Free The Watchtower by Lee Carroll Page B

“Ah, well, they were the lords and ladies of the Summer Country.” He sighed wistfully when he mentioned the Summer Country.
    “Are you from the Summer Country, too?”
    He laughed. “All our kind were originally from the Summer Country. At the dawn of time the Summer Country and this world coexisted, like two streams that ran parallel to each other, but as humans gained more power and began altering the earth—building roads, damming rivers, draining swamps—the Summer Country became like a mist that lay upon the land, thick in places, thin in others. The humble people of the Summer Country—the fairies and goblins, gnomes and sylphs, elves and brownies—came and went between the worlds freely. In places where humans paid homage to us—a grove they wouldn’t cut, a spring they consecrated with a little statue, a cave they painted with their images—we settled down. Like this place.”
    He held up his thumb-flame to cast a bigger light. We’d come to the bottom of the stairs. The floor was paved with wide, rectangular stones, which were engraved with the shapes of men in armor and ladies in long medieval gowns. Monsieur Lutin touched his thumb to a candle in a wall sconce and lit it. The light filled a tiny niche that held a statue of a diminutive man with a beard and pointed cap.
    “Is that…?”
    Monsieur Lutin struck a pose in front of the statue, one hand on his hip, the other stroking his beard. “A good likeness, don’t you think? Mind you, I only had a little following in the days before the Romans came. And a few Romans were happy to pay tribute to me, too. But then times changed and no one came anymore to keep my shrine. In the Middle Ages the people began to use this as a garbage dump! Well, I couldn’t have that, could I? So I’ve kept it clean inside, used the pieces of things that were worth saving to decorate—what do you Americans call that?”
    “Recycling,” I said, looking up at the crazy-mosaic walls. “You did all this?”
    “Oh, yes, all the interior decorating to be sure. And I gave Edmé Verniquet the idea for the gazebo on top.”
    “It’s beautiful,” I said truthfully.
    Monsieur Lutin shuffled his feet and fiddled with his suspenders. “I’m so glad you like it.… I don’t have many visitors … but we mustn’t waste time.” He took off down a long, low tunnel and I had to scurry to keep up. “What was I saying? Oh, yes, I was telling you the history of how the Summer Country became closed to us. Many of us settled where humans made shrines to us, but the sea fairies wanted their own kingdom from which to rule the humans. They built the city of Ys on an island in the sea, which floated between the worlds, where humans could come pay homage to them. Many-towered Ys with its great seawall that kept the tides between the worlds at bay. More than any of us the sea fairies thrived off their contact with humans, so much so that the nine priestesses of Ys brought a human king to rule over them … or at least they let him think he ruled over them. He was more like a sacrificial goat. The human king of Ys was obliged to go each month to a sacred grove where any human might come and challenge his sovereignty in a fight to the death. Then the new victor would become king.”
    “That sounds pretty barbaric,” I said when Monsieur Lutin paused at a low, arched door to fumble in his pocket.
    “The lords and ladies of Ys came to thrive on such displays of … loyalty. Some say it was decadence that destroyed the city.” Retrieving a large ring of keys, he counted off keys until he produced a big brass skeleton key, which he held up, gripped in his fist. “The king’s daughter gave the key to the sea gate to an evil sorcerer who promised to take her away, but who opened the gates instead. The city was drowned, most perished, but some survived. They fled to the mainland seeking refuge. Along the way they created doors to the Summer Country so they’d be able to go