The great gestalt of the noble horde around him brushed at his awareness with the sorrowful acceptance of a family looking at a prodigal son.
Zal’s back prickled. He fought with his disappointment at how many people he could feel in solidarity with the Lady. He took a deep breath and looked up at Arie. “Nice parrots. All you need now is a wooden leg.”
Arte did not flinch but she did remain stock still for a moment. The wave that had reached out to welcome Zal back withdrew. The room brimmed with anger.
Zal could tell that one of the people behind him was gravely ill. Within the court there was enough healing knowledge and power to do all but raise the dead, but nobody moved. He felt genuine disorientation—this could never have happened, even a few months ago. Who in Alfheim, even the most conservative, would let someone feel like that and do nothing?
Not one person stepped forward, although their anxiety and distress became palpable in the aether, increasing until he could even hear it as a faint whine all around. He stared at their faces. Most of them were looking away.
Arie beckoned. She was effective, cold. He hadn’t realised how cold until now. She was the frozen surface keeping the rest under control. He didn’t understand how she had taken so much to herself. He’d been away too long and it was too late. Zal didn’t look at the suffering person until they moved into his line of sight.
The dying elf was Aradon. He had served with Zal in the secret service, been in various operations with him. He was friendly, loyal, a little introspective. He was one of the first to join the Resistance years ago when the extent of the High Light hegemony had become clear and the Shadowkin pushed out of Sathanor. Here, in the days of High Light rule over all Alfheim with its lore of purity and healing, he was a bloody mess. Someone had beaten him to the edge of extinction. His face and hands bore marks that Zal knew were torture inflicted, not just the result of a desperate fight. He was barely conscious and that was a mercy. Zal reached out to touch Aradon’s andalune body but the guards moved between them. He got the impression Aradon no longer possessed an andalune, but without necromancy that was not possible.
“Many of your co-conspirators have talked a great deal, Suha,” Arie said to Zal. “Even of your ridiculous plan to prove the nature of every person in the realms as equal. But they have been unable to tell your name, and finally I believe that none of them know it”
“Help him,” Zal said, pointing at Aradon. He tried to make eye contact with the people nearest him but they refused. They stared through him or past him. “What’s the matter with you all?”
He had thought that after all he had been through there could be no more things able to terrify him and he was right. He was not scared. But he had never imagined he could find himself so disgusted with his own kind. He’d never really believed they could become like this. And here, look. They were. Their outward silence said it all.
Zal tried to push past the guard. He was held back by two of them. Their bone gauntlets dug into his arms. He reached beyond them. His andalune was different to theirs, and they were not keen to touch it now, tainted with demon aether, but he could not reach Aradon anyway. There was no more to him than flesh and bone.
“Tell me your name and we will restore him,” Arie said. “And all those presently under arrest will be released to pleasant confinement in a civilised place.”
Zal looked at Aradon’s swollen face, all but unrecognisable, at his hands and their bloodied nails. Everything he had ever known about elves, humans, faeries, demons and their machinations in the complicated world of politics and power ran through his mind in a clinical stream. His name was all he had.
“After him how many more will there be?” he asked.
“All of them,” Arie said. “But not you. There are other tasks you must do. Either you will do them as our loyal bound servant or we use your blood to access the hidden well of aether…”
“It is no well!” Zal shouted at her, unable to restrain his anger, aware that it only made him worse in their eyes. “Fifty years ago we researched every possibility that the leaks from this lake may be some free source of aetheric energy and the conclusion from elf and demon alike is that it can only be some faultline or weakness in the realm that gives onto nothing but the Interstitial. The aether coming in is wild but the lake moulds it by the time it reaches the surface so it seems like it’s Sathanor energy. It requires some reinforcement not weakening with your efforts to mine it.”
“We have found a way to cap the well,” Arie said. “I am confident. It is expensive but it will be worth it. And this is not your concern. You have your friends to think of, Suha. Your loyal brothers and sisters surely have much more knowledge they have garnered and hidden against us. It can be left to them and they to themselves if you are willing to surrender to us. Come, we are not partial to witnessing this pain and you delay its end.”
“The energy will make you invincible,” Zal said quietly to her. It was true. He was sure it was her major motive, but she would not think so.
Zal made himself look at Aradon again. He had no aetheric presence, as if he was already dead.
“He will stay alive this way, beyond light and shadow, unable to connect to the andalune, for the rest of his life unless you surrender. They all will. Of all people you will know what this is like and it will be even less than the pitiful contact you are still able to make with us. Communion will be only a memory. The spirit is dead.”
Zal lifted his head and looked at Arte. He didn’t know how Aradon had suffered or what had been allowed to tear out his spirit; maybe it was some captive Saaqaa. It was not important. All that Aradon was proof of was that Arie was beyond any kind of appeal to mercy. He could tell that the sight of Aradon revolted Arie, it hurt her and she loathed it, but she was able to master her natural impulses, she was able to ignore them completely. For her there was a greater good and in the service of that good she was immaculate. The horror, and her own ability to withstand it, only increased her conviction.
The room’s silent agony stretched out. Zal made it stretch longer.
He studied every empty seat in turn and thought of all the others, not knowing if this was a bluff of hers or if the entire project to prevent Alfheim’s decline into tyranny was over because every person involved had been cut down.
He could end Aradon’s suffering himself, he knew. But if he showed his demon power then Arie would ward against it and any use it might be later, if there was a later, if there was a chance to get out—and there was no chance here—would be lost.
He turned his back on Aradon and gave his head the smallest shake—no.
“Very well,” she said. “As you wish.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Lila, wearing Tath’s boots now, was glad to run as soon as a safe hour came with dawn. She asked Dar where he thought Zal was, how far it was, how long it would take to get there, what they could do… He just shrugged and said they must run. She thought about Tath but whenever that happened she ruthlessly directed her thoughts somewhere else.
To prevent herself dwelling on unwelcome feelings, and with the presence of Dr Williams consistently appearing in her mind like a vengeful ghost, she concentrated on learning and copying Dar’s style of motion. He ran on the ball of his foot and leapt with catlike grace over small obstacles, coming to a halt with a perfect lightness of balance even when he was very tired. All day she followed him, the pleasure of the previous day’s journey much dulled by the events of the night and the constant awareness of Tath’s presence. Lila found herself longing for radio contact with Sarasilien, with Malachi, with anybody, even Poppy. She would have given much to have a faery alongside her to lighten her mood. She even missed the silly, trivial world of the music business, and had begun fondly to think of purple fur coats and melodramatic speeches about download sales and marketing budgets by the time Dar chose to take a rest.
“Have you any music with you?” he asked her as they sat high in the mountains on a bare strip of rock
. The view was spectacular. Below them a huge, bowl-shaped valley spread green and luscious, its far side of uniformly steep walls barely visible in the clear light. Grasslands and woods covered the ground below them and Lila could see lakes and streams sparkling in the high noonday sun. She took a piece of stale bread that Dar handed her.
“What would you like? I never much went in for classical, except Mozart and Vivaldi,” she said apologetically.
“Play me what you like,” he said. “Anything.” He went to fetch water. They drank and he sat down finally, unshipping his bow so that it did not scrape on the ground. Lila did likewise and then sat behind him, her legs either side of his.
“Ear ear,” she said, putting the palms of her hands gently against the sides of his head. “Haven’t got any speakers so you’ll have to make do with this. Shouldn’t be too bad through your skull. I’ve kept all the levels low.” She played the music through the smart metal and multiple synthetic sheets that made up the structure of her palms, allowing them to act as speakers, and listened to it herself internally, direct to the brain from her AI-library. Together they sat overlooking all of Satha-nor, hungry and heartsick, and listened to The No Shows doing “Time In My Hands”.
“Now all we need are some smokes and we’re sorted,” Dar said to her softly with a Bay City accent but his attempt at good humour didn’t last more than a moment. He sighed.
“I can do you an aspirin,” Lila offered. Dar leant back against her, to her surprise. It wasn’t entirely comfortable because of all the weapons between them, not least the grip of a sword pressing against her jaw, but she didn’t move. She saw that his dark brown hair was streaked with silver here and there, and with strands that caught the sun and made themselves into glowing amber.
Tath, she thought, was awake but barely aware of her, folded over his own thoughts protectively. In the hours that had passed since he hitched a ride Lila was sure there weren’t only stings but honey in Tath, although there couldn’t be any telling which one you’d get on request. Her fear had peaked early and now was all but spent and continued to fade the longer that time went on and he did nothing. If she didn’t concentrate on his presence she could hardly feel it.
The song ended and Lila took her hands away and rested them lightly on Dar’s shoulders. The wind freshened and she caught the scent of lilacs and other flowers rising from far below.
“Time to go,” he said abruptly and stood up. He held out his hand and she took it, getting to her feet with effortless ease. Dar pointed down into the broad valley. “Beyond the first woodlands the valley deepens and forms a great lake, not unlike the lake you visited before in Lyrien. It is there that Arte has her home, below the waters of Aparastil. I would be certain we will find Zal there.”
“Shouldn’t you be in a bad place for a bad spell?” Lila asked, taking a last look at the panorama, memorising the location.
“You should be in a safe place, where you feel most secure,” Dar said. “And there is no more difficult place to get in or out of than Aparastil Lake. It is guarded by all the elements, by the lake itself and its denizens, and by the full force of Sathanor’s magic bent to Arie’s will.”
“Oh good,” Lila said faintly. “I like a challenge.”
“You will find one,” Dar assured her, jumping down the side of a steep human-height boulder with no more care than he might have stepped off a kerbstone.
“We need a story,” Lila said.
“There is no story which will fool the Lady of Aparastil. The truth will do in a pinch, though she probably expects us. I do not anticipate a great deal of trouble getting in. It is what will happen then which is beyond my skill to guess. But we may get somewhere if you could become a more likely elf.”
“I’m workin’ on it,” Lila said. “Sorry. I mean, I am making every effort to become a more effective spy.”
“Try harder,” Dar said, not even looking back. There was a peculiar ring to his voice which made Lila experience the comment as a tantalising clue rather than a stinging criticism. She puzzled over it and then realised that Dar was obliquely referring to Tath’s presence.
During the next few hours they dropped lower and lower down the steep sides of the valley walls. Their progress was agonisingly slow. When she did not have to concentrate on her footing too much Lila tried speaking to the gold and green presence in her chest.
If you were truthful about your allegiance, she said, now there’s a chance to prove it.
He did not have anything to prove to her. He didn’t even speak, or need to. She could feel the answers as if they were her own thoughts before she put them into words. He remained grief stricken and appalled at the idea of what she was, let alone who she was. He found her repellent, because of her robotics which he found alien and threatening, because of her humanity, because of her Otopian allegiance, especially because of her fusion reactor which frightened and revolted him equally. At the same time he was grateful for her kindness and his continued existence, in a stiff, typically highfalutin’ snobby elvish way. It took all of Lila’s self-restraint to forgo responding to this rush of emotions whenever she tried to address him. But her own emotions were also there, whether she restrained them or not, and the elf felt her fury and her dislike of him without the mediation of her thoughts. They were, for better or ill, two spirits in one heart, and they could not hide from each other.
Tath coiled tightly on himself as she attempted to get him to talk. Lila knew him horrified and hurt, willing himself out of the situation as much as she did, resenting her like crazy. The situation made her so angry she shouted out loud and with a single blow of her hand struck a reasonably sized branch from a tree she was passing.
“Lila?”
She found herself staring at Dar. She wasn’t sure he had ever called her by name before. It was effective, if unmagical. “Sorry,” she said. She picked the branch up and pushed it back towards its old position but then let it fall to the ground. The sap smelled rich and sweet and soon filled the warm afternoon air around them. Bizarrely she noticed she was standing in paradise. She scuffed paradise’s grass with her foot. “My fellow traveller doesn’t like the idea of helping out”
“Then you had better leave him alone.” Dar glanced at the branch. Insects were already gathering at the break in the trunk, to eat the sugary sap. Dar bent down and took some of the sticky stuff onto his hand, licking it off his fingers. Lila ignored it. She felt hungry, but she had the tokamak. Dar had nothing.
“How do I get rid of him?” she asked quietly.
“Exorcism,” came the reply. Dar took his knife out and stripped the bark from the branch expertly. He tore away the inner layers and started eating them, then used part of the outer section to fashion a cover for the wound in the trunk. He trimmed the wound on the tree itself, hacking it into the right shape, and then patched it quickly. “They die,” he said. “Trees like this die of a bad wound, and Tath will die if you root him out unless he can find another willing heart.”
“Willing?” Lila repeated, taken aback. “I wasn’t willing.”
“It was a Game,” Dar said, chewing carefully. “You played it. You lost it. You were willing.”
“There was no Game!” she protested, furious. “How could there have been? There was no wild magic. There wasn’t time.”
“Elves carry the wild magic in their andalune when they have passed through it recently. It takes time to wear off. Tath had the skill to control that..He might not have wanted to play with you in his mind, but his chi was stronger than that. It saw its chance when he knew that I was likely to kill him, and it took it. You must have felt the sting of it when it happened.”
“But I didn’t agree. I didn’t know the rules…” She trailed off and shut her mouth firmly, swallowing the rest of what promised to be another worthless excuse. One day, she thought, she must remind herself to stop making them. But she couldn’t stop raging at herself for her stupidity. The presence inside laughed at her.
Dar looked a
t her with what she thought might be sympathy. “I keep forgetting how young you are,” he said. His gaze was very intent and steady.
Just when I need another button pushed, she thought angrily. “Why, how old are you?” she demanded.
“Old enough,” he replied in a strange tone. He stepped forward, holding out a strip of the white, dripping bark to her. “You must be hungry. Taste it. It will make you feel better.”
Lila found herself looking into his slanted blue eyes. They were exactly the same brilliant colour as the Sathanor sky. She was surprised to see that they held hunger of quite a different kind. She began to lift her hand to take the bark, but stopped, uncertain about what his offer really was. She was alert for any zing of magic, but she didn’t feel it. She felt the strangest pressure from inside, still hating herself, and from outside the opposite, as if Dar was offering her a road out of its miserable flat plain. She was on the cusp of some inner movement she didn’t understand and it was all balanced on her decision to accept one or the other version of some verdict on herself. She said no and Dar said yes. She scowled and stared at him, all her senses on overdrive trying to suck more information out of the moment so that she could calibrate it and make a decision based on solid logic, using her Al-self to its utmost to judge. But that didn’t help.
As she continued to hesitate Dar reached out and put a piece of the soft bark against her lips. Her heart was racing. She felt her skin flush but her lips moved of their own accord and opened. He pushed the strip gently into her mouth with his fingertips. In taking it she inadvertently brushed his fingers with her lips and tasted the salt of sweat and earth and the sweet sugar on them. Lila felt lost in a world she hadn’t noticed was there until now. All this sensing and feeling, all this strange intimacy… she thought of Zal and saw him lying on a bier, stone cold dead. She stood beside it and there was a torch burning in her hand and she could not light the fire. She stood and the torch burned down to ash in her hand and she stood for ever until she was a statue of metal and bone. She heard Zal’s voice in her head, as though he could see the image too…
Keeping It Real Page 21
