“We found the castle undefended,” Medant was explaining in the manner of a man who wakes up to the spring sun knowing his bills are paid while the two armies waited for Mr. Atkosol to arrive. “Reality exceeded optimism for once. Mrs. Atkosol was installed there without incident. The goods are being removed for examination before this district becomes a series of parks. I am unsure what use there is for so much city, but something will be found. We might practice street battles here.”

  Some initially had been surprised. “How did you know the army would be withdrawn?” Gelfid wondered.

  “Pardon me, but was that supposed to be a secret?” Medant spoke with genuine doubt.

  “Ah.” Dirant meant that interjection as the start of a response before realizing he was as confused as anyone. After consulting himself he concluded, “In reflection, we never bade anyone be silent about those specifics of the operation, and further there was no need for them to be. I divulged nothing outside of the participants as a matter of habit.”

  “Just the same for me, Mr. Dirant,” Skadlif said.

  “I talked about it without restraint, so I'm happy to hear I shouldn't have not done that,” Takki said. Most of the mercenaries agreed with her position, some adding they had laid out every point down to the signal Miss Gelfid was to use by way of boasting to their peers about having gotten in on it.

  Questions of secrecy aside, the public matter of Ydridd's final stand required more description in Wiuyo's opinion. “With instruments we change our vaguest impulses into distinct auditory impressions. I'm not going too far when I say that music makes events real, and that means it hasn't happened until somebody writes a song about it. Let us together, Headbanded Medant, overcome the proud queen here and now.”

  “The troops charged and she surrendered. It was a proud moment. Headbanded Medant?”

  “I cannot recommend permitting that nickname to reach the reporters. You will be unable to dislodge it.” Skadlif's solemn warning converted the matter into something serious, and Medant was begging Wiuyo to drop the epithet, a request she refused for metrical reasons, or else to refer to him only obliquely since after all it was the fighters below him who deserved the credit when Mr. Atkosol arrived.

  Decisiveness. That was the spirit of the day, and in line with it Atkosol swiftly settled on numbers which satisfied Doltandon and Skadlif both in order to augment his own numbers of a different type altogether. That done, he addressed his general. “And now?” That was all he said, but such perfect understanding had arisen between them that Guard-Captain Medant understood.

  “I see no obstacle to marching on Ishtu forthwith.”

  Neither did anyone else whose opinion had any possibility of reaching Atkosol Tellanstal. The combined army was unquestionably the mightiest force in fairyland. Furthermore, a good portion of it was not subject to prosecution in the state of Enpasatosalkir on account of being fairies, a marked advantage in circumventing irksome governmental restrictions. Mr. Hwohyesu had brought most of the humans with him when he defected, but only most.

  Despite the admirable rapidity Medant achieved, when the column of over four hundred soldiers left the lake district, an invincible horde by local standards, those who looked behind observed the grass-carpeted hills already were giving way to a racetrack surrounded by stands where the city's highest and lowest alike might display their finery while the least judicious competed in losing as much of their means as could be managed. Lommad kept the castle though.

  The mountain district was also transformed from what anyone who visited on a diplomatic tour remembered, but in the opposite direction. The mountain had become more mountainous, the slopes more sloped, and the paths more walled and gated. That last was not a natural property of mountains but was nevertheless true. Astronomical enthusiasts noted the stars had shifted to match better the real world's nocturnal scenery, and for the first time Atkosol regretted not bringing along the superb telescope he had been given by a friend.

  Of course Medant in his commanding role had not accepted Ishtu's preparations as a curious item in an article, a topic to bring up at dinner when conversation flagged but nothing relevant to him. Instead he, like a conscientious contractor, had procured materials for more siege engines than the two catapults employed against Jiojjil along with engineers to oversee their construction. Those did not include Taomenk Genarostaf, who often grumbled as he went about his work that he suspected he alone in camp remembered the purpose for which Mr. Atkosol had established it, an accusation which every listener understood to be true.

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  Specialists and trained thinboots set about putting together siege towers capable of delivering detachments to ledges full of defenders in addition to armored wagons which provided the same service for lower elevations. The canopied rams came under criticism for an absence of ornament, but Medant insisted on them regardless.

  Fairy magic and a defensive position described the advantages of one side, while the other benefited from classes, experience, mankind's limitless capacity for invention in warfare, and morale which was at such an apogee as could not be approached using the tallest siege tower perched on a spire in Dittsen. Conviction that within the day the issue would be decided of who was to rule fairyland, and further that the results would be as Ishtu did not desire, pervaded every soldier, officer, and specialist. Wherever the participant on Lommad's side turned, he saw evidence of imminent good fortune.

  For Medant Denmarof, the combination of his army unprecedented in its size and prowess, his employer, and reporters who contrived to show up despite his efforts to prevent it assured him an enhanced martial reputation. Atkosol Tellanstal contemplated the potential of Ertith Energy, what experiments he might conduct regarding it, and what might be a better term. Doltandon Yurvitas imagined himself in the middle of writing the bestselling account of his experiences, the royalties for which would release him forever from the tedious assignment of berating manual laborers for excessive laziness. He was observed by Dirant Rikelta, who looked forward to telling Mr. Taomenk and Mr. Aptezor about the events in Ksori's hideout. Hundreds saw superimposed over the scene their bonuses for military service while dreaming how they would spend them. Not a single person was less than excited. Most verged on the ecstatic.

  The troops of their own volition began to sing a cheerful war song, all the more festive because each participant invented his own lyrics and tune. The raucous performance brought appreciative fairies to the fortifications, though what they appreciated eluded music lovers, and Ishtu himself came to stand atop a cliff which overhung the winding path. A peasant who wandered into his enchanted abode would have succumbed to terror at finding a fairy king nearby unless he belonged to the clever kind which escaped every danger by answering a riddle or promising his firstborn (and muttering “calf” after). The host below however expected the great lord to be reduced to vagrancy momentarily and sang yet louder than before.

  Mr. Atkosol was far too prominent socially to be seen ordering his subordinates to direct uncouth gestures toward a king, and for that reason if no other he called for the banner of parley to be planted instead. The few humans who remained in Ishtu's entourage, three precisely, explained the significance to their sovereign, who was far too reclusive socially to keep up with trends. He in response yelled down, or rather spoke normally while using magic to make himself audible, “You're close enough to talk there.”

  “Did you address me?” Atkosol yelled back in a more standard fashion.

  “What did you say?”

  “Just now, were you . . . Bring them to silence.” That last order he directed to his guard-captain and subsequently repeated twice, louder each time. Even after he succeeded, the tumult did not subside until Doltandon Yurvitas justified the terms of his employment by applying his Subjugator abilities to the problem. With that done, Atkosol began the actual conference.

  “I repeat my proposal. Jiojjil, Zatdil Akavinnux Scaurrdex Ikakach, and Ydridd refused too and have been forced to yield. Ava accepted and has her liberty. Is this evidence in favor of reconsidering your stance?”

  “That's all of them but me.”

  “Yes.”

  “They're all gone or imprisoned.”

  “Correct.”

  Ishtu nodded. “That makes me Hacanthu. Pleasurable to hear. No more of this then.” Saying nothing more than that, he dropped from the height he had occupied, which began to dissolve behind him into the flat brown stuff of the borderlands. Instantly fairies tumbled off battlements and started up some chaotic singing and wild cheers of their own in praise of the new Hacanthu. No longer were they defenders but rather loiterers, and such was the sudden role of the erstwhile attackers as well, but with no one to shoo them off the property until Lommad came for her inspection. Not that she did eject them for all that they ignored her warnings they might wish to save some of their enthusiasm for a more formal party. By then, those present reasoned, many would be too occupied with their normal duties to participate in a spontaneous boxing tournament, to say nothing of the long jump and trivia, activities in which humans and fairies participated without regard for previous divisions.

  The celebration held in Fairy City, likely the final name due its timeless descriptiveness, strove to compensate with grandeur for what it lacked in spontaneity compared to the impromptu festival which followed Hacanthu's proclamation. Finding grandeur undersupplied because of the remote location, it relied on scale to make up the difference. Not everyone received an invitation but all were invited nevertheless, from the loftiest Atkosol to the lowliest Ividottlofer, a fellow named Ratsazemol Golshkemen who had accomplished nothing worthy of praise, and while he might be excused for that on the grounds of being twelve, none of the locals expected better from him in the years to come. Even the strongest fairies attended, though not Ava or Hacanthu, both departed by then.