In a state of numbed pain, she climbed the stairs to the house, then up to their room. She didn’t even remember getting out of the car. She flung herself down on the waterbed and stared up at the high ceiling. After a while Kory and Eric came and sat on the rails beside her.
So, she wasn’t so strong anymore, and now they knew it. What if they decided to arrange things so that they wouldn’t need to count on her?
That’s what really hurts, doesn’t it, Kentraine? The idea that they might be able to live just fine without you?
One short step to the abyss. How could she live like that for the rest of her life? How could she live her life within the limits of a phobia?
She wanted to cry, but the tears were all gone.
I can’t live like this, she thought. I can’t—
Then don’t, said the little voice in her head that always prodded her when she started thinking something really stupid. Like now. Don’t live like that. You aren’t the only one in the world with claustrophobia, you know. Other people have gotten help.
Yes, but—she wailed silently, her eyes closed against the two faces bent over hers in concern and fear. But—But you’re afraid to admit that you have weaknesses, Kentraine, the little voice continued without remorse. Why don’t you ask those two to help you and see what happens?
But what if they don’t want to?
But what if they do? the voice answered, then fell silent.
She opened her eyes. They were still there, faces still twisted with fear, eyes bright—
“You know,” she said, conversationally, a catch in her voice telling her that if she wasn’t careful, she’d break down and weep after all, “you two look really funny when you’re about to cry. Your faces get all red and your eyes get narrow and squinched up—”
She reached out while they were still trying to think of an answer to that and snagged their supporting arms, tumbling them into bed on either side of her.
“I’ve—got a problem,” she said, pulling the words out of pain. “That claustrophobia thing. It’s kind of a big problem, and I don’t know how long it’s gonna take to get over it. If I can.”
“Then we work around it,” Eric said promptly. “We’ll see what we can do to make it better, and meanwhile we’ll work around it. So if we can’t take the BART some days, so what? We’ll bike it, or walk. Stairs instead of elevators. Outdoor gigs. We’ll manage.”
“You say that now—” she began. Kory interrupted her.
“We say that for always,” he replied firmly. “You do not abandon a part of you because it is sick. You help it to heal, as best it can. And if you limp, where’s the harm? What,” he concluded, mockingly, “did you think that all tales ended in wedding the perfect princess? What a bore if they did—”
“And what a bore to be perfect!” Eric finished.
She looked from one to the other, and finally, with a flood of relief, believed them.
“I love you two,” she said, hugging them as tightly as she could. “Kiss me, you fools.”
* * *
Coda
The park was a good place to sit and read on a weekday during school hours. The only children around were toddlers. Not terribly noisy. Peaceful—and the closest she got to hiking, now.
“Nice lookin’ rig you got there, li’l lady,” drawled a pseudo-Texan voice.
Dr. Susan Sheffield looked up from the book she had been reading, and was blinded momentarily by the sun. When she could see again, she found she was surrounded by three people she hadn’t thought she’d ever meet again.
“Thanks,” she said, patting the side of the wheelchair. “I’m still trying to get used to the way people either try to pretend they aren’t watching you, or try to pretend that Ahsera isn’t here.”
Eric smiled shyly. “I thought that might have been an elvensteed. I didn’t think wheelchairs were supposed to hold mage-glow.”
“Elvenpony, actually,” she replied, relieved to be able to talk about it. Colonel Steve thought Ahsera was just a really high-tech chair—but then she never let him in the apartment, where the pony could raise or lower itself, or take any configuration at all to help her through her day. “Not as bright as an elvensteed—about the candlepower of a chimp, I think, without the tendency to get mad and throw feces.”
“Are you getting around all right?” Beth asked. Susan took an appraising look of her own, and saw the scars of mental wounds still healing.
“As well as I can,” she replied honestly. “What can I tell you? Some days I’m pretty bitter, but you know what George Burns says: living like this isn’t so bad when you think about the alternative.” She sighed. “And I have Ahsera here—who helps me get along pretty well in private. Colonel Steve pulled strings and got me a telecommute job at JPL. I work from my apartment.”
“No more Poseidon?” Beth asked, with a shudder she could not repress.
“I sent the kernel to the Japanese,” Susan said, still angry at how her vision had been perverted. “To someone I know and trust. He has a good team, and they don’t think of earthquakes as weapons. They’re going to have to go back to square one, but I think they might do better than we did. I’ve conferenced with some of their people, not specifically mentioning what happened here, but suggesting a terrorist scenario, and they’re going to build a fail-safe into it, right from the start.” She shrugged. “The package has been hedged around with so many conditions, it looks like a Hollywood contract. When they get a working model, it goes public immediately, and then to an international committee to watchdog it. Anybody with faults gets the probes, and the committee will make sure no faults ever build up enough stress for a quake. It’s going to take them years to get where we were. And in between, quakes are still going to kill people. I can’t help that. That is what I’m bitter about.”
Eric sat down on his heels so that his face was level with hers. “So what would have been better?” he asked. “For you to have completed the project and then have real terrorists take it over and hold a whole country hostage? What would Poseidon have done in Turkey, with all those mud houses? Or one of the Slovakian republics? What if someone had taken it and used it on his own people—behave and do what I want, or you get a quake?”
“I’d thought about that,” she admitted. “Fewer casualties the way it happened…”
“But even one is too many.” He straightened. “Just so you know I feel the same way.”
“We did not wish to disturb you or cause you any pain,” Korendil said carefully, “but Arvin said you might wish to speak with us now. Perhaps more than once.”
She thought of all the elves, scatterbrained as they often seemed to be, who had rallied around her to keep her from going crazy these past few months. Arvin being the ringleader of them all—
He had not been the Prince Charming of her adolescent fantasy summer—in fact, when she saw him, she hardly recognized Lirylel anymore. Tastes changed… and he was still a teenager. But Arvin, now—intelligent, well-read, fun to be around—
—not a bad choice for a casual lover, good friend, occasional pupil. She wasn’t ready for any kind of commitment of course, and if and when she made one, it was going to be with a human. But Arvin was a shoulder when she needed one, a cheerleader when she needed one, and he was quite inventive in the bedroom. By the time he got done experimenting, she’d have an entire repertoire ready for a steady customer…
“Yeah,” she said, finally. “I think I’d like to see you guys once in a while. If you wouldn’t mind inviting me over to your place, that is. Minedoesn’t have a hot tub.”
Kory smiled, Beth sighed in relief, and Eric gave her the high-sign. “You’re on,” Eric said. “How about Saturday? We’re hosting an elven full moon party. Ahsera would be right at home. We’re having Greek carryout.” He lowered his voice, enticingly. “And homemade baklava.”
It had been a long time since she’d had Greek food. The hospital hadn’t allowed her anything but bland with lots of fiber.
&nb
sp; “Is Arvin invited?” she asked.
“We invited him, but he said he didn’t want to come without you,” Beth replied, with a ghost of a grin. “I don’t know what you’re doing to him. His harem is down to less than a dozen.”
Susan threw back her head and laughed, long and hard, earning startled glances from the nannies around her.
They probably think handicapped people shouldn’t have any fun, she thought, but without bitterness this time.
“All right, I’ll tell him tonight it’s a date.” She stretched a little. “Do I bring anything?”
“Retsina if you can find it,” Beth said firmly. “Ouzo if you can’t. Only a little—a little of that stuff goes a long way. Two bottles, max. We never get anywhere near liquor stores without a zillion instruments to carry.”
Susan smiled. They hadn’t patronized her by telling her “nothing,” and hadn’t insulted her by asking for something too simple. She’d have to go looking for Retsina, if only in the yellow pages, and either send someone out to pick it up for her, or get it herself.
“I’ll take care of it,” she promised, both herself and them. “Don’t worry about it.”
Eric grinned as the other. two nodded. “I won’t.”
Somehow she got the feeling that they meant that the words applied to more than a simple bottle of wine.
For that matter, so did she.
Table of Contents
CHAPTER 1: The Mountain Top
CHAPTER 2: As I Walked Through the Fair
CHAPTER 3: My Feet Are Set for Dancing
CHAPTER 4: A Moonlight Ramble
CHAPTER 5: Nonesuch
CHAPTER 6: The Hanged Man’s Reel
CHAPTER 7: A Maid in Bedlam
CHAPTER 8: Hame, Hame, Hame
CHAPTER 9: Beauty in Tears
CHAPTER 10: Off She Goes
CHAPTER 11: Two Fair Maids
CHAPTER 12: Tom O’Bedlam (Reprised)
CHAPTER 13: The Boys of Ballysaclare
CHAPTER 14: The Light in the Window
CHAPTER 15: Frosty Morning
CHAPTER 16: Soldier’s Joy
CHAPTER 17: Anima Urbis: Mount Tam
CHAPTER 18: The Pleasures of Home
Coda
Summoned to Tourney Page 29
