Foul is Fair

by Cook, Jeffrey

  "Hey, even better. I'm just glad the armor did its job before. Some of those fights could have been a lot worse."

  Justin rolled his recently dislocated shoulder, as if to make sure it worked properly after the injuries. Thankfully, between time and the bits of Megan's healing, it seemed to be almost fully recovered. "I think they were bad enough."

  "We'll try for less bad this time, yeah. No more golems and no more explosions." Megan wished she could promise more than that, but it was a good place to start.

  "The last I can't promise. I put the sword in the stone. I should try to recover it for you."

  "That didn't exactly go well last time. So glad you didn't end up with third-degree burns from the fire or something.”

  Justin shrugged. “It didn't hurt.”

  “Oh. Well, yeah, Faerie's weird sometimes about what doesn't hurt.” Megan remembered the thorn-vine that had scratched and the briarmail that hadn't.

  Lani glanced at the sword sheath. "Sometimes. Or there may just be something about the sword and its sheath that protects the bearer. That is pretty intense flame close up."

  "Okay, so maybe there's something to that. It's an awfully big risk, though. It's going to be guarded, even if you can stand the fire."

  That part, no one had an answer for. The idea was good, but Megan couldn't think of any way to deal with whoever Orlaith had on watch, and despite the week to talk, the others hadn't come up with anything.

  "The Count says that haunted-house grapes don't taste anything remotely like eyeballs," Ashling said, instead of hello, as they landed on the windowsill.

  Megan didn't bother to ask where any of that line of comparison came from. From the moment she went to the window to greet them, she was far too captivated by the appearance of Halloween. With the light starting to dim, what lights there were became more obvious, the fog machine of the people next door was turned on, and the clashing decorations all over the neighborhood were somehow just perfect. The mix of ghostly noises, canned screams, and maniacal laughter audible now that the window was open didn't hurt either. She was sure it was just going to be even louder and more perfect tomorrow.

  Her reverie was only broken when Lani put a hand on her shoulder. "So, you haven't gotten into your bag yet. What are you going as this year?"

  “Eh, I brought my Red Riding Hood cape from last year.”

  “But you're usually so into dressing up."

  "Sure, but there didn't seem to be a lot of point this year. I'm not sure I want any of the candy they'd hand out in Faerie."

  "This is the perfect time to dress up," Ashling chimed in.

  "I kind of have to agree with her," Lani said. "Weird as that sounds. We could use a little distraction. And this isn't really like you."

  Megan blinked, mind going back through some of her old costumes—all homemade, since she was small, and often as much art project as disguise. There was something that felt right about the comment. She just wasn't placing it. "Maybe. I'll have to think about it," She draped the red cape over her shoulders and secured it, pulling the hood up while she pondered. Then, glancing down at the things she'd brought, she dug into the bag again. "But I kind of want to think to music."

  Chapter 33: Inspiration

  “That's one of your Mom's albums?”

  “Yeah... have you heard it before? Cassia apparently has.”

  “Cassia was a grown woman obsessed with the local music scene before we were born. No, I've never seen it. Mom apparently spent the '90s into five kinds of folk music. That's when she added the ukulele to the collection.”

  “Figures. Well, I'm all for not being the last one to know what my mom used to sound like. Do you mind?” Since no one minded, Megan put the CD in—but skipped the first track. She hadn't heard the rest, but was pretty sure, from the titles, none of the others had much to do with describing pregnancy complications in way too much detail.

  The next song started out a lot differently. Instead of the brooding, heavy guitars in minor key behind the off-kilter poetry, this one opened into a walking baseline. It was like something out of the blues, providing a structure everything else built on as the drums kicked in, then the lead guitar. The lyrics started out almost spoken-word, her mother's voice coming across as intense, but steady and controlled. Megan glanced at the back of the CD. The second track was ‘Good Fences (Make Me Crazy).’ As she did, the refrain hit, and the song went into full-voiced rock, except for that baseline. Nice and steady, a good fence for all the rock craziness and suddenly melodic screaming.

  When the song finally wound to a close, Lani was just staring at the speakers. "Wow... your mother had some kind of voice. That was amazing. What's next?"

  Megan glanced at the case again. "Next one, uhm, 'Monster. Peace. Theater.'" She took the words slow, enunciating each as they were written. Yet again, everything shifted. The instrumentals weaved in and out, as her mother sang about late nineties international events. Megan didn't follow all of the references, and some of the lyrics may have not been intended as entirely literal. Regardless, no one was in any hurry to stop the music, and Megan felt she was meeting whole new sides to her mother with each song.

  It got even more personal when she first heard her mother and father interacting. The next song was 'Psych Ward Composition,' with her mother singing the lead. While she sang, the bass was steady, just picking up bit by bit as the song went on. Then, her father took every other verse, providing the rich, dark voices in the head of the fictive 'I' of the song—or perhaps not so fictive. He remained smooth, sounding entirely reasonable despite increasingly erratic suggestions, while the lead's vocals and the accompanying bassline became more and more strained. Only Ashling seemed unperturbed by the song, just swaying and occasionally dancing along to the tune, especially Riocard's parts.

  Now, both Megan and Lani were staring at the speakers, a bit wide-eyed. As the song wound down, they exchanged a glance.

  "That was intense," Lani offered, pausing the music.

  "That might have been the creepiest duet ever," Megan agreed. "They were really, really good. I think this next song might be a little... uhm, lighter, though."

  "What's this one?"

  Megan showed her the back cover. "’Yet Another Song About Jumping.’"

  "That sounds promising. Like something you can dance to, finally," Lani agreed, Ashling notwithstanding. She turned the music back on.

  The next song was more or less what it advertised. Amidst making fun of a lot of light, fluffy pop music in a tongue-in-cheek fashion, the song turned out to be not just danceable, but enthusiastically so. Halfway through the song, Megan grabbed for Justin's hand—he had been sitting quietly confused throughout the process of listening to what he had to simply trust was music—and pulled him into the bouncing and jumping around. It took a little bit, but by the time the long song was winding down, he seemed much more relaxed, and even seemed to be enjoying jumping around and dancing with the girls.

  If anything, Ashling was even more enthusiastic, hitching a ride from the Count to the top of the speakers so she wouldn't be underfoot while the humans were jumping, then throwing herself into the dance with total abandon—almost falling off several times—while the Count just watched with as bemused an expression as a beak allowed for.

  As she danced and let herself relax, more and more of the commentary through the day started to play through Megan's mind. The more she let go of the tension of the week, the more readily ideas came. Nothing was concrete yet, but a plan began to form.

  The Jumping song trailed off, then the band opened into “Why Is It Monday?” What struck Megan was how much trouble she had picturing her mother having ever gotten up to the wild weekends that made waking up and going back to normal life so difficult in the song's lament. Listening to what the song expressed as horrors, she was pretty sure her early-twenties mother wouldn't like her current self very much. Of course, thinking of the green pills, Megan admitted it was hard to say whether her mother currently
did like herself much.

  At the same time, she could hear shades of the same person and personality in the lyrics. She opened up the case, checking through the credits. She somehow wasn't surprised to see her mother's name listed repeatedly. She wrote or helped write almost every song. She played the bass. She sang. She did the cover art photos. She did a lot of the arrangement and sound engineering. Megan considered that, along with the lyrics and what she knew of some of her mother's old contacts. It seemed that even in the days her mother partied hard enough to catch the attention of a faerie king, she was still a hard worker. It was just that, along the way, the partying had disappeared.

  When the song ended, she borrowed the remote from Lani, pausing, and then shifting backwards.

  "There's still half of the album to go. This is really, really good stuff," Lani protested, but didn't try to stop her.

  "I know. We can listen to all of it. I just wanted to hear the Jumping song again. There's just something on the tip of my brain, and jumping helps."

  Lani looked confused, Justin looked even more confused. But Ashling was grinning. "That's my girl," the pixie cheered, starting into the dancing before the music even began.

  And so the tone shifted again, moving away from the workday lament, and back into playfully making fun of fluffy pop music and encouraging jumping and bouncing around. Megan didn't hesitate this time, grabbing for her friends' hands and leading them through jumping and weaving around the room to the music.

  By the time it ended and they paused the music again, she was thoroughly out of breath, staggering over to flop onto Lani's bed. Megan stayed there for a moment, breathing and thinking. She sat up and looked at Lani intently. “Get Cassia. I have a plan.”

  Chapter 34: Implementing the Plan

  Most of Friday night and much of Saturday morning was spent in preparation. Lani stayed up past when the rest went to bed, working with various springs and an old alarm clock, managing to finish the project in time to get a little sleep.

  Kerr showed up right on schedule on Saturday morning, with breakfast for everyone in hand. Convincing Kerr to take part took some doing and involved bringing Mr. Kahale in on the effort. He wasn't happy that the girls and Justin were putting themselves back into danger, but he also couldn't come up with anything better and agreed that both they, and Kerr, would have the menehune contingent's support.

  After breakfast, they set out, following Ashling's lead. Kerr took the first step in the plan, moving to convince the other brownies to see that Megan and the rest would have assistance and messengers anywhere, even if they needed to come and go quietly. Additionally, Kerr moved to deliver a message to a few of Cassia's friends, despite some nervousness at doing so. Thus a few of the Unseelie knew they were coming, but the group wasn't met by Orlaith's guards and escorted into any sort of 'protective custody' until the Dance. So across the green lawn, in the chilled but gold-suffused air, they walked. Cassia and Justin simply wore their armor, but Lani was decked out in her mechanic's costume, and Megan was Red Riding Hood.

  The walk through the halls of An Teach Deiridh were different from the last trip. From the start, the place was ridiculously crowded. Faeries of sorts she hadn't even seen yet were crowded in alongside even more of the population she did recognize. There were guards posted at the ballroom doors and those of all major rooms. Pixies and sprites flitted about over the heads of the bigger folk, delivering messages or keeping an eye on things. With all of the pixies flitting about, Megan knew they had to move fast. They were met by some of Cassia's friends, who, along with the satyress and her leopards, helped clear a path through the halls until they were in the distinctly Unseelie wing. From there, Megan headed for Riocard's room.

  Once they were into the darker halls, various groups of Unseelie tried to approach them. Some looked especially threatening to Megan, though she didn't know whether they were aware of the Queen's plans and blaming Megan for her help with the sword, or just interested in the taste of princess. Thankfully, between Cassia and her friends, none of those got particularly close.

  The second group seemed to be wanting to offer help with whatever she wanted to do. Rumors were circling, and in the Unseelie ranks, that made for a lot of anger at the Queen, but no real unity or organization regarding doing anything about it. Some just wanted someone to take their frustrations out on, others were clearly ready to do something, but had no plan for what that something should be. She guessed that the dungeons were full as well, until after the Dance, at least.

  Cassia warned away a few of those seeming to want to offer aid, while telling others to come talk to her and where she'd be. Megan wasn't sure of the difference between who she told what, but Megan felt that Cassia could navigate this better than she would herself.

  Regardless, they were able to get to their destination, her father's room. Just before she entered, she noticed a will o' wisp floating nearby. While she was pretty certain that the Queen and her guard weren't going to approach them in Riocard's room, she was far less certain of the Gray Lady. Likewise, she knew that even among the Unseelie, the Queen had her contacts and allies. Likely as not, some of them would be pretending to oppose the Queen's plans but would sabotage anything Megan tried to do.

  And indeed, just as they'd gotten everyone into the room, the figure came in the doorway. Tarnished silver hair, pearl-streaked skin, empty eyes—the Gray Lady stared.

  “I wanted to tell you…I am sorry your quest…backfired,” the wisps whispered.

  “Yeah,” Megan said. “It did.”

  “I also simply wanted to…let you know something,” the whispers continued. “Sometimes it is better to wait things out. Rash action could endanger my people.”

  “Our people,” Megan interrupted. She may have accepted that she probably should try not to fit in all the way, all the time, but if she was going to be hearing creepy veiled threats, she wasn't going to let herself be painted as just a foreigner, too.

  “Our people. I would advise against endangering them further. Waiting…one gets used to it.”

  “I'll keep that in mind, thanks,” Megan said blankly.

  The pearl-mottled face lowered in a nod, and the tarnished figure and adjacent points of light withdrew from the closing doorway.

  After that, they settled into the room. There was occasional commotion at the doors, and Cassia moved to meet with some of her friends, assuring them there was a plan, and either making sure they'd know when to help Megan and company get out of An Teach Deiridh, or telling a select few that they'd be welcome to go along to help in the eventual effort. Regardless what else she told them, she wouldn't tell anyone the plans or where they were going. While Cassia tended to the door, Lani went searching through the room for anything potentially useful for the trip. “Justin,” Lani said as she pointed to one of the swords on the wall. He nodded and took it, slipping it into the ornate sheath of the Claiomh Solais.

  Megan and Ashling were going through papers around the piano, seeking more clues and useful songs, when nervous-looking brownies arrived with lunch and, as requested, extra food. The group packed up as soon as they felt as equipped and ready as possible.

  On cue, selections of Cassia's associates caused small disturbances throughout the castle, drawing guards. Only then did Cassia and the chariot come barreling out of Riocard's room, followed closely by Justin. It wasn't long before they developed a following. Some of those who gathered up around them were those Cassia invited. Others quickly took up the cause, or just started running along out of curiosity or the odd spirit of the mob.

  Regardless, by the time they reached the front doors, they had a chaotic momentum that the handful of guards left weren't going to stop. There was a bit of scuffling, but Cassia, Justin, and most of the Unseelie mob reached the doors and began the rush towards the wood where the sword was held. Pixies and other winged things rushed above them, some following the mob, some racing ahead of it to warn and reinforce the defenders.

  As soon as the rushi
ng footfalls, shouts and chariot wheels were off in the distance, Ashling peeked her head out the door. She finally gestured. "Come on, I know a back way out. Just keep it quiet." She jumped onto the Count's back, and the crow took off through the twisting hallways.

  Space-mechanic Lani and Red-Riding-Megan followed, hugging the walls as best they could while keeping pace. "Are you sure the compass is going to work?" Red-Riding-Megan asked, while trying to keep the crow in sight.

  "Between this and a pixie guiding us, we should be able to find him, no matter what enchantments and illusions are up around that cave, yes."

  "Did you find anything in the room in case we run into guards? The Queen will be watching the cave, too."

  "Not that either of us could use. We'll just have to be sneaky and hope Justin and Cassia buy us enough time."

  Chapter 35: Charge for the Sword

  It wasn't long before Cassia and Justin hit resistance. The Unseelie had a knack for chaotic charges, but there was a lot of ground to cover, and by appearances, the Queen had been prepared for just this. As soon as they hit covered ground, bands of soldiers appeared to engage them, or to trap one or two stragglers and fall back into the woods. Sometimes sheer numbers and enthusiasm fought them off, sometimes they thinned the pack a small amount with success, and sometimes, members of Cassia's troop gave chase, lowering her numbers more. It wasn't long before the woods rang with the sounds of battle.

  Justin shouted a warning and raised his new shield, wincing only slightly. Pixie arrows mostly bounced off the metal, with a few sticking into it, hitting with more force than he'd have imagined possible for such tiny projectiles. Cassia growled off the words of a protective enchantment, not against the arrows themselves—those stuck neatly into her flesh in a few places, along with a number striking the cats. Her invigoration spell fought off the sleeping spells on the arrows, letting her and the cats keep moving through the hail of projectiles, all of the trio looking angrier than before the spell was cast.