by C. E. Murphy
Soft, ferocious: “I did not.”
Lara nodded once, a stiff ungainly motion. “Do you mean Dafydd ap Caerwyn any harm?”
That same sound again, the unhappy breath of laughter. “He’s my brother, Truthseeker. I mean him no harm.”
Lara nodded again, still jerky, then forced her gaze from Dafydd to his brother. He was beautiful, more beautiful than Dafydd, a perfect creature cut from amber and garbed in night. She wanted to hate him, and could find nothing other than fear to knot her heart: fear for Dafydd, and fear that her gift might somehow fail her and she might be sending him to his doom. “Do you know a way for me to get back to the Barrow-lands?”
A spasm crossed Ioan’s sharp-etched features. “Find the one who’s done all of this to us. He must be in your world, Truthseeker. With the world walls closed, there’s no other way he could have controlled the nightwings. He’s here somewhere, and must himself be able to work the worldwalking spell. Find him, and maybe you can return.”
Lara pressed her lips together, nodded a third time, and climbed to her feet. Her stomach was a solid mass, tight and heavy inside her, and her own expression felt like a stranger’s, a mask of ill-concealed rage and frustration. She stepped back, giving Ioan the space he needed to kneel and lift Dafydd’s body. When he’d straightened again she said, “Ioan.”
“Truthseeker?”
Stranger’s face, stranger’s words; Lara had never said anything like what she said now. “If anything happens to him, Ioan, I will kill you.”
Ioan ap Annwn afforded her the scantest bow, all he could manage with Dafydd’s weight in his arms, and said, very softly, “I believe you.”
Sunlight wrapped them, and they were gone.
Power erupted from the staff again as the walls between the worlds closed. Lara staggered, planting the weapon against the ground for support, and felt a shudder beneath her feet. Kelly bellowed in dismay as the earth lurched. “Pick it up, pick it up!”
“Pick what—?” Lara heard her own voice distantly as she took a few hopeless steps forward, dragging the staff with her. Overwhelming weariness drained all other emotion away. There was no lingering doorway, no break in space that might permit her to follow the two elfin princes. Visions shattered behind her eyes with each beat of her heart, pictures of the fanciful world she imagined every time she thought of Dafydd ap Caerwyn. A life with a man who grasped, instantly, what she was; a world beyond her own to explore. Now the color drained from those dreams, leaving them remote and cold.
“The staff, the goddamned staff, Lara!” Kelly slammed against Lara’s side, bringing her back to herself enough to stare uncomprehendingly first at her friend, then at the ivory rod she herself held. It took long seconds to understand Kelly’s alarm.
Worldbreaker. And it didn’t seem to care what world it broke: Lara’s own was as good as any other. She yanked it up, breaking its connection with the earth, but the ground continued to rumble threateningly. “This is New England!” Kelly wailed. “We don’t have earthquakes here!”
“It’s not an earthquake.” Lara glanced upward, half expecting the sky to boil with clouds and lightning. It didn’t, but a foreboding sense of not yet came over her, and she knotted her hands around the staff, holding it parallel to the earth. “You’re done for now,” she whispered to it, and exerted effort to put truth into the words. “This is my world. I don’t care how much power I might wield through you. I won’t let you destroy my home.”
A length of ivory couldn’t, in any logical way, be sentient or opinionated, but a sense of resentment built up from the staff regardless. Lara tightened her hands around it, aware that such fragile-looking bone should shatter beneath her grip, but never dreaming it might actually do so. “You waited for me for centuries. I’ve found you now, and I’m your master. A mortal master, at that. Oisín carried you a long time. You should know by now mortal masters can’t be tempted the way Seelie can.” The truth came from within her, absolute with conviction, though where it stemmed from, Lara had no idea. Oisín might know, if she ever had the chance to ask him.
Sullenness flared, but the building power retreated. With it, so did the tremors, and Lara stood breathing heavily and wondering at her own strength of will.
“I oughta arrest you both.” The trooper sounded uncertain, but his voice took Lara’s attention from the staff. She’d forgotten about him and everything he represented, caught up in Dafydd’s weakness and the staff’s living hunger to wreak havoc. There were innumerable other things to think about, and she latched on to the first one that came to mind.
“Detective Washington. Is he okay?” Speaking propelled her into action. There were injured people, perhaps dying people, who needed attention, and the trooper’s indecision suggested he wasn’t likely to follow through on his threat.
“Last thing anybody mentioned he was stable,” he said after a moment. “Serious condition but stable.”
“Thank God for that.” Lara crouched by the ranger, whose eyes were wide open. She breathed through her teeth, fingers pinched against the asphalt, but she was alive. That was two, Lara thought. Washington and this woman, both survivors. It was more than she’d hoped for.
For a moment the staff felt warm in her hand again, as if offering potential power. Healing power, perhaps: that was what Lara had wanted it for, after all. The potential caught her off guard, and a sensation of triumph spilled from the staff. Lara jerked to her feet, narrowly avoiding casting the staff away in revulsion. No inanimate object should offer impulses like it did. Even if she knew how to control its power properly, the idea of doing its bidding seemed dangerous. There were humans who could affect healing much less esoterically than the staff’s unknown magics might, and with only predictable side effects. “Officer, can you call for more paramedics?”
“A lot more,” Kelly said unhappily from near the ambulances. “Two of these guys are dead.”
“We saw it.” A new voice spoke as the back of one of the ambulances opened. A paramedic climbed out, followed by a white-faced woman clutching her arm. She nodded to the station wagon the ranger had fallen by. “That’s our car. We saw … those things … that you fought. We were afraid to get out.”
Shocked relief shot through Lara. She’d forgotten there had been injuries in the car, that their delay had been due to the paramedics arriving and transferring people to the ambulances, and hadn’t considered that anyone might have been hiding there. “That was the smartest thing you could’ve done. And probably getting back in and waiting for more paramedics is the smartest thing you can do now.”
“Are they gone? Those things? What were they? What was it?”
Lara exchanged a look with Kelly, who said “Bats” without any conviction. It shivered tunelessly down Lara’s spine, neither true nor false; bats were the closest equivalent to the nightwings that she could think of, too.
“Bats,” the woman repeated, almost angry. “Bats don’t do what those things did. That thing. It changed. It—they—turned into a … a …”
“Dragon,” one of the paramedics supplied, then flushed as everyone looked at him. “Looked like a dragon to me.”
“Little-known fact,” Kelly breathed. “Bats and dragons are closely related.”
That did run sour over Lara’s skin, but she laughed anyway, a short sharp sound. “They were called nightwings. They’re not bats and they’re not dragons. They’re more like demons, and they come from fairyland.” She put truth into the words, knowing everyone would hear it. Knowing, too, that they wouldn’t believe it for long, but she couldn’t do anything about that. “The man who rescued us was an elfin prince,” she added. “Thank him in your prayers, if you pray.”
The woman stared at her a long moment. “I think I will tonight.” She climbed back into the ambulance and closed the door with a resounding crash that ended all conversation for a while. Lara trailed back to their car as the trooper called for more help. Kelly joined her, earning an uncomfortable glance from the cop, though
he made no effort to stop them.
“So now what?” Kelly asked eventually. “Do we let him arrest us or what?”
“No,” Lara said as she got into the car. “I’m going to do what Ioan suggested. I’m going after whoever did this.”
“I kind of thought so. Okay. How?” Kelly asked as she, too, got into the car.
“I’m not sure, but he’s somewhere nearby. He has to be. Us killing the nightwings hurt him, I saw it. So if he needs the same things Dafydd did, he’ll be in the woods, somewhere quiet and green where he can regain strength. I just need to concentrate and open a true path.” Lara relaxed into the hum of truth in her own words.
Kelly cleared her throat. “Lara?”
“What?”
“I get that this whole truthseeking magic path thing is just how you roll now, and I hate to be all pragmatic …”
Lara frowned. “But?”
Kelly gestured at Lara’s clothes. “But you’re the one who pointed out you weren’t exactly wearing hiking gear. If we’re going chasing through the woods after bad guys, maybe we should do some shopping first.”
Lara glared at her pretty, impractical sandals. “No.”
“Lara, you’re the one who said—”
“That was before. Besides, we’re on the far edge of nowhere. There’s probably not a J. Crew for forty miles.”
“You’ve never worn J. Crew in your life.”
“That’s not the point!” Lara banged her palms against the dashboard. “The point is that before, we were just trying to get Dafydd somewhere quiet and safe so he could recover. Now he’s almost dead and my last chance of getting back to him and making sure he’s all right is out there somewhere. I’m not going to let whoever’s been controlling the nightwings have an extra few hours to rest up while I find sensible shoes!”
A drawn-out silence, long enough to make her feel guilty, met Lara’s tirade. She looked away, trying to summon the energy to mumble an apology, but Kelly said “Okay then” in an unoffended tone. “Let’s pretend I suggested that first so my second idea would seem more palatable.”
“What’s that?”
“Do your truth-path-seeking thing somewhere else.” Kelly pointed toward the trooper. “And right now, let’s bug the hell out of here before he gets up the nerve to arrest us after all.”
Thirty-Four
They crept by the trooper’s vehicle like fugitives, neither of them bold enough to catch his eye. Lara wasn’t strong enough to avoid it, either, and caught a glimpse of his grim expression as Kelly eased their car past his. She glanced sideways, too, then breathed, “We’re going to have to try explaining this at some point, you know.”
“One mess at a time,” Lara whispered back. “At least half a dozen people saw it this time. Maybe that’ll help with Washington.”
“I hope so. God, I’m glad he’s okay. He’s a really good guy, Lara.”
“I believe you.” A little smile curled Lara’s mouth. “Why are we whispering?”
Kelly gave a quick, startled laugh and an equally quick, guilty look over her shoulder to where the trooper and the battle scene were fading in the distance. “I don’t know. Because the boogeyman back there might get us if he hears us?”
“I think the boogeyman is up there somewhere.” Lara nodded toward the soft-lit mountains, her smile fading. “I’m sorry for getting you into this, Kelly. Maybe I should go on alone.”
“There is no way I’m missing the grand finale after all this shit,” Kelly said firmly. “I think even if it gets us killed I’d rather at least know how it turns out.”
Alarm danced up Lara’s spine to the tune of soprano flutes, pure sweet sounds. “Did you know you actually mean that?”
“I kind of thought I did. I’m pretty good about not stretching the truth around you, Truthseeker.” She chortled. “Wish I’d thought of that. Um, so, hey. That guy was David’s brother? He’s cute. Sturdier than Dafydd.”
Lara arched an eyebrow, both pleased and dismayed to see Kelly’s flirtatious nature resurfacing. It was a way to keep her mind off Dickon, Lara knew; any other time she might have reminded her friend that she was engaged.
Not today, though. Whether Dickon could forgive Kelly remained to be seen, and Lara wouldn’t entirely blame him if he couldn’t. Neither, she suspected, would Kelly, and the game of looking to an elfin prince might take some of the edge away from that hard truth. “I think he chose to become stronger. The Seelie are all tall and slim. The Unseelie seemed broader, and he told me they’d changed to suit their surroundings. Maybe in another million years they’ll be dwarfs,” she said flippantly, and curious tones chimed around the idea, exploring it.
“I think I’ll get my digs in while they’re still tall, dark, and handsome, then. Beards never did much for me. I thought we thought he was the bad guy,” Kelly said more quietly.
Lara dropped her chin to her chest. “We did, but you heard him. He was telling the truth.”
“So basically you have no idea who’s out there waiting for us. Okay,” Kelly said to Lara’s nod. “I’m pulling over when we get to the top of that hill, so we’ll be right in the sunlight. And then you can do that voodoo that you do so well.”
“I can’t believe you just said that.”
Kelly straightened, eyes wide. “I can’t believe you just said that! Wow, you’re like a real girl! Somebody call Geppetto!”
“You are not helping.” Lara harrumphed at Kelly’s smile, then looked ahead to the peak of the hill they climbed. Sunlight blinded her as they crested it, a lash of brilliance that reminded her of the true paths she’d created.
None of them were like the one she needed to build now. Two had simply led her home, figuratively and literally, and the third had been seeking indeed, searching out the staff’s location. She thought the fourth had been something else entirely, less a path than a thread that pulled the world into alignment so it answered her need. That need had, perhaps, helped open a door between worlds, had perhaps helped mark the road Ioan ap Annwn wanted to take, but even that was unlike searching out a single man. An enemy, Lara thought, and made that idea clear in her mind. She was preparing to hunt an enemy, an individual with malicious intent. He’d struck at her and her friends repeatedly, and people had paid for that with their lives.
Dafydd might well have paid for it with his life.
Lara’s hands clenched into fists. “No one else.” Truth vibrated through the warning, its strength making Kelly catch her breath as she pulled the car over. Lara got out without thinking about it, feeling a little elfin as she did so: it seemed like being outdoors would help, even if her magic shouldn’t be constrained by steel. She took the staff from the backseat as Kelly got out, and murmured, “I wish I meditated, or something. I feel like if I only had the right kind of mental discipline this would be easy.”
“Think about what it’s like when you’re sewing,” Kelly suggested. “I’ve seen you do it a few times. You get into the zone and nothing bothers you.”
“Just stitch it all together, huh?” Lara smiled, but the idea caught, creating a tapestry in her mind. The door Dafydd had opened to the Barrow-lands began it, golden rectangle against a Seelie night, and black-winged monsters picked out in shining silk against a matte sky. There was something else there, a nebulous being whose presence was only known by his absence, but someone had set the spell to sic the nightwings on them.
The tapestry wound through the hours she’d spent in the Seelie court, reshaping itself into battle. There came the dark thread again, seizing Dafydd’s will before another slash of gold cut it off when Dafydd was thrown back to Lara’s world. And then the attack in the garage, threads finally winding together to make a visible form. A hum struck up at the base of Lara’s skull, the excitement of recognizing a true thing, and the staff, as if sensing her use of magic, warmed in her hands.
Encouraged, the tapestry wove itself faster, dark streak broadening until it became a violent smear of black: the scene they’d just left.
Still it leapt forward, details lost as darkness raced away through white threads that turned to bells. Silver, white, pale gold, all ringing with sweet chimes. Goose bumps lifted on Lara’s arms and she opened her eyes, barely daring to breathe.
For an instant she glimpsed a layer of radiation and heat; of all the wavelengths of light that human eyes and minds interpreted into sensible, comprehensible objects and colors. She could see past those constructions, could see a truth that lay outside of her ability to translate into anything meaningful. If she only knew the right direction to look she thought she might see through the heart of the universe, see all the way to its creator and perhaps through that, too. The music was that of the world again, made tenfold, far too much to bear.
Her mind folded under the strain, crumpling with the weight of too much vision and a terrible inability to understand. She dropped to her knees, staff falling away as she hid her face in her hands, and overwhelming song and sight collapsed under her cry.
The tapestry threads remained, though, black against white scoring a mark through her mind. Lara whimpered and felt Kelly’s hands on her shoulders, and through incessant bells heard her friend ask, “Are you all right?”
“I can’t open my eyes.” Power drowned her voice, making it sound like she spoke through water. She ached with trying to contain it, her skin stretching too tight over blood and muscle. “The world hurts my mind. I can see his mark if my eyes are closed, but I can’t open them.”
“Okay. Okay.” Falsehood, all of it: Kelly thought nothing was okay, and was verging on panic. Her fear made spikes in the music, driving into the sides of Lara’s head. “Okay,” Kelly said a third time, and panic faded into determination. “If I get you into the car, can you tell me where to drive without looking?”
“I think so. If I can keep my eyes closed. It’s hard not to look.” Mankind had never been good at not looking, from Lot’s wife to now. Looking upon an angel was said to burn out the viewer’s eyes, and yet the impulse to do so was enormous. An angel couldn’t be so bright as the burning, bewildering world she’d glimpsed. Wanting to look hurt as badly as looking did, magic and human nature clashing with each other.
