Miriam was wandering down an empty corridor somewhere, thinking. Exile was becoming somewhat tiresome, so she had gone looking for something to do. One could only beat people at poker so many times before it got boring.

 

She could hear something muttering around the corner behind a doorway. She leaned around and peered into the darkness. There was a shriek of terror.

 

Miriam blinked. 'Hello?'

 

'Gaah!' Someone said. Miriam's eyes adjusted to the gloom. 'Won't be a mo.' Someone went on. There was a clicking noise very much like someone opening up a pair of sunglasses and sliding them onto their face. This is because that is what it was.

 

'Hello, cariad. Not looking for me, are you?' Nevin said, flashing a grin and removing his hand from his now covered eyes. Rather than a blinding fiery sun-like blaze, Miriam was now a vaguely girl-shaped white blur.

 

'No, but you'll do.' Miriam said, seating herself next to him. I'm a little bored.

 

Nevin carried on grinning. He had stolen the sunglasses from Klot a while back because he thought it was cooler if he, Klot and Kara were all wearing them. Like a sort of vampire uniform.

 

'You seem to know a lot about what's going on.' Miriam said, conversationally.

 

'You too.' Nevin replied, his face impassive.

 

'Not really. I can guess and extrapolate, but you get your information from somewhere.'

 

Nevin nodded. 'From the dragon.' He said.

 

'The Red Dragon?' Miriam asked.

 

'That's the one. The Red Dragon who walks on a green field.'

 

Miriam searched the databases and found he was now talking about the welsh flag. 'Er...'

 

Nevin grinned again.

 

'If it's the dragon I know, it could be lying to you.'

 

'Now why would he want to do that? We've had some nice chats, the dragon and me. He promised me all sorts of nice things if I did what he said.'

 

'And will you?'

 

Nevin startled her by bursting into laughter. He really was very disconcerting. 'HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA..maybe. Dunno. When it suits me.'

 

'That's such a typical answer for you.' Miriam sighed.

 

'My, it's like we've known each other forever and not since a few days ago.' Nevin said, sarcastically.

 

Miriam shook her head. 'No, not really, I can just extrapolate. I don't know anything about you. Not even how old you are.'

 

'As old as my tongue and a little older than my teeth. Why do you want to know?'

 

Miriam blinked and looked up at the ceiling. 'I imagine you must be fairly old, being immortal.'

 

'Mhm.'

 

'Nevin?'

 

He tilted his head, indicating she should go on.

 

'What's it like to go on living when everyone around you ages and dies?'

 

Nevin froze.

 

'Only, I don't think I will. Age and die, I mean. But John, and Vinny and maybe Oscar and all the others, they will, won't they? I could keep repairing their genetic structure, but that seems somehow wrong. Like I'd be taking something away from them. Besides, eventually there would be too much deterioration and..' She trailed off.

Nevin turned to her and peered at her over the top of his sunglasses. His eyes were screwed up, but despite that she could see in them a look of enough terrifying and ancient weariness to render any normal human silent as stone.

 

'Don't think like that.' He said. 'Don't think "I could keep them alive with me". It's no good. It doesn't work out. Trust me.'

 

Miriam shook her head. 'I wouldn't. As I said, it just feels wrong, somehow. Like, stealing their chance to be renewed, making them spend forever ageing. It's wrong.'

 

Nevin nodded, and pushed the sunglasses back up his nose. 'You're smarter than I am, cariad.' He grinned. The look and the tone from before had totally vanished again, covered by his usual façade of cheery insanity.

 

The air seemed to have cleared between them. Both had been quite nervous in each other's presence, unsure of each other. Now there was a camaraderie, something deeper shared.

 

'I'd be fascinated to hear about your life.' Miriam said.

 

'Would you now? How long do you have?'

 

'No idea. Fairly long, I suppose. I don't suppose the Imperator will be letting us go any time soon, since we all know where he is.'

 

'Well, now, I don't really think he has much say in the matter where I'm concerned.' Nevin said, slightly nastily. 'Not much of a storyteller I am, mind. No bard. Could you move up a little, cariad, it's like sitting next to a sunlamp.'

 

'That's all right.' Miriam said, shuffling sideways.

 

Nevin tapped his nose thoughtfully and turned to her. 'Firstly, it's not that I don't trust you, cariad, if I didn't, I wouldn't tell you what I'll tell you, but if you could keep it quiet. I like my mystery, see. If something happens to me, feel free to let it out.'

 

'Why are you telling me then?' Miriam asked.

 

Nevin leaned back and looked at the ceiling, tapping his chin now. 'Don't know. I hear telling someone makes it easier to remember and I forgot a lot of things in the forest, which are coming back now. And.. you and I aren't like the rest of 'em.'

 

'You're not really mad at all, are you?' Miriam said, in her usual abrupt manner.

 

'Hmph. Mad is as mad does, cariad.'

 

'Very well..' Miriam smiled.

 

'I'll begin at the beginning. You'll be the only other living person who knows this now, by the way. I was born Owain Cynddelw in 1709 on Ynys Mon. It was just after the scots and the germans had nearly stopped fighting for the english throne as I remember, so no-one was paying much attention to Cymru.'

 

'So your name is really Owain.'

 

'No, my name is really Nevin.' Nevin snapped back, slightly annoyed. 'Owain is what I used to be called. It's all wrong for me anyway, I'm no rebel. Better others for that, like our furry friend. Ynys Mon had it's fill of rebels anyway, and the romans and normans who came to crush them. No, we were just a family of Menai fishermen from Llanfair P.G. and Denbighshire before that.'

 

Miriam had to do another search through earth archives to find out what he was talking about. This took roughly the duration of the word 'that'.

 

'Pa was a bit of a dreamer and ma harried him something awful. He used to tell me about when he was younger and entered Eisteddfods. He was a wonderful poet, but alas poetry earns no bread, not even during Ann's reign, nor George's that came after.' At this point, Nevin's face darkened. He paused.

 

Miriam prompted 'This was a problem?

 

'Yes, you could say that. Mmm. Suppose I should do it in order. I was the first of seven children and the only one born with fair hair. To dark haired parents. There were murmurings in the village and I got a lot of trouble from it.'

'You shouldn't have. It's quite possible both your parents had a recessive gene for blond hair.' Miriam interrupted.

'You try telling that too our lot.' Nevin replied. 'It got worse when I started seeing things before they happened. Every child saw fairies, but I saw them everywhere. Still do. My uncle Maredudd used to call me 'changeling' and he wasn't being affectionate. Girls in the village used to ask me to scry their future husbands for them. Anyway, it happened that one fine spring morning when I was but thirteen or so, ma had kicked me out of the house for being an 'idler like my father' and I found pa sitting on a rock playing his harp and singing.

 

'Pa?' I said. 'Why is ma so as she is?'

 

He turned to me with a weary look and said: 'Owain, many years ago when your ma was but a lass, she met a fairy king, who said he would come back to make her his queen. But he never did, and she's been feeling the pain ever since.'

 

Well, I was very sad for mam, but didn't really understand till later when I heard them arguing in the kitchen. Pa was just taking it as usual.

 

'You idle cwd, Rhodri. Is that all you've brought home?'

 

'A catch is a catch, Glynys.'

 

'What were you doing this morning?'

 

'I was with Owain, Glynys.'

 

'Oh Owain, always Owain. You get on with him fair well considering he's not even your son.'

 

This, as you can imagine, was not much of a surprise to me, as I'd often been told I was a changeling and no true lad of Cymru. Pa said nothing, because he had nothing to say to it. I determined to have a word the next day.

 

I found pa where he usually sat, under the willow tree by the llyn with the still water.

 

'Pa, is it true I'm not really your boy?'

 

Pa looked at me wearily again and said. 'You heard that?'

 

'Yes, Pa. Is it true what they say in the village, pa? That I'm Twylth Teg?'

 

'It is.'

 

'Was I switched at birth?'

 

'No. You're your mother's son all right. Just not mine. You remember I told you about your mother's fairy king?'

 

'Yes.'

 

'Well, he did more than promise he would come back for her. You were the result. Of course, I married her. I love her. I wanted to protect her from scandal, just as Joseph did for the Blessed Virgin.'

 

He was good chapel was Da.

 

'Where's my real da then?'

 

'Annwn.'

 

Despite other things.

 

'How do I get there?'

 

'It'll be hard. The gates are all closing.'

 

'Oh.'

 

'I know where the best one is though.'

 

'Oh.'

 

'How's your swimming?'

 

'Um.'

 

'I'll play it open, but you must swim it. Then go look for the King.' Da pointed into the waters of the llyn.

 

Da told me I was to swim to the bottom. I was scared, I'll tell you, but he played a little to soothe me and then the waters of the lake began to darken and I dived in and swam to the bottom. A current sucked me into a cave and I was dragged through and dumped on a sandy cove in the darkness.

 

'That must have been terrifying.' Miriam said, half-heartedly searching for something to say.

 

'I was bloody shitting myself.' Nevin nodded. 'Plus, I couldn't see anything. Had to stumble about in the dark for a while, till I saw some light and found my way out.'

 

'Then where were you?'

 

'Otherworld. Some woods in the otherworld. Talking trees and suchlike.'

 

'Really?'

 

'Well, not talking trees, but you get it. It just..sortof...feels different. Can't explain it.'

 

'What did you do then?'

 

'Went looking for my real da, didn't I?'

 

'But you had no idea who he was, or what he looked like.'

 

'Didn't stop me. There can't be that many kings, I thought.'

 

'Good point.' Miriam shrugged.

 

'I stopped the first passers by I came to. Some noble looking folk, clothes in tatters and asked them to point me to the castle of the king. They didn't really want to talk to me. They seemed to be heading somewhere else, but they pointed me in the right direction.'

 

'Did you ask them where they were going?'

 

'No, but I think they were going west. Britain wasn't a place for their folk any more and wouldn't be again for five hundred years or more.'

 

'West? To America?'

 

Nevin tapped his nose. 'No, bach. The other west.'

 

'I don't understand.' Miriam checked the archives again. 'Oh. The Isle of the Blessed, Tir na Nogh. The mythical isles in the atlantic ocean off the west coat of ireland.'

 

'Well, if you will make it so clinical.' Nevin said, snappishly. 'I was just trying to give it a little mystery.'

 

'Sorry.'

 

'Anyway, I carried on through the woods, and I noticed that all around me the trees were dying. I wondered if I was going the wrong way, but I knew I was following the path I'd been pointed towards all right. I just had to keep going. Then I fell in a bog.'

 

'Oh dear.'

 

'S'all right, it's happened a few times before, I got myself out all right. Then I had to cross a few fast flowing rivers and dangerous inclines and obstacles of that sort. It was a bit like the land was trying to discourage me.'

 

'Oh.'

 

'Of course that just made me even more intrigued.'

 

Miriam sighed. Typical.

 

'So I carried on, getting filthier and filthier and bruised and scratched.'

 

'Bruised and scratched?'

 

'Thickets.'

 

'Oh.'

 

'Thorny thickets.'

 

'Oh.'

 

'Therrible thorny thick...ok, fine getting on with it.' Nevin snickered at Miriam's look of annoyance. 'So eventually, I get to this big castle, in bits see?'

 

'The castle was ruined?'

 

'Aye, it was falling to bits. All that was left was this one crumbling tower. Ever so spooky, lightning flashing around.'

 

'You went in.'

 

'Course I did. Climbed up the crumbling stone steps, terrified for my life. I'd come this far, I couldn't go back now. At the top was this terrible tall lady, with a wild red mane and a green kirtle.

 

'Who are you?' She said, haughty like.

 

'Owain Cyndellw.' Says I. 'I come seeking my father.'

 

'Well have you come here, Owain Halfblood, for your father is within this tower, I see his eyes in yours, and I am his wife.'

 

'Pleased to meet you, stepma.' Says I.

 

That made her laugh. 'I'll be surprised if he'll let you speak to him.' Says she, knocking on the wooden door behind her. 'He's not come out of there for food nor drink nor kith nor kin these ten years past. No more room for him, he says, in the world, with all this metal in their heads. Oh, you're but a lad, you wouldn't understand.'

 

'Pa says the gates are near all closed.' Says I, a bit annoyed about being called a lad.

 

'Is that so?' She says. She bangs on the door again and shouts. 'Husband, will you not come out? One of your bastards has come calling and it's bad manners to leave them waiting at the door.''

 

Miriam laughed.

 

Nevin grinned as well. 'Wasn't funny at the time though. T'aint nice to be called a bastard, you know.'

 

'Sorry.' Miriam looked down.

 

'Anyway, a voice comes back through the door. 'Let me alone 'Tilda, I'm busy.'

 

'Busy doing nothing.' Says she, with a fair bit of sarcasm there. 'Moping and whining and feeling sorry for yourself. You open this door this very second, your majesty.'

 

'Get gone, harridan.' Says the door.

 

I was a bit bothered by now, see, so I knocked on myself. 'Da.' Says I. 'Da, I won't stay long, I just want some explaining, that's all.'

 

The door swung open, making me jump and this huge fellow in a massive helmet towers over me. The helmet peers at me.

 

'You Glynys' boy? From Mona? You've got her nose. Lovely girl, funny ideas.' The helmet says, slipping off into a reverie.

 

'Aye, Da.' Says I. 'That's me.'

 

'What brings you here?'

 

'Wanted to see my real da, Da.' Says I.

 

The fellow takes his helmet off and I find myself looking at a huge fair-haired fellow with eyes like mine. 'There you go.' He says, snappishly. 'Now be off with you, back to your own world. Your lot have done enough damage as it is.'

 

'Don't I even get to know my Da's name?' I said. I was a bit bothered by the reception. I didn't know what to expect, but I didn't expect to be told to bugger off.

 

His wife sighs and rubs her temples like she has a headache. 'Your ma didn't tell you?' He says, all surprised.

 

'No, da.' Says I.

 

'Does no-one remember me any more?' Says he.

 

'I don't understand, da.'

 

'Arawn's my name, lad. King of Annwn, Lord of the Dead, Hunt Master of the Cwn Annwn and Keeper of the Cauldron That Shall Not Boil the Food of a Coward.'

 

'Oh.' Says I, somewhat perturbed, because I did know that story, see.

 

'Now get gone, Owain ap Arawn.' His wife says. 'Before all the gates close.' And I did. I ran out of there full pelt until I tripped on a root and knocked myself out. When I woke up I was laying by the llyn beneath the willow tree and it was pitch dark.'

 

Miriam blinked. 'Is that true.'

 

'Why would I lie?'

 

'I mean, could it have been a dream? I realise I have no room to be doubting considering the things I know, but maybe you were drowning in the lake, or..'

 

'Hah. Maybe so.' Nevin said, bitterly. 'Then where did all the scratches and bruises come from? And what about Da and Ma arguing? Besides, other things happened afterwards.'

 

'I see. Do carry on.'

 

'Certainly.' Nevin said, grinning again. 'After that I was an absolute terror, you see.'

 

'Why?' Miriam frowned.

 

'Angry, I suppose. Felt unwanted. I was very badly behaved. At one point they even got the village priest in to exorcise me. I ran wild in the hills alone with the spirits and the darkness. I think it was then I first spoke with the dragon. I don't remember all that clearly, just his usual 'serve me and we can have all sorts of fun'. In the end they just ended up packing me off to the nuthouse, when I was about twenty or so.'

 

'Oh dear.'

 

Nevin nodded. 'They weren't happy places back then either. But at least they didn't tie me up. Some people got tied up. Anyway, I wasn't there long, so it doesn't really matter.' Nevin's expression changed and he smiled. It wasn't his usual nasty grin, but a genuine smile as if he was remembering something that made him very happy, long ago. 'The most beautiful woman in the world came and took me out. It happened one grey and boring day. Mind you, it's grey and boring a lot in Cymru, but anyway... I was sitting in my room, cell, whatever one day and the head nurse or nun or whoever it was passes by and with her is this amazing woman. She was slender as the willow by the llyn, her skin was as white as birch bark, her lips as red as cherries and her raven locks...' He paused. 'Do let me know if I get too poetic for you.'

 

Miriam laughed. 'It's all right. What colour were her eyes?'

 

Nevin looked thoughtful. 'Sort of muddy brownish. Anyway, as she was passing, she looks into my cage and straight at me and says to the head nurse 'Who is that?' and the nun reads my little sign and says 'Cynddelw, some boy from a village across the Menai.' And I gets up and leans against the bars and says in Cymraeg 'I'm No-one in particular, My lady.' And I make a little bow. And then she says 'Pleased to meet you, No-one InParticular. May I call you No-one?' 'Certainly.' Says I.'

 

'Ah.' Miriam said. 'So that's why you...'

 

'Aye.' Nevin nodded. 'That's why I.'

 

'Who was she?'

 

'Patience is a virtue.'

 

'Sorry.'

 

'I didn't find out till that night, as she moved on. I think she must have been on a tour or something. I was lying in bed, half asleep looking at pictures in the stone walls. This shadow detached itself from the corridor and slid halfway into my room. 'Hello Mister Shadow.' Says I 'What can I do for you?' and the shadow turns into her and says 'Lady Shadow, if you please, young master No-one.' 'Awful sorry, Lady Shadow' Says I, sitting up in my nightshirt and realising I was in my nightshirt and nearly dying of embarrassment.'

 

Nevin chuckled. So did Miriam.

 

''I come to offer you immortality, Master No-one.' Says she. She was always quick to the point, that one. 'I suspect you have certain talents I could make use of.' 'Will I get to spend it with you?' Says I, all cheeky. That made her laugh and she said yes, if I wanted. And then something happened I'd rather not talk about, as it's a bit personal.'

 

'You became a vampire?'

 

'Aye.'

 

'I see.'

 

'She busted me out of jail and we went back to her house in Shrewsbury on a very fast horse. It took a few days over riding over hills and mountains. On the way, she told me she had a lot of enemies and could use someone who could see them coming well in advance. Could I do that, she asked? I said I'd give it a shot.

 

'What did it feel like?'

 

'Hmm?' Nevin smiled. 'Sort of like.. everything up until then had been preparing me to be something, and now I was it. Finished..you know. Total blackness. Course, I didn't really know I was dead. I thought some kind of magic had just happened. I was never very strong chapel, me, though the family were. I liked the other ways more, wood and mountain, lake and valley. I thought I was blessed, not cursed.'

 

'You'd been through a lot of changes already, I suppose.' Miriam suggested.

 

'That's about right.' Nevin said. 'I knew I was stronger now and faster, but otherwise I didn't really notice any difference, until dawn the next day.'

 

'What happened?'

 

'Tried to go out in the sun, didn't I?'

 

'Did it hurt?'

 

'DID IT HURT??' Nevin collapsed into insane laughter again, making Miriam jump and edge a few inches further away. Once he had stopped giggling, he said 'A fair bit, yes.'

 

Miriam sighed and wished he didn't have to be quite so disturbing.

 

'She was off her rocker anyway, Lady Shadow who taught me everything I know. That was all ever called her, by the way. Her name was cecilia or something, but I didn't pay attention to that. Paranoid about people being out to get her, saw enemies everywhere. But she gave me nice clothes and a warm place to sleep and the run of her town house, and all I had to do was scry for her. And of course, I was completely infatuated with her. She got suspicious when I told her there was no-one out to get her, so I made up stories about plots against her that we foiled. Well, I pretended to foil. Sadly, it didn't last.'

 

'Oh?'

 

'Nu-uh.' Nevin shook his head. 'Turned out she did have at least one real enemy, probably through acting so bloody paranoid. I came back one day and found all the servants dead and her head in one room and her body in the other.'

 

'Oh no..'

 

'Don't worry, I got over it ages ago.' Nevin reassured her. 'After I smelt out the thrall that did it, wrung who put him up to it out of him and went and did horrible things to that bloke.'

 

'Oh.' Miriam said, since Nevin seemed to have cleared the matter up quite well by himself and was grinning gleefully and licking his lips as he remembered. 'What happened then.'

 

Nevin sighed, wistfully. 'I couldn't bear to hang around. Memories, you see. So I took the fast horse and went to Bristol. It was nice and busy and a fellow could hide there for a while eating whores and sailors. I was in a tavern one night when a couple of lads presented me with a beer. I drank it for show and at the bottom was the King's Shilling.'

 

'Hold on, I need to search...'

 

'Don't bother, I'll explain. You took the King's Shilling when you joined the Royal Navy. They were short sailors back then so they used to trick people into joining by slipping the shilling into a drink and when the poor sod accepted it, he'd taken the shilling. Press Gangs, they called them.'

 

Miriam smiled and made a guess. 'Did you eat them?'

 

'Course. But I thought to myself 'plenty of lads go off to join the navy so they can forget'. It didn't seem like a bad idea at the time, so I feigned putting up a fight and let them drag me off to their ship. I was taken on as one of the crew of the Princess Augusta, though they said I was barely past cabin boy. I think I was about twenty-five then, but didn't look older than nineteen.'

 

'You don't now.' Miriam interjected, scrutinising him. 'But your eyes look make you look much older.'

'You can see it, can you?' Nevin said looked interested and tilted the sunglasses down. He frowned. 'Hmm. I pretended to be seasick so I could stay below decks. Then when we were out past ireland, that's when a mystery illness started to attack the crew, leaving them pale and a bit dead.' Nevin grinned, conspiratorially. 'I...I mean it, picked them off one by one. I was still sick, of course. And I was pale too, so everyone assumed they'd brought a sick boy on board. Except a couple of Cornish sailors who made the sign against evil at me whenever they saw me on board.' Nevin held out an arm with the fourth and index finger touching and extended and the other two curled underneath, pointing at some invisible evil. 'Smart lot, the Cornish. I ate them pretty sharpish.'

 

Miriam realised she was listening to a tale of mass murder of human beings by a brutal, selfish predator without batting an eyelid. She wondered if had anyone else been in her place, they would currently be railing at Nevin's story and calling him a monster. Somehow, he made the people sound inconsequential, like a simple meal. It was both disturbing, but strangely natural from him. He viewed himself as the wolf and human beings as the lambs.

'They tried to throw me overboard, since I was obviously the cause of the sickness.' Nevin continued, still grinning at the irony. 'But by then there weren't enough of them left to do anything about it. Everyone else had been buried in Davy's Locker. And anyway, we were attacked by pirates.'

 

'Really??'

 

'Aye.' Nevin said, gleefully. 'That was fun. They'd just caught the wrong end of a sea battle that lost them their captain and their ship was falling apart and they wanted a new one. And we barely had enough crew to sail, let alone fight off pirates. Oh, they tried all right. But they were bound and gagged when I deigned to come up on deck and see what was going on.

 

'Who are you, boy?' The pirates' first mate says, looking at me funny for walking out so bold amongst a crew who'd gut me on sight. A great hulking brute he was, Irish, with flame-red hair and a beard with bits of fish stuck in it.

 

'Cabin Boy.' Says I.

 

'You going to fight?' Says he.

 

'Ifan the Carpenter's Arse I am.' Says I. 'They Press-Ganged me.'

 

One of my erstwhile crewmates spat something through his gag that sounded like traitor and all the pirates had a good laugh.

 

'Well, lad, if Ifan the Carpenter's Arse allows, would you care to join our crew? We're short a few dozen men, y'see and it just happens we have an opening for a cabin boy.' He asks me.

 

'With pleasure.' Says I, thinking to myself that there was a fair bit of meat on him and meaning it. And that's how I became a pirate.'

 

'Who's Ifan the Carpenter?' Miriam asked, smiling a little.

 

'That's a saying, see. When someone asks you where you put something, and you're a little unhappy with them you say 'Yn twyll tun Ifan saer' which is 'In Ifan the Carpenter's Arse.'

 

Miriam covered her mouth to hide a chuckle.

 

'Anyways, after a while with the pirate crew, I suddenly had a funny idea. It was jolly fun being a pirate, see, they were a lot like me, when we got to port I could get up to all sorts of hijinks. When you're burning a town, nobody notices the odd snack. But I wanted more than that. I wanted to be captain. Captain of my own ship, a ghost ship full of vampires. Lady Shadow told me how to make thralls and get, but I'd never done it before. Ambitious, I know, but I had a dream.'

 

'I thought the first mate was leading the crew?' Miriam said. She was now sitting turned slightly towards Nevin with her back against the wall and her arms wrapped round her knees, watching him carefully in case he decided to be erratic again. He tended to be rather incautious with his body language while telling stories, arms flailing everywhere.

 

'Yeah, but nobody liked him, see. He treated some people badly and lorded it over others. There was a lot of murmurs about how perhaps he wasn't the best choice, but there was no-one else who could do it.'

'Except you.'

 

'Ah well, I was just a lowly cabin boy. I had to get everyone on my side first. I already had some respect because I beat everyone at arm wrestling, but I've always looked like a skinny blond boy and probably always will, see. Hard to command respect like that. So I started being sneaky. A comment here, a lie there, a piece of gossip wisely used. Lovely bit of mischief I got up to. Before long I had them all ready to mutiny on the self-styled captain. It only needed some little thing to push them over the edge.'

 

'You're very devious.'

 

'Flattery now is it?' Nevin said, mischievously. Miriam rolled her eyes. This was lost on Nevin as all he could see of her eyes was a blazing white flame. 'One day he told us all we couldn't stop by at one of the islands for wining and wenching. He had a decent reason too, he'd heard about some plunder over to the west of Barbados, but the lads didn't like it and they said so. He tried to beat them down, and I did what I often did, which was to play the nice and cheeky country lad who'd never do no harm to no-one with the best interests of everyone at heart. It's easy to listen to someone like that, see. 'Mayhap we could stop off for a short while only, Cap'n and then move on?' Says I. Of course, he tells me to pipe down and calls me names emphasising my youth and inexperience and suchlike. I says he isn't being fair and the crew starts agreeing with me.'

 

'You were challenging his authority.'

 

'Oh indeedy. But coming from harmless young Nev, it hardly means anything. The arguments go on. Eventually it comes to harsh words and he cries mutiny. I'd been waiting for this for weeks. He asks who among the crew is man enough to challenge him face to face. No-one's as big as him, and no-one wants to risk their skin, which is how all these arguments had ended this far. So then I says 'I will.''

 

'I expect that got quite a reception.'

 

'They laughed their arses off.' Nevin nodded. 'Except one or two who I knew pretty well. I steps up front and draws the sword I filched off one of my old crewmates and repeats my challenge. Tears are pouring down his big dirty red face and he can barely draw for laughing. Someone at the back calls out 'careful cap'n, that boy's got the strength of the very devil'. Which makes him fall about again. I'm smiling like the cocky lad I pretend to be. 'Very well, lad' He says. 'Let's make it quick.' And he takes a swing at me with half his strength if that, which I block, because I'd been practising. He tries to bear me down and he can't! You should have seen the look on his face. So he tries harder and he still can't. He's getting red as a beetroot, I'm cool as you please. Everybody's stopped laughing now. He starts putting some effort into it and I make him look like total clown, slipping around him like a weasel round a big stupid bear.' Nevin looked proud as he grinned, gleefully pretending to fence with an invisible opponent on the floor in front of him. Then I start nicking bits out of him. I'm teasing him and he knows it. The crew are either cheering me on or saying 'who knew?' or accusing me of being the devil. He's getting angrier and angrier, and he's sweating because he knows I could get him any time now. He starts shouting threats at me, trying to scare me.'

 

'Hah.'

 

'Aye.' Nevin snickered. ' As if. I'm getting bored now and he's pouring with sweat, so I force him against the edge of the fo'csle and ask if he wants quarter.'

 

'I can imagine his reaction.'

 

'He called me a treacherous snake and said he'd rather rot in hell.'

 

'I was close.'

 

'I expect so.' Nevin shrugged. 'Anyway, so I ran him through. And I turns to the crew and says 'Mine's a half'. And they all look at me, like stunned codfish. Then someone at the back says. 'So you're the devil then, Nev?' I grins and lets them all see my teeth and says. 'Nah, just one of his relations. Whose turn is it to be Cap'n now? Is it you, Mrembe?' The second mate, a big black fellow who knows he's next in line but daren't say so says. 'Could well be, but I reckon you the one who won the fight, that means you in charge, young massah.' 'Oh, I'd be no good.' Says I, wiping a smear of the old cap'n's blood off my blade and taking a taste there in front of everyone. It was awful and grog riddled, but I was used to that by now. 'There's not much to it.' Says Mrembe watching my fingers in my mouth. 'I'm sure you'll pick it up in time.' 'Well, if everyone thinks it's the thing to be done.' Says I. And they're all nodding. 'All right.' Says I. 'Till we can come up with someone better suited. Now let's weigh anchor and get boozed, shall we?' Which was met with general happiness and cheers.'

 

'I'll bet. So you were captain from then on?'

 

'Aye. That's when the real fun started.'

 

'Good grief, what was it up till then?'

 

'The prologue, see. My crew knew they had a devil in charge now, see? And so they were damned, and so nothing could stop them. It was my ship now, the Arianwen. We recarved the figurehead, as was usual when the management changed. Augusta was a fat little princess anyway, she looked better as the Silverwhite Lady. '

 

'I see.'

 

'Especially when I started slipping a little something extra into the grog.' Nevin held out his arm and to Miriam's surprise, flicked a nail across his wrist. Drops of blood fell on the floor and lay there glistening like fat slugs as the nick rapidly healed up. 'Made them biddable, see. No mutinies for me. And faster and stronger. Not as much as me, mind, but enough.' He smiled, horribly. 'Enough to make them frighten strong men by the look of their eyes and to make them feared throughout the Western Indes for their bloodlust. And I had the pick of the choicest morsels we could find.'

 

'Didn't they notice what was happening to them?' Miriam asked, eyeing the red drips, worriedly. 'Too stupid.' Nevin said. He crossed his legs, leaned over and peered at the drips, then poked at them, smearing the liquid around into patterns, his face lapsing into a trance-like gaze behind the sunglasses. 'There was one fellow who threw himself overboard once he realised what was going on, screaming that he'd rather be drowned than damned. He was brighter than most. Hmm...I see a death. Someone very important.'

 

'Sorry?'

 

Nevin continued poking at the smears. 'And a birth. Not for a while. The two are connected. Where was I?'

'Terrorising the caribbean.' Miriam said, extrapolating the likelyhood of anyone she knew being pregnant. It was probably Windsong.

 

'Oh yes. I did that well into the 1800s. It's where I met Valendil, you know, who took your dragon friend prisoner. He's even older than I am. We were looting this ship once, a schooner I think, and before we ate 'em all, I heard someone yell 'tis the Faerie Queene, crewed by the damned and captained by Satan himself!' and I says 'The Faerie Queene? What the twylltin is the Faerie Queene?' And so we found out there was another ship of the damned floating around on the waters. Well, I was bloody fascinated, so we tracked 'em down to a secluded isle off the coast of Dominica, after getting all the details from whoever we could find. Shrouded in mist it was, like a veil over the isle. I knew it was Faerie mist by the feel. After a while, a ship came out to meet us. She was a schooner, a delicate little thing with emerald green sails and the captain was at the bows. I knew he was Twylth the moment I saw his ears.

 

'Hello.' Says I once we were broadside. 'Nice to finally meet you.'

 

'And you.' Says he. 'I been hearing about your ship for a while now. Say, you look familiar. Have we met?'

 

'Don't think so.' Says I. 'But you may know my pa. He was a pointy-ear like you.'

 

'Aye maybe so.' Says he. 'I have little truck with my kind now, ever since they refused my passage to the westerlands.'

 

'Oh aye.' Says I. 'Well, They're no shipmates of mine either.'

 

'Care to join me on my island?' Says he, right gentlemen. And that was then beginning of a beautiful friendship. In fact, there was talk of him betrothing his little daughter to me. But that all ended when he double-crossed me and betrayed my ship into a trap set by Admiral Wallington. I got my own back though.' Nevin snickered.

 

'Is that why he had you crucified?'

 

'Aye!' Nevin's snickers turned into outright maniacal laughter. 'See, Wallington had been set by the Royal Navy to

catch Valendil and I, but we ran rings round him so much they had him thrown out for a useless layabout. He wasn't best pleased, so he set up a trap. I'd caught this pretty young wench, a governor's daughter and we were after a ransom for her. Wallington was going to get me when I went for the ransom, but Valendil warned me of his plan and said we could both go for the ransom together and fool the brave Admiral . How-ev-er...it turned out he'd set up with Wallington that he would get the ransom and the Admiral would get me and my prisoner.' Nevin illustrated his jumble of intrigue by making patterns in the air with his fingers, tying his arms into knots.

 

'What happened?'

 

'They caught us, o' course. Half my crew dived over board and swam off, the rest of us were hanged.'

 

Miriam blinked. 'Was it painful?'

 

'No, but some arse swiped my boots. Good pair, too. Valendil didn't know we don't breathe. See, you can hang a faerie, cause they're alive. Tis only old age that don't kill them, they can be slain all right. But me and my kind, it's just a bit of a tug round the neck. Unpleasant, but useless. We waited till it got dark and buggered off. They put out the bodies were stolen. We had a good laugh and I vowed to pay Valendil back.'

 

'How did you do it?'

 

'Next time I saw him, and note he had half a heart attack when I showed up at the tavern, I made out that I thought he knew hanging me was no use and I'd been in on it all along. I asked for my share of the booty too. He said he'd lost it. Shame, I said, but never mind there was another haul I knew of.'

 

Miriam giggled. 'And you tricked him out of his share of that?'

 

'Aye, it was a fair delight seeing the look on his face when he realised I knew all along he'd double-crossed me. We never spoke again after that. Long memories, see? I carried on with the pirating until the end of Victoria's reign. Then it sort of fizzled out. I remember at some point my crew mutinied on me and I ate 'em all. They'd got old and powerful and cocky.'

 

'What happened to the Arianwen?'

 

'I got a new crew, but it wasn't the same. Pirating died after they invented those big new metal boats. No more creaking mainbrace, no more wind in your sails, feet on the forecastle, at the mercy of Manannan ap Llyr. There's no soul in whipped the water like a dog with a propeller.' Nevin said, wistfully. 'I left her to my first mate and went home.'

 

'To Wales? Sorry, Cymru.'

 

'Aye, but it had all changed. Coal mines and steam trains and crop rotation. But my mountains weren't as wild anymore. Metal did what the Rhywmanes and the french and the english couldn't do. She'll never be tamed though, my Cymru. Sometimes when the Brenin Llwyd's mist gathered on Cader Idris and Owain Glyndwyr walks in the hills, there's my Cymru again, but back then it was too different for me. I stayed a while to see what happened to my kin. Nothing much, they were still fishing, though one of my sister's grandchildren was a doctor in Bangor as I remember. No, I went east. I found this book, see, written by an Irishman named Stoker.'

 

'Abraham Stoker?'

 

'Aye. I wanted to see the Land Beyond the Forest.'

 

'Did you?'

 

'Not for a while. The wars happened.'

 

'Oh.'

 

'It was pretty big in Europe at the time, see. I went across for the first one because I heard about all the blood. Thousands of fresh young men dying.' Nevin licked his lips, sickeningly. 'I wasn't the only one who had that idea either. The trenches got stuffed full of revenants in stolen uniforms. It wasn't as good as it seemed though, not after the second year when they were all sickening and half-dead from fear and poisoning. I saw the football game though, at christmas. Made me feel ill. I went down the way where they were still fighting.' He sighed. 'Then I found the forest. It was quiet up there and I was sick of people by then. I stayed there for a long time, until the Rhine ran red with blood and the broken cross was everywhere. Even a broken cross burns my eyes, see.' He tapped the sunglasses. 'Then I went east and south to the land across the forest.'

 

'What did you find?'

 

'Nothing. Forest, mountains, old memories. Maybe there was something there before, but not now. The soldiers followed anyway. I ate some of them. Not for the war effort or anything, I was just hungry. I dressed as one of them and hid among 'em for a while. I fitted in nicely.' Nevin grinned, and tossed his aryan-fair hair, cornflower-blue eyes twinkling. 'They were boring. Then they lost the war, and I went back to my forest again and forgot everything while the world went by and everything got older. And I stayed there while they built the stately pleasure dome and I saw it shatter and the land die and then the King came and everything started again. And you know the rest.' Nevin slumped back against the wall, story finished and closed his eyes. 'That's all I can remember.'

'I see.' Miriam nodded. 'Do you know what happened to your family?'

 

'Their kids are still around somewhere.' Nevin said. 'I didn't look to see what happened to ma and da. Didn't want to.'

 

'Was it too painful?'

 

'Hah!' Was Nevin's only answer, slightly bitter and slightly uncaring. 'Any other questions to ask?'

 

Miriam shook her head. 'I'm still thinking about it. Did it help, telling someone?'

 

Nevin shrugged. 'A little, I s'pose. And it was good to remember some things.' He closed his eyes. 'Fix 'em in my memory.'

 

Miriam sighed. 'Nevin?'

 

'Mm?'

 

'Do you think I'm human?'

 

'Why are you asking me?'

 

'From an outside perspective.'

 

Nevin smiled. 'Humanity is about how you think, not what you are, I think.'

 

Miriam tilted her head on one side, quizzically.

 

'We both look human. But inside, we know we're not.' Nevin said. 'But we can still be humanity, if we think like they do. I don't want to. I stopped it a long time ago. Never sure if I really was.'

 

'I want to be human.' Miriam said, leaning her head against the wall. 'So I can be with them. But I can't, because of what else I can do if I want to. Even if I make a body for myself like this. I suppose there's a bit of human in both of us, though.'

 

'Hahahaha, yes, put us together and maybe you'd have a whole person.' Nevin chuckled.

 

Miriam frowned. 'I wonder if that would be possible..'

 

'Mm?'

 

'Putting us together. I used to be in symbiosis with Jon, you see. I began as a nanovirus in his body. It would be fascinating to know what it's like inside you.' Unless of course, his blood burned like Vincit's.

 

Nevin winced. 'Sounds like touching you to me. Not good.'

 

'It's simple, look, I'll show you.' Miriam said, and melted into a puddle of silver liquid on the floor.

Nevin blinked, and removed the sunglasses. Where before there had been a shining vaguely humanoid form, there was just a patch of mercury-like substance rapidly shrinking. Then it grew again and rapidly reformed Miriam, causing him to hurriedly push the glasses back on his nose.

 

'There, see.' Miriam said. I can make myself as small as possible to cause you the least damage.'

 

Nevin's face screwed up while he thought about this. He nodded. 'All right, let's give it a go. Try not to do too much damage, see?'

 

Miriam smiled. 'I'll do my best.' Then her form flickered silver and dissolved again, dwindling into a puddle that dribbled across the floor till it was right next to Nevin's fingers, then a droplet, then she was gone. Nevin sat there for a few seconds, wondering what had happened. He felt a little sharp pain in his forefinger that made him go 'ow' and jump.

 

Miriam felt like a tiny candle in the abyss. She rode the flow of blood down the hand-veins through the arm and across into the heart. Contrary to popular opinion, it was beating. She multiplied and spread.

 

Nevin?

 

Mhm?

 

She felt it, pushing at the back of her consciousness, a roaring like a midnight flood, irrepressible and dark. Something like the opposite of the cool light inside john, and unlike the fire inside Vincit, something dark and warm and liquid and seductive, like the voice of the dragon, but older. If the dragon was the voice and face, this was the soul. She multiplied and brightened her light, not pushing back, but merely keeping a balance.

 

Nevin? Is this hurting?

 

Noo.. haven't been this warm for a long time.

 

Miriam felt Nevin run his hands across his own flesh, amazed at the warmth inside and imagine that he could be alive again. Miriam was fascinated by the dynamic produced by the counterpoint between herself and the warm darkness that must be Nevin's soul. She released the pressure she was putting on, but rather than allowing herself to be forced back, she let it go through her, as if she were water and it were ink, let it flow into her and through her.

 

Nevin froze still as Miriam's access to every piece of information in existence was suddenly made available to him, flooding his brain with facts and figures and events and politics and maths and other things that would have sent him quite insane had he not been close enough already. Simultaneously, Miriam found herself connected to the very source of chaos itself, and all the lines of time and the universe, every possible way things could be, everything that could randomly go wrong or right was suddenly made accessible to her powers of extrapolation.

They screamed as one, thought as one, felt for an instant a superbeing, a perfect balance of chaos and order, from whom no secret of the past, present or future was hidden. They collapsed onto the floor, unable to focus on existence there and then enough to remain upright.

 

It was too much. Something had to give. Nevin choked and coughed and vomited up silver liquid onto the floor, which pulsated and shone red and black. He lay there panting while it reformed into Miriam's body, slowly and painfully.

 

'That was...interesting.' She said, once she could talk again.

 

'I s'pose *cough* by interesting you mean *choke* headbreaking.' Nevin coughed. He dragged himself up into a sitting position and blinked. 'Next time you want to try something, I'll be running away, see.'

 

Miriam sat up, grinned and picked up the sunglasses from the floor, sliding them onto Nevin's face, making him flinch. 'Thank you. For the story as well. I'll keep it secret for you, I promise.'

 

'Hmm.' Nevin adjusted the glasses up his nose a little. 'It's been fun, I'm sure, but there are some people who'll be missing me soon and I ought to make arrangements.' He stood up. 'Good day to you, Miss Miriam.' He spun on his heel and stalked off, slightly affronted and very disconcerted.

 

Miriam sat quietly by the wall attempting to process all the information that had become accessible but then had disappeared as rapidly as Nevin's memory of it all had. It slipped away like water through a sieve. It had been too much information for her, and definitely too much for him, but just for a few seconds she could have sworn she caught a glimpse of a pattern, something far greater than anything she could yet conceive.

 

Well, if she hadn't gained anything, she'd at least come out with a set of new DNA. And made him stop calling her 'darling'.

 

From somewhere down the corridor, the echoes of maniacal laughter reached her ears.

---

 

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