Summoned to Tourney

by Mercedes Lackey; Ellen Guon

  “What now?” Kayla whispered, staring at the huge floodlight-illuminated area beyond the guard gate.

  “I don’t know,” Eric replied. What we need is an army, he thought. The U.S. Cavalry coming over the hill.

  It never works out like this in the movies. You never see the hero crouching in the dirt, trying to figure out a plan that won’t get him killed. Usually the hero just walks right in, guns blazing, and rescues everyone. Wish I could do that.

  Dammit, I’m a Bard! I should be able to do something! Everyone always treats me like I can do anything; all the elves are so sickeningly respectful toward me, even a lot of Beth’s Wiccan friends. They all think I’m hot stuff. He remembered meeting Kory’s cousin, the exotic dancer, and how the elf had bowed so courteously to him when Kory introduced him as “Eric, the Bard—”

  Another flash of memory:standing amid the ruins of Castro Street, and the shadow-creature bowing to him—

  It hit him like flash of light, the sudden realization of what he could do.

  I need an army. So I’ll call an army.

  I can do it, he thought. I’ve done it before, it’s so easy. And they’ll answer me, they always have. I can summon an army of them and make them obey me. Nothing can stand against them, nothing can kill them, no guns or explosives or anything. I can bring them here, control them, and use them against my enemies.

  But my dream, with the Nightflyers taking over the city… is it because of me, because of what I’m thinking of doing right now?

  No. I can control them, keep them from killing anyone. I kept that one from hurting Ria, right?

  I’ll have to risk it. I don’t have any choice.

  He took his flute from the case, and played a quiet set of arpeggios, warming up.

  Kayla grinned. “I knew you’d think of something, Eric!” she crowed. “What are you going to do, fly us over the gate or something?”

  “Better than that,” he muttered. “I’m calling the cavalry.”

  There was no Irish tune that he could use for this. But he knew exactly

  the tune to play. “Danse Macabre.”

  The first notes were deceptively soft, the calm before the storm. Then the violin solo, the notes hammering down like nails in a coffin, followed by the melody, faster and harsher…

  He could feel it starting around him, the gathering of tension in the air, whispers of sound beyond normal human hearing. The shadows on the grass, visibly darkening as he played, slowly rising from the ground. Fingers of cold ran down his back, but he ignored them, concentrating on the music.

  “Eric, what in the hell are you doing?” Kayla looked around in alarm at the thickening shadows around them.

  A wild flurry of notes, and they encircled him, drifting shapes that danced with the wind. He called to them, and they answered, laughing silently as he brought them to him, one by one. When he finally let the flute fall away from his lips, they floated before him, a huge shadow-army awaiting his command.

  While he was caught up in the music, he’d been fearless; now he saw them, and he was terrified.

  Chills ran down his spine—a cold born of fear that he’d gotten himself into something he could not get out of again. He’d had trouble controlling oneNightflyer—whatever had made him think he could control an army?

  Didhe control them? Or were they controlling him? Had they used him to bring them here?

  Kayla crouched beside him, visibly pale and trembling. He wanted to say something to calm her, but he could feel his Nightflyers testing his power over them, tugging at their leashes, and he knew what would happen if they escaped his control, even for a moment.

  No choice. He was in it; he’d have to finish it. There were only two ways to get out of this one. A winner, or Nightflyer-dessert. He stood up, and started toward the front gate. “Now we’re going to rescue them,” he said, with far more confidence than he felt, his shadow-troops adrift behind him.

  * * *

  CHAPTER 7:

  A Maid in Bedlam

  “W-wait a minute,” Kayla stammered, pulling at his sleeve. “Wh-what if they get away from you?” Her eyes were big and round and her face pale in the faint light that reached them from the lab parking lots.

  He started to brush her off, a little drunk with sheer power, with the intoxication of controlling so many of the creatures—

  But doubt set in immediately; did he really control them? Sure, they came when he called, but was that control? Could he really keep them from doing something they wanted and he didn’t? And what would happen when they were out of his sight? He recalled the Nightflyer of his vision bowing to him with a shudder. Was that what had happened in that glimpse of the future? Would he lose control of his army?

  Would they somehow destroy the city? A chill ran up his back and he shivered at the memory of the dream—and that waking-dream of his vision.

  He surveyed the horde of Nightflyers, shadows against the shadows. There was nothing to suggest he was not the one in control, at least for now. He swallowed once, and told himself that he wouldn’t lose control of them—because he didn’t dare.

  But that meant that there was no more time for hesitation. Right now, this moment, they were his completely. If he waited a moment longer, they might not be. But he needed time to think!

  Very well, he’d buy himself some time.

  He was operating on pure instinct here, but the elves had told him, time and time again, that he could trust those instincts. He followed his impulse and froze them in their places with a brief, chilling run, pitched a little sharp with his nervousness. The notes bit like acid, but they did the job; the Nightflyers stopped moving, completely, giving him the unsettling impression that he was watching a movie on freeze-frame.

  Now what?

  He stared at them, while he made up his mind exactly what he wanted from these creatures. One of the themes that occurred over and over in the stories of encounters with the supernatural was “be careful what you ask for.” There should be no “loopholes” in what he demanded of the monsters, no way that they could obey his orders and still follow their own wishes. He needed them to create as much havoc in there as possible. But only within the confines of the labs; he couldn’t afford to let even one escape, not if that vision was true and the things could breed.

  A fence; that was what he needed. A way to confine them to the grounds of the labs. But something like that would take more magic than he had by himself. He needed some help, and time was trickling away: time that Kory couldn’t afford. By himself, he was a battery, and his charge was running out; he needed a wall-socket, or better yet, a generator—

  The nexus!

  Every elven community on this side of Underhill centered about a nexus, a place where the fabric between the worlds had been pierced, and the result stabilized to permit magical energy to pass into the human world. Sometimes a nexus had been created, often it occurred naturally. All of-the greatest, most populous communities centered on a correspondingly powerful nexus. Elffiame Mist-Hold in San Francisco was no exception.

  The magical forces the elves used could also be used, with varying success, by humans with the proper talents.

  Humans such as Bards, for instance.

  No sooner thought of than tapped; he’d created a nexus once, with the help of Spiral Dance. He certainly knew how that wellspring of magical energy looked and felt, how it acted. Though he’d never actually been there, he knew where the major nexus here in the San Francisco area was; he couldn’t not know, such things were magnets to him. He had only to remember what the magic felt like and reach—

  The energy responded to his touch before he was ready for it.

  He lost the world for a moment, engulfed in a tidal wave of power; it surged up around him in a flood of golden light and sweet music, capturing him and spinning him around like a bit of cork in a whirlpool.

  Dizzy and disoriented, he fought his way back to himself only by concentrating on the metal flute still clenched in his hands.
His eyes weren’t working properly; instead of seeing his real surroundings, he Saw the power, swirling around him, gold and amber, lemon and umber. After a moment he blinked, and found himself back on the hillside above the labs, still facing the army of shadowy Nightflyers. They hadn’t moved, so how ever shaken he’d been, his momentary lapse of control hadn’t affected the hold he had on them.

  And Kayla still stared at him, her hand clutching his sleeve, so although it felt as if hours had passed, it couldn’t have been more than a few seconds. The only songs he could think of on the spur of the moment that involved fences were all cowboy ballads—

  Well, whatever worked.

  Although the Nightflyers had been immobilized, he sensed that they were aware of what was going on. Now that he had tapped into the nexus-magic, he felt their excitement—and their hunger—centered on him. Suddenly he had gone from “commander” to “prime rib special.” It was not the most comfortable feeling in the world. Hurriedly, he called up the first “fence” tune that came to mind, spinning the power into a boundary around the lab complex, following the fence and roofing it over as well.

  They were not pleased with that—he felt a sullen glow of dull anger emanating from them; a sickly heat that irritated rather than comforted. But before they reacted further, he directed their attention to the complex, creating a dazzling little bubble of energy, moving it to dance for a moment just above the gatehouse, then popping it.

  Their reaction was not what he had expected. He lost their interest entirely. Except for the control he still held over them, he might just as well be one of the rocks on the hillside. There was something down there that he couldn’t sense—something that the Nightflyers wanted, badly. If they had been hungry when they felt him tap the power of the elves’ nexus, they were ravenous now. And he had been demoted from “prime rib” to “leftover veggies.”

  Well, whatever it was, if it occupied their attention, that was fine with him. The less attractive he looked to them, the better. And if it was a “who,” rather than a “what”—

  Conscience twinged for a moment, but he thought of the brief glimpse he’d had of Beth, the pain he’d felt from Kory. And he told himself that anybody who worked in a place that would kidnap and torture people, damn well deserved what he was going to get when the Nightflyers found him! They tugged at their restraints, eager to be off, he checked the barriers between the lab and the outside world one more time and found them solid.

  Time for one last precaution. He emitted a burst of power, and they turned back to him, like so many dark rags snapping in a high wind.

  “There’s some people down there,” he said, slowly, thinking the words as he said them and hoping they would get the sense of them. “They look like this—”

  He pictured Beth, Kory, and Elizabet, spinning images of them out of the dusk and fog and faint starlight. Beside him, Kayla relaxed marginally. The Nightflyers stirred, impatiently. They cared nothing for these images; not when there was something waiting for them that they found much more intriguing.

  He called their wandering attention back to the images. “Don’t touch them,” he said forcefully, impressing his will on them—

  —or trying, anyway.

  “Don’t touch them,” he said again. “Don’t hurt them, don’t frighten them. Leave them alone. Or else—” He didn’t know what to threaten them with, so he left it at that. Evidently they didn’t realize that, or they didn’t care, for he felt their preoccupied assent. They strained to get at whatever it was that was so attracting them, and after a moment to let their tension build, he released them.

  They streamed towards the labs, and he and Kayla trailed in their wake. Kayla clung to his arm, silent—Eric kept his apprehension and doubts to himself. Sure, he and Kayla saw the Nightflyers—but what about ordinary people? Could the monsters affect them as well? Would they be able to get rid of the guards, like the muscle-bound gorilla in the little glass-enclosed booth at the gate?

  He got his answer immediately, as a pair of them swarmed the lighted gatehouse, flowing into it and filling it with an impenetrable darkness. When they flowed out again, there was no sign of the man who had been inside. Eric averted his eyes as he and Kayla passed; guilty, and not sure whether or not he should be. God only knew what the Nightflyers had done to the guard, a man who hadn’t done Eric any harm, who might not have any connection with what had been done to Beth and Kory. He couldn’t even remember if Dublin Labs used rent-a-cops on their gates, or real company employees…

  “What—what did they do?” Kayla whispered, nervously, staying right with him, glancing at the silent gatehouse out of the comer of her eye. There was nothing moving in there. Whatever the Nightflyers had done, it had been permanent.

  His fault.

  “I don’t know,” he admitted, as his feeling of guilt and sickness increased. He wished that there had been another choice, something else he could have done. Now he knew what the “sorcerer’s apprentice” felt like, unleashing a power he didn’t really understand and wasn’t entirely certain he controlled. A power that just might turn on him if it wasn’t satisfied.

  Kind of like riding the tiger. Don’t get thrown off and don’t get off if it’s hungry. And try not to look when it eats someone else, someone who never did you any harm. Eric, you’re a real louse, you know that?

  Kayla shivered, and he hugged her shoulders, glad of the human warmth of her. They went about a hundred yards further in, then Kayla tugged him to a stop. “I th-think we’d better stay here,” she stammered. “Th-the others have to come this way to get out. If-if we k-keep going, w-we might miss them.”

  If we keep going, we ‘re going to have to look at what the monsters are doing in there, he thought—but nodded, and let her tug him off the sidewalk, into the shelter of a crescent of bushes and trees. Ahead of them, inside those formidable buildings, the Nightflyers were looking for something. Whether or not they found it, they would be encountering more people in those halls and buildings; people who would probably meet the same fate as the guard. Death? Worse than death? He was beginning to hate himself, beginning to wish he had thought before he’d done anything. People were always telling him that—”Eric, why don’t you think before you jump in?” Well, this time he’d jumped in, like always, only people were going to die.

  Yeah, but they’re people who grabbed Beth and Kory and tortured them! They’ve probably done things like that to lots of people! I mean, God only knows what they do in there—maybe they’re testing nerve gas on street people, grabbing winos for drug testing—

  But did that give him the right to act the way they did?

  Fiercely he told his conscience to shut up, and followed his army.

  There would be no walls and barriers to hide the Nightflyers’ victims in there. And he didn’t want to see them.

  Maybe it was wrong of him to avoid witnessing the results of his work. Certainly it was cowardly. He wasn’t going to rationalize that fact away, but he also wasn’t going to watch what they were doing. And if he didn’t have to see the victims afterwards, he wasn’t going to. What was the point? It wouldn’t make him feel worse than he did now, just sicker, at a time when he couldn’t afford any weakness.

  What he was going to do, however, was to stand here with Kayla, keep tapping into that nexus of elven power, and keep those walls standing tall and strong between his personal horrors and the outside world. No matter how many or few innocents there were inside this complex, the ones outside it were all innocent, at least of doing anything to him.

  One by one, the lights shining from the windows of the buildings began to dim, and he and Kayla shivered together, avoiding the shadows beneath the trees.

  Elizabet sat quietly in the corner of her cell, ignoring the outside world—which at the moment was a generous ten foot by ten foot cube. She kept her concentration turned completely inward, carefully regulating her heart-rate and brain-wave patterns so that it would appear that she was semi-conscious, terrified into n
ear-catatonia as her captors seemed to want.

  Be fair, now, she chided herself. There was only one of her captors that wanted her prostrate with fear. That repellent man, the one calling himself Warden Blair, who was clearly the one in charge. She had seen his type before.

  Forty going on nine. Nasty little man. This was the first time she’d been in the power of someone of that type, but she had a fair idea of what to expect. Brilliant, ruthless, sociopathic.

  Leader of a group of those like him, he would carefully collect them; he would cultivate them, set himself up as a substitute father-figure, and collect blackmail material on them so that if they actually began to think for themselves, they could be threatened and would never dare leave his employ. Elizabet had most often encountered these little pods of psycho paths in the sciences. They were usually involved in the hard sciences: physics, computer sciences, and math. But they occurred in the “softer” sciences too, as Warden Blair’s little cabal proved.

  They had been nasty little children, no doubt of it; the kind that tortured and tormented other kids’ pets and hid in books and laboratories. Later, they joined Mensa in college and went into psychology not to discover themselves but to find out how best to stick knives into the souls of those they considered inferior to themselves. They tended to be mostly boys; girls in general were more connected to society than boys, even when abused. That was certainly the case here; in fact, she hadn’t seen any women here in anything but strictly subordinate roles. This “project” of Blair’s was a kind of boy’s club in many ways, where females were still “icky,” still “the enemy”—for there wasn’t a one of these men that had grown emotionally beyond the age of nine. That was probably why the little-boy psychics that backed up the guards here worked for Warden Blair so readily. He was one of them; their pack-leader, their Peter Pan. And it explained why he was so eager to destroy her mental stability. A man like Blair would not tolerate a strong, independent woman anywhere about him. Any woman in his “project” would have to be reduced to the status of non-person.