Williams' First Mission: A Bureau of Shadows Tale

Samuel Frobisher looked at the document before him and frowned. His chin sank deeper and deeper into the folds of his wattles, until he looked like a tortoise being offered a dubious piece of lettuce.

     "Williams, our President is a man of many contradictions," he said. "A vociferous proponent of democracy who does not trust the people.  A fervent advocate of liberty who nevertheless owns slaves. And a skeptical dedicatee of the Enlightenment who is afraid of ghosts."

     "Surely not a wholly bad thing, sir?" his secretary replied. He finished sanding a newly-inked form, blowing the excess grit away. "After all, it has supplied the members of the Department a fine means of making a living."

     "Your conception of the use of public service is... pragmatic, to say the least." The old man sighed, put down the latest orders received, and sat back. "But then, you are not a man in the field. And while ninety-nine out of a hundred reports pan out into nothing, that hundredth mission can be deadly dangerous for our agents."

     He tented his hands and closed his eyes.

     "Williams, I sometimes question whether it is the government's place to meddle in these affairs at all; whether we shouldn't let these people's private destiny play out to the end."

     The secretary's eyes crinkled in mock dismay.

     "Heresy, Mr. Frobisher! Blasphemy against the founding principles of administration!" He folded the form crisply into quarters, opened a drawer, and filed it away. "What is it that His Excellency has proposed that elicits this shocking display of mutiny?"

     "Lights, Mr. Williams."

     "Lights?"

     "Unusual lights in the sky." The old man untented his hands and slapped them to the desk with a bang. "The President wants us to investigate their appearance and causes. I suppose now we shall have to send a man up in a balloon ascension to look for luminiferous traces where a beam of light has passed!"

     "That is a peculiar task, but not altogether unprecedented, sir. After all, in sixteenth century Sweden there was an appearance over three days of such phenomenon described as phalanxes of darts, rods, and crosses of light, and during the English Civil War a special commission was ordered by Parliament to look into appearances in the heavens of spectral armies, and the Romans..."

     Frobisher held up an admonishing palm.

     "I bow to your historical expertise in the matters of such outlaw occurrences, but I beg you spare me the full tally of them. What I must decide, in the here and now, is how to proceed and whom to send."

     Williams took out a fresh form and the tag-eared pages of an old report, and started to tick off boxes and fill in spaces.

     "Whomever you send will certainly have an easy time of it. After all, what's to be done? Take in some first-hand testimony--if he can find any--spend a few nights watching the skies--with a fresh country wench for a guide, if he's lucky--then amble back after a country vacation and collect his pay."

     Frobisher screwed one eye shut and looked at his secretary as the fellow sat briskly scribbling away. Then the sleek little man uttered the fateful words.

     "I almost wish I were going."

     The old lawyer opened the other eye.

     "Congratulations, Mr. Williams. Your wish is granted."

     The secretary looked up, a drip of ink flying from his pen.

     "Oh, but, sir, I was merely..." His voice trailed away. He managed to produce a chuckle as evidence of his humorous intention. "After all, it is not my job. Surely you cannot mean..."

     "Oh, but surely I can, Mr. Williams. Although you were inducted for your clerical skills and historical knowledge, it has always been a clause in your contract and a power residing in my office that you may be promoted to temporary field agent status at my discretion. I do so, as of now, and until I see otherwise fit."

     The secretary rose and came to stand before Frobisher's desk.

     "But I've never been out of New York in my life! I've never... I don't... I have no experience!"

     "Then this will be an excellent time to gain some. You've always been critical of the way the agents file their reports; now you'll have a chance to show how it's done. And in your own words, this should be a country vacation. With extra pay. You might return with a better appreciation of how this department functions." He pushed the presidential document forward.

     "Here are your orders. Place and persons specified. And it's not far. You should be back in about two weeks."

     Williams reached over reluctantly and took up the papers. His hands trembled slightly. He looked up at Frobisher.

     "Ninty-nine out of a hundred, you said?"

     "Ninty-nine out of a hundred," said Frobisher. He looked up at the little clerk over his eyeglasses.

     "But then there is always that hundredth case."

 

     It was a mere nine days later that Williams once more stood before his superior's desk. The old lawyer looked his clerk over. The little secretary was no longer as sleek or smug as he had been, either in dress or manner. His points were haphazardly done up, his cheeks badly shaven, and there was a haunted look in his eyes. He handed over his report with a shaky hand.

     "Here," he said.

     Frobisher took the papers and glanced through them in a quick inspection. Although neat enough at the beginning, they devolved into a nearly illegible scrawl by the end.

     "Williams, I can barely read this." He scowled. "Perhaps you'd better give me an oral report, before you write this over again."

     The secretary darted his eyes. His mouth wobbled open, but no sound came out.

     "As short as possible," said Frobisher. "No need to strain yourself."

     Williams swallowed, and seemed to brace up.

     "Elves, sir."

     "Elves." Frobisher looked grave. "I send you to investigate lights in the sky, and you want me to tell the President it was...elves."

     "Yes, sir. Elves, sir."

     The old lawyer sighed.

     "Perhaps you'd better sit down," he said. He reached into his desk and produced a bottle and a glass. He poured out an inch of amber liquid, and passed it to the clerk. "And tell me all the details."

     Williams accepted the glass gratefully and sat down in the padded chair by the stove. He took a sip and swallowed it hard.

     "I arrived at the village," he began, "After three days. Without incident. I presented myself as a literary man, in search of stories to collect. After a show of generosity at the local inn, there were plenty of people who wanted to talk about the lights. But none who could actually claim to have seen them in person."

     He took another gulp. Either the brandy or the compulsion of getting the tale told was calming him down.

     "Through much questioning, I was finally able to trace the story back to one eye-witness, who could lead me to where the incident took place."

     "And was it that 'country wench' you had imagined?" the old man asked.

     Williams grimaced.

     "It was a sly and odiferous wretch by the name of Randolph Hodgkins, self-professed trapper, but reputed poacher. For a rather exorbitant remuneration he agreed to take me to the location that night."

     For a moment the clerk's old mannerisms emerged and asserted themselves.

     "You'll find the exact amount in my report, for expenses to be recompensed."

     The old lawyer waved the comment away like an errant fly.

     "Pray continue, Mr. Williams."

     "He lead me quite a distance from town, through bramble, through briar, to a local prominence called 'Devil's Rock.' It was on the slopes of this hill we settled down to await the night, and the hoped-for recurrence of the lights. It was a most particularly unpleasant watch, too."

     "Why was that?"

     "Apart from the uncomfortably stony ground on which we had to place ourselves? Hodgkins had supplied the expedition with a raw and potent flask of the local firewater against the chill of the night, and began applying the remedy early. He tried to induce me to partake, then grew surly, then violent, then maudlin, and at last dropped off, dead drunk."

     "Well, that must have been a relief."

     The little clerk shuddered.

     "You think so? Imagine being essentially alone, far from any human habitation, in the dark of night, surrounded by noises of unknown creatures, the only guide back civilization passed out at your feet, and then think how relieved I must have been."

     Frobisher cleared his throat.

     "Did you ever...avail yourself of Mr. Hodgkin's medicine?"

     "Never." Williams looked down at his glass. "Though I wouldn't mind another dose of yours."

     The tumbler was recharged, and he continued.

     "So the hours ground on, and the only indication of time passing was the wheeling of the stars and the striking of my pocketwatch every quarter hour. By my account, it must have been about three o'clock in the morning when something finally happened."

     Frobisher nodded.

     "It is odd how often things do happen then. So what did you see? Did the lights appear?"

     "Not at first. The first thing that happened was that the bloody hill opened up."

     "The... hill opened up?" Frobisher looked at his bottle, then back at his secretary.

     "Just like that! Fwoosh! Or rather, not fwoosh. It was quiet as anything. First it was just the hillside, and then there's this whopping big door, wide as a couple of churches, and lit up like a ballroom cotillion! I sat crouched staring behind a rock, and couldn't move any closer for anything.

     "But I could hear noises coming from inside the hill, something like a titanic bellows, and something humming, almost singing, like an enormous hive. And then they started coming out."

     "They? The elves?"

     "The lights. Only they weren't lights, they were ships, circular ships made of metal, with windows, and I could see figures moving inside. Seven ships, swooping out of the door and blazing up into the night, one after the other. When the last one left, I tried to once more rouse Hodgkins, and when that failed, determined that I must at least try to get a peek in the door."

     "Very brave of you. Perhaps even a little foolhardy. But commendable nonetheless. What did you observe?"

     The secretary cackled, a noise that the old lawyer had never heard from him before.

     "In the event, nothing. I was halfway there when the door vanished, and I found one of the ships hovering over me, pinning me down in a beam of light. I had been discovered. I tried to run out of the light but found myself petrified, as if by a spell. The craft landed, and then they started streaming out."

     Williams finished his second glass, and gestured for more. Frobisher quickly complied.

     "I never understood before the feelings that other agents reported when experiencing an encounter with unhuman intelligences. The foreignness, the uncanny air, the ... alien quality. But I recognized them for what they were. Old tales from the North tell of two kinds of elves, and they were both there. There were the Dark Elves, or Gnomes: squat, misshapen, black-eyed, dressed in metallic armor. They seemed to be the servants of the others. They seized me and took me into the ship. This is where their masters, the Light Elves, questioned me.

     "The Light Elves were dressed in flowing white garments, and were as as tall and fair as the Dark were squat and ugly. Also they could speak, whereas I never heard the Gnomes utter a single sound. They set me before their Queen, and she released me enough from my paralysis to answer her questions.

     "Who was I, and what was I doing there? I tried to respond to her interrogation as craftily as I could, but there seemed to be some compulsion on me to tell the truth. I'm afraid I revealed all that I knew about the Bureau, and its aims."

     "Well, that's little enough, in any case," the old lawyer said. "What did she say when you told her?"

     "She said we had nothing to fear from them. They've been in this country for generations, and invasion or conquest has never been part of their agenda. Their aims have always been, er... quite the opposite."

     "The opposite?" asked Frobisher. "What do you mean, the opposite?"

     Williams blushed red, and squirmed in his chair.

     "To put a not too fine a point on it, sir, not war but...procreation."

     The old lawyer pursed his lips.

     "Procreation," he said.

     "It's in all the old tales, sir," Williams floundered on. "They live an incredibly long time, but they don't have many children, and they seem to be dying out. That's why Elves in the stories are always stealing babies, and kidnapping young maids or likely lads, and carrying them off to their hidden kingdoms.

     "In fact the Queen took me to some sort of royal nursery and showed me several rows of silver cribs, filled with babies. They did look like crossbreeds, halfway between human and elf. On one I thought I recognized Hodgkin's peculiar pug nose. But every one of them had the Elves' long, almond eyes."

     "Fantastic. Did she show you anything else? Anything the government might use, like how they kept those ships in the sky?"

     Williams looked own at his shuffling feet.

     "Well, no. After the nursery, she took me into just one other room. Uh,... the royal boudoir."

     The old lawyer's eyebrows shot up his wrinkled forehead.

     "Her bedroom!"

     Williams fidgeted, and spoke to his shoes.

     "Like I said, they're interested in only one thing," he mumbled.

     Frobisher shook his head sternly, sat back, and tented his hands. His eyes never left the clerk. The little man writhed, pinioned under his probing regard. Then Frobisher drew in a deep breath, and relaxed his gaze. The secretary sighed, released.

     "Did you at least get a look at the inside of the hill after the... proceedings?"

     "I fear not. I must have blacked out once the deed was done, because the next thing I knew it was morning, and I was on the cold hill side, with the wretch Hodgkins next to me. That was a bit of a shock, I can tell you. I was finally able to shake him awake, and we traveled back to town. At the inn I fell into bed and didn't get up until the next day, and then when I did, moved around in a daze. At last I pulled myself together as best I could, scratched out some kind of report, and caught the next coach to New York. I headed to the office the moment I set foot to earth."

     There was a pause, as the two men looked at each other. The old lawyer saw that the recitation seemed to have restored his clerk back to some semblance of his old self. He had seen it before. Getting the story out, transferring it to someone else,  had a therapeutic effect on the agents, almost like a form of confession. He reached into his desk. Now for the absolution.

     "Congratulations, Mr. Williams. Not only have you completed your first mission, but it has created, all by itself, a new file and category of phenomenon for investigation."

     He drew out the pay box, and took out three gold dollars and lined them up on the desk.

     "Take them. And take the next few days to collect yourself, and rewrite your report. We can mark this case as closed for now. I will see you Monday morning."

     "Oh, yes, sir. Thank you, sir." The little man got up, and eagerly scooped the coins into his fist.

     "There may even be an official commendation in your review."

     "Oh, thank you indeed, sir!"

     Williams turned to go.

     "Let us just hope," Frobisher shot after the back of his retreating clerk, "That your list of dependents doesn't include an Elvish half-breed in the future."

     The secretary stiffened, almost turned, then hastened out of the office.

     Frobisher laughed silently to himself and drained off the last drops of his drink. He flipped through the pages of the report, labeled a new folder, tucked it inside and stuck it away in the back of a drawer. It traveled through the system, shuffled and misfiled and unregarded, for the next two hundred years.