* * *
The evening news on every station—they watched it gathered together in Ria's apartment—was almost entirely about the cathedral and casino near-bombing. There were clips of Ace's statement—edited down to near-inscrutability—but she wasn't the lead sound-bite after all.
After they'd left the concert-site, a man named LeRoy LaPonte had climbed up onto the stage to deliver—until removed by police—a long disjointed statement about how he was the one who had set the bomb in the first place at the request of Gabriel Horn, who had intended the device to kill Billy Fairchild because Billy had sold out the glories of Christian Race Music to the evil minions of the New World Order as represented by government agent Parker Wheatley.
Gabriel Horn was still being sought for questioning.
Parker Wheatley was still in the hospital. No charges had yet been filed.
Eric Banyon would have found all this very interesting, but Eric wasn't among those watching the evening news. His news for Misthold wouldn't wait, nor did he think it was anything he could put into an email. As soon as Ria's limousine had arrived in New York—with Lady Day pacing the vehicle with gleeful ease—he'd changed to riding leathers and headed for the Everforest Gate.
* * *
It had been less than two weeks—World's Time—since the last time he'd ridden up to the gates of Elfhame Misthold. Then he'd been expected. Then, he'd been facing nothing more than an uncomplicated—if possibly dangerous—diplomatic journey to an Unseleighe Domain.
Now . . . well . . . he wasn't quite sure whether the news he was bringing Prince Arvin would change things, or not.
Though they weren't expecting him this time, they certainly knew he was on his way long before he got there. For all Eric knew, Lady Day had phoned ahead; he was never completely certain of the capabilities of the elvensteeds.
At any rate, Kory was waiting for him at the gate.
"There is bad news, Bard?" Kory asked anxiously.
"There is . . . complicated news," Eric said, dismounting. "But everybody's fine." Except, of course, for my parents. He hadn't even begun to think of what he was going to do about them. Hell. He couldn't even begin to think how he was supposed to feel about them.
"Complicated it must be," Kory agreed. "Prince Arvin's news is 'complicated' as well—I have written to you, but perhaps you have not received the letter?"
Eric groaned faintly. "I haven't been home in . . . a couple of days, I think. Except to change clothes. So if it's something you sent recently . . ."
"Very recently. But since you have come in person, Prince Arvin may tell you of this news himself."
Kory led Eric through the Misthold forest to a clearing. Chairs and tables had been set out, and Prince Arvin and the Lady Rionne were playing chess as several members of the court stood and watched.
The chess set was silver and black, and every single figure was unique. Eric didn't quite think that the whole scene had been set up for his benefit—though he wouldn't quite put that past the Sidhe—but he had to admit there was something incredibly symbolic about seeing two Sidhe, one of the Bright Court and one of the Dark, sitting in a faery glen playing chess.
Though they were probably just playing chess because they liked playing chess.
Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
"Sieur Eric," Arvin said, without looking up. "You were not expected, but you are always welcome, of course. . . ."
"But I come bringing trouble," Eric said in a low voice as he knelt. "Or at least, a problem."
"I shall match your problem with mine, then," Arvin said lightly, at last looking up with a smile. "And we shall see whose is more entertaining. Come, sit, and tell us what brings you to Misthold with such unseemly quickness. Two visits in a fortnight! We will become quite used to your presence once more."
A chair was brought for Eric and set beside Arvin, and he sat to watch the chess game.
"Prince Korendil told me that he'd written me about new developments here, but I haven't received the letter yet," Eric said cautiously, playing for time.
Arvin glanced toward Rionne. She sighed, shaking her head.
"You know well, Bard Eric, that by law and custom, Prince Gabrevys must be allowed visitation of his son and heir, yet it is equally so that such a visit must be arranged in advance, lest . . . misunderstandings occur. And who else may arrange such things, passing freely from Unseleighe Lands to these, save Prince Gabrevys's Bard, in whom he reposes all faith and surety?"
"Ri-i-i-ght. . . ." Eric said. Ask a Sidhe the time and learn how to build a wristwatch. But Rionne had very formal manners—or maybe that was just the way they'd done things in Bete Noir.
"Yet, Prince Gabrevys having no Bard, how can such a visit be arranged?" she finished.
It didn't seem to be a rhetorical question.
"What? Jormin's dead?" Eric looked from Prince Arvin to Lady Rionne in appalled confusion. He'd seen Wheatley shoot Jormin, but he hadn't thought the Bard was that badly hurt. . . .
And for a Sidhe to die . . .
"Now why should that venomous serpent be dead?" Rionne asked with interest.
"We have heard—and the Lady Rionne confirms—that Jormin ap Galever has sought Sanctuary at Elfhame Ombrehold," Arvin said. "Renouncing his allegiance to Elfhame Bete Noir and his former master. But it seems you know more."
"I saw him shot," Eric said, very slowly, and choosing his words with care. "With a weapon that fires darts of Cold Iron. By someone who knew him for what he was and wanted to take him prisoner. He and three of his followers managed to escape, but I didn't see where they went."
"Saw him shot?" Dharniel demanded. "In the World Above?"
No, in the back; it hurts a lot more . . .
"Yes," Eric said. "It's a long story. . . ."
Arvin raised a hand, and without haste, those watching the chess match discovered business that would take them elsewhere. Within moments, only Dharniel, Kory, and Rionne remained.
Rionne stood to go. Again Arvin raised his hand.
"Stay if you would, Lady. For it is in my mind that what touches upon Prince Gabrevys's Bard is a matter that speaks to your Task, at the end of things. And perhaps there is that which you could add to my Bard's tale, for lately you have had a privy message from Elfhame Bete Noir, have you not?"
"Privy," Eric recalled from his years on the Faire-circuit, meant "private." Apparently Lady Rionne had been conducting a clandestine correspondence with her home Domain.
Rionne smiled, and her smile was like the slash of a sword blade. "You are nearly as careful as I would be in your place, Prince Arvin. Myself, had I detected the messenger, I would have killed him rather than letting him complete his errand."
"To each his own way, Lady," Prince Arvin said easily, inclining his head. "I had hoped by such clemency to induce you to share the message's contents."
Rionne shrugged. "It is of little matter to you—or great. I cannot say. My steward wrote to tell me I am now landless. The wards and seals upon Prince Gabrevys's Domain have been loosed, and all that he has wrested from the Chaos Lands returns to it. Not at once, perhaps, but certainly at last. So he—and certainly all those of Bete Noir-that-was—will go elsewhere, if they have not already. Few of us are strong enough to hold our lands against the Chaos by will alone. Fewer still would care to."
She spoke so calmly, as if she were discussing the weather—assuming there was weather Underhill—that it took Eric a moment to make sense of her words.
Elfhame Bete Noir was dissolving back into the Chaos Lands from which it had come.
Every Domain had an anchor, something that allowed it to keep its form against the encroachments of the Chaos Lands. The Seleighe Domains drew their power from the Node Groves, but the Unseleighe Elfhames didn't have the same power to draw on. When he'd first ridden into Elfhame Bete Noir, Eric had wondered what forces gave the place its solidity and form.
He guessed now he knew what it was.
"He's . . . Prince Gabre
vys is dead?" Eric asked.
"Or has decided to renounce the rulership of his Domain for some other reason," Prince Arvin said. "It is true that there are some. If he were found unfit to rule. If he were Challenged and lost. If he were maimed—for then, by the Law of Danu, he could not rule. If he lost his magick—"
"'Lost his magick'?" Eric echoed. "Wouldn't he be, uh, dead?" A creature of magick without magick was a lot worse off than a day without sunshine.
Dharniel smiled wolfishly. "One can have enough magick to live, but not enough to enforce one's will, young Banyon, and should he be in such wise, he could no longer hold the Borders of his Domain. But come! You were about to tell us all you know of Gabrevys and what he has been doing in the World Above."
Eric took a deep breath and organized his thoughts in light of this new information. Jormin fled. Gabrevys was dead—or at the very least, no longer the Prince of Elfhame Bete Noir. Elfhame Bete Noir was itself dissolving away into Chaos once more. "When I saw Prince Gabrevys last night, he was very much in health. . . ." he began.
The tale took a long time to tell, involving as it did Ria's guesses and Ace's guesses about Gabrevys's activities over the last few years. Some of the details of Gabrevys's activities for the Fairchild Ministry—as well as what he'd actually wanted with it in the first place beyond Ace's Talent—they didn't know and might never know. But on the central part of his tale Eric was quite clear: Gabrevys had done his best to find a legal (in elven terms) way to destroy Eric, and in the process had been willing to kill Magnus, Hosea, and—just incidentally—thousands of innocent people.
Dharniel sighed, shaking his head at Eric's obtuseness. "And does it come as a surprise to ye, young Banyon, that an Unseleighe Prince would bathe in mortal blood to get his own way? Be thankful that some follower of his slipped the silver dagger into his back, or that the Morrigan became displeased with his excesses, or whatever transpired to take him from the field of battle occurred before ye were called upon to face him in truth. Perhaps it was even the High King, moving in secret. Oberon's anger usually burns too hot for that—but his Queen might move him to something more discreet."
"It's sad and disturbing news, certainly," Prince Arvin said carefully, with a glance at his guest. "For the human lives destroyed, for the fact that we do not truly know what has happened to Prince Gabrevys, and for the fact that it makes Prince Jachiel's future so much more uncertain."
This time Rionne actually laughed out loud.
"Uncertain? When a Domain he never wished to rule has been put where it and its folk can trouble him no longer and Gabrevys can no longer compel him as liege as well as father? You have an odd way of seeing the world, Prince Arvin."
I suppose when you consider it that way. . . . Eric thought.
"And if Gabrevys no longer has an Elfhame at his beck, that makes everything simple, law or no law," Dharniel said, with what passed—in him—for cheer. "The next time I see him, I'll have the head from his shoulders for what he tried to do to my student. To destroy such a gift is worse than a crime—it is wicked."
"What of you, Eric?" Prince Arvin said. "If anyone has first right of satisfaction against Gabrevys, it is you."
Ria's words came back to him again. "And what is Magnus going to do if Gabriel levin-bolts you in the back?"
No.
He'd fight Gabrevys if he absolutely had to—for Magnus's life, or the lives of his friends, or to stop some greater evil. But he had dependents now, and that meant he had to choose his battles carefully.
"Let the Sidhe tend to the matters of the Sidhe. I have other things to do," Eric said simply. "And they're a lot more important than revenge."
* * *
The next day, Eric stood in a waiting room in the Atlantic City Medical Center. He'd come alone, riding Lady Day.
He'd promised Magnus that he could come next time, but there wasn't much point to his coming this time. Today Eric was just going to play out the charade of pretending he didn't know what had happened to his parents or what was wrong with them. Then, after a battery of tests that would turn up nothing, he could do what any concerned American offspring would do—sue the hell out of Fairchild Ministries, Inc., while making sure that Michael Banyon's expensive disability insurance kicked in, because he was fairly sure that his father would never be able to go back to teaching again.
In fact, he was pretty sure that neither of his parents would be able to be left unsupervised again, for the rest of their lives. He had the impression that watching cartoons was going to be the most exacting task they could manage, and even then, their attention span probably wouldn't hold past the first commercial break.
He supposed he ought to be down the hall, in his parents' room, playing the concerned son, but he couldn't quite manage that. He'd looked in, and what he'd seen had sent him down here to the waiting room.
They'd been lying on their backs in their beds, staring up at the ceiling. Eric was sure they'd continue to lie there, in exactly that position, unmoving, until somebody came and told them to do something.
If the room had been empty in truth, or if there had been two corpses lying in the two hospital beds instead of the two ravaged people, the room would have felt less empty than it did. Whatever had happened to them in the Grey Room, it looked as if it had been far more . . . thorough . . . than what had been done to Devon Mesier.
Perhaps they would recover some of their autonomy with time, but they'd certainly never be able to resume their old lives.
They were not moving in with him, though. In fact, they were not even going to be living in New York State. It had taken Anita Sheldrake about fifteen minutes to discover the perfect place—the perfect expensive place—in Massachusetts. Fall River Assisted Living Complex had everything on its grounds from a full-scale sanatorium, to condominiums, to rustic little cottages, and best of all, so Ria told him, it specialized in imaginary diseases of the rich. His parents would be very well cared for there.
He'd have to put the Cambridge house on the market, but of course neither he nor Magnus wanted it. And its sale would defer some of the immediate costs of the move.
But although Eric already knew what the future held, for today, he had to behave as if he didn't. He couldn't exactly tell the attending physician that the reason for his parents' condition was because a Sidhe Lord's personal nightmares had gotten at them and eaten up everything that made them human. . . .
"Mr. Banyon?"
Eric looked up.
A woman in hospital whites was regarding him with faint trepidation, as if he were about to do something overdramatic. "I'm Dr. Turin. I'm the attending physician on your parents' case. I know you'd like to take them home, but we'd really prefer to keep them for a few more days. Now, physically, they're in fairly good shape, considering their ordeal, but we'd just like to run a few more tests. . . ."
* * *
One week after the last time they had appeared in Judge Springsteen's courtroom, Ace and her father met there again.
This time, the circumstances were slightly different.
Sound-trucks filled the streets outside the courthouse, with all the major networks wanting an interview, a sound-bite, or even just footage of the players in the current hot story. The corridors of the courthouse were filled with reporters trying to cover what had become—despite all of Ria's attempts to prevent it—a huge media event. While criminal charges had not yet been filed against the Reverend Billy Fairchild for the events at the Pure Blood concert, it was only a matter of time, and the mysterious disappearance of both the members of Pure Blood and of Gabriel Horn did nothing to quiet things down. The few copies of the band's debut CD that had reached the market were selling and re-selling for fabulous prices, and if lawsuits had not kept their videos from being aired, the now-vanished band would have achieved all the prominence its label could have hoped for. As it was, it was fast becoming a legend.
Ace had already made a detailed statement to federal prosecutors about what she'd seen and heard
that night in Billy's office. In the end, an explanation for her illicit presence in Billy's office hadn't been that hard to come up with: she'd been looking for something to make him withdraw his opposition to her Emancipated Minor petition. That was even the truth, in a way.
In exchange for her free cooperation, no charges would be filed against her, though technically of course, she hadn't been trespassing at all. She was, after all, Billy's daughter, not yet an Emancipated Minor and so a dependent member of his family still. She had every right to be there.
But despite—or perhaps because of—all the turmoil and publicity of the last several days, neither Billy Fairchild nor anyone else in his organization had quite gotten around to doing anything about the petition and countersuit that was still wending its way along in the Ocean County docket.
* * *
Judge Springsteen was a woman of discretion, and had no appreciation for having her courtroom turned into a three-ring circus. She'd managed to bar the press from the courtroom itself, though there was little she could do to keep them out of the building, and nothing she could do to keep them off the street outside.
This time Ria had accompanied Ace and Derek Tilford to the hearing. There was no longer any point to staying away, after all, not with her connection to Billy Fairchild's daughter being front-page news across the tri-state area. The three of them entered the courthouse through the back entrance, moving quickly, and were conducted by a pair of rather harassed-looking bailiffs to a secure waiting room.
"Are you sure you want to go through with this, Ace?" Ria asked again. "After everything that's happened, it's almost certain that the judge will rule in your favor."
"But not a hundred percent," Ace said grimly. "Even with Gabriel Horn—or whatever he called himself—gone. So . . . yes. I want to talk to them before the hearing."
"I'll go speak to opposing counsel," Derek Tilford said, going to the door.
* * *
Even now the man was playing to the gallery, Ria thought irritably. As the three of them waited in the empty courtroom—just about the only place in the building where they could be guaranteed a chance for Ace to speak to her parents without either interruption or eavesdropping—Ria could hear Billy Fairchild in the corridor outside, giving an impromptu press conference.
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