Information in the Faery World

“As if I could sleep after that!” Donal grumbled, punching his pillow into shape. Ciaran was already asleep in the bed across the room, puffing air out of his open mouth. It had had already been an hour since they’d closed the curtains and darkened the room, but Donal’s body just would not relax. Instead his mind ran around and around the problem of broadcasting reliable information far and wide through the faery world quickly.

The Faery Kingdom doesn’t have a daily newspaper, or a network of information like our internet. It is unclear what they have been doing for the past several hundred years, but it wasn’t inventing computers. Scrying glasses are the closest magical equivalent, and most of them are designed for a single purpose only. You've heard of the kinds that show you the past, and those that show you another location in the present time. There were some that would also show the future, but they are considered very unreliable and bad for health and happiness, like weight-loss fads.

There is only one mirror that will show you whatever you want to see. You’ve already heard of it as well; it is called the Endless Glass. Once standing in front of it, men have been unable to look away, unable to tell truth from fantasy. Without a very strong and disciplined mind, it’s said to be a curse rather than a privilege. It has been locked away in the castle, and only a few faery kings have used it. Donal was worried that he might have to become one of them.

Getting up and pulling away the dark curtain at the window that held the daylight at bay, Donal looked towards the castle, which was barely visible in the distance. It was the same view he had gazed at longingly as a child, but now even the sunlight seemed cruel. Still, one idea was better than nothing.

If the mirror was so powerful, why not use it in an unusual way? The technology of live broadcasting was used in the human world so abundantly; there had to be a similar way. Usually, Royal Proclamations were announced from the castle wall, and then written down and taken to the remaining parts of the kingdom. But to lure Brand to the castle wall and have him confess to everyone was downright absurd. There had to be some way to get him to confess and gloat unwittingly. Records could be tampered with, but a live broadcast... the mirror ought to be able to tell him how handle that.

The young Faery King nodded, his decision now made. He wake Ciaran up, and they would work out every detail exactly, fool Brand, and let the entire faery world know what had been happening. He even had a punishment in store for the villain: something just, but satisfying. He would watch that arrogant, heartless, son of a... good mother... fall to his knees and feel sorry for killing two of his favorite people! He was going to make him beg for mercy, and rue the day he’d gone down that path!

From there, he would continue to become stronger, taller, and more powerful, until his name would be feared and loved. Mostly loved. He didn’t want to be as scary as his father, and definitely not as feared as his grandfather.

Donal woke up on the window seat, with his neck uncomfortably stiff after being leaned back against the wall. He climbed back into his bed, feeling incredibly sore, but sleepy at last. Despite how unconscious he may have been at the time, the idea was still good. He'd wake Ciaran up later.