Stealing the Elf-King's Roses

by Diane Duane

  “Scenic,” Lee said. “Lovely view from out there.” But the view wasn’t what she had in mind, and Lee knew it wasn’t what Gelert meant either. He meant there was no way to get in or out of Alfheim without the Elves’ assistance. We knew that before, of course. But only in an operational way. It hadn’t occurred to me at the time that they might have also made it simply physically impossible.

  “I wasn’t thinking of that specifically,” Gelert said. “I was thinking that the arrangement would make the access very easy to service. But that view…” He was gazing out the window again. “Amazing how it affects you.”

  “Me, maybe,” Lee said. “And everybody else. But you looked less troubled.”

  “My people don’t have our tear ducts arranged the way you do,” Gelert said. “It’s not like I didn’t want to sit down and have a good howl. But I have my dignity.” He turned in a couple of circles and lay down on a big silken pillow on the floor.

  “Your people also came from here, originally,” Lee said.

  Gelert was washing one paw. “A long time ago,” he said. “You’d think that would make us immune.”

  “But you weren’t.”

  “Not quite,” Gelert said.

  “Maybe you’ve been away for too long.”

  “Could be.” Gelert put his head down on his paws, rolling his eyes.

  “You tired?”

  “A long day,” Gelert said, rolling his eyes up in his head again, then closing them. Lee held still, carefully not looking at the light fixture above both their heads, which Gelert had indirectly been considering.

  “I could probably use a bath myself,” Lee said. She wandered into her own room, and the bathroom past it, taking a look at the fixtures and fittings. Not one, but two tubs: a long one and a round deep one. “Isn’t this nice,” she said, and started to fill the deep one.

  From the sitting room, she heard Gelert’s tiny snore. That, at least, was genuine.

  She took her time about preparing for the bath, bringing her jotter into the bathroom with her while considering which way one might sit in that round tub that would be the least likely to favor any viewing device. If they’ve got signal snoopers in here, too, that’s something to think about. But even so, they may have some problems with this…

  The tub filled. Lee swung the bathroom door shut, not entirely but enough to block the view of whatever might be up in that light fixture. Then she got undressed, put her hair up, turned to the tub, and put a hand in the water. Ow! No point in making a lobster out of myself. She ran some more cold water into the tub while pulling over a small table that held towels and so forth: she positioned it by the tub, dropping her jotter on it, then checked the water and found it acceptable. Lee climbed in very slowly and carefully, for the water was still really hot, at that point where moving too fast in the water actually stings.

  Slowly she got herself settled, leaned back and got comfortable, then reached over to the little table for her jotter. She thumbed a couple of the controls at the bottom and brought up a broadcast of “The Worlds Today” that the jotter had picked up for her from Kennedy’s wireless broadcast network as they passed through.

  There Lee lay soaking idly for a good while, looking at the home news, then selecting worlds’ news and spending a while listening to an analysis of the new Xainese trade initiative with the newly discovered Melekh systems. Under that display, though, where no inquisitive eye could see it, the Smalltalk program that she and Gelert used in the courtroom was running. It was a stepchild application, fathered by the more modern wireless translation technologies on the old shorthand and stenography concepts, and cousin to the in-body neural broadcast translation technology that made it possible for Gelert’s people, and other paravocal or nonvocal species, to produce words that speaking peoples could hear and understand.

  Some years back Lee had had a twin to one of Gelert’s tiny implants installed just behind the cricoid cartilage in her throat, with one sensor connection running to the vocal cords and the other end neurilemma’d into the sixth cranial nerve. In open court, without anyone being the wiser, she could subvocalize and send silent-yet-“spoken” notes to her own pad, or to Gelert’s, or even straight to his own implant if it was something urgent. Or, if there was any question of eavesdropping, she could do as she was doing now, and transcribe her subvocalizations directly to one of the steno languages like Palmerrand or Doorsill.

  She didn’t need to see readout at this point: the implant was giving her the little “feedback” echo which meant that what she was saying had been transcribed properly to Palmerrand. At the end of sentences she could hear the little in-system hiccup that meant her content was being saved for later transmission to Gelert’s end of their paired system, either on Lee’s command or Gelert’s. Anybody using a character “sniffer” on her would get scrambled Palmerrand characters or an encrypted growl, not much else.

  “I saw what you saw, I think,” she said silently, and heard the machine transcribe the sentence. “At least, about the room. First impressions…” She spoke for a little about what she had seen, or thought she’d seen, on the way in. She was detailed about it: there was no telling what might turn out to be important later.

  Finally, Lee noticed that the water was getting cold. She paused, listening: from the sitting room she heard more snoring. Dusk was falling, and no lights were turned on there, though she could see a dim orangy glow: probably a nightlight or one of the other “finder” lights that a good hotel room might turn on in the dark. Lee smiled at the sound of the snores, scaling up. No point in moving him: let him sleep. She closed down her jotter, putting it aside, then let some water out of the tub and ran some more hot water into it.

  A little while later, she got out, dripping, and wrapped a towel around her. It was almost dark out in the sitting room. Lee slipped in and scanned the walls, looking for the controls for the light switches. Now where have they put them? And where’s the nightlight? For the source of the deep reddish glow she’d seen wasn’t in the room. City light, I guess. Lee turned toward the windows.

  The mountains were afire. All the plain between the city and the peaks was drowned in twilight, with here and there the bright points of local streetlights showing in knots and tangles—little towns, villages, individual houses. But beyond them all, those mountains reared up glowing as if lit from inside, burning in the deepest imaginable carmine, a red hotter than any mere blood-color. They almost vibrated against the sky behind them, now a profound indigo in which the earliest stars were coming out. Lee stood there, gazing, hardly daring to breathe, as the Sight woke up and held her there, frozen, telling her that this mattered, this meant something. But what? I just got here, I don’t have enough information, I don’t understand—

  Even as she watched, that light began to leak out of the mountains, irrevocably, as if someone with a dimmer switch was turning it down, deepening within a few breaths to a dark shadowy rose. Watching the light fade, Lee got dressed as softly as she could, without bothering to look for the light switches. By the time she was done, the last embers of that light had dwindled to ash, and Lee spent a few moments more gazing out the window, wondering at how pale the mountains looked even with the light gone from them. There was no moon up, and the city light diffusing up from street level shortly washed out any remaining sight of the peaks.

  Lee thought briefly of food, then realized how thirsty she was. She went to the minibar and pulled out another bottle of mineral water, then looked for ice: there wasn’t any. She glanced briefly at Gelert, still snoring away, and smiled ruefully. Their parties may never run out of ice, as he claims, but their hotels still need work…

  She rummaged around in the cupboards near the minibar, found the ice bucket, a plain square job, and then pocketed her SlipCase and went out, closing the door softly behind her. Down at the end of the hall, Lee thought. As far away as possible. Inevitable, isn’t it?…

  She went all the way down there, found nothing, and had to backtrack to
find what she’d missed the first time—a door that looked exactly like all the others except for a minuscule sign that said SERVICE in Alfen, English, and Xainese. Lee pushed the door open and found a soft-drink vending machine, and an icemaker sitting and humming demurely to itself.

  Lee put the bucket in place and pushed the button. The icemaker did what icemakers all over the six worlds did: dropped cubes into the bucket from the greatest possible height and showered her with wet, cold chips and shards. Lee brushed herself off as well as she could, picked up the bucket, and pushed the door open.

  “—not his problem at this point,” someone was saying down the hall. What stopped Lee in her tracks was how loud the voice seemed: it sounded as if it was immediately to her right, down toward the end of the hall. Yet when she looked down there, she couldn’t see anything.

  “Yes, well, he isn’t going to want it to be a problem later, either. And we should be able to do something about that.”

  Why are they as loud as if they’re shouting, when they’re not even in sight? Lee wondered. She paused, listening when they stopped speaking. There was a faint hum in her right ear. Something wrong with the implant. Oh, that’s just great! Why couldn’t it have failed two hours ago, instead of—

  “Let’s not play games: I’m too tired for that right now. And you look worse than I do. What the Senator is going to want to know is exactly what kind of something.”

  “I wouldn’t care to get too specific at the moment. Certainly not about anything as crass as figures. He doesn’t need to, either. But we’ve been watching the way he’s been voting on the bills that’ve come up over the last few months.”

  Lee held still for a moment. Then very, very slowly, to keep it from making any noise, she began letting the door close in front of her…but not all the way.

  “Oh really. And your conclusions would be—”

  “That the Senator is going to start needing some hefty contributions to his campaign war chest pretty soon, because the benighted apathetic electorate don’t seem to be obliging him. Not even after that last tax cut. Ungrateful of them. He’ll never make it past the NYHampshire primary, the way he’s going.”

  No voice spoke for a few seconds. Then the first one said, “And you were thinking of—what, exactly?”

  “There’s some business going on in Ellay at the moment that could use some quieting down, to make the situation easier for your man. The dil’Sorden thing. Just having them here isn’t going to do much about it in the long run, I don’t think. Additional measures may be needed. A word with some of the media…some kind of resolution. We can help with that.”

  Lee flushed first hot and then cold. Them?

  “Where is this thing?” said the first voice. Faintly, Lee could hear a button being pushed, angrily, several times. After a pause the first voice spoke again. “Obviously these arrangements go both ways.”

  “Of course. Later on, when your man’s where it matters, then we sort out the details. Open access is going to be an issue.”

  “Oh, to the candidate, certainly.”

  “No, afterward.”

  “He’d never want to be seen to do anything, you know, unethical.”

  “He wouldn’t have to do anything. Not about this. Just refrain from—”

  Ding! the elevator said, the fake electronic “chime” deafening in the implant. Lee clutched the right side of her head, cursing under her breath. “—until the issue’s settled,” said the second voice as the elevator doors slid open. “After that so many people are going to be grabbing for the goodies that any one political figure’s—”

  The elevator door closed. All Lee could hear was some faint muttering noises, lost in that electronic hum.

  The Senator.

  The dil’Sorden thing.

  Having them here.

  Her feet were cold. Lee looked down and saw that the ice bucket was dripping condensation on her shoes. But that had nothing to do with the way she suddenly found herself shivering.

  Softly she pushed the door open again, listening hard. There was nothing to be heard but the same annoying hum from her implant. Lee came out into the hallway and walked back to the suite, let herself in, put the ice bucket down by the minibar, sat down in the dark, and thought as if her life depended on it… because possibly it did.

  *8*

  The next morning she found Gelert eating tidily from what appeared to be a Sèvres porcelain soup dish, glancing occasionally at the pad on the floor beside it. The pad was showing a news feed recorded the previous day and handed off to it by the local Alfen network. “What is that?” Lee said.

  “The Worlds Today.”

  “I mean in the bowl.”

  “Best dog food I’ve ever had,” Gelert said. “Either venison or buffalo. How’re you feeling this morning?”

  “Better.”

  “Me too…”

  Lee went over to the two-level table that had been rolled in by room service and uncovered some of the dishes on the top table. Mostly they contained fruit, some of which Lee didn’t recognize, cereals, and breads and cheeses. “Nice,” Lee said.

  “Yeah. Not to my taste, but I thought you’d like the look of the stuff. What’s that weird fruit with the ridges?” And silently, into her implant, Gelert said, I read your notes. I left you some. But our impressions coincide, pretty much.

  “Uh, it looks like carambola. No, wait, it can’t be, it has lots more points.” She paused as if to count. I’ll look at them later. “Eleven. How about that…”

  “Weird.” You want to check them on a regular basis after this, Gelert said as he licked the bowl, because I don’t feel comfortable directing your attention to them openly. Our hosts can’t read what we’ve got encrypted, but damned if I’m going to draw their attention to transmissions in progress. They might start looking for some way to crack them, and if they manage it and then overhear us, we’re going to have problems.

  Okay. “You want some toast?”

  “Is there marmalade?”

  “You’ll get it in your fur.”

  “Will you stop worrying about my fur! I can take care of my fur. And no, I don’t need the toast. Eat your breakfast.”

  Lee smiled slightly and started assembling a plateful of bread and cheese and a few slices of the fruit. She poured a cup of coffee and took it to sit down at the table by the window, looking out at that astonishing view again. The gasping, slightly heartsick feeling caught her again, but this time it wasn’t as strong. Lee picked up a slice of the greenish fruit, sniffed it, bit into it.

  Her senses washed right out. Suddenly she was aware of Gelert sticking his face into hers, and looking at her most peculiarly. “Lee?”

  “What?”

  “That’s the third time I’ve spoken to you. What’s the matter?”

  Lee stared at the fruit. “Wow,” was all she could say for a moment. Then she held the slice out to Gelert. “I think,” she said, “that this could be what Eve was supposed to have offered Adam. I think I understand the problem now.”

  Gelert gave her an odd look, then stood up and came over to her. “I’m not normally a veggie person,” he said. “However—” Gelert took the slice of fruit in his mouth, swallowed it.

  For a long moment he said nothing. The moment stretched into two, or three. Lee looked at Gelert curiously; his eyes were glazed. But finally he blinked.

  “Ouoowawa,” he said.

  “Yes.”

  Gelert sat down, looking bemused. “There always used to be those stories,” Lee said, “about how it was dangerous to eat anything the Elves gave you. That the way time passed got strange: that a year might seem like a day…” She raised her eyebrows. “After this I’ll stick to the bread.”

  “It’s true,” Gelert said. He looked at her with a slightly cockeyed expression. “I wonder why I didn’t get anything like that with the meat?”

  “We already know you’re a little resistant.”

  “I’d be happier to understand why,” Gelert sa
id, shouldering under his saddlebags where they stood in their brace: the brace retracted itself and fastened around him. “Well, I should get going: the finance team is meeting downstairs in ten minutes.”

  “Yeah, the tour group’s meeting downstairs about half an hour after that.” Lee looked over at the breakfast cart again and decided to stick with the coffee. “See you later.” Good hunting, big guy.

  “Right. Have a good day.” Meanwhile, you know what you’re here for…

  Yes. And so do they. But I’ll get out there and see what I can See.

  Gelert grinned, though not straight at her, as the door shut him out. Keep your mouthful, he said.

  Lee stood there for a moment, then sat down and started shaking. The brain-blasting intensity of the fruit’s flavor when it had been in her mouth, and the choiceless bliss of surrendering to it, scared her badly. And even so, she still wanted to go over to that cart and eat all that fruit, then go downstairs to the hotel’s restaurant and demand all of it they had, and eat that, too, until there wasn’t any more of it to eat, or until she burst. This place is not safe, she thought, shivering. As far as that goes, the stories are true. We know nothing about these people…the dangers of them, the secrets they hold. But we’ve barged blithely in here, straight into the lion’s den, to go digging around for the truth. What we dig up… will we survive finding it, I wonder?

  She sat there until she thought she was in control of the shaking, then got up and went to get her jotter.

  Lee spent perhaps ten minutes reading Gelert’s notes, which were as unnerved as her own, if for different reasons. Then she got ready to go. At the door, she stopped, with a feeling of having forgotten something, and found herself staring at the breakfast cart, on the very point of going over to it again.

  Lee shuddered and went out the door fast.

  *

  The guide for the tour group was waiting for them downstairs, and Lee was surprised and faintly concerned to find that it was Isif dil’Hemrev. “This is my home city,” she said to the small group that gathered in the lobby—Lee and Mellie Hopkins and a few others that Lee didn’t know so well. “So I thought I would walk you through a few of the highlights. It’s not as famous or as historic a city as, say, Aien Mhariseth, but certainly it’s pleasant enough…”