by Eric Nylund
“You wound me with the truth.” She looked up, the pain shining in her eyes. “We were once all so much more.”
She pulled her legs into a kneeling position and stretched out her arms. “And perhaps for you, Robert Farmington, I can summon one brief glimpse of our past.”
Sealiah arched her back and looked as if something red-hot had been shoved into her center-and then light burst forth and blazed pure white: she was a creature of divine beauty that shone through Robert’s mind with wide white wings and angelic glory.
And then it was gone, and Robert was left blinking at splotchy purple afterimages.
Sealiah lay huddled before him, panting. “That is what we once were.”
She sat up, her face pale and lined with exhaustion. “And I fear you are correct: we are no longer those creatures. My last chance to touch that part of me dies with your refusal, hero.”
She slowly stood and stumbled back toward the ocean.
Robert got to his feet. “Wait.”
She stopped but kept her back turned.
Sealiah was the ultimate damsel in distress. She wasn’t human-Robert had to remind himself of that, but did she have to be human to need saving?
What if he could save her? Change her? That might change everything.
He’d never been able to say no to any woman who needed help. It wasn’t in his DNA.
And what needed saving in all the worlds more than a fallen angel?
Still with her back to him, Sealiah whispered, “You also said you wanted to forget, Robert. I could. . could help you with that as well. I would look forward to it.”
Forget? Could he?
Fiona? Everyone at school? And the League?
Robert didn’t think so, as much as he wanted that. But maybe-just maybe, he could grow out of his mistakes and regrets and become something more than just Robert the messenger boy, Robert the spy, and Robert the pawn.
He took her hand, whirled her around-pulled her into his embrace.
Sealiah curled against his chest, and tilted her head up.
They kissed and wrapped around each other.
The ocean surged about their feet and splashed up their legs.
Robert felt as if he were drowning.
He let the tide of her passion take him.
90 THE LONG WALK HOME
Eliot couldn’t figure it out. This was just too much stuff.
He stepped back and looked over the items spread on his bed: jeans and sweaters and T-shirts, soap, toothbrush and toothpaste, first-aid kit, flashlights, a white-gas stove, tent, sleeping bag, rain jacket, sun hat, parka, waders, a box of extra guitar strings, and books-stacks and piles of ancient tomes and scrolls and moldering texts that were his required reading for the summer. The books by themselves weighed fifty pounds.
He had to take it all though, because where he was going he wasn’t sure what to expect.
Could he really do this?
Yes. He’d already made up his mind. The rest was just details.
How he’d come to this particular life-altering decision was a combination of logic, guesswork. . and a feeling that he was 100 percent absolutely correct. It was instinct: like a plant heliotropes toward the sun, or stone falls because of gravity.
He was going.
His gaze landed on his guitar case. Lady Dawn-he couldn’t forget her.
He’d need a wheelbarrow for all this stuff.
Eliot went to the window, opened it, and let the rare unfogged San Francisco sunset stream into his room. He took a deep breath. It smelled clean.
He was doing this, he told himself again. And yet, if he was so sure, why was he terrified?
There was a tiny tap at his door-followed by several raps, too loud, like the person on the other side was overcompensating for their initial timidity.
“Come in?”
Fiona opened his door. She wore one of those outfits Aunt Dallas had got her in Paris, a blue-silver jacket, silk blouse, and matching skirt. It made her seem ten years older. She also had that silver rose pin the League had given her. Fiona looked annoyed at Eliot-then her face went slack as she saw the stuff on his bed.
Had she come here to chew him out again for claiming the Infernal land and saving Jezebel? Was she going to play the “older” sister and give him advice and order him around?
Or was it something else?
There was a look on her face: one you might give some mentally ill person walking repeatedly into a corner, or the piteous glance you might give a homeless person huddled in a cardboard box.
Which, in Eliot’s near future, might not be too far from the truth.
She asked, “What do you think you’re doing, Rheinardia ocellata?”74
Eliot ran fingers through his unruly hair. He hadn’t had time to get it cut all year and it was one long mess.
He had more important things, though, to occupy his thoughts than his hair or devising a return shot in for vocabulary insult like fescennine absquatulative physagogue.
“I’m packing,” he told her.
“I can see that.” Fiona set her hands on her hips. “Look, forget whatever you’re doing. We need to talk about what Sobek said: that parting of the ways thing. It has to be a metaphor.”
“No,” Eliot replied. “It means that you and I are going in different directions.”
“I know that,” she said. “Like your music and my combat training.” She shook her head, dismissing any other notion. “You need to get dressed, because we’re scheduled to see the League Council this evening. They’re going to help us figure it out.”
The skin at the base of Eliot’s spine crawled. The thought of him standing in front of all the Elder Immortals, explaining that he was an Infernal, was the last place in the world he wanted to be.
“I don’t think so,” he said. “I’ve already got my part figured out.”
It hurt him to say those words because he knew he couldn’t take them back, that what he was doing now would be irrevocable.
Fiona scrutinized him, and then moved over to his bed, cataloging all the equipment. “You’re going back, aren’t you?” Her voice dripped with contempt. “To Hell-and those Burning Orchards?”
Eliot kept his voice level. “I have to.”
“I bet you do,” Fiona said with a sneer. “You and Jezebel together all summer long? I’m going to get sick just thinking about it.”
“You’ve got it wrong. I’m going, but Jezebel is staying at the Paxington dormitory. She has to make up the classes she missed or she won’t be coming back next year.”
Fiona stared at him, her mouth open, not understanding.
Eliot wasn’t sure he could explain it-but he tried. “She and I talked about it. She wants to learn more. . and I’m not going to hold her back.”
Eliot tactfully skipped the part of the phone conversation he’d just had with Jezebel twenty minutes ago where she had spelled it out for him: she was basically his slave-bonded to land he now owned, and that Eliot could’ve ordered her to come back with him. . and be with him.
That had kind of soured the entire heroic fantasy he had had about him and her. After all he’d been through to save her-he didn’t even know if she really liked him. . for him.
Someone like Jeremy would have been okay with that, but Eliot needed someone by this side (raw animal sexual attraction, notwithstanding) because they wanted to be there-not because they were forced there by some magical bond.
Eliot would figure what to do with his sort-of girlfriend, but later, after he solved a much bigger problem.
“So, why are you going back?” Fiona asked. “Are you going to give that land to Dad?”
“You don’t understand,” Eliot told her, exasperation creeping into his voice. “I can’t give it up.” He forced what he’d been feeling since he’d taken possession of his domain in Hell into words: “That land is bound to me. It’s part of me. If someone takes it, they take me. . my soul, too.”
Fiona’s blinked, absorbing what he s
aid, and then her hands clenched into fists. “Then we have to do something. There has to be a way to sever that tie.”
Eliot held up both hands. “Don’t!” He swallowed, his throat suddenly dry as he imagined Fiona cutting out a part of him. “I want this,” he said. “I can feel the land calling to me, making me stronger, something more than just ordinary Eliot Post.”
“Ordinary? You’re a hero in the League of Immortals, for crying out loud! Think about it. If you go back there, they’ll kill you. You saw how Sealiah and Mitch-Mephistopheles fought for their lands. What makes you think a bunch of Infernals won’t gather their armies and just take your land?”
“I don’t know,” Eliot whispered. “There’s no reason they wouldn’t. Maybe Dad can help.” This sounded unconvincing, even to himself. “But I have to be there, Fiona. I can’t help it.”
“Well, I can’t-I won’t accept that,” she told him, standing taller. “I’m not going to stand by while you fight for your life. There has to be something we can do.”
They locked stares. Eliot so wanted to communicate everything he felt-the pull of the land, and the need to prove himself. Why didn’t she get that? They used to be able to explain encyclopedic volumes of information and feelings with a single glance, but Fiona wasn’t listening to him anymore. She was trying to communicate something entirely different: her disappointment, her displeasure, her disapproval-that she knew what was right for him.
“Eliot? Fiona? My doves?” Cecilia poked her head through the open door, glancing over them both, and her eyes hardening as she took in the equipment on Eliot’s bed. “Your mother would like to see you in the dining room.” She smiled with trembling lips, but Eliot heard the iron authority of Audrey behind the polite request.
“Great,” Fiona muttered, and strode past Eliot. “We’re not done talking about this.”
She had no idea how made up his mind was. . although, what was he going to tell Audrey? And how could he stop her from stopping him?
Cee stood waiting for him, her smile brightening. She wore pants, nineteenth-century things with flared thighs and a white canvas belt-like she was going elephant hunting with Ernest Hemingway. (For all Eliot knew, that’s precisely what she might’ve done last time she wore them.) She had on a khaki blazer and wore desert camouflage army boots.
“We better see what you mother wants,” Cee told him.
“Yeah.” Eliot had a feeling that someone in this family (other than him) was about to pull a fast one.
He marched into the dining room.
Audrey and Fiona stood side by side. It struck Eliot how much they looked alike: tall, thin, and serious, but Fiona was in gray and his mother in a neat black dress. He’d never seen his mother in black, though, and it made him stop and stare. She looked like she was going to a funeral. . and somehow it looked good on her.
On the dining table sat three cloth sacks. They were full of bottled waters, beef jerky, boxes of cereal, vitamins, and protein bars.
Fiona crossed her arms over her chest. “You know what Eliot is doing?”
Eliot pressed his lips into a single white line, astonished that she would break their confidential trust. Technically, though, she hadn’t really snitched on him. . but it was darned close.
How could he be mad, though? Fiona was just worried. And he was going to have to tell Audrey something.
“I know everything,” Audrey told them.
Eliot’s and Fiona’s eyes went wide.
“You do?” they asked at the same time.
“I know that Eliot has arranged for his vassal to stay at Paxington over the summer.” One of her eyebrows arched. “Very wise to attend to business first, I might add. I also know that you intend to spend the summer in the Lower Realms. You have packed, but Cee and I have taken the liberty of buying a few snacks to tide you over on your journey.”
Eliot stared at his mother, unable to read her face. How had she known all that? And more important, why wasn’t she stopping him?
“You’re just letting him go?” Fiona asked, her voice breaking.
“I must,” Audrey told her. “As a member of the League, I am forbidden to interfere in Infernal affairs.”
Fiona turned pale as this sank in.
So Eliot was free. Finally free.
But the elation of his new freedom faded because it also meant he was alone now, too.
“Besides,” Audrey said to Fiona, and set one hand on her shoulder. “One must not separate an Infernal from his lands for too long. They do not fare well.”
“But Eliot’s really not an. .,” Fiona’s voice trailed off. She looked at Eliot like he had a terminal disease-or like he was already dead. She regained her composure and said, “Well, he can’t go. How is he going to carry all this?” She gestured at the table. “That’s not even taking into account all the books he’s going to need to pass Miss Westin’s final exam.”
“I don’t know,” he admitted.
Cee then entered the dining room carrying a large bag in each hand, and with Lady Dawn’s case bouncing along on top of one. The bags were made of a heavy tapestry-like tan-and-purple paisley material.
Eliot didn’t know what she was doing, but he immediately went to his great-grandmother to help. “Let me get those.” Eliot tried to lift one of her carpetbags. He couldn’t budge one with both hands. It must have weighed two hundred pounds.
Cee handed him his guitar case.
“Cecilia has packed your things,” Audrey explained. “She’s going with you, Eliot.”
Eliot blinked and looked between Audrey and Cee. They weren’t kidding.
Relief coursed through him. He wouldn’t be alone. . even though he’d have to deal with Cee’s cooking-it was a small price to have someone he knew, someone he could trust, by his side.
Cee patted his arm, seeming to understand everything.
Audrey beckoned to Eliot. He set his guitar aside and embraced his mother-clutching on to her because it might the last time he ever hugged her.
Audrey went through the motions, but there was no warmth. Her embrace was rigid and dry and without feeling.
He started to pull away, but she held him, turned, and whispered so softly into his ear that he barely heard: “Your father told me of your tie to land. You and Cecilia must hurry. There is good reason to do so, which she will explain on the way. Now go, and be safe, my Eliot.”
Audrey squeezed him once, and then released him.
She’d been talking to his father? Since when were they on speaking terms?
He stared into Audrey’s eyes. There was no love in them, but something new, a steely concern. Was that all she had to give him?
No. Something else glimmered in her gaze: something. . strategic.
He nodded, not entirely understanding, but at least acknowledging that he had heard.
There was an awkward moment when Eliot couldn’t move. He felt a crushing impulse to stay where he was, to stay home and stick with what he knew.
But he had to leave because it would be his first step on his own, as an adult, and if he didn’t move now, he never would.
So, without a sigh, he picked up Lady Dawn and marched down the stairs.
Cee, Audrey, and Fiona followed.
He stood in front of the door, pausing to trace over the patterns of color and light on its four stained glass panes. He must have passed those every day and until this moment he hadn’t realized how much he was going to miss something as simple and stupid as the geometric lines that made the mosaic of a field of grapevines and harvesters.
He opened the door, stepped onto the threshold, and turned back to them.
Audrey nodded and held up one hand, then curled it and dropped it to her side-a motion that seemed to communicate both good-bye and stay.
Fiona stood by their mother, her arms folded in front of her. “Please don’t do this, Eliot,” she whispered.
Eliot wanted to move to his sister, but there was a barrier between them now that hadn’t been there
a moment ago. He looked into her eyes. They glistened with tears, but Fiona quickly blinked them away.
And for the first time in his life, he couldn’t read her. There was no connection.
He turned his back to them. “Come on, Cee.”
He marched down the stairs and onto the sidewalk. He heard Cecilia mutter her good-byes to Audrey and fuss over Fiona to take care of herself and to study hard-and then she trotted to catch up to Eliot.
“Your mother told you?” Cee whispered. “We must make all due haste?”
“Yeah.”
But once again, Eliot found his legs immobile. What he wanted to do was turn around and try to explain everything to Fiona, make her see his point of view, to somehow get her back on his side.
They were supposed to be stronger together.
But he couldn’t turn-if he did, he knew he’d chicken out and never have the strength to move forward.
He turned anyway and looked back.
Audrey was on the threshold, gazing longingly after him. . seeming both sad and proud.
Fiona, however, had already gone back inside.
Audrey gave them both a tiny wave, and then hung her head and shut the door.
He somehow found the strength to turn and walk down the sidewalk.
After a block, he asked Cee, “So what’s the big rush?”
Cee kept pace with him, even though she carried those too heavy carpetbags. She wasn’t even panting. In fact, she looked a lot healthier than any 105-year-old woman had a right to look.
“The League of Immortals will soon know of the Night Train Station under Market Street,” she said.
“Because of Fiona,” Eliot finished for her.
Of course, Eliot’s departure was going to come up at the Council meeting tonight, and they’d want to know all the details of how he was getting back to Hell. If Fiona didn’t tell them outright. . they’d find a way to get the information out of her.
“How long do you think the Immortals will tolerate an open path to Hell in the Middle Realms?” Cee asked.
“But the Pactum Pax Immortalis-,” Eliot started, and then stopped in the middle of that thought.
