There’d better be another chance, Lila told Tath.
One for certain, he said. Zal succeeded in pushing her off balance. Me too. I think. you will get your moment to be a hero. Do not worry. He sounded grim and was full of self-loathing. Lila felt sick.
The food, which had all gone cold, was taken away and replaced but she couldn’t touch it The court talked around her, of other matters. Lila watched Dar. He was paler than usual, and if the food had savour for him he showed no pleasure in it, pushing it around almost without noticing what he was doing. He glanced at her with a troubled expression and Arie watched the both of them.
Lila began to realise the poverty of the situation she had stumbled into. Surely the Incon must have had an inkling of this petty tyranny being behind Alfheim’s oh-so sophisticated political posturing? They had sent her in blind, she thought, and felt resentment knot her stomach. And they must have known much more about Zal than they let on, especially Sarasilien, he would have known Zal was once Jayon Daga if nothing else, and that whatever he was doing it was part of the decay in Alfheim, and deadly. That hurt.
And then she abruptly thought of her family, for no apparent reason, and her would-be grave on the hill. I am already dead, she realised, glancing at Dar. I was expendable. An expensive prototype, a secret, and here’s my test run—they’re seeing what I’ll turn out like when they let me alone. But then again, sending her so untried into this kind of storm all to bring back one self-destructive elf—that made no sense at all and she doubted her own doubts and shoved them quickly into one of those mental drawers the Al-self provided for such things. For the rest of the almost unendurable meal she pretended that her dog, Okie, was under the table, and that the occasional brush of andalune energy that touched her was the feathery hair of his tail.
At last when the court retired to its preparations for the spellcast, Arie summoned Dar and Tath to her. “Zal’s change disturbs me greatly,” she said. “I am convinced now that he may pose a great danger to us. Perhaps he will attempt some interference with the spell. But if this Game exists between Zal and the Otopian Agent, perhaps it can be used to maintain control of him.” For the first time Lila saw Arie look doubtful and, through that moment, saw how tired the Lady was, and how anxious. “Are you sure that the forfeit is the death of love? If so he would lose all loyalty to anything but this abominable creation.”
“I am sure,” Tath said, and Lila closed her mind around Sorcha’s actual words (you will never love anyone else again). Meanwhile Arie’s andalune was caressing Tath’s, grooming Dar’s too; Lila saw both of them struggling against the pleasure of her goodwill and approval. It nauseated her that she could feel Tath’s resistance weakening under that touch, and to realise how defenceless he was—all elves were—to such rapport from one of higher social rank, of higher power, of greater kudos than they were. For the first time in her experience of them she began to understand some of their behaviour, their weakness, their smooth ways. And meanwhile Tath groomed Arie the same way, increasing her conviction about his statements. Lila had to interrupt to save her own sanity.
What’s your game with her?
None of your Business, Tath declared.
Do we get our moment with Zal then?
She did not become the Lady of Tathanor Because she is easily persuaded or duped. I would not count anything for what it seems now.
Well, I suppose you have to give convincing her your best shot, then. Knock yourself out, Lila said. She distanced herself inwardly from the elf’s experience of the aethereal contacts, sure she could not stand another oleaginous moment.
Springing Zal from here and taking him back to Jelly Sakamoto seemed a bizarre goal now, in the face of what she had learned, although she was certain that preventing the spell and saving Zal were mutually compatible goals which her bosses would order her to complete, if only they could communicate with her at all.
And then there was the way she felt, dizzy and sick, longing to touch Zal again, even in passing, even in the dark, anywhere at all and for any reason, all her senses tuned to one another and waiting, as though he was the catalyst that would make her into something wonderful. She tried not to think of that, but it was impossible not to. Even Arte reminded her of Zal, and Dar’s presence reminded her of their brief intimacy, in which he had not rejected her, nor found her unattractive, even if it was all for the sake of getting her here, and even if everything about him was a doubled, tripled front and he was Arie’s servant. She held onto that sliver of truth.
“Very well,” Arie said finally, withdrawing. “Tath you may try this tactic and exert what power you can, but beware the wild magic effect and any alterations you may decipher in the forfeit. Dar, come with me, and assist us.”
Dar gave Tath and Lila a long glance. His andalune brushed Tath’s and there was a sparkle of communion, but no words. Tath told her quickly.
Dar is afraid. He says her court will create a ten fold cast in the structure of two and eight. You do not know magic. But such a shell casting will give her power to wield that is an order of magnitude larger than ten elf mages could muster. Tier court are all well practised and I doubt many of them are closeted
Revolutionaries. Even if they are, they may not be able to effect any help for us. Once Aerie is the pearl of that shell there will be no magic in Alfheim she cannot draw on, and she was always a clairvoyant of qreat skill. We must keep all our thoughts to a minimum and our words yet fewer or she will know all our intents.
Fantastic, Lila groaned inwardly, trying not to despair as she watched Dar follow the Lady, his face grim.
Lila and Tath followed yet another of Arie’s tame courtiers through the palace, down and down through long halls and fish-lined galleries until they were left in a tiny set of rooms on the outer extremity of the palace. These were set so low in the lake that the water looked almost black—a full two hundred metres down, Lila confirmed with a quick burst of radar. Few fish swam towards the candlelight and glowing mineral lamps which lit their cell. It was like being suspended in green night, Lila thought, as she was left alone with Tath who undid his andalune glamour, leaving her feeling suddenly naked even though she wore his clothes. And now she must pretend to seduce Zal and at the same time try and inform him that this was the best plan for escape and he would be suspicious of course, and maybe, in that way of spies who never know what is true or false really, he might not believe her…
She took off Tath’s clothes and put them on a chest which rested against the inner wall and was partly hidden by a trailing ivy with pale yellow leaves. Neither she nor Tath had great faith in their ability to maintain such a network of disguises. To focus herself she made herself return to the centre of the room and look out.
In the bubble wall’s shining reflections she saw herself suddenly, her scarlet hair, red magical stain and silver eyes shocking and ridiculous against her tan skin and the subtle forest colours of the room. Her singlet and shorts were grubby with mud and other substances, her burned arm looked like an ordinary arm over which candlewax and mercury had run and set in lumps, and, thanks to the distorting effects of the bubble’s curve, she also appeared ridiculously stretched out. The sight had an effect on her as though she had been suddenly drenched in cold water. Although it revealed the peculiarly natural look of her blend with her cyborg body, grown to health in Sathanor better than it ever had in Otopia, she was not lovely. No, not at all. She looked like a circus freak. The elves were right about her. How could she have entertained any dream of Zal?
To her surprise she felt Tath wrap a strong blanket around her self-loathing and it was lessened, No, he said. Not true.
Such an unexpected kindness made tears start in her eyes.
Stop it. Are we spied on? Lila asked Tath, turning away so that he would not also be seeing her. She longed for his reassurance to be heartfelt and true, but she knew that his success depended, as hers did, on hanging together, not coming apart at the seams. It was probably only a necessary sop to h
er damaged ego.
It is likely. He was alert, curious, and Lila could feel him laughing at her remark because, of course she was spied upon—he was there. And that reminded her of the other times he was there and she felt a burst of embarrassment and to cover it up walked briskly towards the wall and began to test its structure and strength. As she stood there tapping the membrane of cajoled surface tension, and watching it generate curved wavefronts in the water beyond, she saw silt in the lake ahead of her stir suddenly and the shadow of a long, sinuous shape go gliding by just beyond the range of the candlelight.
Dragon, Tath said.
Lila didn’t know much about dragons. They were so rare everywhere that almost nothing was known to anyone. Generally they were considered lucky, but this was only if you saw them from afar, like black cats and red sunsets. They were the bringers of storms or good weather, and were said to ride rainclouds and live in heavenly abodes at the four corners of the wind. But directions, navigation, weather and the rest of it all changed depending on the realm, so imagining you knew what a dragon was there for was a tricky business.
It is curious, Tath said as they both watched the lake. Perhaps it will talk to you. This one has been here a long time, longer than I have been alive. It has never spoken to anybody, but Arie considers it the emblem of Aparastil’s purity. She values its presence most highly.
Mascots. Cute. How will it talk? Lila asked him, stopping her taps immediately. I can’t talk dragon.
Dragons are telepaths, Tath told her. If it wants to, it can easily communicate.
Have you spoken with a dragon before?
Only once. A conversation I did not understand and was lucky to survive. He shuddered, making Lila’s chest feel as though she was having cardiac fibrillation. She took a calming breath. Out in the murk the flash of golden scales glinted for an instant and was gone.
The reflections on the transparent walls changed suddenly and Lila turned around. Zal’s surprise was almost comical as the guard pushed him through the door and closed it after him. He stood fast a few steps inside the room and lowered his chin slowly to look her over, taking in every piece of her, from head to singlet to burnt arm to metal legs. His surprise changed to a grin with more than a hint of the demonic about it and Lila’s heart surged into high speed response, her breath lost to her.
“Why Agent Black, this is a very unexpected disaster.”
Lila decided that the feeling of nakedness she had had before was an illusion, compared to the one she had now. Zal’s grin showed none of the signs of revulsion that the others had. Lila became hot and flustered, unable to speak as she opened her mouth to explain.
You didn’t tell me you were in love with him. Tath said, reproachfully. And you really never mentioned that he was in love with you.
He isn’t in love with me, Lila told him sharply, told herself. The recollection of her reflection was all too keen. She barely noticed Tath’s envy, We don’t even know each other. It’s only magic.
Tath laughed at her.
Lila was still locked in Zal’s gaze. She felt as though she was literally melting down. She didn’t want to show it and she didn’t want it to be true. She was hideous, and only some temporary wild magic effect could make him believe anything else.
Wait a second… Tath said, but Lila pushed him aside. His contempt for her needy state of being she could live without. She was supposed to pretend love for Zal, at least the Game of it, well, she could do that, and if it seemed real she’d remember it wasn’t, and if it was too much then she’d pretend that it was real and get through it that way.
One of the best things about having an Al-self, Lila decided, was that it could make sense of things like that at a time like this.
She lifted her chin and steeled her spine. “I’m here to rescue you.”
“I’m delighted,” Zal replied, folding his arms across his chest. “And I take it your imprisonment in this maximum security holding cell wearing nothing but hideous military issue underwear and various burn scars is all part of a masterly plan?”
“Naturally,” Lila said. Clearly they could not discuss the plan, even in pretend, and she was having to fight the urge to go closer to him. Was it her imagination or was there a slight citrus fizz in the air? She switched her vision to aetherial sensitivity and saw the telltale vapours of wild magic spiralling slowly up through the floor.
Zal followed her gaze. His look switched back to her and became calculating. “I suppose Dar brought you here?”
“Yes,” she said. On an impulse she ran her thoughts through her AI Tath-filter. She wanted to speak with words right for an elf but wrong for Lila, in the hope that Zal would notice and figure out that something was up. “After you were swept away by the phoenix he and his partner came back and we fought. They overpowered me, and brought me here.”
“Tricky,” Zal said, mostly to himself, and then to Lila, “I lost your kinky bike leathers. Arie burned them. She doesn’t look kindly on the wearing of dead animals, no matter how nicely they’ve been turned into fabulous body hugging fetish-wear.”
“It is no matter,” Lila said in her best impersonation of a girl who had been to finishing school and learned Shakespeare, even though she had no idea what finishing school might be like. “You can replace them with like when we get back to Otopia.”
“No matter,” Zal repeated carefully, exactly mimicking her voice. His dark eyes narrowed and his ears made that horselike motion that laid them perfectly flat to his head. In horses such a move signalled ill temper and presaged a kick or a bite. Lila wasn’t surprised when he undid his arms and broke his casual pose to stride forward.
Before Lila knew what was happening, or rather, some time after she had correctly predicted what his movements intended, and had the near-delirious pleasure of a half a second to enjoy the prospect, he seized hold of her shoulders, pulled her close against him and kissed her hard on the mouth. At the same instant his andalune body surrounded and submerged her completely.
Prepared for the shock of seeing him again, of being close to him, even of touching him, she was not prepared for immersion in his aethereal body, nor the way that the andalune sweetly invaded her like a trickle of warm water, cell by cell and conduit by conduit. Though it was not compatible with her electrical systems it inhabited the gaps between wires, the biological components of her mechanoid body carrying it as they carried Tath’s; changed but whole. Lila was suffused with Zal and, as with Tath’s andalune contacts, through it she became immediately aware of his state.
She could sense his physical strength and difference to herself, his energy levels, his emotion. He could hide nothing from her, not the fact that he was giving her a psychic frisk for hidden weapons, not the fact that he knew she was in trouble here and that he was afraid they both might die soon, not the fact that he suspected she was possessed or controlled by another, not the fact that touching her in any way intoxicated him so that he could hardly breathe or think. The andalune kiss filled Lila’s senses until there was no part of her that was not bathed in Zal. He did not love her. It was more than that for him, it was right out there, something he couldn’t explain or master. He caressed her. He sang her. Lila floated on him, in a state of complete bliss. Whatever she had done with Dar or any previous boyfriend was nothing compared to this.
A prickle of wild magic coursed up through her power systems. She saw a gold and black pattern in her mind’s eye, diamonds and spots. She heard a voice that wasn’t a voice, more like a person listening to her, far away, waiting for something to happen, waiting… and then she could also feel Tath and his sudden convulsion of fear, like a pressure on her heart.
As condensed as he could be, Tath was locked down into a green light of brilliant intensity but he was also caught in a two-way struggle with his own desires: to make himself invisible to Zal’s persistent aethereal investigation of Lila, and to make himself known to Zal, so that they might be able to communicate in secret.
Lila felt this in
Tath, and riding on its back yet another layer of his conflicted loyalties that stretched between the Daga, Arie, Alfheim and Zal. These all strained in different directions, pulling Tath with them until Lila nor Tath had any idea who or what he believed in. Zal’s betrayal of Alfheim was personal to Tath, but Zal’s words against him hurt a great deal. Tath longed for Zal’s approval, or at the very least his forgiveness. Zal was the elder brother that Tath had always wanted but never had.
Lila was astonished, though this was nothing to Zal’s incredulity as he saw Tath through her connection and made all the same leaps of understanding himself.
Longing won out in Tath. He relaxed, expanded, and Lila, delirious with the possession of Zal’s andalune, felt the two beings meet inside her chest.
Zal snapped backwards in shock and left Lila so fast that she had to fight to stay standing. Her body reeled after him, smarting with grief at the loss of his presence, burning with hunger to have it back.
Tath bloomed outwards, almost to the surface of Lila’s skin, in a turmoil of emotion.
Zal didn’t say anything. He was panting and his upslanted brown eyes were hugely expanded with pleasure and surprise.
Lila didn’t trust him or herself to speak, and the only way she knew or wanted to forestall it quickly was to reach out and, this time, kiss him. She put her hands either side of his head, over the beautifully unfamiliar shape of his long ears. It took less than a second to activate the speaker-films inside her palms, as she had done to play the music to Dar. This time she whispered through her hands,
“Don’t show that you know about Tath, or we’re toast. Arie thinks he’s here playing me to get you to lose the Game so that you’ll lose all your connection to Demonia and go along with her plan.”
Lila felt the full gamut of Zal’s astonishment and delight in the revelations. It dampened even his guarded self-possession for an instant. His mouth smiled against hers and she saw him, fully present and laughing in the eyes that looked into hers, “Well,” he murmured through both the andalune and lip contact, respectful and amused, “fuck me sideways.”
Keeping It Real Page 28
