The Chrome Borne

by Mercedes Lackey

  This was as creepy as anything Brother Joseph had ever done, and only the sense that this was not anything evil or even harmful kept Joe standing where he was. He knew what evil felt like; whatever it was, this wasn't evil.

  But he almost lost it when the ball suddenly brightened until it rivaled the sunshine and cast a tall shadow of Tannim against the wall behind him. And he did yelp when it vanished in a clap of thunder.

  But Tannim only dropped his hands, dusted them off against his jeans, and stared at the walls for a moment. Abruptly, the glow disappeared, leaving only the fire-blackened timbers again.

  "I love that effect!" Tannim laughed.

  "What was that?" Joe blurted. "What did you do?"

  "Call it—a magical version of a fax machine," Tannim replied after a moment, his green eyes luminous in the bright sunshine, as if there was some power making them shine. "I have a friend named Chinthliss who's like a more powerful version of Foxtrot, though he'd choke if you ever said it to him. I want him to help me, and that little glow-ball is how I told him pretty much everything we know." He grinned then, and pulled his Wayfarers out of his pocket, putting them on. "Now, we just wait."

  A magical version of a fax? Joe shook his head; this was way beyond anything Al and Bob had ever showed him. Even though he knew that when they came to visit they hadn't ever come by airplane much less driven across the country, they hadn't once explained how they did manage to cross the miles between Pawnee and Savannah whenever they chose. They certainly hadn't shown him things like this. Tannim turned away from him for a moment and bent his head down to peer at something in the grass growing up through the barn floor.

  Joe might have asked more questions, except that at that precise moment, someone coughed delicately behind him.

  "Excuse me?" said a low, sexy, female voice.

  * * *

  Tannim thought he saw something give off a bit of mage-sparkle in the grass at his feet, and he peered down for a moment.

  "Excuse me?" said a voice that was not Joe's.

  Tannim jumped in startlement, and turned to face the barn door.

  And froze as he saw who was standing there behind Joe, his mind lodged on a single thought, unable to get past it.

  It's her—it's her—it's her—

  And it was: the woman who had haunted him and hunted him down through his dreams for the last decade and more. The woman he'd dreamed of this morning. Her. And she stood there, nonplussedly taking in his look of complete and utter shock.

  There was absolutely no doubt of it; she matched his dreams in every detail. Gently curved, raven-wing hair swept down past her shoulders and framed a face that he knew as well as he knew his own. Amused, emerald-green eyes gazed at him from beneath strong brows that arched as delicately as a bit of Japanese brushwork. The regal nose was just short of being hawklike, and gave strength to the prominent cheekbones. The sensual mouth hinted at a hundred secrets. And the body, the perfect, slim, small-breasted body . . . did more than hint.

  She stood as he remembered her standing; poised, and not posed, graceful movement arrested for the briefest of moments. She wore silk and leather; a red silk jumpsuit that flowed in an exotic cut that spoke of expensive designers, tooled and riveted black leather belt and boots. She wore them beautifully, flawlessly, unselfconsciously, as if they were the stuff of her everyday attire.

  "Excuse me," she said again, in a throaty contralto that he remembered whispering intimacies into his ear, ". . . but I understood that I could find someone here who works on Mustangs."

  He took one step toward her; another. At the third step, he looked past her and spotted her black Mustang standing in the midst of the tall grass outside the barn door. The grasses waved gently around it, like something out of a commercial. Joe simply stood frozen in place, staring at her. She waited, calmly. She looked as if she would be perfectly ready to wait all day.

  Tannim started to speak, and had to cough to clear his throat before his voice would work.

  "Not—for a long time," he said dazedly.

  "Ah," she replied, with a smile tinged with something he could not read.

  But then her eyes widened as she looked past his shoulder, and she stepped back in alarm.

  Fear lanced him. He whirled to look.

  There was nothing there.

  Quickly, realizing that she had pulled the oldest trick in the book on him, he turned back.

  She was already gone. And so was her car.

  Only then did his mind click back into gear, as he sprinted past the broken-down door, and stood where the car had been. There was the imprint of four tires in the grass—but no track-marks leading up to them. There was no sign that the car had actually been driven through the grass to reach that spot, and there had been no sound of a motor.

  Belatedly, recognition. The car that had stood there had been the same Mustang that had shadowed him last night.

  The grasses waved and parted; he looked down when his subconscious recognized that the shadow there was not a shadow. There was a second black, fingerless driving glove in the grass at his feet.

  He picked it up, and immediately banished the thought that he might have dropped last night's glove and not have noticed. That glove had been torn where it had been riveted to the door and he'd ripped it off. This glove, also for the right hand, was intact.

  And it, too, contained a small strip of parchment.

  He took it out, and there was another quotation handwritten there, in the same spidery hand.

  * * *

  The painful warrior famoused for fight,

  After a thousand victories, once foiled,

  Is from the books of honour razed quite,

  And all the rest forgot for which he toil'd.

  Sonnet 25

  * * *

  He stared at it, the meaning burning arc-light bright in his mind. The challenge has been made. Chicken out of this one—or be defeated—and everything you are and ever were will be erased, and everything you ever did will be forgotten.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Tannim tucked the slip of parchment back into the glove with special care. The sun burned down on his head, as the quotation burned in his mind. Of all the ways he'd ever imagined of meeting her, this had never once crossed his mind. He'd pictured himself simply running into her in some exotic place, imagined finding her on his side in a desperate combat, wondered if some day she might simply appear at Fairgrove as a new "employee" even as he had. He had fantasized rescuing her, fighting by her side, having her rescue him, even. It had never once entered his mind that she could be an enemy.

  No—not an enemy. Have to call it like it is; I don't know that yet. An opponent, but I can't put her in the "enemy" column yet. Maybe that was wishful thinking, but he couldn't get all those dreams out of his head. Surely they meant something.

  Grass swished and crackled behind him, and young Joe moved out of the barn to stand next to him. "There was a lady there a minute ago, wasn't there?" he said, his voice remarkably steady, given the circumstances. "And a car?" In the brilliant sun, his hair looked almost white, and his vividly blue eyes mirrored the Oklahoma sky.

  "Uh-huh," Tannim confirmed. "I'm beginning to feel like Prince Charming. She left me another glove."

  Joe regarded the glove in Tannim's hand with a dubious expression and made no move to touch it. "I don't think you're gonna have too much luck going around Tulsa getting women to try those on to see if they fit."

  Tannim smiled faintly. Not bad; the kid's keeping his sense of humor. "Not as reliable as a glass slipper."

  No maker's mark in these gloves, though. No tag, and no sign that one had been cut or taken out. No identifying marks at all. Wasn't that a little odd?

  Come to think of it, they didn't really look mass-produced. Huh. Custom work? If so, they might be as good as a glass slipper if I can find out where they came from.

  He was just about ready to take the gloves apart, stitch by stitch, when a warning tingle along his personal
shields alerted him. Something was manifesting in the barn!

  He tested the energies, and recognized one he had not really expected to encounter quite so soon. But it was more than welcome, especially in light of this second challenge.

  He sprinted back to the barn and reinvoked all the protections; the golden walls of power came up around him, enclosing him in a safe zone that only he, Chinthliss, or their sendings would be able to pass. He held his hands out at chest height, preparing the space in front of him to receive whatever Chinthliss' answer would be.

  A thunderclap announced its arrival in his hands, and a flash of golden light that lit up the inside of the protective dome as it passed through the shields.

  It came in the form of the same green and gold message-globe he himself had sent out, which confirmed his surprised and delighted guess that Chinthliss had answered him immediately, interrupting whatever else he was doing to do so. There were times when the dragon came through for him.

  The globe settled in his hands, weightlessly, and pulsed for a moment, as it confirmed his identity. Then it deepened in color, turning from golden green to a deep bronze, and he felt a familiar touch on his mind. He relaxed and let the message flow into his thoughts.

  :I have heard, and am intrigued, Son of Dragons.: The deep bass, purely mental voice tolled sonorously in his head. :I will arrive at the usual place at the hour the sun has vanished. And in case you have forgotten, the "usual place" is the building in which you once kept all your machines.:

  The globe spun on its axis then whirled and changed, fading as it discharged its energies into the air, the shields, and anything else that was able to absorb a little extra power.

  Including Tannim, who was not too proud to get a little of the charge he'd put into the thing back again.

  Once again, he brought the protections down, and took a quick glance at Joe. The young man was not watching him; instead, he had taken up a "guard" position at the doorframe, and his alert stance told Tannim that his erstwhile protégé was perfectly prepared to fight anything that tried to cause trouble. Obviously Joe had not made the assumption that because the challenger was a woman, she could be dismissed.

  Good. At least that's one lesson he won't have to learn the hard way.

  "Joe?" he said quietly. The young man turned and nodded.

  "Nothing out there that I can see," he said. "Nobody watching us as far as I can tell. Did your friend send you a return fax?"

  Tannim had to smile at the ease with which Joe had accepted his own offhanded terminology. "As a matter of fact, he did," Tannim replied. "He's going to be here tonight. We'll have to come out here to meet him."

  "And until then?" Joe asked, his expression stolid, only his eyes showing his nervous tension as he continually glanced from side to side, making certain nothing could creep up on them.

  "First I need to make a phone call, and I want to do that from a private phone, not from home," Tannim told him. "My friend's going to need a hotel room, so why don't we go arrange that for him, and I can use the phone in the room."

  Joe nodded, and Tannim reflected that it was really useful having someone like Joe around, a young man who was used to taking orders without question. Questions like, how was this friend going to get out here, and why couldn't he arrange his own room, or stay with Tannim's folks?

  Setting aside the fact that Joe was in the only other guest room besides Tannim's old room—Joe could, after all, return to Frank Casey's house. No, Joe simply accepted that Tannim knew what he was doing, and waited for explanations instead of demanding them. Sometimes repressed curiosity was a lot easier to deal with than open curiosity.

  Well, there was no point in standing around here in the hot sun; already his scalp was damp with sweat, and only the armor kept him relatively cool. Joe must be ready to drop; there was sweat trickling down his forehead, and his t-shirt was damp. "Let's get out of here before anything else happens."

  "Right." Joe turned and strode to the barn door.

  And there he stopped, crouched over, scanning quickly from side to side. Tannim watched in amazement; he had never seen anyone so young with such moves! These kinds of tactics had apparently become second nature to Joe. Jeez, another good reason to have him around.

  He waited until Joe waved an "all clear" to him before joining him at the door, crouching beside him with one hand on the rough wood. "I can't spot anything out there, sir," Joe said in a soft voice. "The birds aren't disturbed, either, so I don't think there's anybody hiding in the grass."

  "You can work point any time, Joe," Tannim told him quite seriously.

  Joe flashed him a shy grin before returning his gaze to the field beyond the barn. "I'll go first."

  "Go," Tannim said, and pulled out his keychain, pushing the button for the radio-transmitter that controlled the doors and the engine. On the other side of the wall, the Mustang rumbled into life. "There. The doors are unlocked."

  Joe nodded and was gone in a flash, scuttling through the weeds in a bent-over run, rather than crawling. There wasn't a real reason to crawl, unless bullets or other projectiles started flying, and a formidable reason in the form of ticks and chiggers not to crawl. Tannim followed in the same way as soon as he got around the corner of the barn and out of sight.

  He felt a little foolish as he crouched beside his car door, listening intently. But better to feel foolish than not feel at all. "Dead" was a hard condition to cure.

  He slipped into the Mustang and punched up the a/c, backed into position so that he could drive straight out, and waited. Nothing rushed at them from the weeds, and there were no vehicles in sight in either direction once they reached the road. It looked exactly as it should: a sleepy section-line road that seldom saw much in the way of traffic.

  Tannim did not drop even a fraction of his watchful caution, however, and it was easy to see by Joe's tense posture that he felt the same. Out here it would be easy enough for someone to perch in a tall tree and watch their progress. Not that he could really picture her, in that flame-red silk jumpsuit, clambering up a tree.

  But if she can make herself and her Mustang vanish, she can certainly change her wardrobe as easily, he reminded himself. Or, for all I know, she has flunkies out here keeping an eye on us.

  For that matter, she was a mage, and she could be using any of the birds around here as "eyes." There was nothing he could do about that—not without endangering himself and his passenger. Anything he did to make the Mach I less visible to birds would make it less visible to other human drivers. The drivers around here were bad enough without complicating the situation by tricking their minds into thinking he wasn't there.

  He passed both gloves to Joe, who locked them in the glovebox without a word. There was one thing he could do; birds had distinct territories, and in the summer they didn't tend to venture out of them. Right now, the best thing he could do, if she was using birds as her scouts, was to drive some distance before stopping at a motel. With luck, she'd lose him and not find him again.

  Unless, of course, she's using something like a bald eagle. Well, there was only so much he could do without his precautions hedging his actions so much that he couldn't move.

  He drove around in circles for about an hour, stopping once at a convenience store for Gatorade for the two of them, before finally seeking out a motel for Chinthliss.

  The south side of Tulsa was a lot more upscale than Bixby; it was where the Yuppies collected in expansive, milling herds, and was thick with condo-complexes with gates and expensive, fenced-in houses set on quarter-acre lots. The blight crept farther south with every year. Tannim figured that he'd be able to find something to suit Chinthliss out here. Nothing less than a palace would make the dragon happy, but at least he wouldn't complain as much as he had the time he shared a room at the Holiday Inn with Tannim and FX.

  High and mighty dragon couldn't unwrap the little soaps by himself. Poor baby.

  With a little bit of searching, he found exactly what he was looking
for: one of those high-end "suite motels." If it became too dangerous to stay with his folks any longer, he and Joe could just move in with Chinthliss. He pulled up to the office, and left Joe in the car with the motor running and the a/c on while he took care of throwing money at the clerk.

  He returned with a grin on his face and slid into the seat. "Amazing what a paid-up Gold Card will do, even in this neighborhood. I got a two-bedroom with a parking slot guaranteed to be in the shade all day," he said, and tossed Joe a key. "That's for us, if we need someplace else to go. Hang onto it for me."

  "Sure," Joe said obediently, pocketing the key.

  "Now, let's go see what kind of digs poor Chinthliss will have to stoop to." He pulled the Mustang around to the side of the complex and found the slot assigned to Chinthliss' suite. As promised, it was in the shade. They locked the car and ventured into the depths of the complex. The suite was supposed to be like a townhouse: two-story, with two bedrooms upstairs and living area and kitchen down. The door wasn't more than a few feet from the parking slot, and when he opened it, cool air rushed to meet them, faintly perfumed with disinfectant.

  It was as advertised, and would probably suit His Draconic Majesty just fine. Joe went immediately to the living room and turned on the TV. Tannim let the a/c blow through his hair for a moment, then went to the kitchen. As the clerk had instructed, he filled out the grocery list with things he knew Chinthliss liked. Someone from the staff would be around in the next couple of hours to stock the refrigerator; an extra service invoked by the Gold Card's near-bottomless cornucopia effect. After this, the maids would keep the fridge stocked the same way. This was going to make life much easier for him, even if he was in for over a grand already. I'll have to put the old lizard up in places like this more often. He can prowl around and poke into things to his heart's content, take showers as long as he wants without using up all the hot water, pop every bag of microwave popcorn in the place. This's going to be a lot easier than taking him to restaurants.

  He did not want to think about the last time he'd taken Chinthliss to a real restaurant. Fortunately, it had been one that catered to the elves at Fairgrove, and the staff was used to some of the customers acting peculiarly.