A Host of Furious Fancies

by Mercedes Lackey

Etienne appeared then, summoned by Ria, trotting out of the forest and greeting Lady Day with a whinny. The two elvensteeds nuzzled at each other, exchanging greetings in their own way. Whatever differences the two had once had seemed to have been dealt with.

  “Eric?” Ria asked, holding out a shirt to him. He thought about it, and shook his head.

  “I’ll call up my armor once I’m on the other side of the Gate. Might as well go in all flags flying.”

  “And hope we don’t go down with the ship.” Ria walked over to Etienne and vaulted into the saddle with one easy motion. In her black duster, she looked like a vision straight out of the Old West.

  Once they were all re-dressed, Toni and José opened their sword cases and removed their magical weapons. Toni’s was long and elegant, with a cross set into the pommel and Hebrew letters running down the gleaming blade. José’s sword was simpler—almost a short sword, with a browned-iron blade and a plain leather-wrapped hilt.

  Hosea slung his banjo over his shoulder and looked at Eric.

  “I guess this is your show now, Eric.”

  Eric nodded, touching his hip to assure himself that his gig bag was in place. He pursed his lips and whistled a soundless phrase.

  A portion of the air in front of them seemed to darken, shimmering like a deep pool. As it faded into existence, the trees beyond it slowly disappeared.

  “Is that it?” Paul said, hefting his sword stick.

  “One gen-u-wine, accept no substitutes Sidhe Portal,” Eric said, feigning a lightness he didn’t really feel. He held out his hand, and Lady Day put her nose in it, her warm breath flowing over his hand.

  “Let’s go, then. I’m not getting any younger,” Toni said. In the silvery mail armor, carrying her sword, she looked like a medieval warrior saint.

  Eric mounted Lady Day, and reached a hand down for Kayla. She scrambled up behind him and settled snugly against him, her arms around his waist. With Ria leading, the small party passed through the Gate.

  “It looks just the same,” Paul said, sounding disappointed.

  “No it doesn’t,” Toni said. “It looks the way everything did when I was a little girl—all bright and clean and new.”

  They were standing in the Underhill counterpart of the Sterling Forest glade. There was a theory that the Underworld places near Gates tended to grow to mirror the World Above they were connected to, and Everforest was an example of that. But if these were the Ramapo Mountains, they were those mountains as they had been before any humans at all had come to trouble the land: lush and wooded and green.

  Eric could feel that they were being watched, but that was common enough. There were Low Court elves in the area, of course, and other creatures too numerous to name, any of whom might take an interest in visitors.

  “Which way?” Hosea asked.

  “You tell me,” Eric said. “Jeanette’s the one who’s been this way.”

  Hosea played a few bars of “Foggy Mountain Breakdown,” his head cocked as if listening. Here in the magic-rich air of Underhill, it seemed as if Eric could almost hear her too: complaining but resigned.

  “She says it was dark when she came through here, and she was busy being poisoned. She also says you don’t want to go the way Aerune took her, unless you’ve got a taste for dying young. But I think—ain’t there something with shine over that-a-way?” He pointed.

  Eric focused his senses on the direction Hosea indicated. It was like listening, but not really; human language was pretty inadequate when it came to describing what magic felt like. After a moment he nodded. “There’s a Gate that way. Let’s try it.”

  Before they started off, Eric transformed his garb into the flashy silks and gleaming armor of an Underhill Bard. The four Guardians frankly stared, and Ria applauded mockingly.

  “I think I’m going to have major feelings of inferiority after this,” Toni said a little breathlessly.

  “Don’t,” Eric said. “There’s no way I could do half of what you can—our magics are completely different—and you’ll probably find that your abilities are increased here, too. Magic is as common in Underhill as, well, as cable TV in the World Above.”

  “A good thing to remember,” Paul said. “Well, it’s a lovely day for a walk. Shall we get started?”

  Eric wished he’d been able to borrow elvensteeds for the others, but they weren’t given out lightly, and to ask Prince Arvindel for some might have tipped Eric’s hand. He wasn’t sure how much he wanted Misthold to know about what he was doing until it was over—even if they disapproved of Aerune, having a bunch of humans come Underhill to take him out might have made some of the elves a little uneasy.

  When they reached the Gate, Eric chose their direction from the available destinations already set into it. He and Ria had both been to Aerune’s domain, and Jeanette had been in and out of Aerune’s land several times. Locating the Goblin Tower wasn’t going to be the problem. Getting to it safely was. Travel in Underhill was sort of a cross between cross-country hiking and code breaking.

  The Gate led them through to a land considerably less lush and tended than the one they’d originally entered. It looked as if it might have belonged to someone once, and now was returning to the wilderness it had originally been. Depending on how much magic had been used to create it, it might go on this way until a new owner claimed it, or dissolve back into the mists of the Chaos Lands.

  It’s not knowing which until afterward that’s so amusing, as Humpty-Dumpty said to Alice.

  The maze-seed was a heavy weight at the bottom of his gig bag, and Eric couldn’t keep his thoughts from fixating on the battle to come. The real question is, am I sure that what I’m doing is right? And the answer is, I can’t think of anything else to do. And something has to be done.

  The next Gate brought them to a tropical seashore, where a smooth white sand beach as fine as sugar formed a broad shining ribbon between pale clear water and a cliff of dark craggy rock. The light was sunset-ruddy, but there was no sun to be seen anywhere on the horizon. This was the first major discrepancy the Guardians and Hosea had experienced, and Eric could tell it unnerved them a little. But at least this realm was safe for them to pass through—friendly, or at least neutral. This was obviously the domain of some oceangoing branch of the Sidhe, such as the Selkies, or of another aquatic race, such as Undines or Nereids. The upside of this was that sea dwellers tended to be fairly indifferent to humanity, having no interest in them for good or ill. There might be a pretty long walk to the next Gate, but they were unlikely to encounter anything fiercer than a sand crab along the way.

  But as they walked along the beach, Eric realized he had other things to worry about than their immediate danger. He’d never really thought about it before, but he’d spent so much time Underhill that he was, if not quite accustomed to its wonders, at least no longer dazzled into slack-jawed amazement by them. It was hard now to remember how astonished he and Beth had been when they’d first seen the halls of Elfhame Misthold, and how long it had taken either of them to get used to (or at least to be able to function around) the sheer beauty of Underhill. Magical, enchanting, and glamorous weren’t just empty words to the Sidhe—and “stunning” was pretty relevant, too.

  All of which became a problem when four people who’d never seen Underhill before, and who comprised most of your fighting force, were going there to pick a fight with a native on his own turf. While Kayla had been briefly Underhill once before, and Ria had spent half her life in Perenor’s pocket domain, neither of them could be considered really experienced with Underhill, either. Even beauty had its dangers.

  Eric glanced back over his shoulder. Kayla was openly gawking at the landscape, but she wasn’t the one whose reactions really worried him. Paul, José, and Toni were staring around themselves like kids on their first trip to the big city. If their minds were blown by an empty stretch of beach—admittedly a pretty gorgeous beach, but still just a beach—how were they going to react when they got to a place where things g
ot weird—children’s-book-illustration, role-playing-game, sci-fi-movie weird?

  He didn’t know. And there wasn’t anything he could do at this point but worry about it. Even drawing attention to his fears might simply make them worse.

  “Oh . . . look!” Toni exclaimed in awe. Reaching down, she plucked up a seashell out of the sand. It was as big as her hand, and perfect: a gleaming pale golden color as luminous as a unicorn’s horn. She held it up, and the ruddy light made its surface sparkle like an opal.

  Paul and José stopped to examine it. All three of them looked . . . spellbound, somehow as if they’d never seen a seashell before and it was the most fascinating thing in the world. If something in Aerune’s domain made them freeze up like that, distracted them . . .

  We’ll all be toast.

  “It’s beautiful, and wholly unfamiliar,” Paul said. “What manner of creature inhabited it, or what its native environment is, are things we may never know. Suddenly the world becomes as vast and uncharted as if we lived a thousand years ago.”

  Reluctantly, Toni set her prize carefully back down on the sand. She looked around wistfully. “I only wish there were some way I could bring Raoul and Paquito here to see this. It is so beautiful. It seems as if nothing bad could ever happen here.”

  “When you know the Sidhe a little better, you’ll realize that beauty is their greatest weapon. While you’re being dazzled, they’re sticking a knife in your back, or doing whatever else they damn please.”

  Though Ria’s voice was lightly mocking, there was an undertone of real bitterness in it as well.

  Toni looked up at Ria, her dark eyes as startled and hurt as if Ria had interrupted a lovely dream. “So you’re saying this is all a sham? A trick?”

  “I’m saying it’s beside the point—it doesn’t count much one way or the other, except to put you off your guard. The ancient Greeks might have thought that what was beautiful had to be good, and vice versa, but I think we’ve managed to learn a little better in the last 4,000 years. The Sidhe live in a world where magic flows freely and they can alter their appearance and surroundings almost at will. If you can do something like that, the way things look becomes just another tool. Or a weapon.”

  “I hadn’t thought of that.” Toni’s voice was flat. Disappointed. “I suppose human nature isn’t much different even when humans aren’t involved. C’mon, folks, let’s get a move on. No telling how far we’re going to have to walk today.” She settled her sword on her shoulder once more and strode off ahead.

  Eric glanced across at Ria. Her face was expressionless, except for a coolly-raised eyebrow. Yeah, I know this looks bad, Eric told her in his thoughts. But it was the only idea any of us had. And I’m not sure even a few test runs would have prepared folks for this—and it might have alerted Aerune to our plans.

  “So how come we’re taking the scenic route instead of the express?” Kayla wanted to know, thumping Eric on the thigh to get his attention.

  “Believe it or not, this is the fastest way, or at least the fastest safe way,” Eric told her. “There aren’t any straight lines through Underhill, not really. It’s more like playing Connect The Dots. And based on some of the things Jeanette has told Hosea, one of the important things about finding our way to Aerune’s involves not getting killed in the process.”

  “I’m behind that. But I’d kind of like not to starve to death before we get there.”

  “Don’t worry,” Ria called to her from Etienne’s back. “I’ve packed a lunch. And if we choose our Gates carefully, Aerune’s kingdom won’t be too far from here.”

  This was one of the smaller domains—at least, the dry land part of it was—and a few minutes more brought them to the next Gate, the one that would take them further into Underhill and possibly to a destination one of them recognized. It lay in the depths of a sea cave hollowed out of the black rock by the unceasing caress of the ocean, the smooth black walls glowing greenly with phosphorescent algae and luminous starfish.

  They waded inside through the shallow water, leading the elvensteeds. Kayla stood at the back beside Ria, holding Lady Day’s reins. The keys for this Gate were in the form of small seashells embedded in the rock almost at random, but their aura of Power made them easily visible to Eric, and probably to the others as well. Eric and Hosea considered where the Gate might take them.

  Hosea’s hands fanned over the strings of the banjo, calling forth silvery whispers that echoed in the darkness.

  “That one,” Hosea said, pointing.

  Eric touched it, feeding the Gate with his Bardic Power to activate it. The back wall of the sea cave dissolved as he keyed the Gate, and the seven adventurers could feel a cold wind blowing over them from whatever lay beyond it, but no light spilled through the opening.

  Cautiously, Eric and Hosea stepped through into the darkness, followed quickly by the others. The Gate closed when the last of them had passed through, and Eric could feel winter-dry grass crunch beneath his feet. But no matter how hard he strained, he could still see nothing.

  A chill monotonous wind blew steadily, making him shudder more than shiver as he looked around blindly, unable to keep from trying to see. If not for the evidence of the sound and feel of the wind, and the dry scent, like musty hay, that assailed his nostrils, he would have wondered if he’d wandered into some trap that had stolen his senses. But only sight was missing.

  “Eric . . . ?” Hosea sounded—not frightened, exactly, but concerned. The kind of “concerned” where if you don’t get answers in a hurry you might start screaming.

  “Wait.” I know this place.

  Eric summoned a ball of elf-light, and saw what he had expected to see: a broad and featureless plain that seemed to stretch a thousand miles in every direction, its short dry dun-colored grass trampled as if herds of animals had been running across it.

  Urla had brought Eric here—to what Eric thought of as the Blind Lands—when he was bringing Eric to Aerune. There was a Gate directly into Aerune’s domain from here.

  Somewhere.

  “I get the feeling it isn’t a good idea to linger here,” Ria said, summoning her own light. Etienne was fidgeting wildly under her, and Eric could tell that Lady Day was equally spooked. The black elvensteed pulled and fretted against Kayla’s grip on her reins.

  “Me neither,” Eric said. “But I don’t want to end up right in Aerune’s lap, either. I’ve been here before. The Gate here leads directly into Aerune’s domain.”

  “Does it lead anywhere else?” It was Toni who asked the question. Eric’s eyes widened in surprise as he looked at her. The sword in her hand was glowing brighter than the elf-light, the blade as fiery as a bar of burning phosphorus.

  “We’ll have to find it to tell.”

  A tremor suddenly shook the ground, as if something heavy—many somethings—ran hard nearby, but even with the elf-light, Eric could see nothing. The two elvensteeds trembled like mad things, eyes rolling and coats dripping with foam, but stood their ground.

  Turn back, look for another direction? They could wander Underhill for years and miles and come no closer to Aerune’s domain than this—and Jeanette had said that most of the pathways to the Goblin Tower led through worse places.

  “We need to get out of here,” Paul said, his voice tight. He gestured at Kayla. The young Healer stood, staring around her with eyes wide and terrified. Her fists were clenched at her sides, and her whole body was rigid.

  “Everything’s afraid,” she said in a small voice.

  As if her words had shaped the thing itself, Eric could suddenly feel the fear pressing in around him, waiting only a kindling spark of their own terror to fill them all with panic. Urla must have had some sort of safe-conduct, to bring him through here unscathed before. The seven of them had nothing.

  And Hosea began to play.

  The banjo’s notes sounded flat, almost muffled. For a moment Eric thought he’d stop, but the novice Bard persisted, playing grimly, almost doggedly. A moment late
r he began to sing. “‘You couldn’t pack a Broadwood half a mile—You mustn’t leave a fiddle in the damp—’”

  The sense of panic drew back, as if affronted.

  When all else fails, try Kipling. It was “The Song of the Banjo,” set to a tune of Hosea’s own creation, one as impudent and saucy as its bragging words. Hosea strode forward, moving as easily and certainly as if he knew precisely where he was going. Only Eric saw the strain and concentration on the big man’s face, the effort it took to keep his own fear out of his voice and the music.

  The chorus came round, and now Ria joined in, her voice soaring bell-like over Hosea’s rumbling baritone. Eric joined her, his clear tenor soaring and twining with the other two as though they’d rehearsed for months. Whether by accident, or good guess, Hosea was moving in the direction of the next Gate; Eric walked back to Lady Day and swung up into her saddle. The elvensteed was quieter now, though she still trembled.

  Paul handed Kayla up to Eric. She held on tight, and he could feel the shudders that racked her body, but she took a deep breath and added her voice to the others. Eric dug the flute from his gig bag and began to play, the flute weaving its silvery counterpoint into the banjo’s sparkling melody as the black mare trotted after Hosea. The music seemed to form a bubble of protection in which they could move safely through the mad blind terror that surrounded them.

  They did not dare stop singing. It did not matter that between the light and the music they were attracting the attention of anything within ten miles. It was one of Kipling’s longer poems, and Hosea knew every word, but he’d reach the end eventually, and the music they made was the only thing that would keep the Blind Lands’ utter despair at bay long enough for them to cross it alive.

  The song ended. It was Ria, surprisingly, who saved them then.

  “Oh, what do you do with a drunken sailor—” The chantey had dozens of verses, and new ones were easy to make up on the fly. Eric sighed with relief. They could keep this one up for hours—and he had, on occasion.

  And so they arrived singing at an enormous henge whose black stones were the size of city buses. Eric dismounted, handing Kayla Lady Day’s reins, and advanced upon the Gate.