by Hiatt, Bill
“Thanks,” I said, feeling enormous relief. “Oh, one other thing. Is that ice sword of Morgan’s prepared?”
“Enchanted to be invisible when sheathed and to appear like fencing equipment if drawn in public, just like all the others. Why? Do you have an idea of who you would like to see wield it?”
“Not permanently, but I’d like Jimmie to carry it today.” Jimmie’s face lit up. I expected to get a fight on that issue too, but Nurse Florence took one look at Jimmie and apparently decided his having the sword could do no real harm. She got it out of her storage room, sparkling with the tiny ice chips that fell from it; placed it in an extra scabbard; and handed it to him. I in turn handed it to Jimmie and helped him get the scabbard to hang properly. He looked like it was Christmas, which it very nearly was.
“Has he been solid the whole time you have been gone with him?” asked Nurse Florence worriedly.
“I think so. Jimmie?”
“Yeah. It doesn’t seem to take me much effort anymore.”
Nurse Florence nodded, and I expected her to start sending me mental messages of doom, but if she was worried about Jimmie’s continuing solidity, she kept her concerns to herself this time.
Despite the complexity of our plans, the rest of the afternoon proceeded almost without a hitch. I say almost because Natalie Kim was too smart to be fooled by “You can break the spell because you are a good friend of his.” I had the feeling Stan was going to have some explaining to do, along the lines of “Why haven’t you ever asked me out? Why are you dating all those cheerleaders?” and other similar questions. Nonetheless, Natalie was more than willing to help with Stan’s cure.
His father wasn’t home from work yet, and it was an easy matter to put his ever-hovering mother to sleep so that we could get the job done. Between true love’s kiss and all the magical amplification we could throw into it, that spell never stood a chance, and Stan was restored to us. It was actually much harder to restore the connections between Stan and David.
“Stan,” I said near the end of the process, “I’ve already told David this, but be careful. I’m only just barely able to make viable connections between you and David. If you think of your personalities as if they are physical objects, it is as if the edges are wearing out. I’m sure I could fix that too, with time, but in the short term I don’t think I could put you together again after another incident. I told David that no matter what happens to you, even if you are enchanted again, he is not to take over. You get that too, right?”
Stan smiled weakly. “Yes, Mother.”
I laughed heartily over that. “Dude, I’m nothing like your mother!”
“If she had the power you do, she couldn’t put any more into my healing than you have,” he said softly.
In just a few more minutes, Stan was good to go…which is exactly what he wanted to do. Well, he wasn’t going to need to do any heavy lifting on this trip, so I said sure. Aside from the usual crew (Stan, Dan, Gordy, Shar, Carlos, and, of course, Nurse Florence), we had Jimmie, whose presence everyone else adjusted to with remarkable speed, and Khalid, this time invited.
I had already said something to Shar, but I wanted to apologize to Khalid personally for upsetting him after the battle. Thank God little kids are so resilient! He had already forgiven me before I said anything and was all smiles again, happy to be going on a new adventure with me and his other new pals.
I sent everyone else ahead to Awen, so I could talk to my mom without them all waiting outside the house; at this point that might be psychic overload for her, and I wasn’t sure how long the conversation would take. I was risking giving Nurse Florence the time to convince Vanora to turn down my plan for dealing with Alcina, but Vanora was pretty stubborn. She was either going to agree with me or not. A few minutes alone with Nurse Florence weren’t all that likely to change the outcome.
I had picked a good day, because Dad was working late, so Mom would be alone in the house. I let myself in and found her quickly, not making dinner, as I might have expected, but sitting on the sofa in the living room, crying softly.
“Mom, what’s wrong?” I asked, already knowing. She didn’t seem able to answer at first, so I took her in my arms and just let her cry. Eventually she calmed down enough to talk to me.
“Tal, I’m…I’m going crazy…very fast. I’m seeing things, hearing things, having strange feelings for no reason. I shouldn’t be telling you this, but you’ll know pretty soon anyway. Honey, I may have to go away for treatment.”
“You won’t have to do that, Mom. There’s nothing wrong with you!”
She sighed. “Denial isn’t good, Tal. I need to face what is happening.”
“Let me tell you what is happening.” And so I did.
It took an hour and a half, give or take. I told her everything from August on: my unusual nature and how it came about; Ceridwen’s attempt to capture my soul, who Nurse Florence was, who Carrie Winn really was—then and now—how my friends fit in…and that just got us to Halloween. Then I had to explain more recent developments: Morgan Le Fay, Carla turning into Alcina, Stan revealing he was King David, Khalid’s unusual family background, fighting sorceresses and dragons in Annwn, Jimmie coming back. I told her all of it, every bit, even Dan’s suspected betrayal, even the fact that Eva would probably never love me.
There were times when she seemed ready to have us both admitted to a mental hospital on the family plan, but I used my demonstration of invoking the fire of White Hilt and a few other simple magic routines to convince her. Really, one image is worth a thousand words.
“Are…are you still my son?” she asked finally, overcome by the idea of hundreds of previous lives, all somehow stored within me.
“I will always be your son,” I replied, giving her a kiss on the cheek. She held onto me as if I would disappear in a puff of smoke if she did not.
“But this means all the horrible things I thought were just nightmares or hallucinations were real! You have actually been in mortal danger several times in the last few months! Tal, you have to find a way to get out of this!”
Would that it were that easy!
“Mom, I can’t just walk away now. I think, though, that the dangerous times are nearly ended.”
“Don’t take unnecessary chances!” she cautioned in her don’t-make-me-ground-you voice. “Tal, if anything ever happened to you, I really would go crazy.”
“I’ve survived fifteen-hundred-year-old witches, armies of the dead, dragons… I’m not expecting to face anything worse than what I have already faced.” I grinned reassuringly. “Actually, tonight promises to be a relatively quiet evening…and if all goes well, Carla’s family will get her back.”
“That would be wonderful!” agreed Mom. “I guess I can’t complain when you save someone. Will you be back in time for dinner?” She asked the last question in such a matter-of-fact way that I couldn’t help snickering a little.
“Please make appropriate excuses for me to Dad. If my plan works, I’ll need to spend time getting Carla healed, and then we need to re-insert her in the hospital so her doctors can discover her miraculous return to consciousness.”
“Well, all right…but remember, be careful!”
“Always!” I replied, giving her another kiss and heading out the door.
Right outside stood Eva, waiting for me.
Come by to twist the knife some more?
“Tal, I don’t mean to bother you, but I need to talk to you.”
Yeah, definitely to twist the knife.
“Eva, now isn’t really a good time. Tomorrow would be better.”
“Please, I need to say this. Tal, that spell you started to cast on me. It was a love spell, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah,” I said quietly, “It was, and I’m sorry. I’m sorry I even considered it, let alone started to do it. I hope you can forgive me.” I paused for a second, then said, “I know I have lost your love; I don’t ever want to lose your friendship.” Hopefully, that would preempt a trans
ition into a let’s-just-be-friends kind of dialog.
Eva brushed aside my guilt with a wave of her delicate hand. “You’ve been through so much. How can I hold a grudge over something that small? I wanted to make sure you knew I wasn’t blaming you for that.”
It was clear she really didn’t understand what effect the spell would have had, and I didn’t have the heart to explain.
“The guys tell me you have forgiven Dan.”
“I’m working on it,” I said tightly. “Eva, I really need to go.”
“Can I come with you? I’d like to see Carla, particularly if she really is Carla. Don’t look so shocked; Gordy told me what was going on. That’s how I knew you’d be home. I’ve visited the illusionary Carla in the hospital a couple of times and didn’t suspect a thing.”
I’d rather be cut into tiny pieces by a machete while I am still conscious than have you around right now.
“I’m sure Carla would like to have a girlfriend around if I can get her back. Sure, you can come.”
“Carla and I weren’t that close, but I do feel a connection with her.”
Yeah, you could start a support group for women whose lives have been touched by the supernatural.
“Hop in then,” I said, opening the passenger door for her. By the time I got in, her jasmine perfume closed around in one all-pervading, sorrow-provoking vapor. Great! Just exactly what I needed.
“You know Dan is going to be there,” I said, giving her—and me—an out.
“He’s going to be at school, too, but I’m not going to stop going to school. Better we figure out now how to deal with being in the same place.”
I pulled away from the curb with a tightness in my chest and knots in my stomach, wondering how Eva and I were going to deal with being in the same place…and why it was that being with me didn’t seem to bother her. Had I really meant that little to her?
The drive over to Carrie Winn’s mansion/castle seemed tortuously long. Really it was only about half an hour, not bad in surface street traffic in early evening. When we arrived, the staff at the front door quickly ushered us up a few floors and into a conference room that seemed to be one of the few genuinely modern rooms in the whole place. Vanora, her usual Carrie Winn disguise flawless, was sitting with all the others at a large, round wooden table that looked as if it could have come close to seating all the knights of Camelot.
“Welcome to my round table!” she said with surprising cheeriness. Well, I guess somebody had to say it. I made a point of pulling out a chair for Eva and then, once she got settled, sitting as far away from her as possible.
“Nurse Florence tells me you have a plan to restore Carla Rinaldi to us,” prompted Vanora.
Yeah, I bet she did.
“Then she has probably also told you I know how to cast an Alcina-style love spell and intend to give her a taste of her own medicine.”
“Please explain in detail what you intend to do,” said Vanora, her voice relatively neutral. I took several minutes to lay out in detail exactly what I wanted to do and why I thought it would work. When I finally finished, Vanora said, “You have planned this out very carefully, Taliesin. It sounds worth a try to me.”
I had never seen Nurse Florence so utterly caught by surprise. “Vanora, you can’t be serious. You know the risks as well as I do.”
“Taliesin is stronger than you give him credit for, I think.”
“I don’t want to embarrass Tal by saying this out loud,” broadcast Nurse Florence, making sure I could hear her so that she was not saying it behind my back, “but he only just resisted the temptation to use the spell on Eva. That’s a sure sign he cannot afford to use dark magic again.”
“It’s true,” I admitted, “but I did stop myself. I believe I can perform the spell one more time without losing control.”
“I believe so as well,” replied Vanora.
“I will not allow it!” said Nurse Florence, switching back to speaking and using the strongest tone I had ever heard her use.
Vanora looked at her with noticeable irritation. “It is not your place to allow or not to allow. Alcina is technically my prisoner…and I outrank you in the Order. Well, this time I am pulling rank. I will give Taliesin the chance he wants. If there were more time, perhaps we would study the problem in greater depth, but there isn’t time. I just found out today that the Annwn authorities will be here tomorrow to take Morgan into custody—and they intend to take Alcina into custody as well.”
“What?” I interrupted. “Carla is human. Faerie law has no hold over her.”
“That’s just it,” replied Vanora slowly. “Carla is human. Alcina, like Morgan, is part faerie. Granted that the current body is human, as long as Alcina is in control of it, the authorities intend to treat her as faerie and proceed accordingly. Once they have her, anything might happen. Annwn’s politics are so twisted right now that they could both be released, though I think that’s unlikely. They could also both be executed, depending on the composition of the tribunal, though I think that’s equally unlikely. Oberon probably can’t convince enough of the others to let his ‘mother’ go free, given the fear of what too much interference in mortal affairs can cause, but I’ll bet he can convince enough of them not to execute her.
“In any case, I doubt there will be much interest in curing Carla, except maybe on Gwynn’s part, and even less in returning her to us if she isn’t cured. My guess would be that she and Morgan will both be imprisoned somewhere in Annwn to keep either of them from meddling with Earth again. And so,” she said, turning to Nurse Florence, “unless you are willing to trust the girl’s fate to a very unfavorably disposed fortune, Taliesin’s plan is all we have.”
Nurse Florence sagged visibly, obviously feeling defeated. “Tal, are you sure you can handle this?”
“Tal can do it; he’s a hero!” announced Jimmie, sounding a bit like the nine-year-old he no longer appeared to be.
“You bet!” said Khalid, sounding every bit like the eleven-year-old he was.
“Very sure!” I replied quickly, before anyone else could join in the embarrassing cheerleading.
“I have seen you succeed against incredible odds before,” admitted Nurse Florence. “Since Carla’s life could be at stake, I agree we have to chance your approach. We must be very careful, though.”
“Both of us will be there to make sure nothing goes wrong,” put in Vanora, obviously relieved that Nurse Florence was going along with the plan.
“Perhaps we warriors will be needed,” suggested Dan.
Vanora looked at him with unconcealed contempt. “Alcina is helpless, and if she were not, the last thing we would do is place a lot of teenage males within easy reach of her magic,” she said as if explaining the situation to a very young child. Given how glad she was to see Dan go, she was probably very angry I had let him back in.
“If Alcina’s magic has indeed been neutralized, I would rather have the guys nearby.” I said. “If Alcina is unusually resistant to her own spell, I may need to draw upon their strength as well as yours and mine.” No, I didn’t really want Dan with me, but I was still conscious of the need to make our renewed friendship plausible for Jimmie.
“If you think you will need them, they may come,” agreed Vanora somewhat grudgingly. “Everyone else can remain here.”
“Who knows how much longer I have before I will pass on?” asked Jimmie loudly. “I want to spend my time with Dan and Tal!”
“It might be dangerous…” Dan started to say.
Jimmie looked at him and grinned. “Dan, what’s she going to do, kill me? I’m…already dead.”
“If he gets to go, I get to go,” insisted Khalid. Vanora rolled her eyes and looked at me.
“We may as well let Khalid go,” I said. “Alcina’s magic didn’t seem to affect him at Goleta Beach; besides, he’s going to find a way to sneak down no matter what we do. As for Jimmie, even if Alcina were at full power, there’s nothing she could do to him.”
“I
n that case, I should go too,” said Eva. “I want to be there for Carla if she comes back, and if my strength was good enough to borrow on Halloween, I would imagine it is still good enough. I can contribute as well as any of the guys.”
“I don’t think—” started Dan.
“It’s not your choice!” snapped Eva.
Awkward silence followed, but only for a few seconds. Then, again pretending to come to Dan’s rescue, I suggested that we should go to Alcina’s cell as quickly as possible. With some degree of relief, everyone got up quickly and followed Vanora down a long hallway to a large iron door.
“I apologize that there is no elevator, and the dungeon is down several flights,” said Vanora as she moved toward the door.
“The dungeon?” asked Carlos.
Vanora rolled her eyes again. “Aside from the conference room and the various offices on this floor, as well as certain modern conveniences elsewhere, Ceridwen carried the medieval-castle metaphor rather far. The architect’s plans call the lowest level of Awen a security holding area, but it was made to look very much like a dungeon. From the architect’s notes, it appears she explained the design as being intended for a few years down the road, when she planned to start offering tours. She was throwing money at him so fast that I don’t think he questioned what he must have seen as harmless eccentricity.” One of Vanora’s men swung the heavy door open. “Regardless, we have a hike ahead of us, so we had better get started.”
The stairs did indeed descend for several stories, and the lighting, provided by fake torches placed in evenly spaced wall sconces, seemed more decorative than useful. Nurse Florence, Vanora and I could all adapt to the situation, and Khalid and Jimmie could both see in the dark, so we made sure the others didn’t stumble on the way down.
Finally the stairs came to an end, and we stood before a large, metal-framed door with heavy iron bars.
“The dungeon!” exclaimed Gordy.
One of Vanora’s security men opened the door for us, and we moved as quickly as we could into the eerily realistic dungeon, which included stone walls that had been deliberately aged and covered with what I hoped was fake mold, as well as new steel doors painted to look like badly rusted iron.
