Selling Out

by Justina Robson

  Sarasilien frowned and dug his fingers into her feet with more concentration. Lila could see a sheen of sweat on his forehead and, in this aetheric world, could see his andalune body clearly; a blue-green shimmer in the air around him, its edges clearly defined. Sorcha’s tail tip was catching hold of the substance of it behind his back and kneading it like it was saltwater taffy, stretching it out and letting it snap back into place like elastic only to dive forward and snag it again.

  He glanced up as he noticed Lila and briefly closed his eyes and almost shook, ears flattening against his head in a clear elven gesture that was the equivalent of a human shrug of helplessness and embarrassment.

  Sorcha quivered with pleasure and turned her head lazily to meet Lila’s astonished gaze. “Hey honey,” she said. “Welcome to Demonia.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  “Hey,” Lila said weakly. “I . . . um . . .” She didn’t know what to say.

  Sorcha had no such trouble. “Come and take a load off.” She sat up and offered Lila the space directly behind her, patting it with her hand. To Sarasilien she simply murmured, “That’s it, baby. Keep it going.”

  Lila simply couldn’t believe her eyes and ears. She stared at her supervisor as he massaged the demon’s feet, his aetheric body drawing the occasional pink spark from Sorcha’s impeccably smooth skin where they touched. The sparks made the frown lines between his eyebrows deepen but Lila got the clear impression that he wasn’t unhappy about the situation, only about being seen in it. She sat down where Sorcha indicated and the small, lithe demon leant back on her.

  “Gods, I forgot you’re metal!” she exclaimed. “And what happened to you? Who gave you the aetheric respray in Alfheim? I hope you weren’t all unfaithful to my brother. Well, not more than once a day.” Sorcha wriggled herself comfortable against Lila’s shoulder and offered Lila a bite of her chocolate bar. “You can finish it. I need to save myself for the banquet.”

  “Banquet?” Lila asked, completely afloat in this strange unreality. She took the chocolate and sniffed it. It was not an Otopian brand. She took a bite. It was heavenly.

  “Your entry to demon society is to be somewhat more of an affair than we had originally intended,” Sarasilien said, keeping his gaze firmly on Sorcha’s toes.

  “Oh no,” Sorcha said airily, licking melted chocolate off her fingers. “Nothing we wouldn’t do for any visitor. Not like you queens of the prim frontier serving her nothing but leaves and all that shit. Even foreign assassins coming to murder us would get a decent meal before we tore their skins off and fed them to the dogs. She’s coming in as my Otopian groupie.”

  “Your groupie,” Lila repeated. Sorcha was as much of a pop phenomenon as her brother was a rock one, but their relation wasn’t known about in Otopia and, even though she was sublimely beautiful and a great talent, Lila didn’t feel in an homage-ous mood.

  Sorcha snorted. “Okay. Friend. My geeky scholar friend come to assimilate our information for the Otopian homelands, ready to report back to all the glamorous magazines and medianets on the glorious realities of life in the perfect world.”

  “Report?”

  “You are going to write journal articles, reports, and press releases for various outlets,” Sarasilien said drily. “And some for the Demonian Tourist Board.”

  “You have a tourist board?” Lila’s sense of unreality peaked. The soft warmth of Sorcha’s crimson hair flames licked playfully over her chin.

  “Of course, darling,” Sorcha purred. “We are getting ready to welcome Otopians for city breaks, countryside retreats, and extended adventure holidays. Demonia enjoys the most cordial and free of trade relations and . . . Well, it will, in a few months’ time. And you are going to prime the pumps. In return, I and all my esteemed contacts, relations, lovers, exlovers, adoring fans, and various multinational organisations, will release selected but important information to your lovely security services to promote interdimensional harmony and the spirit of cooperation and trust so that we can make beautiful money together.” She wriggled her foot in the elf’s grasp. “More.”

  “And you’re another secret service agent, are you?” Lila asked. “What, is it a family business?”

  “Me? No, honey. I’m simply myself. But I am acting as Demonia’s representative here, and in my own interests, and mostly, mostly in Zal’s interests, because you his baby, baby. And you’ll need somebody like me fighting in your corner because of that. Somebody who’s smart and popular, and who’s got stuff on you. So I was just recruited.”

  “By?”

  Sarasilien looked up. “I thought it would be best.”

  Lila gave him a wide-eyed meaningful stare, looking from his face down to his hardworking hands and back again. What gives?

  His ear tips went pink.

  “I thought elves and demons had oppositional magics and didn’t like each other.”

  “We do. We don’t,” Sorcha sighed. “Have you ever had an elf, Li? What am I saying? Of course you have. Look at this.” She snapped Sarasilien’s andalune again. “That kind of hurts us both. But it’s also kind of nice. Like picking scabs that are just about ready to come off. You know? It’s fizzy. The magic is all attracted to each other, but then it meets and pow! It doesn’t match and where it touches there’s this reaction and zap! Ouch. Lovely. Really, really good. And then you do this.” She penetrated Sarasilien’s blue-green shimmer with her tail point and shuddered deliciously, “and it’s like scratching the most intense itch—sooo gooood! But then.” She pulled out. “You have to stop, or else you’ll start to bleed and it burns—ahhhh! And you just know that in ten seconds it’ll be itching like you can’t believe.”

  Lila didn’t think she should be listening, looking, or knowing about this.

  “Miss Sorcha is trying to explain that there is more to our difference than simple alchemical responses or aetheric reaction. Culturally we are . . .”

  “Well, you know them,” Sorcha cut him off. “Captain Uptight and the Uptightathons. All serious and holy and pure and dull as the dullest thing.”

  “And I know you,” Sarasilien said without twitching an eyebrow, “oh exemplar of the most exquisite indulgence. And you know that demons always say this about elves,” he did something to her foot and she squeaked, “because you like to make fun. But you don’t really mean it.”

  Sorcha lay back and rested her head in Lila’s lap. “We do so mean it. They have some minor amusement value back home. That’s all. Now, we have to get you some better clothes, and then we can be on our way. Oh, and your man here has to finish my massage, of course. Part of the deal.”

  Get her away! Tath pleaded. Lila could feel his anxiety and not a small amount of revulsion. He was cringing, and it wasn’t simply with fear of discovery.

  Sorcha, who wasn’t privy to that moment, gave Lila a conspirato rial look and added in a whisper, “Silly Illy here took almost ten minutes to agree. Can you believe the nerve? Most men would be paying me their inheritance to do what he’s doing and yet I have to trade with the idiot!”

  Lila burst out laughing.

  Sarasilien glanced at her and smiled. “You see? I knew she would be the right one for you.”

  “Ah!” Sorcha shrieked, her face breaking into an adoring expression. “Don’t you just love him to death? All that elven arrogance and patrician garbage he puts out, but it’s all about you the whole time. How cool is that? You gone up in my ’stimation, girl. Not that you weren’t up there the whole time. Did you screw my brother’s brains out yet? I didn’t get a note telling me you were gonna collect on my bet.”

  It was Lila’s turn to blush. “Um. No win yet. Still all ongoing with the Game.”

  “Oh. Tell me you didn’t do him already. Don’t you know anything about anything? And he was ripe for the picking, honey. He would have bailed, no question. Now it’s gonna be much harder. But I still think you’re gonna win, even if you do have to break his heart before you do. Now, what say we share this one here? He’s not
much of an aperitif, I know, but it’s as good as it’s gonna get this side of the border. Man, this place is a pleasure desert. I am so out of love with all the serious talk and diplomatic yar yar yar.”

  “Share?” Lila was sure she understood Sorcha this time. “That’s obscene.”

  “Don’t you use that language with me, lady!” Sorcha snapped and sat up. She grabbed the end of the chocolate bar out of Lila’s hand and bit a piece off, showing her pointed white teeth.

  Oh, thank you, Tath said fervently.

  Sarasilien’s adroit hands never stopped. “Sorcha’s favours aren’t lightly offered,” he said calmly, as though they were talking about dividing a piece of bread. “Although it is common practice in Demonia to make little of great offerings. You must excuse Lila, princess of delight. She knows next to nothing about demons.”

  “Ah am appraised of that fact,” Sorcha drawled and pushed at his abdomen with one foot, teasingly. “Listen to him call me a princess, like he thinks I don’t know he’s making butter.” But the compliment had pleased her.

  Lila used the excuse to get up. “If there’s things I should get before we go . . .”

  “Not you, moron.” Sorcha plucked her feet out of Sarasilien’s hold and stood up. “You and this frigid creature have to have some kind of long and boring talk, apparently. I’ll go and see to all your stuff. No worries.” She twirled around and sat down in Sarasilien’s lap to put on her shoes—a pair of beautiful, almost strapless high heels. She smiled softly and changed in a second, from her pretended strop into a seductress, placing her mouth against the elf’s and her hands on his shoulders, giving him a long and lingering kiss before bouncing up, light as a feather, and flouncing out without a backward glance. The door slammed behind her.

  Lila stared at Sarasilien. In these few moments everything about their relationship had changed. She hadn’t noticed him as a sexual being, and now she did. She had never had to think about him as anything but what he meant to her: security, reliability, parental strength, a protector, a fellow worker. Now she saw that he was a proper person, and that she had never seen him like that before. Her own arrogance amazed her.

  The elf drew in a deep breath through his nose and blew it out very slowly through his lips before meeting her eye. “Cara Delaware is convinced by her demon advisers that you will be able to pull off this journalistic feat of investigation and reportage in Demonia. This is because no human has ever been into Demonia proper; they are all groomed to perceive what Demonia thinks fit for them to perceive at any given moment. Of course this is the way with all of us. However, her briefing materials, which she has given me to give you,” he paused and reached down to his side, picking up a sheaf of paper, “are all exquisitely researched, but they will not serve you.” He dropped them. “It is not remotely possible for you to enter Demonia and live there undercover. You must go as Sorcha’s guest or not at all. And, speaking of undercover matters, perhaps you would like to enlighten me as to the nature of your suddenly acquired aetheric signature?”

  Lila had to struggle not to squirm.

  He means the metal elements, Tath murmured, distilled to a drop.

  “I do not mean the metal elementals fused into the kind of alloys that the dark elves make in the foundries of night, though the gift of it is a startling revelation. But we need not speak of it now, nor fathom your story that it was given by Dar, which cannot be true, can it—else Arië would have treated differently with you,” Sarasilien added calmly. He gestured around him with both hands. “You may speak freely to me, as a friend, Lila.”

  Watch it, Tath whispered, afraid.

  Lila looked around at the room, realising that Sarasilien was emphasising the fact that his office was not part of Otopia any longer. They were in Demonia. What he would never say in Otopia he would say here, including criticism of Cara. And he would do . . .

  “Sarasilien isn’t your real name,” she blurted, barely thinking it through before she spoke.

  “No,” he admitted and Lila felt what was left of any conviction she had possessed concerning the loyalties of those she knew dissolve into nothing under her. “But here I am at least free to tell you so.”

  “What else do you want to tell me?” she asked, tears coming to her eyes even though she did her damnedest to stop them.

  “That I am still your friend, though I realise it must seem that this day heaps one betrayal on another. Such is the way of our business. This is how I can believe in your friendship with Dar, and at the same time comprehend perfectly how it was between you at the end.”

  Who is he? Tath wondered, an itch in her thoughts.

  Lila ignored him. “Do you mean that you’ll kill me if you have to?”

  “No,” the elf said. “It is in all of our interests that you travel safely and exit Demonia alive.”

  “Is this a secret cabal of our interests?” Lila asked, her heart hammering, feeling like it had been struck with a pickaxe. “How about you tell me about that and then I’ll tell you what’s eating you about me. And never mind that for a minute. How the hell could you do this?”

  “Do what? Tell you the truth?”

  “Is that what this is?”

  “Lila.” The tall elf moved closer to her and placed his hands passively into his lap, resting the backs of them on his legs. “Nationality, statehood, these formations of mass identity are all false idolatry. It is a heresy in Alfheim to say so, yet I am in agreement with Zal and those of Dar’s party when they speak of the only true self being the spirit within (a contentious definition I will gladly speak with you of another time) and the only true relation of interest or value the friendship of equals. If I could give you my name and it not be a burden to you, because the knowing of it bestows a power that others will try to steal, then I would give it to you now. But I am not about to spend so unwisely for you or myself. I cannot give you anything concrete to anchor my faith to your trust excepting the token of some information. I am concerned that you have already given over much too much of this to another. Will you tell me about the andalune around your heart?”

  “If you tell me how I can stop anyone else seeing it.”

  The elf whose name she did not know said, “Talismanic protection is the best I can offer.”

  “I’ll take it, and if you stiff me . . .”

  “If I stiff you, as you so eloquently put it, you will only find out too late.” His voice was calm but he smiled delicately. “Unfortunately you will have to keep trusting me to discover whether or not I am worthy of your investment.” He stood up and crossed the room to a fume cupboard. Beneath the glass hood of its extractor deck an old, much worn chest of drawers supported a marble slab. He unclipped the bindings which held the slab in place and hinged it aside, reaching into a narrow compartment beneath it. He returned to Lila with a delicate silver chain, upon which hung a garland of pink roses made from clusters of tiny gemstones.

  Amethysts, Tath said. Good enough against demons, and ninety percent of the eleven population, which makes him in the top ten. That means noble families and I must know him, so besides the fact you do not know his name I think you might assume you do not know his face either.

  “Not your colour,” Lila said aloud to her mentor, trying to lighten the mood, indeed, to do anything that could bring her back to the place where she could feel good about letting him into the sphere of her awareness again, with the solidity she used to have in him, like he was part of her furniture.

  “Nor do I need it. I am beyond the ability of such items to affect me for good or ill,” he said. “But I have charmed it to . . .”

  “When?” said Lila and Tath at the same moment.

  “As I took it out of its place.”

  Bad news. I didn’t spot anything. No words. No nothing. He must be a synae- thete.

  A what?

  They do not require a medium to access aetheric power. Such people are extremely rare, one in a billion. If that’s the case he may not even be an elf.

 
Stop now. I can’t deal with this until later.

  As you wish. Be on your guard. But it may be the demon was right about one matter. He is showing you clearly the truth of his nature, and that should either honour or appal you, for no being of such power needs reveal themselves to another.

  Sarasilien—she could not think of him another way—placed the necklace around her throat and did up the catch.

  I wonder what else is on this thing? Tath worried.

  “Thank you.”

  He could be lying of course . . .

  “The dead elf in my chest thinks you’re lying about the necklace.”

  “Then they are a worthwhile ally. I assume that if you had wanted to be rid of them you would have achieved this or asked. Your secret is safe with me. But I wonder what motivates you. You struggle so hard to accept your change into a machine, why go further and become a boarding house to ghosts?”

  “I like variety?”

  The elf broke into a smile and then a quiet laugh.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Lila sat in the Great Library of Bathshebat, chewing the end of her pencil. She was in a private turret, seated at a semicircular desk of exquisite workmanship, scrolls and books open around her. From their pages and runes a faint mist of colour and scent wove up into a pretty veil. Through this lacework she could easily see the pointed arches of the turret’s fine windows and through them across the city’s towers, parapets, pinnacles, domes, minarets, spires, and roofs. Jewel-like enamel and coloured tiles flourished in dazzling beauty everywhere beneath the sapphire blue of the sky. It was a riot of beauty.