The gap in the rock walls must have been larger than she had thought; when the rock disappeared on the left, there was no answering darkness up ahead to show where it might resume. Tannim turned the Mach I into the gap, still keeping the wall on the left. The mist was at its most turbulent here; the predominant color was a blue-green, but there were swirls of red, yellow, even purple.
"This place makes me think of an explosion in a tie-dye plant," Tannim muttered under his breath.
Shar peered ahead into the psychedelic fog, every muscle and nerve alive with tension, and started when Tom Cadge tapped her shoulder.
"Please, lass," he said quietly, "can ye tell me where this magical chariot is goin'? All I know is we been someplace cold, an' now we're someplace else."
"Did you ever—ah—see any of the places that the Unseleighe Sidhe call `Unformed'?" she asked. She hated to ask it that way, but Cadge didn't seem to mind.
"Before they put out me eyes, ye mean?" He shook his head. "I heard tell of 'em, but I ne'er saw one. I didna see much but Lady Magda's Hall, an' not much o' that."
"Well, that's where we are. It's a place full of mist, and not much else, and someone with a strong enough will and magic can make it into anything he wants," she told him. "Somebody left something nasty behind the last time he was here, and it attacked Tannim."
"Mist?" Tom shook his head. "What can anyone be doin' with mist?"
"It's a special kind of mist," Shar replied absently. "Think of it like clay. That's how most of the domains were made in the first place, right out of the mist. Either one incredibly powerful mage, like Lord Oberon or Lady Titania, or a group of mages with a single plan in mind, would move into one of these places and turn it into what they wanted."
"So?" Thomas replied. "Is that where we are, then? One o' them mist places?"
"Exactly. There are often Gates in there, and that's what we're looking for." Shar continued to stare ahead as she talked to Tom; was it imagination, or was the color slowly leaching out of the swirling mist? "People can make small things out of the mist, too, so they'll come here when they need something and create it."
"So—if ye can make anything ye like, why don't ye make a Gate now?" Tom asked with perfect logic.
Shar sighed. "Partly because I'm not certain either of us is up to creating a Gate at the moment. Partly because this iron carriage that protects us also warps magic around it, and I'm not certain what the effect of making a Gate around it would be. Partly because a Gate is one thing you can't make out of the mist with any certainty at all—it would be like you trying to juggle a dozen sharp knives at once. And lastly, making a Gate makes a fearful disturbance; there are people watching for us, and they'll know where we are and what we're doing."
"Ah." Tom nodded wisely. "So I see. This workin' of magic, it just purely isn't like—like magic, is it?" He grinned, amused at his own wit.
"Precisely." She forced a tired chuckle since he wouldn't be able to see her smile. "Well, we're going to see if we can't find another Gate in here to take us somewhere nearer to our friends."
By now the mist had definitely gone to pastel. In a few more moments, all the color would be gone, and it would be time to stop the Mustang and see if she couldn't locate another Gate on this side of the wall.
But as the color leeched out of the mist, the mist itself thinned. Shadow-shapes appeared, not the moving shapes the mist itself produced, but stationary shadows, with solidity to them.
The mist thinned further as the Mustang rolled forward, and the shapes took on substance, color, and texture. "Are you seeing what I'm seeing?" Tannim asked quietly.
"I think so," Shar replied, while she cobbled together the most apt comparison she could come up with. "This is really weird. It looks like somebody's rock collection."
If it was, the collector had to be a giant. Ahead, behind, and on either side loomed huge slabs and boulders of polished, formed or crystallized stone, each piece as big as the Mach I or bigger. These slabs balanced upright somehow, defying gravity, even though their bases might be no bigger than a foot or so across. The impression of being in the midst of a rock collection was inescapable now that Tannim had pointed it out; no two of these huge "specimens" were alike, and they all appeared—at least to Shar's uneducated eyes—to be purely of a particular "kind" of rock. Here was a cluster of quartz crystal points, the smallest of them as long as her arm and the largest taller than Tannim—there a polished boulder of amethyst big enough to crush the Mach I—ahead a single giant violet diamond-shaped fluorite crystal balanced precisely on one point.
"This is bizarre," Tannim said softly, staring at the next rock, a milky yellow multifaceted crystal which balanced on a single point like the fluorite crystal now behind them. The one next to it looked for all the world like an irregular slab cut from a geode and polished on both sides. "Have you ever heard of anything like this?"
"Never," she said firmly. "But I'm not sure I like what it implies. Someone had to create all this out of the Unformed; that's the only way you'd get things like this, right? So that person had to not only be some kind of rock-nut, but he had to be a complete monomaniac."
"Rock is my life, man," Tannim said automatically, but the joke fell rather flat.
Mist writhed away from the Mach I as they passed the balanced slab and a round boulder of pink quartz appeared to the right. "To the exclusion of everything else?" Tannim hazarded. "Boy, I hope we aren't disturbing his collection, wandering around in here!" He ran a hand through his tangled curls worriedly.
"Why don't you stop for a moment, and let me see if I can find a Gate," Shar suggested, feeling as worried as Tannim looked. "If someone got in here to create all this, there has to be a way out. I think I'd like to find it before he finds us."
Tannim nodded, and stopped the Mustang between a colorful metallic cubic aggregate of selenium and a polished granite egg the size of a Kenworth. Shar got out, checking all around them with such caution that it felt as if every nerve was an antenna, tuned for danger.
Only when she was certain there was nothing within the reach of her senses or her magics did she take a seat on the hood of the Mustang and send her spirit out questing for the peculiar magical signature of a Gate.
* * *
"Want to try again?" Joe suggested, as the rather stilted conversation in the crowded room died into silence again for the fourth time.
Chinthliss looked at Lady Ako, who alone of them had not lost her outward serenity. She shrugged. "I told my underlings to come inform us if the Mustang made a sizable change of location. That would indicate a Gate-passage, of course. There's no telling, though, if they were able to locate a domain within the Unformed where we saw them. Elfhame Outremer is such a place; I'm certain the Unseleighe also have domains within the mist. I know that the Grand Bazaar is in the mist, and that it is not the only neutral hold to be in the center of the Unformed."
"Is that a `yes' or a `no'?" Chinthliss asked in open exasperation. "Oh, never mind. I want to see if your precious daughter is up to anything." He bent over the chrome trim-ring, and once again chanted until a shower of sparks drifted down from his hand and settled on the chrome ring. This time the lacquer tabletop enclosed by the ring fogged over with no help from Lady Ako.
The haze cleared, and Joe leaned over the table for a closer look.
Shar sat on the hood of the Mach I, her eyes closed and a frown of concentration on her face. Tannim stood beside the car in a protective stance, his bespelled red crowbar in his hands, watching warily to all sides. The Mustang itself was parked in front of a huge gray boulder, a rock as big as two cars put together and polished to a glossy sheen. The mist of the earlier vision was thinner here, but there was still nothing really identifiable about the place.
Joe looked up at Lady Ako to see her reaction. She was smiling: a satisfied little smile compounded of equal parts of approval and relief.
"It seems they truly are working together," the lady said with a faint air of satisfaction.
Chinthliss only grunted. "I should give a great deal to know how my foster-son's sleeve came to be so shredded," he replied.
Joe glanced back down at the little scene imprisoned in the chrome circle, and saw with a start that Tannim's right sleeve was hanging in rags. But beneath the shirt-sleeve was something altogether unexpected; armor of some kind, he guessed. Iridescent green, of tiny hexagonal scales invisibly joined together, it covered his arm as smoothly as Spandex from wrist to shoulder.
"Pretty," Lady Ako remarked, indicating the armor with a fingertip that did not quite touch the image. "I assume that this is your doing, this armor?"
"As much Tannim's as mine," the dragon admitted with a touch of pride in his voice. "I happen to think that it is very good work. Something must have attacked them, though."
"If so, it learned that he bites back," Ako observed. "Honestly, I do not recognize this place, although I will inform my techs with a description, and we will see if the computer has a match. What of you?"
"Not a clue," Chinthliss admitted, as Ako slipped what looked to Joe like a palmtop computer out of her sleeve and laid it on her lap, quickly scratching something on its screen with a fingernail before returning it to her voluminous sleeve. I always wondered what they used those huge kimono sleeves for. Heck, you could smuggle Mexicans in there!
"You seem to be having an easier time holding the vision this time, old lizard," Fox observed. "Got any idea why?"
Chinthliss shook his head. "Probably has something to do with the area they're in. Less instability, maybe. There's a lot less of the Unformed mist, anyway." He turned to Ako. "What's she doing?"
"I would guess that she is searching the area for a Gate," Ako told him. "Shar is particularly sensitive to the energies of Gates. Even if she does not recognize a setting, she can sometimes tell general things about the destination."
"No—" Chinthliss took his eyes from the vision in the chrome trim-ring for a moment to stare at Ako in astonishment. "Where did she pick up that trick? From—"
"Yes," Ako confirmed. "I myself do not know how she does this. It is not a kitsune gift."
"It isn't a dragon-talent either." He shook his head. "Evidently she is not simply a meld of kitsune and dragon; she is something more."
"As I have always maintained." Ako was too composed to beam with pride, but there was a great deal of pride in her voice.
Inside the chrome circle, Tannim walked a wary patrol around the car as Shar remained perched on the hood. There was nothing in Tannim's behavior that suggested to Joe that he was at all worried about Shar or what she might do. If anything, his prowling suggested that he was determined to protect her from anything that might come at her out of the mist.
That certainly suggested they had come to some sort of arrangement, an agreement of cooperation, perhaps.
The vision still wasn't clear enough to make out who was in the back seat of the Mustang. The figure was blurred, as if the focus was a bit out in that one spot, although the rest of the scene was clear enough.
"I can't see what is in the backseat," Chinthliss said with a frown, echoing Joe's own thought. "That's odd. Look, you can see the front seat itself clearly enough, so it isn't the Mach I's shields that are interfering." He glanced sharply at Ako, who only shrugged.
"I could not tell you who that might be," she replied. "Shar has no allies that she would trust in a situation like this. Perhaps it was someone they met along the way?"
"Maybe another prisoner of Madoc Skean," Chinthliss muttered. "Tannim wouldn't be able to leave someone like that behind. Especially not if it was a Seleighe Sidhe."
"Can you blame him?" Fox made a face. "I wouldn't leave a dead cat in the hands of that lunatic."
"Maybe if I—" Chinthliss held his hand over the trim-ring again, his eyes narrowing as he focused his magic. "I would feel a lot better if I could just see who or what that is—"
But his efforts were not only in vain, they undid everything else he had accomplished. As Joe watched in dismay, the vision flared, then faded, leaving only the hint of haze on the black lacquer.
Then even the haze faded, and only the shiny surface remained.
Chinthliss cursed, but Lady Ako remained philosophical. "You can only hold such a vision for so long," she reminded him. "And what good would it do you to sit here and stare at it? You cannot help them until you know where they are."
Chinthliss growled under his breath, but had to admit that she was right. "But I don't have to like it," he added. Joe agreed silently. At least, if they could watch, they had the illusion that they could do something.
"I can—" Chinthliss began, then pulled his hand back before he even began the spell again. "No. No point in wasting magic that we might need later."
"A messenger will come if the Mustang makes a large enough movement for a fix," Ako promised. "I gave you my word."
At that, Chinthliss actually smiled. "I do not recall that you actually gave your word before, my lady, but now that you have—I am inclined to trust you."
Ako looked at him in some surprise, and Joe thought, she also looked a little hurt. "Have we grown so far apart, Chinthliss, that you no longer trust me without my given word?" she asked softly.
Chinthliss blinked, and turned to meet her gaze completely. The two of them stared deeply into one another's eyes, unable to look away.
Joe cleared his throat, and they both jumped and looked at him as if they had forgotten that he and FX existed.
Maybe they did forget we existed.
"Can we—ah—take a break, lady?" he asked carefully. "All that tea—"
"I don't—" Fox began, and Joe jabbed him fiercely in the side with an elbow. FX emitted a strangled grunt and fell silent.
"Certainly," Lady Ako replied, ignoring FX. "Saski can show you where everything is. Can't you, Saski?" Now she smiled at FX, to his obvious discomfort.
"Yes, Lady Ako," FX managed. Joe slid the door to the little room open, and he and Fox climbed out. The door slid shut again as soon as they were outside.
"What did you do that for?" FX hissed angrily.
"They wanted to be alone, dummy," Joe replied scornfully. "Jeez, man, couldn't you see that? Don't you remember what Chinthliss told us about him and the lady and all?"
"Of course I remember! That's why I wanted to stay there and watch!" Fox told him. "And—ow!" he exclaimed, as Joe elbowed him again. "What did you do that for?"
"Because you're rude, crude, and not even housebroken," Joe told him, shaking his head in dismay. "Man, I can't take you anywhere, can I? Why don't you show me what passes for a bathroom around here. I really did drink too much of that tea."
Fox sighed and cast a longing look back at the closed doors of the little room. "Oh well," he said philosophically. "We'll figure out whatever they've been up to when we get back anyway."
"You're impossible," Joe retorted.
Fox only snickered.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Tannim prowled around the car restlessly, the comforting weight of his crowbar filling both hands. He studied the mist as it eddied around the giant mineral specimens, watching it with wary suspicion. Mist alternately concealed and revealed the farthest of the rocks, moving in no pattern he could discern. Unless he was greatly mistaken, the farthest of those rocks was a slice of watermelon tourmaline, a huge irregular wedge of transparent pink and green. He wouldn't even have known that watermelon tourmaline existed, much less what it was called and what it looked like, if Dotty hadn't been so infatuated with the stuff.
She'd be going ape right now, trying to figure out how to cart a five-ton rock out of here. Boy, this place is surreal. I feel like I'm in the middle of a Lexus commercial.
He kept thinking that he saw things moving, just out of the corner of his eye. But any time he turned to see what it was, there was nothing there but a swirl of mist.
Too bad I'm not some kind of superhero. I could sure use an edge right now. Heros in books had magical senses to warn them
of approaching danger; all he had were his eyes and ears and mage-sight. My crowbar-sense is tingling! The mage-sight wasn't doing him a heck of a lot of good; the mist itself was full of magical potential and obscured everything else.
It's doing me about the same amount of good as a guy with a heat-scope in the desert at high noon.
That left eyes and ears. Plain old human senses, backed by red-painted iron and a bit of experience. Maybe a little good sense. It would have to do.
His feet made no noise at all in the sand. None. He might just as well have been walking on a foot of packed feathers. The ground here was as strange as the rest of the place. You could dig down just as far as you wanted, and all you'd find was sparkling white, utterly dry sand. Yet neither the tires nor feet sank in more than an inch, and there was firm, excellent traction, as good as the sands of Daytona Beach. Better. As good as the Bonneville salt flats. If I could just export this stuff, I'd make a fortune selling it to dirt-tracks.
Lackey, Mercedes - Serrated Edge 05 - Chrome Circle Page 31
