The Agency, Volume IV

by Dianne Sylvan

  A hand closed around her arm and pulled her to a halt.

  “Beck, wait,” Lex insisted.

  “Let me go!” she cried, pushing him away. “Go back to your boyfriend. I’ll be fine.”

  “No,” he said gently, pulling her back, putting his arms around her. “I’m not going anywhere until you hear me out.”

  She tried to fight, but couldn’t. She didn’t want to hurt him. Stupid, stupid.

  “You don’t owe me anything,” she replied. “We’re just friends.”

  She could hear the smile in his voice as his hand curved around her jaw, tipping her chin up so their eyes met. “Are we?” he asked.

  “I’m not going to get in the way. I’m not going to be that girl that makes you choose.”

  “Beck…I don’t love him. I love you.”

  She froze again, staring at him with wide eyes. “Wh…what?”

  “I don’t deny I have feelings for him, or that I’m insanely attracted to him. Tonight was one of those things—maybe it was wrong, maybe not, but we both acted on impulse. It may happen again, or may not…but if it’s going to hurt you, I’ll never touch him again. I promise.”

  “Wait…go back…did you just…”

  Lex slid his hand up into her hair and pulled her lips to his, gently, almost reverently. “Yes, that’s exactly what I said. And it’s all right if you don’t feel the same way. I’m not asking for anything from you. I just want you to know that if you don’t want me to sleep with him again, I won’t, and if you really, honestly want to walk away…well, I’ll hate it, and I’ll fight like hell to convince you otherwise, but it’s your choice.”

  It was really a good thing he was holding her up.

  “I don’t know what to say,” she said hoarsely, staring at his neck, his shoulder, anything but his face.

  “You don’t have to say anything. Just take some time to think about what you want, and let me know what you decide. I'll give you whatever I can, whatever you need."

  He smiled, releasing her, and concluded, "Don't be afraid."

  She was still standing there, staring, long after he left.

  *****

  "Well?”

  Lex closed the door and turned to face his sire, who was still sitting on the couch. "I'm not sure."

  Jason had all but shoved him out the door as soon as Beck ran off, saying, "For fuck's sake, you idiot, go after her," and Lex hadn't really thought much beyond doing as he was told. Now, though, he wondered if he'd done the right thing. Beck had looked so upset.

  "Are you angry?" Lex asked.

  The vampire sat back, folding his arms. "A little. You do realize I would never have laid a hand on you tonight if I'd known."

  "I know."

  "That was a dirty trick."

  "It wasn't meant to be a trick." Lex sat back down on the couch with a sigh. "It wasn't until I saw her face just now that I realized..."

  Now it was Jason's turn to say, "I know." He grew pensive, and after a minute stood and went over to a cabinet, producing a bottle of whiskey--the same kind Beck favored, Lex noticed. "I don't think I've ever seen that look on her face before, but I knew what I was seeing. On both of you."

  Lex shook his head at the offer of a glass, and Jason rejoined him on the couch with one of his own, sipping it thoughtfully. Lex finally took a moment to look around--so this was where he and Rowan lived together. There was definitely a presence here, something non-vampiric, something verdant and much, much older than Jason.

  Lex breathed in the scent that wasn't exactly a scent, and detected something deeply familiar about it that he couldn't name. He'd met Rowan once, of course, but those days and that bed seemed a thousand years ago. He'd been human then, or at least not a Seraph, and he'd been jealous of what he had seen between the Elf and the vampire. It had never occurred to him, then, that the Elf might be jealous of him as well. Lex wanted to see Rowan again, to apologize to him--he knew it wasn't his fault that things had gone this way, but still, he knew his appearance in Jason's life had caused a lot of pain.

  "We should get some rest," Jason said, breaking through Lex's thoughts. "Do you want to sleep in a bed, or would you be more comfortable out here? We can pile blankets on the floor."

  "That would be best," Lex replied.

  Given what had happened they probably should have slept separately, but Lex sensed that Jason needed the contact of arms around him--and so did Lex. They built a sort of proto-nest in the middle of the living room and snuggled into it and into each other, neither making a move toward sex, but lying as close together as they could, taking solace.

  Still, it was a long time before either of them slept.

  *****

  Aven wasn't upset when Rowan informed him that he'd been out to spy on the Apiary. He merely nodded and said, "I figured as much."

  Rowan sat across the table from the Gardener, with Sara and Ardeth taking up the other two chairs. "So once you were healed enough to start looking for your relatives, you figured out that Talia was your mother."

  "No," Aven said. "She came to me. She heard Deisa talking to Mellis about me, and sought me out. I was...surprised. I thought her long dead."

  "Does she speak to you?" Sara wanted to know.

  Aven shook his head. "We communicate. But she vowed silence after the fall of Clan Yew, and the Goddess kept her voice. I see her once or twice a week. Grief and loss have left her...strange. She prefers to be alone with her bees, and I respect that, but we are both comforted by each other's presence."

  "What do you mean, strange?" Rowan asked. "It's a little unusual for an Elf to be so solitary, but understandable given what she's been through. You're not much of a social butterfly either, after all."

  A sigh. "That isn't what I mean. I remember her as vivacious, always laughing, devoted to all the children of the Clan, not just to me. She sang, and told stories as well as any Bard. She might have been one, if she hadn't left her home with the Wanderers."

  "We have all been changed by death," Ardeth said. "Many of us have lost the joy we once had."

  "I'm aware of that," Aven replied, smiling wryly. "But my mother...there is still joy in her. She is always singing, always talking--but not to me. Even when I'm with her, she seems distracted, as if she is keeping up a constant conversation with someone."

  "The bees?" Sara ventured.

  "No. I have seen people talk to bees, and to trees, and to animals. I've seen Elves talk to each other telepathically. I know what that feels like. This is different. There's someone in her head, all the time.”

  Rowan looked at Sara, and he could see what she was thinking: crazy. But before Rowan could say anything to that effect, Aven shook his head again, and said, "She is perfectly sane. Meet her and you'll understand."

  "That's exactly what I want," Rowan told him. "I want to speak to her. She knows songs and stories, and the Wanderers kept lore of their own--the Bards here haven't been able to help, but maybe she can."

  The Gardener looked doubtful, but said, "I can take you to her. I don't know if she'll respond. I've told her you're here, but she didn't seem to listen."

  "It's still worth a try. Can we go now?"

  "Yes, if you wish. Today is a good day--yesterday she was harvesting, but today she won't be busy. She pays better attention if she isn't distracted by work."

  Aven had come to see them midmorning, almost as if he'd known they were talking about him, and it was still cool outside when he led Rowan out to the path toward the Apiary. The day was cloudy, and foretold rain, but not for a few hours--Rowan's internal barometer had suffered in his years indoors, but living among the Clan for a month had restored it. He wondered if it would be lost again if...when...he returned to Austin.

  "You know," Aven said casually as they walked side by side, "if you were to stay here, you could help many of your people. You could lead the Clan if you wanted, or live quietly. Your Sara could stay as well, and bear her child in peace."

  "I had thought about that." />
  "But I wonder," he went on, "if you would really be satisfied with peace."

  Rowan raised an eyebrow, puzzled. "Who wouldn't be satisfied with peace?"

  Aven shrugged. "Those with a larger purpose, I suppose. Those who believe that their talents are needed beyond these borders. Not to mention..." He glanced over at Rowan's arm, where the silver band caught the dappled morning light. "...those with someone to go home to."

  "So you think I should go back."

  "I think you should do what your heart tells you is right. And I think that if you can get your head to shut up a minute, your heart will let you know what that is."

  They left the main path and entered the forest. "You're a good friend, Aven."

  He smiled. "I owe you my very existence, honored Rethla. If you had not helped my mother to heal, she would never have borne me. If I can knock some sense into your fool head, I will consider my debt repaid."

  For the life of him Rowan couldn't think of anything to say to that, but fortunately he didn't have to; they had arrived at the clearing, and the buzzing of the bees came belatedly to Rowan's ears. He peered out through the trees, looking toward the little building on the far edge, waiting for Aven to proceed, but the Gardener was waiting himself.

  Rowan could sense him reaching out telepathically to seek the Priestess, but he couldn't sense Talia at all until she was only a few feet away, to their right. It was odd, but he could tell the bees somehow kept her shielded like part of the hive.

  He tried not to jump when he turned around and saw her.

  Up close, she was even more wild-looking, and in seconds Rowan saw what Aven had been talking about. Looking straight at them, her eyes were distant, the faint smile playing about her lips directed inward, not at her visitors. She reminded Rowan of a painting he'd seen once of Hamlet's Ophelia.

  Aven smiled at the Priestess, and said quietly, "Good morning, Mother."

  She tilted her head to the side and her eyes focused on her son. She returned the smile. Aven took her hand and squeezed it, and spoke to her slowly.

  "Do you remember Rowan, Mother? He was the Rethla who healed you when you were carrying me."

  Talia didn't look at Rowan and her expression didn't change. He was inclined to agree with Sara's unspoken assessment that the woman was, in fact, mad, despite Aven's assertions to the contrary. There was just something...wrong about her. It felt perfectly natural, but still, wrong.

  "He needs to ask you some questions," Aven went on patiently. Rowan wondered how many one-sided conversations the two had had in the last few weeks. "I hope that's all right."

  Aven nodded to Rowan.

  "Talia? I know you were a Wanderer once, and that you were a bard in your own right. I need to know about the Jenai."

  No response. She stared forward, not at her son so much as through him, that same preoccupied smile on her lips. A bee flew over and landed on her neck, another on the crown of her head.

  "Please, Talia. Someone told me to look for them, and to find something called a Rune Tree, and a Dreaming Gate. No one has ever heard of either. You're my last hope."

  At the word "gate," Talia blinked, her eyes narrowing ever so slightly before returning to their prior glazed state. She had heard him. Had she understood?

  Once, Rowan himself had bordered precariously on the edge of madness. He knew how tempting the abyss was for those who had seen what they had, and lived through the kind of hell they had. She had seen her beloved murdered, her people destroyed; for anyone of their race to still hold onto sanity was something of a miracle. He had seen worse. At least Talia could walk and think, knew herself and her son, and could do meaningful work within the newborn Clan. Others had not been so lucky...lucky being, really, a bitterly ironic word for their survival.

  "Mother," Aven said, trying to get her attention.

  "It's all right," Rowan told him. "I understand. Maybe she'll come around later. I shouldn't have intruded."

  He started to turn back to the path.

  A soft voice stopped him cold.

  "Weaver."

  Rowan and Aven both spun back around toward the Priestess.

  She was staring at Rowan, her Summer-green eyes sharp and fierce. Her voice was not as scratchy and disused as he would have expected; it was, rather, low and musical, bringing to mind both water and earth.

  "Come to us."

  Aven swallowed hard. "Mother?"

  He started to move toward her, but Rowan threw out a hand to stop him and said, very quietly, "That isn't your mother."

  Then he said to the woman, "I want to come to you. I need to know how."

  "Come in the darkness. You will not be alone."

  "But how? And where?"

  She reached up and he saw that there was a cord hanging from her neck, which she removed, holding out the round object that dangled from it. He took it, keeping his eyes on her face.

  "Be certain you are ready," she said. "There is no going back."

  He nodded. "There never is."

  "We will be waiting."

  She blinked, and the focus faded from her eyes, just before her knees buckled and she slipped gracefully to the grass at their feet.

  Aven darted toward her, kneeling at her side, but Rowan knew she would be fine--whatever presence had possessed her, it was gone. He could feel it.

  He looked down at the object in his hand: a flat stone smaller than his palm, carved with Elvish script all over both the front and the back. In places the carving was worn almost away. He would need better light to read parts of it, but even a cursory inspection gave him the gist.

  "What is it?" Aven asked.

  Rowan took a deep breath and tied the cord around his neck, running his fingers over the inscription. "It's an incantation," he replied. "It will open the Dreaming Gate."

  Part Nine

  "But where did she get it?"

  Rowan was sitting on the back porch of the guest house, cross-legged in a cushy chair, examining the stone in the bright sunlight of afternoon. Sara, curled up in the other chair, was itching to get a closer look at it herself, but the Elf hadn't put it down in the hour since he had returned from the forest.

  "I don't know," Rowan said. "She wasn't exactly forthcoming with the details. But I asked both Mellis and Deisa and neither remember her having it when she arrived here. Clan Yew certainly wouldn't have let her keep it, if they'd seen it. Everything a refugee came with was stripped away when the Council altered their memories."

  "Who was speaking through her? A deity? A spirit?"

  Again, Rowan said he didn't know. "The voice was familiar, but I couldn't place it."

  Sara leaned back to give her burgeoning belly more room; it was still a minor bump, but already it was uncomfortable to bend or twist too much. Just since yesterday it had grown, and her impulse was to rest her hands on it.

  She also hadn't been nearly as nauseated in the last couple of days as before, but that was probably thanks to the mojo honey and an herbal tea that Aven had brought her that morning. Tea and honey both tasted similar, and combining the two was very soothing both to her jangled nerves and her addled body.

  How long would it be before she started waddling? Dr. Nava was going to have kittens when she saw her...in five days.

  "What does it say?" she asked to ward off the nervous breakdown she was starting to feel was inevitable. "Do we need a graveyard at midnight, or what?"

  "No...it's actually very simple, just a few lines in Elvish said before a fire. Then you toss the stone in, and the Gate opens."

  "Opens where?"

  "Wherever you are, I think. If I'm reading this right, and I know I am, the Gate isn't a physical location, it's a magical phenomenon, like opening up a wormhole in space. I'm not sure how the Rune Tree fits in--it's not mentioned on here."

  "Okay...so, are there instructions for how to close it once it's open?"

  "It closes behind you. The stone is a key--you have to use it every time you want to open the Gate." />
  "That's a lot of information for a little rock."

  Rowan held the stone up and flipped it over. "That's only one side. The other side...well, I can't read it. I think it's in Jenai."

  "Let me see," Sara said, holding out her hand. Rowan was clearly reluctant, but he did as she asked.

  The stone was warm in her palm, and perfectly smooth even though it didn't look polished, eroded by many hands on its surface. She could almost hear the hundreds of voices that had spoken the incantation over thousands of years.

  Her grasp of written Elvish was a bit iffy, but she translated what she could of the front side, which was easier than she expected since it was all written as a command and therefore didn't use the tricky tenses and convoluted metaphors that spoken Elvish did. She could feel a faint hum coming from the stone, and was tempted to open herself to it and read it the way she would a building or crime scene.

  "Don’t," Rowan said. "It could be dangerous for you."

  "I know...I won't. But it's...even without looking deeply, I can feel...it's so old, Rowan. It's older than anything I've ever touched before--much older than you. And it's...whoever created it was so powerful. Like a god."

  He nodded, a touch of awe in his eyes. "I felt it too. And I feel as if, if I were to meet its creator, I would know her. Like we were friends once, maybe in a past life."

  "So you're going to do it?"

  "Yes. Tonight. We can't afford to wait."

  As he spoke, she turned the stone over to get a look at the back, running her fingers over the ancient symbols. Jenai...the language of the lost gods.

  Suddenly, she felt something weird in her stomach--a fluttering, faint. She sucked in a breath and held still, and after a minute it came again.

  "Oh my god..."

  Rowan saw her face and asked, fearfully, "What? Are you all right? Sara?"

  She clutched the stone until her hand hurt, her other hand flying to her middle. She met his eyes.

  "It moved," she whispered. "I looked at the back of the stone, and...the baby moved."

  The tears that had come to her when she first saw the bump returned, and she didn't fight them. She heard Rowan's chair creak, and he came to her, kneeling at her side and gently prying the stone from her hands so he could hold them.