robert Charrette - Arthur 02 - A King Beneath the Mountain

by Robert N. Charrette

  And time was a factor as well. David couldn't remain in Chardonneville for long without attracting the attention of the Department's terriers. He might already be under scrutiny. If they hadn't noticed him talking to her in the cafe, they had surely marked the long walk he and she had taken through the orchards. If he left Chardonneville in the morning, they'd forget about him; he'd pass out of their calculations.

  And out of her life.

  She surprised herself at how that thought disturbed her. She wasn't the sort to fall for a pretty face. But she had fallen a little, hadn't she? He was attractive, but her response to him was based on more than that. Wasn't it? Could it be that her attraction to him came from the hope of escape from this mess that he represented? If only her problems with the Department weren't putting her in such turmoil, she'd be able to sort it out.

  She got up and began to prowl the cottage. It was a small cottage, confining. As confining as her life with the Department. Before long she found herself back where she had started, sitting in the heavy padded chair in the main room, toying absently with the accumulated trash on the occasional table. She caught herself, put down the tarot deck she had been fingering, and chided herself. Such woolgathering was pointless and a waste of time, but she couldn't seem to focus her thoughts on anything in particular. Before long she realized that she had drifted again. She held something in her lap: the tarot deck.

  Coincidence? Or was her unconscious mind pushing her toward something that might be useful? She'd studied the tarot, along with a number of other divinatory tools, but the cards had never been a friendly implement for her. So why was she turning to them now? It seemed that the otherworld had changed her. Had it made her able to handle the cards effectively?

  She fanned the cards out and selected the Queen of Penta-cles, her usual significator. If she had changed, was the Queen of Pentacles the right card for her anymore?

  Dragging the table around in front of her, she swept a clear space amid the clutter and laid the Queen down in the center. Contemplating the card, she shuffled the deck.

  Had she changed?

  The cards seemed to think so; the first reading offered her lots of hints in that direction, but nothing conclusive. A second reading returned her to the same significator. Instead of being discouraged, she felt vaguely empowered. Each turn of a new card seemed to increase her awareness of the interplay of meanings and position among the cards. Each reading seemed more clear and focused. Change was a major component. Something had changed or was about to change in her life.

  Was the change to come?

  The cards pointed to her future, handing her the Wheel of Fortune in the last position. Change to come. She seized upon the card and laid it out as the significator for a new reading.

  What, then, was her destiny?

  As she shuffled the rest of the cards, they seemed to tingle in her hands as the pasteboard riffled against her palm. She felt a growing sense of assurance, of confidence. This would be a good reading, a powerful indicator. The cards were aligning themselves, shifting through the possible permutations until they reflected the forces bearing upon her future.

  What was her future to be? She turned the first card and revealed the Last Judgment, a card of change, leading to a definite outcome. She wanted that, didn't she? But what sort of outcome?

  What sort of obstacles faced her? The King of Wands, reversed. A dark man? Certainly not David; he'd been signified in the previous readings as the Knight of Wands, but this was a reading of change. Why would he be an obstacle? Or did the card signify another? Magnus, perhaps; he was certainly an obstacle to her present.

  Another card, crowning the situation: the Five of Cups. A strange, ambiguous card of simultaneous gain and loss. At least it promised that something would remain in the end, even if it was not what she expected.

  So what did she have to work with? The Magician. Herself? Her magic? Will over the vagaries of the world. That she could deal with.

  Confidently, she turned the next card. Behind her was Justice, reversed. A familiar positioning and an easy read. The Department's treatment of her was anything but Justice. Was it time to leave all of that behind? And for what?

  What was coming into play? The Knight of Wands. David.

  She quickly turned the seventh card, the illuminator of her attitude. The Seven of Swords. Hope and confidence. She hadn't begun feeling that way, but she was coming more to believe in the solution before her.

  Another card, the influence of those around her. The Knight of Cups, reversed. A messenger or invitation? David might be that as well. Or there might be another involved. Bennett? He was fair and graceful, but she would have thought other cards more suitable to the elf prince. Besides, that image didn't seem to fit, although there was a resonance when she thought of him. His son, the changeling, perhaps? Spae had no idea what had happened to the boy, but this was a reading on her future. Perhaps they would meet again.

  The next card was supposed to reveal her hopes and fears. She turned it faceup. The Lovers. The obvious reading was, well, obvious. The card could also mean trials overcome. She felt hopeful and encouraged.

  The last card would speak of what was to come, a key card in a reading aimed at the future. She uncovered the Hierophant. Was this the man to whom she had recourse? David again? One take on the card suggested that it spoke of marriage. Some said the card had a darker side, one hinting of captivity and servitude. Some—the same ones?—took marriage as a form of captivity.

  With all the cards laid out, she had a sense of completeness and correctness. This felt like a good reading; the cards were aligned properly and in harmony.

  But marriage?

  She gathered in the cards and laid the Hierophant out as significator. Shuffling the deck, she did not sense the harmony of the cards; something was missing. Her next reading was confused. As was the one after that. She tried another half-dozen readings but none of them resolved into anything resembling sense. The clarity had slipped away.

  If it had ever been there. She'd never been comfortable with the tarot.

  But tonight had been different, hadn't it? How else to explain the Tightness, the—dare she call it—power that she had felt? Or was it only the power of wishful thinking?

  She laid down the deck and rubbed her face. She was tired, as tired as she might be from working a spell. She went into the bedroom and lay down. Almost immediately, she fell asleep. Her sleep didn't last long, though; she awoke feeling that her dreams had been chaotic. She thought about getting up or getting more properly ready for bed, but she couldn't bring herself to move. She stared at the ceiling, thinking about the readings. An insight, or a delusion? Had she sensed truth, or merely her desires and concerns, powerful factors in their own right? Her worrying faded into sleep.

  All in all, she slept badly that night.

  Charley Gordon's belt unit beeped right in the middle of the Hilton concierge's account of what he'd seen in room 746. Charley apologized for the interruption and took up the unit. He was ready to punch the file button when he saw the "requested notification" symbol lit. It'd be bad for his teamwork rating if he didn't answer it promptly.

  From Manny's expression, he'd seen the light too. He knew what was coming and he didn't like it.

  "I've got to take this call, sir," Charley said to the concierge. "Please go ahead with your story for Detective Salazar. I'll rejoin you as soon as possible."

  Charley stepped away down the hall for a little privacy and pulled the message onto the screen.

  >>21.10.11 * 05.24.12.56 * xxxxx.xxx

  log #1012.67

  AUTOROUTE

  TO: GordonC@NECPOLNET*0004.13.00*874334 FROM: StanilausJ@NECPOLNET *0004.09.12*233487

  RE: notify officer request.

  MESSAGE:

  Concerning Unregistered, Criminal Marabeth Lancaster. Genetic ID match with Jane Doe 12 * 45.23 * 211008.4. 98% confidence. ***CRIM* LINKS: DNDLS3492//12*211011.4

  JD 12 * 45.23 * 211008.4 // ID JD
12 * 45.23 * 211008.4 // MD JUARZ7892//12*211011.4 UNREG 11*5678238 ***GORD* LINKS: Kravatz Modus 112

  Marabeth Lancaster?

  For a moment the name meant nothing to him, then he linked it. Lancaster was Jimmy Kravatz's missing girlfriend. No surprise to have her turn up dead.

  Charley approved the data transfer on the GORD*LINKS and logged a note to pass the word about her death to the ear. He'd get out to see Kravatz as soon as he got Captain Hancock off his ass about the Hilton report.

  CHAPTER

  8

  "So what's this all about, Tall Jack?"

  "You know as much as I do."

  Frowning, Spillway Sue continued to prowl the room where Wilson had left them. It wasn't very big, only a little larger than John's old bedroom back in the rezcom, and the i eilings were so low that John could reach them without even siraightening his arm. After attempting the door and finding it locked, Sue looked for an alternate exit. So far all her poking and prodding hadn't revealed any secret doors or escape hatches.

  John waited until Spillway Sue was investigating the farthest corner of the room.

  "Faye?" he whispered, hoping for an answer and afraid he'd get one. He hadn't sensed anything, but he'd felt dull and half-asleep since he'd gotten into Wilson's car; he might not have noticed her presence if she had disobeyed him and slipped aboard the car before the door closed. He called her name twice more, but even the third time wasn't the charm. No friendly voice whispered to him from the air. Faye wasn't here.

  Wherever here was.

  His memories of the trip were pretty vague. He remembered getting into the limousine, and Sue's frenetic searching for anything that looked like a control. She never found any that worked. At least John thought not; somewhere after the limousine started rolling, things got hazy. He remembered some motion that didn't seem right for a car, some steep banking and what felt like up-and-down movement, mostly down, but it might have been a dream; it had that sort of quality. The fuzziness of it all hadn't bothered him at the time, but now he began to suspect that Wilson had done something to them. Some kind of drug or sleeping gas, maybe?

  He didn't like the thought of having been drugged. Wilson and his people, whoever they were, were not exactly acting like friends.

  And who were these people? John didn't have the faintest clue.

  He had a pretty clear memory of Wilson opening the door to the limousine and ushering John and Sue into a darkened corridor. They'd been quite tractable. More of the drug effect? He couldn't remember much about the corridor, no clues to tell him something about who their captors were or where they were.

  The room wasn't any help either, with its strange amalgam of rustic primitive and chromium hi-tech. The floor was of packed earth, but the ceiling seemed to be a single seamless panel that glowed in circular patches with a soft reddish light, the only illumination in the room. The upper half of the walls was a similar material, without the glow spots, while the lower half was of a black stone so highly buffed and shiny that John thought it was plastic until he noticed the structure and tiny fossils within it. A band of thicker material marked the boundary between the two materials; John guessed it for some finegrained dark wood because of the intricate carving on it. The fantastic interlaced shapes of coils, spirals, knots, and bizarrely elongated animals drew the eye in and spun it around.

  There was a small couch against one wall and a circular table and three chairs in the center. All the furniture had bright chrome frames. There were soft deep cushions on the seating and the tabletop was a thick slab of highly polished wood. A perscomp with a swivel screen sat in the middle of the table. He sat down in one of the chairs and stared at the dark screen. He didn't think the 'comp would be connected to fin outside line, and even if it were, whom would he call?

  Maybe they wouldn't be here long. He hoped so; there weren't any sanitary facilities.

  Having finished her fruitless search, Spillway Sue slumped into the chair opposite John.

  "So who's this Arthur Bear guy? I don't know him."

  Who did? "He's somebody I used to hang with."

  "He corporate or fed?"

  "What? Neither. He's just—" Just what? A man who'd magically slept for a dozen centuries. A killer. A gang leader. Supposed to be the real King Arthur. Had Spillway Sue even heard of the legend? If she had, would she believe that the man who had inspired it was living and breathing in the here and now? "He's just Bear. He's just a guy. That's all."

  "Anybody with connections like these has gotta be corporate or fed. Big bucks or mega clout or both. This is some fancy shanty, and we didn't exactly get here on the public tranz."

  "Do you have any idea how we did get here? Or where

  •here' is?"

  She started to answer, then stopped and thought a minute. "Ya know, I don't know how we got here. I musta fell asleep." She leaned forward accusingly. "Say, you didn't—"

  "Didn't what?"

  "You're asking. Ya didn't." She slumped back in the chair. I yes roving around the room, she chewed on a hangnail. "Must've been good junk they used on us. Felt like I was flying a couple times."

  "1 don't remember leaving the car."

  "Me neither. Pretty good trick, huh? These guys got real good toys. Ya know what they're playing at?"

  "1 don't think they 're playing."

  "Then what they want, huh? They came looking for you, not me. Me, I just got bused along for the ride. You're the one they laid this show on for. Gimme the prop. Who's boss and what's the deal?"

  If only he knew. This was, however, an opportunity. "Maybe you'd be willing to trade. Roscoe and the Flake fingered you as the leader of the raid on my place. Who sent you after me and what do they want?"

  "Them boys is just street muscle. Dumb boys with too much mouth."

  "They said you had the connections. What connections are those?"

  "That's biz confidential, ya know."

  "I could say the same."

  She gave him a hard, evaluating look. "Maybe ya could. But, ya know, 1 don't see we got a fair trade here. Ya been asking enough questions that 1 think maybe ya don't got any good idea what this seam's all about."

  "I know about Bear."

  "Ain't seen no Bear. Only seen this Wilson shrimp and the fine toys these guys got. Wilson says if I be quiet and don't make no trouble, that I don't get no trouble. Maybe I'll give Shorty a chance to show he's not touting the prop."

  His bluff hadn't been much, but it had been worth a try. He could push some more, but his heart wasn't in it. Maybe the perscomp had some information; it wouldn't have a smart mouth. He slid his chair a little closer to the table. It was not like he was some whiz CyberCowboy ChangEM kind of decker, but he'd done a little fooling around. He might be able to get something out of the system.

  Five minutes of trying every way he knew to get a response from the system got him nothing. Just when he was ready to quit, the perscomp beeped and the screen lit. Wilson's face appeared.

  "Reddy?"

  John didn't bother to answer; he felt sure that Wilson could see to whom he was talking.

  "I know you're there and I know you can hear me. How are you feeling?"

  "What's it matter to you?" Sue asked.

  "I see the young woman has recovered. What about you, Reddy?"

  "So you did drug us," John accused.

  "You sound fine. Of course you were drugged. It was for your own safety," Wilson responded matter-of-factly. "If you want to leave here, it's best you not know where you are."

  "And where are we?"

  Wilson chuckled. "Beneath the mountain."

  "That some kinda code word?" Sue asked.

  John shushed her and spoke to the screen. "What do you want with us?"

  "I want you to get ready for a meeting." A section of the wall opened, revealing another room. Through the door John Could see little more than a bed. Clearly Spillway Sue saw it too.

  "Hey, this ain't like some creepo breeding experiment!"

 
"Don't worry, young woman. There are separate accommodations for you." A second panel opened to a second bedroom. Sue shrugged to John and hauled herself out of the chair. She padded to the doorway and peered in. "Active! I could get used to a place like this."

  John hoped they wouldn't have to. Well, that he wouldn't have to. Spillway Sue could go her own way.

  Sue entered the room, neck craning back and forth. "So where's the— Never mind." John heard the quiet shuff of a panel closing.

  "All right, Wilson. It's just us now. What's this meeting all about? Where's Bear?"

  For an answer Wilson said, "Shower. Change. Compose yourself. I will come to get you at ten."

  "How am I supposed to know when that is?"

  Wilson's face was replaced by numbers on the screen. They read "9:11:43." The seconds started ticking off.

  Wonderful.

  Shower he could and would, if they'd provided the facilities. It had been a while since John had taken a good, long, hot shower. Change? Maybe. Again, if they provided; but if Wilson was sharing his clothes, John would be badly dressed for this meeting. Compose himself? Not likely, while he was so completely under their control.

  Since they were in charge for the moment, there wasn't much he could do. He checked out the bedroom, and was relieved to see that the shower facilities were modern rather than rustic. He tried the water; it was hot. He shucked his clothes and took advantage of it, letting the steamy, humid, soapy sensations and the pounding water wash his mind free of his problems.

  "Nine-fifty," a synthesized voice announced.

  Reluctantly, John cut off the water. If his captors were this compulsive about time, he'd better go along; he didn't know enough about them to risk antagonizing them. Not yet.

  As he emerged from the bathroom, a panel opened near the bed. A closet. Towel wrapped around his waist, he poked through the offerings. There was a suit—pure salaryman cut—complete with snap-collared shirt, string tie, and shiny black wingtips. They looked close to his size, but they weren't his style at all. He found some briefs and a tank top on the shelf and took those; the clean cotton felt good against Ms clean skin. But the concept of putting on the suit was too weird. He pulled his old pants back on and strapped into his boots. The old leather smell and soft suppleness of his jacket was familiar and comforting, reminding him of his days with the Dons; those had been good times, the best since leaving Worcester.