The Otherworld

by Mercedes Lackey

  Felouen watched them as the group broke into a debate over standing watch versus not standing watch. I know what the problem is. Nothing really scares them anymore, she thought. They have been the fastest and the strongest and the best for so long, they believe they can't be hurt. Except by our Unseleighe kin, and this time they aren't involved.

  When the group announced its decision to post a bare-bones watch so thin that she knew it was merely a token thrown in her direction because she was the warriors' chieftain, she smiled bitterly. Well, I hope they're right.

  After the main group had drifted off, several of the Ring-sworn, who had waited in silence, came up to stand in front of her. She recognized all of them from long-ago campaigns together, or from more recent social meetings. Of the group, considered by most of the elvenkind in Elfhame Outremer to be dreadfully conservative, Amallen was nominal leader. Amallen bent one knee slightly—Old World manners—and briefly bowed his head.

  "Lady," he said in grave tones, "do not think too badly of them. They have not fought beside you—and they cannot imagine a human child who could bring forth anything that could endanger them. We," and with a nod of his head he indicated his companions, "have decided among ourselves to stand a separate watch. We will begin at once; we have already set our shifts. The others will realize that they were wrong later—and some may die learning their folly. We don't need to see the monsters to smell their taint. There is something sorely wrong here—and though we cannot fathom it, we cannot doubt it."

  Felouen smiled gratefully, as relief so profound it made her knees weak washed over her. "Those who will later owe you their lives will thank you. I know that thanks is due now." She hugged each of the nine who had supported her for so long. "I wish this were idle worrying. As it is, I know you won't be standing your watches alone for long."

  * * *

  Belinda grinned at herself in the rearview mirror. The worm turns—that's the phrase, I think. The worm turns. She readjusted the mirror and stretched the stiff muscles in her shoulders.

  The worm has certainly turned in my favor now. The light changed from red to green, and Belinda headed through the intersection and pointed the car out of town. She'd spent the night in the Thunderbird, unwilling to move her captive out of the security of the trunk, and equally unwilling to leave her in the trunk while she slept inside her motel room. No sense taking a chance on the teacher waking up and making enough noise to get herself rescued. And she couldn't think of anyplace to keep the woman—until she remembered the abandoned building out in the middle of nowhere that she'd hiked past the night Mac Lynn stole her car.

  It would work well enough, Belinda thought. Tie the teacher up, steal her clothes so that she didn't get the urge to do any wandering even if she got loose, and leave her.

  Of course, killing her immediately would be a lot less complicated. There was nothing to connect her with the woman; nothing left behind to incriminate Belinda. It would be just one more senseless abduction-murder—probably wind up on "Unsolved Mysteries." If she killed the teacher, there wouldn't be any witnesses who might cause trouble later, and Mac Lynn didn't need to know his little slut was dead—hell, the whole purpose of this business had been to get him by the balls. Belinda smiled. The tone of his voice over the phone told him she'd accomplished that. So Miss Teacher had served her purpose. He'd go where Belinda told him to go, hoping that his girlfriend would still be alive.

  The abandoned house would still make a good destination. It could be weeks or even months before someone found the body—Belinda and the child and Mel Tanbridge would be well away from North Carolina by then.

  She retraced her trip from that night carefully, stopping and backtracking on a couple of occasions as she missed a turn. It was a long drive, made longer by the fact that she felt obligated to drive the speed limit right then. It would be a stone bitch to get pulled with a well-beaten kidnap victim in her possession.

  The sun rode higher and the day started getting hot—a nice enough change, Belinda thought, after the cold, wet crap of the day before. She drove past hundreds of little rural houses, all of them ordinary, all of them quiet—which suited her just fine. But none of them was the one she wanted.

  Finally she spotted the place. Weeds had overgrown the drive, and kudzu, greening as the weather warmed, covered everything else. In another month, the house would be completely invisible under its kudzu blanket.

  Perfect. I'll have to thank Mac Lynn for helping me find this dump.

  Now, what to do with little miss schoolmarm?

  Belinda considered only an instant, then decided. Hostages were risky, and too much trouble to take care of. Dead bodies, on the other hand, were very little trouble at all. She'd rather deal with corpses than captives any day.

  So, she'd get the woman out of the trunk, march her into the place. Shoot her in the head, shove the body through some loose floorboards—there were bound to be some loose floorboards in there somewhere. Then she'd find a phone, call Mac Lynn, have him meet her—where?

  Why not out here? Torture the bastard, dump him next to his girlfriend while he's still alive and can appreciate it—then kill him. That would be fair after what he's done to me.

  First the girlfriend.

  She pulled into the weed-choked drive, and the Thunderbird bumped along, weeds and sticks hissing and thumping against the glossy brown finish. She stopped the car when she was right behind the house. It was going to be hell to get back out again, she thought with displeasure.

  The place was dilapidated, the wrap-around porch sagged to the ground in several places, and the only part of the structure that looked slightly solid were the boards nailed over the windows. There had been something nailed over the door, too, but that had been ripped away. The actual door hung on one rusted hinge, partway open. The place was a perfect haven for snakes and rats and God only knew what else. At least that probably keeps the riff-raff out, she mused. More than that ludicrous little sign, anyway.

  The building was posted, "NO TRESPASS—G BY ORDER OF T—." Rain and sun and wind had bleached the yellow sign to bone white on one side and obliterated much of its message. Dump looks like the place where the universe goes to die. It gave her the creeps worse in the daylight than it had at night. She realized that was because she could see it better in daylight.

  Belinda pulled out her gun. It was a good, reliable weapon. She didn't use it often—guns weren't subtle enough for her taste most of the time—but it had never let her down.

  Still, she didn't much like the idea of killing the teacher—it would hurt the bastard race driver, but it was extra. She wasn't getting paid for it—and that made it dirtier, somehow, than killing for pay. Or for revenge.

  Belinda looked out at the bleak ruin. I'll be doing her a favor, she decided. It would be worse for her if I left her here alive.

  She slipped the gun into its holster and pulled the keys out of the ignition. It would be a long time before she made the mistake of leaving them in it again—no matter how little time she intended to be gone. She popped the latch on the trunk, got out, and walked around to the back, fighting her way through burrs and thorns and tenacious stickers.

  She pulled her shoulders back and took a deep breath. The gap between the trunk and the hood looked odd for a moment. Peculiar. It gave her the shivers for just a moment, like someone had stepped on her grave.

  She shook off the feeling.

  Ah, well. Showtime, she thought.

  She reached down to release the latch.

  * * *

  Cethlenn flew Abbey across the slick ice-barrier that Alice had created to protect her domain, then floated both of them down to stand in the long, white-on-white corridor.

  Amanda-Abbey studied the high-arched ceiling and the unadorned walls that ran, unbroken, to the vanishing point. "She's in there?" she asked.

  "Somewhere," Cethlenn agreed.

  Abbey stared at the nothingness, puzzled. "How will we find her?"

  Cethlenn didn't s
eem concerned. "We won't. She'll find us."

  "We're just going to wait here?" Abbey asked, hoping that Cethlenn had some plan.

  Cethlenn gave the girl a weary smile. "I wish it were so easy. No—we'll walk. Make lots of noise."

  That made no sense at all. "Why?"

  "You'll see," Cethlenn promised.

  The two of them started down the corridor, stomping on the floor as hard as they could, sending the clamor of their footsteps ringing on ahead of them. Amanda-Abbey started hopping, and her heavy thumps increased the racket—until she noticed the noise becoming muffled, and the floor on which she jumped becoming springier.

  She looked down at her feet. "Cethlenn," she whispered, "look! The floor is growing carpet!"

  "Aye." Cethlenn did not seem surprised. "She always does that after a bit. Now we must sing. Know you a bothersome song that we can sing together?"

  " `One Hundred Bottles of Beer on the Wall,' " Abbey offered after a moment's thought.

  Cethlenn shook her head. "Sing a bit of it for me."

  Amanda-Abbey did, while the witch listened.

  "Oh, for sure—" Cethlenn laughed. "That will drive her to distraction."

  They resumed marching while they bellowed through nearly forty verses of the song. Again, Abbey noticed a change, as their singing echoed less and less, and seemed closer and smaller—though she knew she was making just as much noise as she had at the first.

  Cethlenn looked up and pointed at the ceiling.

  Amanda-Abbey's gaze followed the gesture. "She's lowered it."

  "Now we bring her to us," Cethlenn whispered. "Here. Take this." The witch made a gesture, and a pail of bright yellow paint appeared in her hand. She offered it to Abbey, who took it and stared at it in confusion.

  Cethlenn created blue and pink paints for herself, in the brightest tints imaginable. She took the pink pail, and slung it against one wall. Fluorescent streaks spread in gaudy profusion, and dripped messily down the surface of the corridor. The witch followed the same procedure with the blue.

  Amanda-Abbey watched, appalled. "That's not very nice, Cethlenn," she said.

  "It had to be done." The witch shrugged. "Now you do yours."

  Abbey bit her lip, then tipped her can and dribbled just a bit of the yellow onto the floor.

  "Not on the carpet!" a shrill soprano voice screeched, and a child raced out of hiding and yanked the can away from Abbey.

  Abbey and Alice stared at each other. Abbey thought that the girl appeared to be about her own age—but that similarity was the only one Abbey could find. The other girl was as white as the walls around her—white hair, white face, white lips, white clothes—no hint of color touched any part of her except for her eyes. The girl's eyes were gray, but they were neither the bright and lively gray of kittens nor the safe gray of the bark of old maple trees, nor the firm and dependable gray of the stones in good fireplaces. They were the dismal gray of drizzly late afternoons when the sun hadn't been out all day. They were the flat gray of institutional paint, the kind Abbey saw used on garage floors and storage rooms, and the kind she suspected prisons would be painted in.

  "I'm Abbey," she said, lost in the hopelessness of those gray, gray eyes. "I'm—I'm your sister."

  The gray eyes narrowed. "You made a mess!" Alice fumed. "You tracked on my carpet, you were noisy, you were singing in my hall!" She glared at the two of them, then pointed her finger at Cethlenn. "You have come here before. I don't want you here."

  "Alice!" Cethlenn took the authoritarian posture and voice of a demanding adult. "You are being rude to your guest. You have not properly introduced yourself to your sister."

  Alice wasn't fooled for a second. "I'm not the one who went into peoples' houses and stomped and screamed and sang wicked songs and threw paint on the walls and tracked it into the carpet. That's evil. Evil! I don't have to be polite to evil people—the Bible says not to countenance wickedness."

  Abbey raised an eyebrow and looked at the witch. :This is my sister? She's awful. Why would anyone ever let her come out?:

  :She's very good at cleaning up messes. That's something neither you nor Anne have managed yet. Adults think she is a very good child, she knows manners—and she is very organized and very patient. And she doesn't mind being alone.: Cethlenn rested a hand on Abbey's shoulder. :She also knows things you don't know. You need her.:

  :Then we shouldn't have dumped paint on her carpet.:

  Cethlenn waved her hand at the paint that still marked walls and floor. It vanished, along with the paint cans that had contained it. :Now she doesn't have as much to be upset about.:

  Cethlenn jammed her thumbs into the braided belt that wrapped around her narrow waist and leaned down until her eyes were on a level with Amanda-Alice's. "If you want to stop real wickedness, come with us," she told the pale girl. "You have yet another sister, who protects both of you. She thinks the way to protect you is by making monsters—and that is what she is doing now. She has to be stopped."

  "Making—monsters?" Alice looked at Abbey. "You are going to stop her?"

  Abbey shrugged helplessly. "Cethlenn says the two of us can't. We need more help."

  Alice's eyes lit with a zealot's glee. "I'll help. When we've stopped her, I'll tell her about the Bible."

  Amanda-Abbey, who had met Anne once before, had doubts about the wisdom of that, but she kept them to herself. She figured Alice would reconsider, too, once she'd met the other "sister." So she said nothing, just nodded.

  Cethlenn said, "Excellent. I'm glad you're joining us, Alice. We can put your talents to good use."

  Abbey tried not to be bothered by the fact that, where she had only had herself and the faceless voice of "Stranger" to rely on a few days ago, now she had the bossy presence of Cethlenn and the bizarre Alice. And Anne, who scared her badly, and whom she did not like at all, was yet to come.

  * * *

  Maclyn finished the Gate and sagged against the living-room wall, gray with exhaustion. :Rhellen—stay put, and if the phone rings, come through and get me,: he Mindspoke to his elvensteed—hoofprints in the living room were the least of the damage that had been done here. :The Gate is in the kitchen—get me as fast as you can, and get me back here before it stops. I'll leave the side door open.:

  The elvensteed sent back affirmation, and Maclyn stepped toward the kitchen and through the Gate.

  He stepped out at the periphery of the Grove and immediately looked toward its center. He had expected to see the fighting forces of Elfhame Outremer assembled, or at least to have been met by armed guards.

  But there was no one. The Grove was devoid of warriors, devoid of elves of any walk of life. He listened and heard the gentle laughter and the music of normal days coming from Elfhame Outremer itself, and he frowned. Surely Felouen and Dierdre had brought their message to the city. Yet the sounds he heard were not the sounds of a people preparing for war.

  "Ha, Thaerry, you almost had me," a light female voice called from the other side of the Grove.

  Maclyn saw a red-clad beauty dart out from under the sheltering boughs of the trees, followed closely by her lean swain, elegantly robed in gold-shot blue.

  "Droewyn, you minx—I'll have you yet," the would-be lover answered. He caught the girl and tripped her into the grass, and the two of them rolled together, laughing and fondling each other, oblivious to Maclyn's presence.

  "Pardon," Mac said, stepping into the open arena of the Grove with them, "but have Felouen and Dierdre not been here?"

  Droewyn straightened her bodice with some annoyance, and said, "Aye, they've been, Maclyn—gone, too, I hope. Old buzzards, prophesying their dismal tales of doom."

  Thaerronal chuckled and nibbled on his companion's neck. He gave Maclyn a pointed stare and said, dryly, "They headed back toward the Oracular Pool, no doubt to bathe themselves in more of their gloomy worries. Why don't you follow them?"

  Maclyn bit his lip and withheld the criticism he wanted so badly to give. Thaerry was abou
t his own age—and one of the few Elves of the High Court even less inclined to involvement in Court affairs than he had been. Droewyn was Low Court, tied to the Grove—Maclyn wouldn't have expected any better of her.

  So he nodded stiffly and ran in the direction they'd indicated.

  The rich woodland scents, the soft whisper of his boots on the forest loam, the warm, moist breeze that brushed his skin, the twilight gleam of the eyes of the beasts that watched his progress along the path—all those things said "home" to him, reassured him—

  :Halt, Maclyn, Ring-sworn Friend of the High Court of Elfhame Outremer.: The crisp Mindspoken command cut through the exhausted reverie into which he'd drifted. Maclyn skidded to a stop and watched the forest around him.

  From behind a massive tree, an armed and armored elf stepped into view. The Uzi hung casually at her side; the Kevlar body armor fit her like a seamed skin. Her soft gold hair streamed like a river from the silver coronet that held it out of her eyes. She grinned at him. :Nice to see you've finally joined us.:

  Maclyn smiled with relief. :Hallara. Good to see someone standing watch.:

  The woman, one of his mother's contemporaries, laughed. :Some of us know Felouen—and Dierdre. They have better things to do than chase imaginary bogans; if they say the Unseleighe—or anything else—are about to bite us, we won't wait until we feel the teeth. So. There are enough of us to cover the permanent Gates, with a few left over to raise the alarm throughout Elfhame Outremer. We may be caught short, but we won't be caught sleeping.:

  He nodded. :Mother around?:

  :Checking the Oracle, I think. The omens were very bad, last time I got any news. Crisis impending, any second—of course, that's the Oracle. Damned imprecise. Makes you wish something would happen, just so you could get past the waiting.: