The Faerie Ring centuries, convening each twilight and dispersing at dawn Her birth is a matter of much speculation since no fey remembers the occasion She is said to have been born at midnight to a goddess of the night who took some fey lord to bed, though some believe her to be the unfathered child of primordial Darkness It’s said by some that Queen Mab spent long years following the darkness of the spinning earth, always running, always staying away from sunlight She settled down only when charmed by the pixies’ grace, and even that settling to earth was temporary Now, she is again restless as the wind, leaving her demesne often to dabble in mortal affairs or to plot against other fey LEARNING TO HATE For long aeons, Mab was the Queen of the Pixies and sat atop the Silver Thrones in the Pure Lands beneath the hill, the mother of starshine and the dispenser of wonders She was kind, flirtatious, perhaps a bit flighty, but a queen who led her people well—a fey queen of silver laughter and many lovers, from sun-kissed Oberon to leafy Manitou, from wondrous satyrs to merfolk Her land was fertile, her life was glittering and good, and the pixies loved her This all ended when Titania stole Oberon away Mab learned to scheme, to plot, and, most of all, she learned to hate No matter when went wrong or when, Titania was to blame In time, her rage grew till she could not abide to hear Titania’s name on another’s lips In time, this wild rage and her hunter’s instincts brought her to the attention of one of the oldest and darkest of the fey sovereigns, wild Manitou Or perhaps, as some say, the wildness and danger of Manitou compelled Mab to seek him out It is unclear who began the tryst Regardless, the two sovereigns were lovers, though their love was strange and violent, bound up with the hunt and a lust for slaughter They seemed wellmatched in their madness and cruelty, and if anything, it was Manitou who tamed Mab’s madness, not the reverse His deep wells of forest wisdom, his patience in the hunt, and his calm bearing between wild bouts of frenzied activity all brought a certain stillness to Mab’s character again She learned to love, a little, and to see the good in the forests and the night skies And both sovereigns doted on their daughter, Pellowea Her people grew hopeful that the great crusade of vengeance might be abandoned That all fell apart when Pellowea was lost and Manitou left her He deeded his demesne to her and left her his lieutenant, Jack-in-Irons Perhaps, he hoped to blunt the blow Perhaps, he felt that Mab could make better use of them Perhaps, he had outgrown them No one really understands Manitou, after all It broke Mab utterly When Manitou left her, Mab truly despaired Her rages left her, and she turned her mind entirely to Titania’s destruction Indeed, to the destruction of Oberon and all pixies and sprites who followed them She summoned up dark powers for revenge, and she regained her throne over the pixies But her rule did not last Though she sat on the throne and Titania and Oberon were banished for long centuries, Mab’s madness and despair could not help her win over the hearts of her former subjects Most of the pixies could not abide Mab’s taint A few wanderers and rebels took her side against the schemer Titania, but in the end, the throne fell to another, and Mab’s silver wings fell to earth She was not unseated so much as abandoned Most pixies returned to follow Titania and Oberon in their wanderings about the earth She’s never quite forgiven the pixies and hunts them to this day Her small coterie of followers seems to share her lust for pixie blood, and Mab’s name alone is enough to frighten pixie children BEING MAB Queen Mab seeks power over all the fey, especially the sprites and pixies, and hopes to bind the best and the brightest to her service Her ambition has long made her dangerous, yet she can seem quite reasonable as long as she gets her way She wants obeisance from fey and nocturnal creatures Those who not recognize her power (or, worse, profess ignorance of her very name) are her enemies to the last Just as certainly, she seeks to eradicate half-fey creatures of all kinds, considering them abominations against the fey order of things She — 91 —