Robert Charrette - Arthur 03 - A Knight Among Knaves

by Robert N. Charrette

  Dickinson was an annoying man. Stand by for what?

  The data feeds from the Alighieri probe winked out.

  Surely not that. She looked for the biomonitors on Alighieri's tel-op operator. That link was down too. Dickinson would be a very unhappy man. if Alighieri had just fritzed out again.

  Dickinson stormed into view of the video pickup. He raved at her. Gil tried to comply with his "requests" to find a clear bandwidth to reestablish data links, but everything seemed to be cluttered by the storm's interference.

  "If it's this bad, you had better start battening down," she advised.

  As he started to reply, a blistering indictment of her skill, the video began to flicker. She lost the video link entirely. Dickinson continued his insulting evaluation of her competence on audio alone. She tried to ignore him while she tried to reestablish the link. When the audio signal started to break up, she was almost relieved.

  "The storm's going to cut commo," she tried to tell him, but he insisted, she thought, that the skies were still clear.

  Well, from where she sat, the electromagnetic bands certainly weren't clear.

  She bumped up the power, hoping to cut through the interference. She got through, sort of, but not to Dickinson. She found herself struggling to communicate with one of Dickin-son's team. The woman was hysterical, practically babbling.

  It sounded to Gil like she was saying something about some kind of animal coming out of the crater. But that couldn't be tight. The on-again, off-again link didn't help. Gil's requests forclarification only brought more garbled replies. Another I most to signal power didn't help. The interference was getting worse. Something came through that sounded like a scream. But it couldn't be a scream; it had to be some kind of electronic feedback. There was nothing but static after that.

  Looking at the dead screen, listening to the static hiss, Gil didn't know what else to do.

  The storm must have moved in faster than Steve had predicted, if it had already cut communications. She hoped the disturbance was west of the mountains between McMurdo and the research site, because if it was on top of Dickinson's team, there were six people in real danger of having their hutts frozen off.

  Could they send out a rescue verrie? Maybe Steve had an updated storm track that would tell her. Even if he didn't, he'd know what to do; he was a veteran of a dozen summers down here. She headed for the weather room and nearly ran into Steve in the corridor. His snow goggles were perched on his watch cap and he was pulling on his snow suit.

  "Where are you going?"

  "Going to go check the dish," he said. "That storm just dropped off the screen."

  "What do you mean the storm's gone? It can't be. It just ate our commo link with Dr. Dickinson's team."

  Steve shrugged. "It's gone. Vanished. Not there."

  "You run diagnostics?"

  "Sure. Everything's fine. Damnedest thing. Still got a track on the English verrie headed out to the seal station, but the storm's gone like it never was there."

  "So there's something wrong with the dish." That had to be it. The storm was still out there fouling up communications.

  "Must be." Twenty minutes later, he was back, chilled and puzzled. "Dish checks out okay. Still having trouble getting through to Jemal?"

  She had been trying without success. "The airwaves are still fritzed. What's going on?"

  "Damned if I know."

  "Some kind of glitch in the radar?" It had to be. A storm couldn't rip up the electromagnetic bands like this one was doing and not show on radar.

  "If there's a glitch, I can't find it. Wouldn't be the firstf time that happened, though." He shook his head ruefully. "If we've got a wild storm out there, you had better call Sharon and her people and tell them to get their butts back here. Better safe and all that." Gil agreed.

  Three hours later, well after the storm should have arrived at McMurdo Station, the skies were still clear and the commo channels still fuzzed. Sharon's crew was back safe and sound, but Dr. Dickinson and his team remained incommunicado.

  CHAPTER

  7

  "I don't understand why we're going to wherever the hell ii is you're taking us. Why aren't we in the otherworld already?" John asked.

  Bennett didn't take his eyes from the road, but he did remove one hand from the steering wheel and make an airy pasture. "One cannot just cross over anywhere."

  Oh, yeah? "Dr. Spae says otherwise."

  "Ah, yes, Dr. Spae. Quite the authority, isn't she?"

  John didn't care for Bennett's sarcastic tone. "She knows a lot about magic."

  "For a human."

  "What's that supposed to mean?"

  "She is quite talented. Again, for a human."

  John was getting the drift. "But she's nothing much compared to an elf like you, hunh?"

  Smiling, Bennett said, "No, she isn't. Not compared to an elf like either of us."

  Despite the implied compliment, Bennett's put-down of Dr. Spae didn't sit well with John.

  "He's right, John," Faye said.

  John felt his face redden in embarrassment—he had almost forgotten that she was along. She was always very quiet around Bennett, and when an invisible person is quiet, there's not much to remind you of her presence. He felt even more embarrassed that she had broken her silence to chide him and side with Bennett. After all, wasn't Bennett the one who treated her like some kind of lesser life form? Well, maybe Bennett was right, but John didn't have to like the way Bennett expressed himself.

  Bennett seemed amused by John's embarrassment. "It seems I should not have argued against bringing the sprite along."

  But he had, saying that Faye had no place in the life that was to be John's. Despite her apparent similarity of appearance, Faye was not an elf like Bennett and John, but a different sort of Faery being, a sprite. The news had dispelled his fears that he and Faye were closely related by blood. Which was great! Of course, he hadn't agreed to leave her behind; in the otherworld, they would be able to touch. Not that he let Bennett in on that reason for wanting her along. He'd just been stubborn, and Faye had backed his obstinance with her own, insisting that she accompany them to the otherworld— though later, privately, she had admitted that she thought Bennett was right about her having no place in John's new life. How could she doubt it?

  "You know, Bennett, I'm not as good as you at abandoning people," John said.

  "Really? What about your Spillway Sue?"

  He wasn't abandoning her. He had told Sue that he would be back soon, and he would. As soon as he could. As soon as he got what was coming to him.

  "Or Marianne Reddy? What have you done to further your senseless search for that woman?"

  That woman had raised John, and he hadn't abandoned her. He'd been busy, working on acquiring the tools for his search. Having exhausted the obvious leads and his limited resources, he'd needed new ones, and when he got back from the otherworld, things would be different. He'd have access to the magic that was his by right of birth. He had plans for that magic, the first of which was tracking down his missing mother.

  He really wasn't abandoning anyone. He was just taking an opportunity to prepare himself, to get access to useful tools he had been denied.

  Jack, you must not concern yourself with such ephemera You are an elf. Their kind can have only passing meaning for you You will see. With time, you will come to understand."

  Don 't concern yourself? John was very concerned, but it was clear that Bennett was the one who didn't understand real feelings about people. Still, the elf had planted a seed of doubt. Was John fooling himself? Did being an elf make him that different? What would he see? How would passing time change his understanding? There was a hell of a lot about being an elf that he didn't know.

  They covered a lot of ground while John fretted. Bennett look them off the state highway onto an even more rural road, and cut the car's headlights. He drove on, unconcerned, apparently satisfied to rely on his elven ability to see in the dark. Had John not
been able to see as well himself, he would have been terrified by the speed at which they were traveling. As it was, he decided to watch the landscape rather than the road.

  The neighborhood started to look vaguely familiar, which puzzled John until Bennett turned down a long, wooded drive and he saw the house that they were approaching. It was the safehouse where the ECSS agent Kun had taken John after he and Bear had rescued John from the clutches of Mitsutomo. The place was dark, apparently deserted.

  "What are we doing here?" he asked. "This doesn't involve Mitsutomo or spy stuff, does it?"

  "You're unnecessarily concerned. Mitsutomo no longer lias an interest in you, and the owners will never know that we've been here."

  "The place has alarms." John had seen the systems and been impressed by their thoroughness.

  "We won't be going inside."

  John noted where Bennett was piloting the car. Unnecessarily concerned, hunh? "You won't have to go inside to set off the alarms if you drive much closer in this direction."

  Bennett stopped the car and gave John an inscrutable look. "How do you know that?"

  "While you were having your conferences last time, I wasn't included. I didn't have a lot to do, so I looked around the place. I got a look at the security system before Agent Kun chased me away from it." At the time, knowing as much as possible about the place had seemed like a useful survival move.

  "And you understood the system?"

  "Well enough."

  Bennett seemed satisfied with John's answer. He shut the car down and turned to John. "You asked why we have come here. Consider. Have not your studies with Dr. Spae taught you that the symbolic content of some actions is as important, if not more so, than the actual actions? It was here that you made your first return to the otherworld. It is fitting that your return to your proper place begin here as well."

  "So you've got some kind of magical thing cooking."

  "Not all symbolic actions are directly related to things magical." Bennett cut off John's questions by getting out of the car. "Come. It is past time that we were on our way."

  John opened his door and got out. "You ever going to tell me what this is all about?"

  "I've already told you, Jack. This is about your heritage."

  It had to be more than just ensuring John's heritage. Bennett wasn't that generous, and he had played hardball to get John to go along. "What do you get out of it?"

  "An heir."

  John stood, hand still on the car door. Was Bennett serious? What did it mean?

  "All will come clear in time, but not here," Bennett said, walking toward the woods behind the house and beckoning John to follow. "Your future awaits you in the otherworld, Jack. We must go."

  John followed, aware at once when the shift between the worlds began. Bennett was controlling the passage. John didn't understand how, but he could feel the elf's effortless display of power flickering in the air around him.

  Someday John would be so adept. He promised himself

  that.

  For the moment, however, he let himself be led. He tried lo open himself to the magic as Dr. Spae had taught him, tried to let the ambiance adjust his perceptions, tried to let the understanding come. And understanding did come. He understood that something was different. Somehow this passage differed from the others that he had experienced.

  "Is something wrong?" he asked.

  "You sense a difference?" Bennett replied.

  John wanted an answer, not a question. Well, he could play that game too. "What are you doing?"

  "Taking you to the otherworld."

  "More than that."

  "Or less. There are places, deeper realms, where time flows differently."

  Like in the ballads and stories, where a man spends a night in a Faery hill and finds that twenty years have passed in the real world? Was that to be the result of coming with Bennett?

  "You have a promise to fulfill," Bennett reminded him.

  He had more than one promise to fulfill, and he would fulfill them all.

  They walked on.

  As they shifted to the otherworld, Faye's existence became more real. She went from the merest impression of presence, to flickering phantom, to insubstantial but definite wraith, to concrete physicality. Tall, though not so tall as he, her slender form moved lightly by his side, her mane of spun-silver hair floating in the breeze. Faye. She was as beautiful as he remembered her.

  How could he ever forget that she was around?

  "Do you feel better now?" Bennett asked.

  "What?" John replied distractedly.

  "This is Faery," he said.

  "You're home, John," said Faye.

  "Or nearly so," Bennett said. "We must walk a bit farther."

  They left the woods and embarked on a trek through a countryside devoid of buildings or other structures. The scenery seemed stranger, more lively, now than it had on the first trip. The multitude of stars overhead were wondrous in number and clarity, not a sight to be seen in the glow of the sprawl. John supposed that he had grown less used to greenery than he once was; the strip of trees along the river near his slump was nothing like a real forest. While growing up, the closest he'd come to really experiencing open countryside had been a few romps in the park, and those tended places offered little of the wild wonder around them. There was no place near his slump that one could go and not see something built by man—he'd always thought that a shame—but here there were no constructs. Curiously, he found himself a little unsettled by the lack, a little unnerved by all the wildness around him.

  "Nervous?" Faye slipped her hand into his as she spoke.

  "Yeah. I guess. A little." Faye's nearness sent his head buzzing and his blood racing. "And confused."

  A lot.

  "I'll help if I can," she said.

  John found himself thinking entirely too much about one sort of help she might offer. He didn't trust himself to speak, so they walked on in silence. Faye, as she always did, accepted his choice. So accommodating. Too bad they weren't alone. But they weren't and John forced himself to look everywhere but at Faye.

  The beauty around him offered distraction. Most of the landscape possessed a haunting familiarity, the way places seem familiar in a dream. A sensation well known to John. He had dreamed of the otherworld both before and after learning that he was an elf—but before, in that seemingly long-ago time, he hadn't known that the places of his dreams were real. Now he knew that those dreamscapes had been ieal. Were real. He walked across those dreamscapes now.

  He belonged here.

  Bennett stopped and suggested a rest. John didn't feel tired, but he didn't feel like disagreeing either. While Bennett and Faye sat, he paced, looking about, searching for he knew not what. Something made him restless. There was a different sort of feeling about this place, an impression of sympathy that struck a chord in him.

  "I've been here before," he said aloud, realizing where they were. "The magic pool is just over there, in the woods." That pool was where John had first seen his reflection as an elf. And where he had first seen Faye and realized that she was ... attractive? Desirable? Remembering and seeing her, palpable and solid, sitting and looking placidly off into the distance spooked him a little.

  "You have a good sense of place," Bennett said, apparently oblivious to John's turmoil. "There is time. Would you like to visit the pool again?"

  "Yes," John said. Bennett started to get up, so John quickly added, "Alone."

  Faye blinked.

  "As you wish," Bennett said.

  John immediately regretted his abruptness. With Bennett complying, there was no way that she could not. John had said "alone" and now, though he wished otherwise, was committed to it.

  He left them to await his return. As before, he found the pond easily enough by sensing and following its emanations, although he hadn't understood what he was doing the last time, ignorant as he had been of magic. In a lot of ways, he was different now. Would the magic pool show him something dif
ferent?

  As he neared the sheltered pond, he seemed to startle something, but John saw nothing except a disturbance among the bushes bordering the water. If whatever it had been was too shy to show itself, he need not feel threatened by it.

  He drew nearer the pool and found the surface of the water was as still as ever, mirror-shiny in the moonlight. He went to the spot where the bank projected over the water and sat, a bit back from the edge. By leaning forward he would be able to see his reflection in the still waters, but he was not quite ready to do that.

  First he wanted to compose himself, attune himself to the magic he felt in this place. Taking off his leather jacket to expose more of his skin to the air, he let his senses take in his surroundings. The soft rustle of the leaves in the slight breeze. The damp of the moisture in the air above the pool. The soft, springy ground beneath him. The sweet smell of growing things and the moist fragrance of the pond. The play of the starlight upon the water. He had a vague sense of being watched, but that could have been just an echo of his consciousness as he tried to become one with this place. No one and nothing disturbed his communion with the timeless moment. When he felt at peace, he leaned forward to look.

  As before, the face of an elf looked back at him. This time he knew it for a true reflection. He stared at the face, at once strange and familiar. It was a handsome face, though long and gaunt and dominated by wide, pale, slightly slanting eyes. Elven handsomeness, he supposed. His reflected ears had finely pointed tips, visible where they poked through silver hair as delicate as moonbeams. This was the face he would wear when the disguising spells were removed.

  His face.

  But not the one he had worn all his life. Regret, or something much like it, disturbed his peace. The face in the pond rippled as though the water had been disturbed, but it didn't change. It was his face.

  Whoever he was.

  Elf? By birth. Human? By nurture. Where did that leave him? Was he one or the other, or something of each? The latter, he supposed. And where did that leave him? Could he be both elf and human? As an elf, he was supposed to be heir to the elven prince Bennett, and to the magic of Faery. As a human, he was a fugitive from corporate society, a streeter in the sprawl of old Providence, and an occasional thaumaturge student to Dr. Spae. How did it all fit together? Did it fit together? Or would he have to choose one over the other?