Death and the Faerie Queen

Death comes to collect his regular payment for seven more years of life for the faeries. Based on the mythology behind the Ballad of Tam Lin.

“And pleasant is the faerie land

for those who in it dwell,

but at the end of seven years

they pay a tax to hell.”

-The Ballad of Tam Lin

 

The Faerie Queen sits on a throne, which is to say within the tree’s trunk. The tree is so tall and so far-reaching that its branches and leaves shelter the entire open-roofed hall. The gap in the trunk wherein the faerie queen sits is molded to her shape, too naturally to be manmade, yet too convenient to be coincidence. High overhead, the wind hisses through the sheltering branches at the petitioner who stands before the queen, but it is not the wind that hisses. It is the tree. As its limbs sway, the sky appears in patches. Here, the stars for a second, there, the moon for a moment. The Faerie Queen grips ornate lumps of living wood by her hands, and stares down coldly at the petitioner. Her courtiers, armed with gold-trimmed spears and garbed in bright colors, sway in time to her words.

 

            “So take my offering, O noble Death,

and seek ye not to take away my breath.

Another sept of years do wait, then see

what soul I offer up that day to thee.”

 

First ritual verses recited, first refusal completed. The queen steels herself. It is Death’s turn to speak, now.

 

            Death’s hawkish face scowls at her offering. The fair human lad stands affixed at the foot of the tree, eyes still adoring on the queen, though she sells him now to save herself. “Yet another youth?” Death intones, voice bittersweet. He barely sees the offering. He exists; that is enough. He barely sees the faerie nobles, frowning monolithically at him. Wherever he goes, he is received like this; he no longer takes notice. His focus is on his love. “When will you grow weary of your games and join me in my palace, my bride to be?” A gesture of his arm, and a shred of his withered black garment tears off and floats on unfelt wind, growing. Soon, it fills a space larger than Death himself, and a window to his domain appears within.

 

“Is not the land of the dead a marvelous place?” He challenges the court. And indeed, the land of the dead is wondrous fair. The very ground is a piece of art, the rocky turf engraved with beautiful patterns. Angelic skyscrapers soar overhead, glorious and dazzling in beauty. Cable cars connect the towers. Human souls are visible congregating here and there. At the opening of the window of Death’s cloak, all turn to hail Death and his desire, their future empress.

 

In the midst of all this splendor, Death’s residence sits, a palace of palaces. The walls are as gothic architecture, but ungarbled by mortal idiocy. Harsh metal, and cold. Yet ivy made of rose-quartz climbs them from within. Everything inside the palace is a medusa’s garden, floral and bursting with color in an eternal, frozen paean to life and all its beauty. The sight draws sobs from even the most hardened of the faeries.

 

“Even in the stillness of Death, there can be loveliness,” declares Death. “Admit it, majesty, my land is the fairer. In exchange for the more villainous of my souls, hell sends me its finest architects. Yea, the very angels who once built the hall of Him Most Fallen. And for a hundred daily of the choicest virtuous, heaven hires out those very seraphs who built the pearly fortifications. Your faerie land grows staler by the year, unchanging in its natural beauty. These noble-blooded fae who surround you today are those very souls who stood there two millennia ago. Yet daily is my realm compounded and enriched by four million new souls. Indeed, what does life have that death does not acquire, soon after? Besides you, my love. How can life hold you so tightly that I do not touch your heart?”

 

The queen’s eyes are filled with tears of yearning for Death’s beautiful vision, but the tree trunk clenches and roils about her, and her eyes drag themselves away from the gateway. Death raises his eyebrows at the tree’s effort. The Faerie Queen now forms the words to send Death away a second time. With quavering resolve, she utters

 

“O Death, I shun you once again, now leave!

For though your land is great, I won’t enslave

my soul to you as wife for all of time…”

 

She wavers.

 

“Are all the seven prophets truly thine?”

 

Twice, ritual verses have been recited. Twice, Death has been abjured. The faeries let out their breaths. For should their queen fail, they too would soon wither and die, in the way of all flesh.

 

Yet Death smiles. His heart’s desire is troubled, and is responding to what he is doing for the first time in all their thousands of years of courtship. Death’s final choice of temptation requires no words, so as the gate’s vision moves across the land, he deigns to answer her question. “Why should I break up the set? The price hell offers me for Jesus grows daily. Yesterday, they dangled half the plains of hell before me, but I’m holding for the fiery lake as well. And heaven’s emissaries now offer me a place by God’s left hand in exchange for either Jesus or Abraham, the first believer. Yet why should I accept either offer? I like having them at my beck and call.”

 

And now the court can see what Death wishes to show the Faerie Queen. The gate approaches a balcony on one of the angelic towers, where a crowd of young men waits. When the gate arrives, they look through it at the Faerie Queen with mixtures of contempt and longing. They are former lovers, sacrifices of the faerie queen to the lord of Death for seven more years lease on life. Their eyes say clearly enough that they think the queen a fool for refusing Death time and time again, when his land is so fine, his people so numerous, and his station so high. They hold no malice for her, only pity. Death watches the queen as she stiffens, recalling where she is and what she is doing. Anger edges into her voice.

 

“Our day’s transaction now completed stands.

Go forth from here and make no more demands.

Your queen for sept more years I shall not be.

Our deal of old this boon hath promised me.”

Thrice, ritual verses have been recited. Thrice, the queen has refused her petitioner.

 

Nevertheless, Death is not dismayed. The queen’s assumption that she is making the right choice year after year is clearly shaken to its foundation. We have come a long way since the early days, when the best I could come up with was ‘If you’ll be my queen, you won’t have to talk in silly rhymes anymore’, he thinks to himself. A thousand psychiatrists and a thousand focus groups had promised him that this was the right move. ‘Heap doubt on her and she will never regain her balance’ was their advice, and in the past two meetings, he had seen the results bear fruit with amazing alacrity. Death doubts any faerie realizes what he has been doing, but the tree knows, and howls in the wind. The throne tightens around its queen. “Her resolve crumbles quickly now,” Death taunts the Tree of Life, his rival. “You won’t hold her for much longer. Perhaps next time, she will be mine.” The tree lashes its limbs back and forth, and leafy twigs from above shower the whole court. Laughing, Death seizes the newest sacrifice, steps through his garment, and is gone before the first falling twigs can touch him.

Author's Note

Note that death is a kleptomaniac (obviously). Some people think the psychiatrists and focus groups should be cut out of the story. What do you think?

Reviews

[The Scholar]

Wow this was awesome, I love it!
I actually got really excited reading it about how good it was. :)