by Hiatt, Bill
Whatever had brought him here now, the beast snarled and gave us an evil stare with his faintly glowing red eyes that made me shiver. Then he showed us his enormous fangs, ready to chew off an arm or leg if the mood struck him.
I was still strategizing in my head when Gordy drew his sword and charged.
“Gordy! The fear effect isn’t likely to work on a supernatural!” I yelled, drawing While Hilt.
“Whatever! It’s still a sword!” Gordy yelled back as he swung the sword at the beast, who reared up and growled loudly enough to send cold chills down the spines of people a block away.
The thing lunged at Gordy, and his sword struck true. There was a flash, and then nothing. The Gwyllgi was simply gone.
Gordy whooped in excitement. “I didn’t know the sword could do that!” he said gleefully.
“It can’t. If something just dissolves when a magic weapon strikes it, it means it was an illusion to begin with.” I was relieved, though Gordy looked more disappointed than anything else.
“That doesn’t make sense,” said Stan, stroking his chin thoughtfully. “What does anyone gain from putting an illusionary dog on your porch? Anyone who could do that would know your sword or Gordy’s would take it out with one blow.”
My eyes narrowed. “Maybe it wasn’t intended for us. If so, the purpose might have been to keep someone else out of the house. But who—and why?” Suddenly, a horrible thought struck me. “Guys, we need to check inside—now!” Gordy and Stan both followed as I raced up on the porch. I dropped my keys, but Stan picked them up quickly and handed them back. I got the door open and raced in.
“Mom!” I called urgently. No answer. I called out again, moving from room to room almost at a run. Having exhausted the first floor, I was halfway up the stairs when Stan yelled, “Isn’t this the afternoon she plays bridge?”
I stopped midway up the stairs, turned around, and laughed. “Stan, thank God you remembered that. I was sure she had been kidnapped.” Or worse. Really, I had had visions of her in the kitchen, lying in a pool of her own blood. “But that leaves us with an illusionary Gwyllgi guarding an empty house for no apparent reason.” Actually, come to think of it, the Gwyllgi guarding my mom’s corpse wouldn’t have made much sense, either, but my mom’s death would have explained the Gwyllgi’s appearance, anyway.
We talked about the situation for a few minutes, but eventually we gave up trying to figure it out. Stan and Gordy went home, and I had planned to stay home, but then, on impulse, I decided to walk over to school to see if Nurse Florence was still in her office. It was late afternoon, but she probably had paperwork to do after having been out of the office for a couple of afternoons.
She turned out to be there, all right, but she had her head down on her desk, her body racked by sobs.
As soon as she became aware of me, she tried to pull herself together and insisted she was okay, but I stepped around the desk and crouched down to hug her anyway—and not, I should add for the cynics among you, because she was hot.
“What’s wrong?”
“I…I just got the news,” she said, wiping her eyes ineffectually. “The plane carrying the members of my order crashed somewhere over the Atlantic. So far there is no sign of survivors.”
“That’s terrible!” I said. (Really, anything you say is going to sound stupid in this kind of situation, but you have to at least try.) “Was it…magic?”
“Even when they find the black box, it isn’t exactly going to tell us that, but I doubt it. It would require either amazing coordination, or the ability we have talked about to manipulate technology using magic, and I don’t know of anyone except you who is even working on that. Still, the timing. It does make me wonder.” She leaned back in her chair and, for the first time since I had met her when I was a high school freshman, she looked defeated.
“The only good news is that one member had to take a later flight. She is all right, as far as I know. I hardly know where to turn now. I didn’t know the members of the Welsh branch of our order that well, but, but…” I moved to hug her again, but she waved me off. “It’s just so unexpected, so much…death to absorb all at once. And, as if that were not enough, now I have to worry all the more about what will happen to you and your friends. I had counted on being able to have a decisive magical advantage over Carrie Winn, and now we can’t even hope for that, much less count on it. Well, at least we will still have one more spell caster. Maybe the two of us, together with your magic, will be enough. We don’t really know exactly how powerful Winn is.”
“I have a little story about that…if you’re up to it.”
Ever the professional, Nurse Florence was already composed enough that only her reddened eyes gave her away. “Yes, if there is any new information, I should have it.” So I told her about the afternoon’s events, which didn’t exactly cheer her up. She wasn’t as worried as I was about how easily Ms. Winn had inflicted pain on me. “You were caught by surprise; that’s the only reason she could break your connection so quickly and so painfully.” No, that part didn’t worry her much. What did worry her was Gordy.
“She has to be suspicious. And she knows it’s a new sword. She will doubtless have connections with someone in Annwn and will try to find out where it came from. If she learns Gwynn forged swords for three of your friends, what is she going to make of that? If nothing else, it will tip her off that you lied to her, and then it’s game over.”
“Would it be that easy for her to find out what happened?” I asked.
“Well, perhaps not,” replied Nurse Florence, her brow wrinkled. “Certainly Gwynn and his warriors would never tell her directly. I didn’t mention this two days ago, but when I first talked to Gwynn, he accepted my request for help much more readily than I expected. That can only be because he fears the power Carrie Winn is accumulating and wants to keep her in check. Though she is no immediate threat to him, if she gains a dominant enough position in the human realm, she could compromise the secrecy surrounding the faerie realms. Most rules in Annwn haven’t wanted anything to do with the human world at least since the invention of gunpowder. The more Carrie Winn strives for power, the more temptation there is for her to use magic, and the more magic she uses, the more likely someone will notice. After all, in a short period of time Carrie Winn has sent a pwca onto a high school campus, thrown nine of Santa Brígida’s most visible young people into Annwn with hundreds of potential witnesses around, and dropped a kelpie in the man-made lagoon at a university. And that’s just what we know about.
“Even if Winn somehow keeps the human population in the dark, that success would just make her ultimate triumph more likely, and then she could use a stronger position in this world as a base for attacking the Otherworld. If Carrie Winn were herself a ruler in Annwn, well, she wouldn’t be around here so much, probably not at all. She may not be an exile, but she is at the very least someone not in power, and it seems clear she is after power in one way or another. Gwynn would never admit it, but he must be worried sick over the prospect of Winn wrecking his own kingdom somehow.” I looked a little disappointed at that. “Don’t get me wrong, Tal, you and your friends were impressive, but Gwynn has other reasons as well for helping us—be sure of that. That’s really good news, though. If we need something else, we stand a decent chance of getting it.”
“How about a squad of his best fighters on Samhain?” I asked with a little smile.
“You know better. Yes, he and his men could come through more easily then, but he won’t risk compromising the security of Annwn himself. I’m afraid we are on our own in that way.”
Nurse Florence leaned back in her chair again, looking exhausted.
“I should go, I guess,” I said, wanting to hug her again but not quite sure whether I should.
“Wait!” she said, sitting up again, which required a visible effort on her part. “We have to talk about the Gwyllgi.”
“We can do that tomorrow,” I said gently.
“No!” she said w
ith such intensity I took a step back. “Before you go, you have to realize what our situation really is. Look, I know it might be better for me to spend a little time grieving, but I don’t have that kind of time—and I will not end up grieving for you, or Stan, or any of your other friends. I won’t do it.”
I sat down on the counter. “Okay, I’m listening.”
“The Gwyllgi means that we don’t have that much time.”
“But it wasn’t even a real…”
“Just listen. I know it wasn’t real. That is exactly my point. You have an encounter with Carrie Winn in which she sees Gordy’s sword. Later one of her drivers drops all of you off at your house, even Gordy, who should have been dropped off a couple of blocks away. Then you battle the fake Gwyllgi whose presence makes no sense, only, if you think about what went before, it makes perfect sense.”
“I’m not following.”
“Winn wanted to know what the sword did. So she told her driver to drop Gordy with the rest of you. It must have been she who crafted that illusion. She knew Gordy would use the sword, and she hoped your conversation would reveal its purpose if it wasn’t revealed in action. Sure enough, you mentioned the fear aura. Someone—or something—is nearby to observe, or perhaps Winn is observing by magical means. Either way, mission accomplished: she now knows what his sword does and can prepare for it, just as she can prepare for yours.”
“Well, what of it? Is she going to fireproof and fearproof all her minions?”
“Don’t be flip! That’s probably not beyond her ability. I think Winn has us outgunned anyway. Our best hope is the element of surprise. As far as I know, we have two possible surprises: your potential ability to use magic to affect technology, and the other three swords. As to the first, work on it as if all our lives depend on it—they probably do. As to both, we can’t afford to let Winn get any more information. That means no sword practice, except in Annwn. If I pull all of you through, I doubt she can observe there. That means no conversation, and I mean none, unless strict protocols are observed.”
“What do you mean?”
“Earlier Winn observed you enough to be able to fake being your ally. How did she do it?”
“Isn’t she picking up things from my mind?”
“At first I thought maybe so. But the more I think about the idea, the less likely it seems. Someone of your power level would probably feel an incursion into your mind. Maybe she threw you off balance enough at the party to get away with it, but normally, no, you would be aware. Guess again.”
“A shifter disguised as something else.”
“Possible, but to spy effectively, the form would have to be mobile, and shifters hate assuming really small forms, like flies, for obvious reasons. Had a stray dog follow you around recently? If not, I doubt a shifter spy is the problem. Think, Tal, what else can you do?”
“I can get inside someone, as I did with Stan, and see and hear through them.”
“Exactly! What if Carrie Winn were able to do that?”
“But the first Taliesin never had that ability. I just developed it recently.”
“Yes, and you have some unique advantages. But suppose Winn is like you. You have speculated on that more than once. Suppose she is an aware reincarnate or has just lived straight through. Then she, too, would have the advantage of a much broader range of experience than even the greatest of earlier spell casters. Like your powers, hers could have evolved over time.
“Now, let’s assume she can’t use you or me that way without us being aware. Part of the enchantment on Dan, Shar, and Gordy blocks any kind of occult incursion into their minds, so she can’t use them that way, and Shar is additionally protected by Zom, which would block any such maneuver.”
“I saw through Gordy just this afternoon. And I saw through Dan at the homecoming dance.”
“The enchantment does not block you or me. But think! Who does that leave?”
“Damn. Is she using Stan?”
“She could be. I could block him right away, but I’m not sure I should. That, too, could tip off Winn. But the only alternative would be to isolate him from the rest of the group until Samhain, and that’s a dead giveaway too.”
“Why don’t we borrow a leaf from all those spy movies and feed her false images through Stan. You know, like characters are always feeding looped recordings to video security systems.”
“That’s brilliant if it could be made to work. But to fool her for days, we would need extensive images and sounds to feed to her. It would be like producing thousands of hours of video, not just one loop. In the short term, there’s just no way.”
“All right, then, can you ‘divert’ the signal? You know, when she tries to connect with Stan, she connects with someone else instead. Someone who isn’t part of our group, isn’t normally close to us?”
“Hmmm. Maybe. She’ll be suspicious of that too, but it’s so unusual she may think the problem is on her end. Let’s try that. Tal, that really is brilliant.”
“Actually, Stan suggested that the other day, when we were talking about defensive strategies,” I admitted.
“Give Stan my compliments, then. Listen, you can send messages to people mentally now, right?”
“Worked with Stan, anyway. Yeah, I think I can do it.”
“Send one to Dan, Gordy, and Shar as well if possible. Let them know what is happening. And make sure Stan says or does nothing suspicious until tomorrow morning. I’ll need a little preparation to set up the diversion. And Tal…”
“Yes?”
“Emphasize the importance of not saying or doing anything where anyone outside the group can see or hear. Once Winn realizes that she isn’t connecting with Stan, for whatever reason, she’ll start using other students. Anyone, and I mean anyone, could easily become her eyes and ears without knowing the difference.”
“Nurse Florence,” I said worriedly. “If she’s been spying on us through Stan all this time, doesn’t she already know everything?
“I would say not, given how surprised she seemed to have been by Gordy’s sword. I think she was just peeking through Stan occasionally, enough so she could feed you the occasional “inside” information to make you think she was the one helping you. Now, though, I think she would have started using him much more, so it’s a good thing we figured this out now, rather than later.”
“Okay, then. I’ll send out those messages as soon as I get home.”
“Good.” Nurse Florence drooped a little, as if she didn’t know quite what to do now that she had imparted her information.
“Let me walk you to your car,” I suggested.
“That’s a good idea. I don’t need to stay here anymore.”
She got up very slowly, got her coat, and we went out to the faculty parking lot together.
It was sad to think that she had done so much for me, but now, when she needed me, I couldn’t really think what to say or do to make her feel better.
I started to sing, but she stopped me.
“There are some things, however painful, that one needs to feel,” she said.
Well, so much for that idea. I just had to hope that my presence gave her some comfort…and that this would be the last time that she had to grieve for a long, long time.
CHAPTER 18: THE SCIENCE OF MAGIC
When I got home, I did manage to send the messages, but my hands were shaking a little by the end of the last one, not so much from making the connections themselves, though there was distance involved, and hence considerable effort, as from the generally unnerving situation. Bad enough to know someone was out to get me. Discovering it was the most powerful person in town made the situation that much worse. But now, knowing that she had been spying on us and would be doing it even more was creepy, to say the least.
What if Nurse Florence was wrong, and that fly buzzing around was a shifter? What if Carrie Winn could see through my eyes without my being aware of it? I finally slept that night, but it was a nightmare-ridden sleep, and I woke up
still feeling tired.
I went through my morning routines robotically. Only breakfast left to go, and then I could…what? Go off to school and try to figure out which person I bumped into in the hall was really the eyes and ears of Carrie Winn?
To make the situation worse, my dad, who had been content for quite a while now, decided this morning would be a good time to raise the tension level.
“Tal, you know, if you ever want to invite a girl over for dinner, that would always be fine with your mom and me. In fact, we’d like to meet your girlfriend some time.”
Yeah, well, so would I.
“I’m between girlfriends at the moment,” I said, making a weak attempt at a smile.
“That Carla Rinaldi seems like a very nice girl,” my mom offered. “I ran into her mother just the other day at the mall, and she said—”
“Mom, you aren’t matchmaking, are you? Because I can find my own girls, thanks anyway.”
“Yes, you could be quite the ladies’ man, Tal, but you aren’t.” My dad looked straight at me, ignoring the newspaper for once. “You spend all your time with Stan from down the street, and now a few other guys. I thought when you starting working out with the football team and decided to play soccer again…”
Normally, I could have handled this conversation. Normally, I would have had decent sleep and not been worried about prying eyes on me every second.
“You thought what, Dad?” I said, more harshly than I had ever spoken to my father. “That I’d go from being Johnny Weirdo to Johnny Normal again? Well, I’m afraid this is as normal as it gets.”
“Tal, I don’t appreciate your tone one bit!”
“And that’s the problem. You don’t appreciate. I have really high grades and a successful band. I’m fast becoming a successful two-sport athlete. I have an internship with Carrie Winn. I have friends, I don’t smoke, drink, do drugs. I don’t do anything high risk.” Well, not the kinds of things most parents would have to worry about, anyway. “And you’re upset because, what? I don’t have a girlfriend right now?”
