracked behind him.
"Get on the ground!" the guard yelled thuggishly, despite the fact that Hob was nearly already there; from his bent position Hob kicked out and was able to strike the second guard in the knees, which caused him to tumble with a cry, barely catching himself on the stone wall. Before the pistol could find aim in his head again Hob took hold of the other man's wrist and yanked it to the side, unbalancing him once more; the gun went off again with another whizz and crack. The guard's thick hand found a fistful of Hob's nice dinner jacket, threatening to drag him to the floor, but at nearly the same time Hob's baton came down on the back of his skull, and his eyes rolled up into his head as he joined his companion in the realm of the unconscious.
"Bloody hell," Hob said, breathless, and he patted himself down, somehow expecting a wound- he did not like guns, and the better the guns got the less he liked them. He did not think he was hurt, but his blood was surging, the fear-thrill leaving a tremor in his fingers. How long until 'Jerry' returned- if someone hadn't heard the scuffle already? Mindful of this, Hob turned to face the room…and as soon as he did, all thoughts of time fled from his head.
The 'cellar', Jessamy had called it- but Hob thought this place much better suited the word 'dungeon'.
The walls and floor were all stone and their dripping dampness came from, of all things, a moat, square and ugly and black-watered. And there, at its center, lit by a light that seemed to come from nowhere, was the prison.
(Jessamy's description hadn't prepared him for this.)
Condensation did not gather on the tempered glass, but it did on the iron suspensions, giving the impression that the transparent cage was held in some monstrous, glistening hand. A snowglobe, sealed in and ready to be shaken. There, crumpled at its base, lay something white. As fragile as a fallen feather.
Hob hopped the moat and approached the glass, dread mounting in his stomach like acid. With the guards unconscious, the room was too silent, his own ragged breathing was practically thunder. The creature behind the glass made no sound at all.
Morpheus lay on his back in the bottom of the sphere, limbs folded askew like a victim in some Renaissance painting, graceful to the end. Hob found himself thinking helplessly of the old folktales- of princesses imprisoned in towers made of rose thorns, kidnapped and dormant.
(Hob hadn't expected him to be bare. The sight of all that silver-white skin should have shocked him more, he had never before seen the stranger without his robes, not really, and yet- but he shouldn't think of that.)
(It made no sense that he looked just how Hob had always seen him in dreams.)
His eyes were closed, feather-black lashes casting blue shadows on his cheeks. Hob could not see him breathing. The feeling of dread in his gut only intensified.
"Hey," Hob whispered, his voice coming out soft without his intending it to. "Hey, it's me."
There was no reaction from the being in the cage, so Hob knelt, putting a hand to the glass by Morpheus' uncomfortably angled shoulder, as though to touch him there.
"Morpheus, it's me. Hob Gadling. Your friend, remember?"
The eyes flickered open, the tiniest possible movement, black irises and white-light pupils so faint they were nearly extinguished. Hob knocked on the glass with his knuckles, feeling foolish, desperate, anything to make those eyes meet his. Anything to be recognized.
"Yeah. I'm here. I'm here now."
Morpheus' pale mouth twitched and Hob thought he saw his own name in the shape of it, and it was absurd that he felt something like tears prickling his eyes as he grinned.
"Yeah, I know your name now, you cheeky bastard. Your bird told me."
The wall of glass still separated them in a way that was unbearable. Morpheus' concave chest did not rise or fall. Hob had been drowned once, for being a witch- he had been trapped underwater in a barrel for less than an hour, and that experience had destroyed him at the time. He still had a fear of small spaces, claustrophobic nightmares. How long had Morpheus been here? How long had he been alone?
"Alright," Hob gathered himself, looking around, pressing his hands to the cool glass. "What can I do? Is there a door, a, a key- how can I get you out of here?"
Morpheus' eyes flicked down towards the floor, a glance that seemed like a gesture, so Hob knelt to look. He hadn't seen it before, too entranced by the horror-beauty that was the sight of Morpheus in his cage, but painted across the stone at his feet there were golden lines. Sigils and runes. A circle around the base of the ball- another fence.
"Is this magic?" Hob asked, and he touched one of the marks. In the pad of his finger he felt something spark, like static electricity. Magic, then, almost certainly.
Morpheus' upper lip peeled back, baring sharp white teeth in a snarl.
"Do I destroy it?"
A faint, nearly imperceptible nod.
Hob immediately took his sleeve to the marks and began scrubbing, but the stuff was sticky, long dried in deep. He stood and scraped at it with his shoe instead, which made a little more progress, just fraying the edges now- still the lines were unbroken. With a hiss of frustration Hob threw himself to his knees again and this time he used the guard's baton, pressing the metal to the stone and scratching, the splitting sound of it echoing about the room and making his ears ache.
But that did it. Where the circlet had been unbroken before there was now a line cut clean through it, the yellow paint peeled away. Hob let out one huff of a laugh and then repeated the gesture in another spot, then another-
"Stop this instant!"
Hob raised his head. In the wailing of metal on stone he hadn't heard them coming down the stairs- a possy of three more guards, a scared looking boy, and an elderly man in an expensive magenta robe, one ringed hand held high and his eyes aflame. Surely, Hob thought, that must be the Magus.
More concerning, though, was the new set of guns pointed at Hob's head.
Hob hesitated only a second more before dropping the baton with a clank, and raising his hands in momentary surrender.
"And what manner of creature might you be?" boomed Roderick Burgess, his voice trembling with fury. "What promises has it made you in exchange for its freedom?"
"No promises," said Hob, stepping carefully away from the glass, hands still raised. "And I'm just a man."
He wasn't sure how he was to get out of this one. Immortal or not, he did not fancy getting shot to pieces- though he would if he had to. He was more afraid for Morpheus, whose limits he did not know- Morpheus, who looked fragile enough for a wrong wind to break him in that glass sphere.
"I doubt that," said Roderick Burgess through his teeth. "Guards! Search him."
The men came forwards, all four of them, and Hob grit his teeth, experienced or not this wasn't a fight he was sure he could win- but wait- one of the guards had not come down the stairs with Burgess. Rather, he was among the two Hob had knocked unconscious, and his steps dragged on the floor where those of his companions were firm. In fact, his eyes were closed, his jaw sinking slack into his breast…
"Wait- what are you doing-"
The Magus had time to say only this before the out-of-place guard raised his gun in loose arms and began to fire, once, twice, thrice, into the prison. Each time Hob flinched and the shell of the cage deafeningly cracked-
-and by the second shot the other men had abandoned him in favour of restraining their wayward companion-
-and by the third they were nearly on him-
-but before they could wrench the gun from his grasp a fourth shot was fired, the last bullet the gun could hold set free, ricocheting into space.
And when this one found its target, the glass shattered.