The funeral and war council had been on Wednesday, and Ria said it would take a few days for the armor to arrive, and for her to make arrangements to be away from her office for a few days. The others also had real-world commitments, and arrangements to makefortunately, Caity had one of José's birds, and could be trusted to take care of the rest of his little ones for a few days. Toni would send Raoul and Paquito to her sister in Brooklyn for the weekend, and none of the others had any dependents to be harmed by a few days' absence.
Eric was particularly glad to have the extra time to prepare. Hosea needed to know everything Eric could teach him, and he needed to know it fast.
Eric remembered Prince Terenil, who had been the first to show him what magic was. Terenil had done it by loaning Eric his own memoriesa quick-and-dirty form of training worlds apart from the slow disciplined instruction he had suffered later under Lord Dharniel. But that had been a desperate time, with Perenor set to destroy all of Elfhame Sun-Descending and its inhabitants. And it had given Eric the first insight into using his power. If they were to face down Aerune in his own back yard a few days from now, Eric owed Hosea at least as much help as Terenil had given him.
Little good though it had done Terenil, in the end. He had died in the battle for the Sun-Descending Nexus, though at least he had taken Perenor with him. And the rest of us are still here, and so are the elves, so I guess we have to count that as a victory, even if it doesn't feel much like one when I think about it.
"I don't know if this is going to work," Eric said. The two Bards were sitting in Eric's apartment the morning after the funeral, Hosea with his banjo, Eric with his flute. "I'm not even sure I can do it."
"I reckon you can," Hosea said in his slow Appalachian drawl. "I reckon it's like quiltingif you trace out the pattern, and I follow it, I'll end up with something that's mine alone."
"I guess," Eric said dubiously. "I hope. This isn't the way I wanted things to work out."
"We can't always have what we want, Mister Bard," Hosea said with a smile. "And I guess, if I came all this way to have you kindle up my shine, I can't kick about how you do it."
"I . . . yeah. So let's get started."
The first thing Eric did was summon up some heavy duty shields to insulate them from the rest of the House. It had been a rough week for the psychics who lived there, and he didn't want to add to their troubles, especially if something went wrong.
The healing circle Kayla had organized at the wake last night was a good start to healing the damage Aerune had done to the psychic fabric of this place. The more Eric saw her work, the more impressed he was. Kayla had good instincts. And if her Gift wasn't as flashy as Bardcraft or as initially impressive as that of the Guardians, in the long run, it made a lot more difference to the quality of life for ordinary people.
I guess that's what Jimmie meant about the Guardians' job being to let other people get on with their lives. It's all that, and about making a safe space for people like Kayla to use their gifts. She'd make a great battlefield medic for the psychic wars, but the important thing is to make a world where she can do something else instead. And I'd better get on with my part in arranging that.
He didn't think he could do what Terenil had donethere were advantages to being as long-lived as the Sidhe, and having a thousand years to practice your craftbut he could try to do something that had the same effect. Raising his flute to his lips, Eric began to play: long slow tones, not yet a tune. No one would be able to hear it but Hosea, and as he played, Eric tried to will his experience into the music, letting his mind rove over every time he'd used his magic, over all his lessons with Dharniel. As he did, the slow notes slowly evolved into music, a slow wandering tune of nothing in particular.
He risked a glimpse at Hosea's face before closing his eyes to concentrate upon the tune that he wove. The other Bard's expression was one of wide-eyed concentration, as though he listened to more than the music.
Eric drew his consciousness inward, focusing entirely on the Bard-ness of the music. Music is magic. The whole world is made out of music, if you can just hear it. Shape the tune, and you shape the thing . . . and yourself. Feel the music of the world. Hear it. Play it.
Slowly, Hosea began to join in the music. At first only a note here and there, the plink! of the banjo's strings like pebbles thrown into a swiftly-running stream. Then morescraps of music woven around the song of the flute, blending perfectly with the unplanned melody. The tune Eric played was faster now, more urgent, more insistent. Hear this. Here what I have to tell, hear what I have to teach. He found he was playing the story of his life, all its disappointments, cowardice, and false starts. A part of him cringed at stripping himself so naked before another human being, showing himself so utterly open and defenseless. But another part was stronger. That is what I was, not what I am. I am stronger now, wiser, but I do not hide from the mistakes I've made.
And slowly, as Hosea's music joined his like two streams running together, Eric could see into the other man as wellevery pettiness, every failure, every moment of cowardice . . . but love and courage and greatness as well. Then the music carried them onward, away from self and selfishness alike, carried them on into the bright world of Creation of which Underhill itself was a mere shadow, into the place where the wish and the deed were one. Both men were playing flat-out now, blending their power as they blended their musicEric's with the power of a trained Bard, Hosea's full of promise and power yet to be, power that Eric could shape to his own ends, or twist, or destroy.
Those were easy traps to avoid, but there was a greater and more subtle one waiting. Eric could teach Hosea the way to call his magic. He could teach him that Eric's was the only right way, teach Hosea to do only as Eric had done and could do, and no more.
But that was not what it meant to be a teacher. Hosea must grow to be all that Hosea could be, not what Eric could foresee for him with the limitations of his human personality. And so, somehow, he found himself able to step aside now that he had shown Hosea the way into his power, to stand beside him as an equal and a friend in the face of that ultimate source of their shared magic, letting Hosea drink his fill from that wellspring and learn all that he could learn. Hosea had trusted Eric to lead him here, and now it was Eric's turn to trustin Hosea's kindness, his goodness, his essential decency. If the pupil was worthy to be trained, there came a time when the master must allow the pupil to train himself, to use and become all that the master had seen in him, fulfilling his true potential.
Letting go like that was the hardest thing that Eric had ever done. Every instinct screamed that he was the one with the training, that his experience and wisdom must control all that Hosea learned. But that was a trap, one that every teacher must confront and defeat. If Eric gave only what he thought was best, Hosea would never be more than a pale reflection of him, touching the magic only through Eric's understanding of it, not forging his own. He played more softly now, supporting Hosea as his magic soared, as the Bardic fire within him kindled and flamed, letting him make his own choices, shape his own path.
I wonder if it was this hard for Dharniel? Eric mused. As the thought clothed itself in words, he tumbled down out of the moment, out of the realm of endless light, and the sharing was over. The two of them were nothing more than two musicians, having an impromptu morning jam session in a New York apartment.
He opened his eyes.
Hosea played on alone, jamming with the melody Eric could no longer hear. He . . . glowed, bathed in a white radiance of power that flowered within. The banjo's strings burned like silver fire, the white doeskin of the soundbox glowing like the moon seen through clouds as Hosea's fingers flew, drawing music out of silver and bone, skin and wood. There were tears on the big man's face, and Eric was surprised to find that his own eyes were wet.
This was the power of the Bard, the power to sing things into creation, the power that caused the Sidhe to venerate them above all others.
Slowly, Hosea drew the melody to a close. It seemed to echo in the room long after he hushed the strings with one massive hand. He opened his eyes and looked at Eric.
"Is . . . that what I'm supposed to be? What I am?"
"That's right." For a moment Eric was able to forget the deaths that had brought them to this place, the deaths that might be yet to come. This was the most important thing he had ever been taughtthat the magic wasn't for something, that it wasn't a means to an end. It simply was.
"It seems so easy," Hosea said.
"It is. We're the ones that make it hard," Eric said. He summoned a grin and drew a deep breath. "That doesn't mean I let you out of all the practice and drills, though. We'll start with an easy one. Call up a shield."
Hosea frowned, consulting his memories. "Like this?" he asked. He slowly strummed a minor chord, each note separate and distinct. A faint rippling light seemed to grow up around him.
Eric batted it down with a triumphant major. "Yeah, but make it stronger. Push back when I push you, or that shield isn't going to do much good."
Half an hour later, both men were panting and out of breath. Instinctively, Hosea used his magic in a much different way than Eric did. Where Eric tended to confront an enemy and do his best to overawe it with a display of superior but (now at least) elegantly-crafted power, Hosea relied on seeming harmless and not being noticedpretty much an extension of his real-world behavior. After a while, Eric's attacks on Hosea's shields just slid aside: it wasn't that the shields had a great deal of strength, something that would only come with more practice and skill, but more as if they were shaped to deflect the attack, rather than meet it. If Eric was a lance, then Hosea was the stubborn round stone in the middle of the road. The stone could break the lance, or the lance the stone, but it was likeliest of all that the lance would simply . . . slide away.
"Crane and turtle," Eric said, standing and stretching. I guess Ria's style would be tiger. What does that leave for Kayla: monkey? She'd kill me if I ever suggested that. "We ought to open a school of the Bardic martial arts."
"Too fancy for me," Hosea said, stretching until his muscles cracked. "I'm a simple country boy. Let's go find the young'un. I could eat a whole horse, raw or cooked."
"I won't tell Lady Day you said that," Eric said with a grin. After the morning's workout, he felt a peace and confidence that had been absent from his life for too long, as if he'd found the work he should do and was doing it. It was a good feeling.
The smell of fresh paint greeted them when they went downstairs. The door to the basement apartment was open, and some items of furnitureand the rest of Kayla's luggage, delivered from Ria's that morningwere waiting in the laundry room. There was a futon couch, a table and two chairs, some bookcases, and a couple of lamps, all contributed by the tenants of the house and customized by Kayla with fresh paint in shades of black, ultraviolet, poison green, and hot pink. The sound of hammering came from within.
Eric knocked loudly on the open door. "Kayla?"
"C'mon in! Ooh, is that the scent of Bardic power I smell? It smells like victory!"
Eric and Hosea walked cautiously into the main room. Kayla had been working hard, and it showed.
The walls had been painted an even velvety black, then stenciled with Celtic borders halfway up their height in a glittery dark purple. More of the glitter was painted on the walls themselves, so that they glistened in places like mica-studded granite.
The ceiling was the same deep purple as the Celtic border, painted with swirling clouds and a yellow crescent moon. A bead curtain of iridescent dark purple moons and stars had been set up to screen the studio's kitchen from the rest of the space, and a mirror wreathed in black silk vines and roses had been hung on the bathroom door. The battered linoleum floor had disappeared under several moth-eaten but still serviceable Oriental rugs. Kayla was standing on a short stepladder, hammering a curtain rod into place over the high narrow windows. Black lace curtains were piled on the floor waiting to be hung.
"You gonna help me with this, or just gawk?" she asked. Hosea moved forward to hold up the curtain rodblack iron, with twining leaves for finialsas Kayla finished sinking the last of the nails.
She jumped off the ladder and turned to face them, grinning. She wore black cigarette-leg jeans and a cropped black (and paint-spattered) "Anarchy" T-shirt. Her navel was pierced. Eric blinked.
Am I getting old, or just out of the loop? Fashion or not, that looks painful.
"Pretty neat, huh?" she asked.
"I'm sure Ria is blessing her narrow escape," Eric answered.
Kayla made a face. "Oh, sure, like I'd do this to somebody else's apartment! But this is mine, all mineI can do anything I want! Toni said so."
"And you certainly have," Eric said. "How'd you get all this done inwhat?two days?"
"Oh, everybody helped. Margot gave me the bead curtains, and Caity did the stenciling, and Tat gave me the couchall I had to do was go out and buy a new cover for it. Everybody's nice, and it's not like they're . . ." She searched for a word. "Hurting inside all the time. I like this place."
"And it likes you," Eric said, "or you wouldn't be here." And maybe it needs you, too. The Guardians protect the city, but who protects the Guardians? Aloud he said: "Hosea and I were going to go out and grab some lunch. Want to come?"
"Sure," Kayla said. "And then when we come back you can help me move the furniture in. I think it's all dry now."
If it wasn't now, it would be before he put his hands on it, Eric vowed. He had no desire to go through life wearing a coat of black enamel in interesting places.
Kayla studied Hosea critically. "You look taller. Did it hurt much?"
Hosea grinned at her amiably. "Not too much. You'd better do some growing on your own, Little Bit, or I'm liable to trip over you one of these days."
"Size elitist," Kayla grumbled, but she sounded pleased. "Just let me get my stuff, and I'm there."
The three of them walked a few blocks to a fried chicken place on Broadway, where Hosea ate most of a family-style dinner for four while Kayla nibbled on fries and an order of buffalo wings and Eric contented himself with a chicken sandwich and a Coke.
"So is he ready?" Kayla wanted to know. Eric had warned her about his morning's plansfor one thing, there'd been the possibility that Kayla'd be needed to do a patch job if something went wrong.
"That'd take a lot longer than one morning. But he's made a good start," Eric answered, grinning at Hosea.
"Shucks, ma'am, it wasn't nothing. I've got a magic banjo, you know," Hosea said, playing up his drawl.
"That's so dorky it's almost cool," Kayla said, brandishing a French fry as if it were a conductor's baton. "But really."
"We won't know until we get there," Eric said, his earlier good humor fading as he concentrated once more on the threat they faced. "But it's as good as I can do in the time we have." And pray that it's enough. I don't think I can bear any more deaths on my conscience.
All too soon, it seemed, Saturday came. Eric had continued with his summer classesif he wanted to graduate from Juilliard, he couldn't let them slidebut had given very little attention to his studies, devoting all his concentration to the training sessions with Hosea. Fortunately his native skill could carry him through a little scholastic sluffing off, but he was really going to have to hit the books when he returnedif he returnedif he wanted to go into the Fall term with passing grades in his summer make-up courses.
Now there's a cheery choice: death or summer school.
At first he'd been surprised at how nervous he was over the upcoming battle, but then he realized why. All the other messes he'd gotten into had been last-minute, skin-of-his-teeth races against time. This was more like deciding to go clobber somebody in cold blood. Never mind that it was vitally necessary and they had more than enough cause to act. Aerune wasn't here, wasn't an immediate threat. If Eric wanted to go into the realm of serious denial, he could even tell himself that Aerune would lose interest in destroying humanity, that the elf-lord's real-world allies would fall into disorder and doubt and no longer be a threat. That he didn't really have to do anything at all.
I guess I'm starting to see the elves' side of things. When you live that long, most problems do tend to go away if you ignore them. So how could they know that this one is going to be different?
If it is. But waiting to find out isn't a chance I really want to take.
There was also the fundamental difference between Elvish psychology and that of humans. Terenil had explained it to him, when Eric was taking his first steps into the world of magic.
"We are virtually immortal, Bard. Our lives are measured in centuries, not decades. That can be as much curse as blessing. Firstly, we are few in number. Secondly, strong emotional ties bind for centuries, not mere decades. Your legends call us lightminded and frivolous in our affectionsbut think you for a moment. Suppose you have a love that turns to dislike. But you are tied to the place where that love dwells, and there are perhaps a few hundred inhabitants of that place. Try as you will, you must see that love every day. For the next thousand years. Unless one of you finds a way to leave. So do we avoid both love and hate, granting either only when there is no other choice."
Kory was an exception to Sidhe customs. Barely two hundred years olda very young man by Sidhe standardshe cared passionately about many things. It made him a sort of freak in the world of Underhill, and Korendil had always preferred the company of humans to that of his own kind. But Kory was comparatively lucky. He was a child of the High Court. He could leave his Grove and its Nexus, and go elsewhere if he chose, or if he needed to. And he had Beth.
But what if Beth . . . died? What would Kory do then? Would he hate whoever had caused her death? And over the course of a hundred centuries, would that hatred grow and fester until he became a monster like Aerune?
Eric hoped not, but he didn't know. Any more than he knew what Aerune had been like before he had loved Aerete the Golden and seen her die at the hands of humans. Just as Kory had, Aerune had broken the first commandment that governed the life of the Children of Danu. And as Terenil had warned Eric, so long ago, not knowing what he warned him against, it had destroyed Aerune.
It's no excuse for what he's done. No matter how badly you're hurt, that doesn't give you a free pass to hurt someone else. But I wish we could think of a better solution than just locking him up.
And maybe they could, if they had infinite time and resources. But they didn't have either. They had to stop Aerune now, and then see about undoing the damage he'd already caused in the World Above.
"No brooding," Kayla said with mock sternness, rousing him from his reverie.
"Sorry," Eric said sheepishly. "Just thinking about how to change the world."
Early Saturday morningtoo early, by Eric's standards, though he hadn't slept well the night beforethe seven of them gathered once more in Eric's apartment.
Toni, Paul, and José had brought their swords. Toni's and José's were conventional longswords, carried in long slender cases that looked like instrument cases, but Paul carried only an elegant sword cane, an antique, ebony with a silver ferrule and a large cairngorm set into the silver ball-handle. He was dressed as if for an afternoon's grouse hunting, with lace-up calf-high boots, khakis, and a Norfolk jacket in an understated tweed. The other two were wearing everyday clothesToni in jeans and a pink sweatshirt, José in a dark workshirt and twill pants.
Toni had suggested that Hosea take Jimmie's swordlike the rest of her magical paraphernalia, Hosea had inherited it along with her apartmentbut the big man had declined.
"I guess I wouldn't hardly know what to do with a sword. I'll stick to my banjo, if it's all right with you all."
Toni had wanted to argue, but Paul convinced her that it would be better for Hosea to go into the field with no weapon at all rather than one he didn't trust. "And Eric has assured us that the young man is coming along quite well with his Bardic studies, so it is not as if he will be quite defenseless."
Ria was the last to arrive. She was dressed in a street-casual outfit Eric hadn't seen beforeblack jeans with the extra gusset at the crotch that would give them as much flexibility as a pair of dance tights, a long black linen duster, black dance boots that came up over the knee, and a long silvery mail coat, its links so fine that it shimmered like hammered silk.
"You look like an outtake from Highlander," Eric told her.
"Wait till you see my sword," she answered with a tight smile. She patted the pocket of her duster. It hung heavily, and Eric suspected she was carrying a gun and several extra clips or speedloaders. Steel-jacketed hollowpoints could cause serious damage to any of the iron-averse Underhill folk, even kill.
"I left the shirts in the car. Not only do they weigh about a hundred pounds, but you'll be a lot more comfortable on the ride up to the Gate without them. Eric, are you going to ride with us? I think we should take the 'steeds with us. Etienne's waiting for me up in the park with the rest of our gear. If anyone sees her, they'll just think they've seen a deer."
"If Eric's going up on his bike, I want to ride with him," Kayla said instantly. "Hey, this could be like, my last moments on Earth. They should be fun. Eric? Puh-leeze?"
"Fine with me," Eric said, grinning in spite of himself at Kayla's exuberance.
"Okay, let's go," Toni said.
Eric savored the ride up to the Everforest Gate. In another lifetime, he might have been on his way up to the Sterling Forest RenFaire, with nothing more on his mind than a feathered hat. Now he was riding into battle.
He could sense Lady Day's excitement. Unlike mortal horses, the elvensteeds were bred for battle, and relished a good fight. He tried to take comfort from her easy courageEric was no coward, though he'd spent the first half of his life running away from anything that looked even vaguely like a fight, but this was a different kind of fight than any he'd ever been in. It hadn't been forced on him. He'd had plenty of chances to back out. But he'd chosen to be here. If that was courage, then he guessed he was brave. But it seemed perilously close to desperation.
All too soon they arrived at their destination. The Faire would be running for a few more weeks, but the Everforest Nexus had been set on state park lands, away from the crowds.
He pulled the bike to a stop in the clearing that held the Gate, and he and Kayla dismounted. She looked around, turning in a circle. "Hey. Untouched nature. Who'd'a thunk there could be something like this so close to the city? Hey, what's that?"
She pointed. There were tire tracks sunk deep into the mud, and burn marks on the grass.
"Levin-bolts, or something similar, and probably a van. Jeanette said Aerune had Elkanah bring her here so he could take her Underhill easily."
"Creepy." Kayla hugged herself and shivered, though the day was warm. "He isn't coming back, is he?"
"I hope not. But this is the closest Nexus point to New York City, so most of the East Coast Underhill traffic comes through here."
Kayla didn't say anything, though Eric could tell she was thinking hard. Just then Lady Day shivered all over, and in place of the red-and-white touring bike stood a neat-footed black mare with golden eyes. Kayla goggled as if she'd never seen a horse before, and Lady Day minced delicately forward and nudged her with a soft black nose. Kayla reached up tentatively to stroke it.
"Hey, she's soft!" the young Healer exclaimed. "Am I going to get to ride her? I mean, like she is now?"
"Maybe. That's kind of between you and her," Eric answered. He knew Kayla had grown up on the street, abandoned by her parents when her Talent began to show, but somehow the experience hadn't hardened her. She pulled up a handful of grass from the turf at her feet and began to feed the elvensteed, who almost purred under the admiring attention.
A few minutes later, the Rolls pulled up, moving slowly over the narrow bumpy track. Ria was driving. She pulled the car to a rocking stop, and the venerable machine seemed almost to sigh with relief. Rolls-Royces were built like a bank vault, but by no stretch of the imagination were they off-road vehicles.
Ria got out, followed by the other four. She pulled a large suitcase off the driver's seat and began to unzip it.
"These are for you," she told the Guardians, opening the suitcase and hauling out the first of the shirts. "They're lined in Kevlar fabric, at least partly so they don't chafe, but you won't want to go jogging in them; they're heavy, and they don't breathe. Iron can kill the Sidhe-folk, and it also makes their magic run wild, one of the reasons Aerune is a lot less powerful here in the World Above than he's going to be when we go to meet him on his home turf. The steel part of these shirts will absorb some magic and deflect a lot in the way of levin-bolts, but some of it gets worn away each time."
"So if Aerune keeps hitting one of us, he'll eventually burn through the shirt?" Paul said, examining the shirt with interest.
"Try not to let that happen," Ria said, deadpan.
"Won't he know we're wearing these?" Toni asked, holding a shirt up to herself to check the fit. It was too small, and she passed it to Kayla. Each was slit up the sides and laced shutwith plastic-coated steel cordingto ensure a tighter fit.
"Sure. Think about itif I were him, I'd be expecting it. There still isn't much he can do about itif he touches you while you're wearing that, he risks getting his widdle fingies burned off," Ria said.
Kayla had pulled off her leather jacket and was slithering into the mail shirt. She wore her full elaborate Goth makeup and jewelry, but had elected to dress sensiblyjeans, Doc Martens, and a long-sleeved T-shirt that fit as if it were sprayed on. Hosea helped her lace the sides shut. "Ain't we gonna be a little conspicuous dressed like this?" she asked Ria.
"Not Underhill, so far as I know," Ria told her. "Unfortunately, it may be a long walk to reach the borders of Aerune's domain, but they're lighter to wear than to carry, I assure you."
Etienne appeared then, summoned by Ria, trotting out of the forest and greeting Lady Day with a whinny. The two elvensteeds nuzzled at each other, exchanging greetings in their own way. Whatever differences the two had once had seemed to have been dealt with.
"Eric?" Ria asked, holding out a shirt to him. He thought about it, and shook his head.
"I'll call up my armor once I'm on the other side of the Gate. Might as well go in all flags flying."
"And hope we don't go down with the ship." Ria walked over to Etienne and vaulted into the saddle with one easy motion. In her black duster, she looked like a vision straight out of the Old West.
Once they were all re-dressed, Toni and José opened their sword cases and removed their magical weapons. Toni's was long and elegant, with a cross set into the pommel and Hebrew letters running down the gleaming blade. José's sword was simpleralmost a short sword, with a browned-iron blade and a plain leather-wrapped hilt.
Hosea slung his banjo over his shoulder and looked at Eric.
"I guess this is your show now, Eric."
Eric nodded, touching his hip to assure himself that his gig bag was in place. He pursed his lips and whistled a soundless phrase.
A portion of the air in front of them seemed to darken, shimmering like a deep pool. As it faded into existence, the trees beyond it slowly disappeared.
"Is that it?" Paul said, hefting his sword stick.
"One gen-u-wine, accept no substitutes Sidhe Portal," Eric said, feigning a lightness he didn't really feel. He held out his hand, and Lady Day put her nose in it, her warm breath flowing over his hand.
"Let's go, then. I'm not getting any younger," Toni said. In the silvery mail armor, carrying her sword, she looked like a medieval warrior saint.
Eric mounted Lady Day, and reached a hand down for Kayla. She scrambled up behind him and settled snugly against him, her arms around his waist. With Ria leading, the small party passed through the Gate.
"It looks just the same," Paul said, sounding disappointed.
"No it doesn't," Toni said. "It looks the way everything did when I was a little girlall bright and clean and new."
They were standing in the Underhill counterpart of the Sterling Forest glade. There was a theory that the Underworld places near Gates tended to grow to mirror the World Above they were connected to, and Everforest was an example of that. But if these were the Ramapo Mountains, they were those mountains as they had been before any humans at all had come to trouble the land: lush and wooded and green.
Eric could feel that they were being watched, but that was common enough. There were Low Court elves in the area, of course, and other creatures too numerous to name, any of whom might take an interest in visitors.
"Which way?" Hosea asked.
"You tell me," Eric said. "Jeanette's the one who's been this way."
Hosea played a few bars of "Foggy Mountain Breakdown," his head cocked as if listening. Here in the magic-rich air of Underhill, it seemed as if Eric could almost hear her too: complaining but resigned.
"She says it was dark when she came through here, and she was busy being poisoned. She also says you don't want to go the way Aerune took her, unless you've got a taste for dying young. But I thinkain't there something with shine over that-a-way?" He pointed.
Eric focused his senses on the direction Hosea indicated. It was like listening, but not really; human language was pretty inadequate when it came to describing what magic felt like. After a moment he nodded. "There's a Gate that way. Let's try it."
Before they started off, Eric transformed his garb into the flashy silks and gleaming armor of an Underhill Bard. The four Guardians frankly stared, and Ria applauded mockingly.
"I think I'm going to have major feelings of inferiority after this," Toni said a little breathlessly.
"Don't," Eric said. "There's no way I could do half of what you canour magics are completely differentand you'll probably find that your abilities are increased here, too. Magic is as common in Underhill as, well, as cable TV in the World Above."
"A good thing to remember," Paul said. "Well, it's a lovely day for a walk. Shall we get started?"
Eric wished he'd been able to borrow elvensteeds for the others, but they weren't given out lightly, and to ask Prince Arvindel for some might have tipped Eric's hand. He wasn't sure how much he wanted Misthold to know about what he was doing until it was overeven if they disapproved of Aerune, having a bunch of humans come Underhill to take him out might have made some of the elves a little uneasy.
When they reached the Gate, Eric chose their direction from the available destinations already set into it. He and Ria had both been to Aerune's domain, and Jeanette had been in and out of Aerune's land several times. Locating the Goblin Tower wasn't going to be the problem. Getting to it safely was. Travel in Underhill was sort of a cross between cross-country hiking and code breaking.
The Gate led them through to a land considerably less lush and tended than the one they'd originally entered. It looked as if it might have belonged to someone once, and now was returning to the wilderness it had originally been. Depending on how much magic had been used to create it, it might go on this way until a new owner claimed it, or dissolve back into the mists of the Chaos Lands.
It's not knowing which until afterward that's so amusing, as Humpty-Dumpty said to Alice.
The maze-seed was a heavy weight at the bottom of his gig bag, and Eric couldn't keep his thoughts from fixating on the battle to come. The real question is, am I sure that what I'm doing is right? And the answer is, I can't think of anything else to do. And something has to be done.
The next Gate brought them to a tropical seashore, where a smooth white sand beach as fine as sugar formed a broad shining ribbon between pale clear water and a cliff of dark craggy rock. The light was sunset-ruddy, but there was no sun to be seen anywhere on the horizon. This was the first major discrepancy the Guardians and Hosea had experienced, and Eric could tell it unnerved them a little. But at least this realm was safe for them to pass throughfriendly, or at least neutral. This was obviously the domain of some oceangoing branch of the Sidhe, such as the Selkies, or of another aquatic race, such as Undines or Nereids. The upside of this was that sea dwellers tended to be fairly indifferent to humanity, having no interest in them for good or ill. There might be a pretty long walk to the next Gate, but they were unlikely to encounter anything fiercer than a sand crab along the way.
But as they walked along the beach, Eric realized he had other things to worry about than their immediate danger. He'd never really thought about it before, but he'd spent so much time Underhill that he was, if not quite accustomed to its wonders, at least no longer dazzled into slack-jawed amazement by them. It was hard now to remember how astonished he and Beth had been when they'd first seen the halls of Elfhame Misthold, and how long it had taken either of them to get used to (or at least to be able to function around) the sheer beauty of Underhill. Magical, enchanting, and glamorous weren't just empty words to the Sidheand "stunning" was pretty relevant, too.
All of which became a problem when four people who'd never seen Underhill before, and who comprised most of your fighting force, were going there to pick a fight with a native on his own turf. While Kayla had been briefly Underhill once before, and Ria had spent half her life in Perenor's pocket domain, neither of them could be considered really experienced with Underhill, either. Even beauty had its dangers.
Eric glanced back over his shoulder. Kayla was openly gawking at the landscape, but she wasn't the one whose reactions really worried him. Paul, José, and Toni were staring around themselves like kids on their first trip to the big city. If their minds were blown by an empty stretch of beachadmittedly a pretty gorgeous beach, but still just a beachhow were they going to react when they got to a place where things got weirdchildren's-book-illustration, role-playing-game, sci-fi-movie weird?
He didn't know. And there wasn't anything he could do at this point but worry about it. Even drawing attention to his fears might simply make them worse.
"Oh . . . look!" Toni exclaimed in awe. Reaching down, she plucked up a seashell out of the sand. It was as big as her hand, and perfect: a gleaming pale golden color as luminous as a unicorn's horn. She held it up, and the ruddy light made its surface sparkle like an opal.
Paul and José stopped to examine it. All three of them looked . . . spellbound, somehow as if they'd never seen a seashell before and it was the most fascinating thing in the world. If something in Aerune's domain made them freeze up like that, distracted them . . .
We'll all be toast.
"It's beautiful, and wholly unfamiliar," Paul said. "What manner of creature inhabited it, or what its native environment is, are things we may never know. Suddenly the world becomes as vast and uncharted as if we lived a thousand years ago."
Reluctantly, Toni set her prize carefully back down on the sand. She looked around wistfully. "I only wish there were some way I could bring Raoul and Paquito here to see this. It is so beautiful. It seems as if nothing bad could ever happen here."
"When you know the Sidhe a little better, you'll realize that beauty is their greatest weapon. While you're being dazzled, they're sticking a knife in your back, or doing whatever else they damn please."
Though Ria's voice was lightly mocking, there was an undertone of real bitterness in it as well.
Toni looked up at Ria, her dark eyes as startled and hurt as if Ria had interrupted a lovely dream. "So you're saying this is all a sham? A trick?"
"I'm saying it's beside the pointit doesn't count much one way or the other, except to put you off your guard. The ancient Greeks might have thought that what was beautiful had to be good, and vice versa, but I think we've managed to learn a little better in the last 4,000 years. The Sidhe live in a world where magic flows freely and they can alter their appearance and surroundings almost at will. If you can do something like that, the way things look becomes just another tool. Or a weapon."
"I hadn't thought of that." Toni's voice was flat. Disappointed. "I suppose human nature isn't much different even when humans aren't involved. C'mon, folks, let's get a move on. No telling how far we're going to have to walk today." She settled her sword on her shoulder once more and strode off ahead.
Eric glanced across at Ria. Her face was expressionless, except for a coolly-raised eyebrow. Yeah, I know this looks bad, Eric told her in his thoughts. But it was the only idea any of us had. And I'm not sure even a few test runs would have prepared folks for thisand it might have alerted Aerune to our plans.
"So how come we're taking the scenic route instead of the express?" Kayla wanted to know, thumping Eric on the thigh to get his attention.
"Believe it or not, this is the fastest way, or at least the fastest safe way," Eric told her. "There aren't any straight lines through Underhill, not really. It's more like playing Connect The Dots. And based on some of the things Jeanette has told Hosea, one of the important things about finding our way to Aerune's involves not getting killed in the process."
"I'm behind that. But I'd kind of like not to starve to death before we get there."
"Don't worry," Ria called to her from Etienne's back. "I've packed a lunch. And if we choose our Gates carefully, Aerune's kingdom won't be too far from here."
This was one of the smaller domainsat least, the dry land part of it wasand a few minutes more brought them to the next Gate, the one that would take them further into Underhill and possibly to a destination one of them recognized. It lay in the depths of a sea cave hollowed out of the black rock by the unceasing caress of the ocean, the smooth black walls glowing greenly with phosphorescent algae and luminous starfish.
They waded inside through the shallow water, leading the elvensteeds. Kayla stood at the back beside Ria, holding Lady Day's reins. The keys for this Gate were in the form of small seashells embedded in the rock almost at random, but their aura of Power made them easily visible to Eric, and probably to the others as well. Eric and Hosea considered where the Gate might take them.
Hosea's hands fanned over the strings of the banjo, calling forth silvery whispers that echoed in the darkness.
"That one," Hosea said, pointing.
Eric touched it, feeding the Gate with his Bardic Power to activate it. The back wall of the sea cave dissolved as he keyed the Gate, and the seven adventurers could feel a cold wind blowing over them from whatever lay beyond it, but no light spilled through the opening.
Cautiously, Eric and Hosea stepped through into the darkness, followed quickly by the others. The Gate closed when the last of them had passed through, and Eric could feel winter-dry grass crunch beneath his feet. But no matter how hard he strained, he could still see nothing.
A chill monotonous wind blew steadily, making him shudder more than shiver as he looked around blindly, unable to keep from trying to see. If not for the evidence of the sound and feel of the wind, and the dry scent, like musty hay, that assailed his nostrils, he would have wondered if he'd wandered into some trap that had stolen his senses. But only sight was missing.
"Eric . . . ?" Hosea soundednot frightened, exactly, but concerned. The kind of "concerned" where if you don't get answers in a hurry you might start screaming.
"Wait." I know this place.
Eric summoned a ball of elf-light, and saw what he had expected to see: a broad and featureless plain that seemed to stretch a thousand miles in every direction, its short dry dun-colored grass trampled as if herds of animals had been running across it.
Urla had brought Eric hereto what Eric thought of as the Blind Landswhen he was bringing Eric to Aerune. There was a Gate directly into Aerune's domain from here.
Somewhere.
"I get the feeling it isn't a good idea to linger here," Ria said, summoning her own light. Etienne was fidgeting wildly under her, and Eric could tell that Lady Day was equally spooked. The black elvensteed pulled and fretted against Kayla's grip on her reins.
"Me neither," Eric said. "But I don't want to end up right in Aerune's lap, either. I've been here before. The Gate here leads directly into Aerune's domain."
"Does it lead anywhere else?" It was Toni who asked the question. Eric's eyes widened in surprise as he looked at her. The sword in her hand was glowing brighter than the elf-light, the blade as fiery as a bar of burning phosphorus.
"We'll have to find it to tell."
A tremor suddenly shook the ground, as if something heavymany somethingsran hard nearby, but even with the elf-light, Eric could see nothing. The two elvensteeds trembled like mad things, eyes rolling and coats dripping with foam, but stood their ground.
Turn back, look for another direction? They could wander Underhill for years and miles and come no closer to Aerune's domain than thisand Jeanette had said that most of the pathways to the Goblin Tower led through worse places.
"We need to get out of here," Paul said, his voice tight. He gestured at Kayla. The young Healer stood, staring around her with eyes wide and terrified. Her fists were clenched at her sides, and her whole body was rigid.
"Everything's afraid," she said in a small voice.
As if her words had shaped the thing itself, Eric could suddenly feel the fear pressing in around him, waiting only a kindling spark of their own terror to fill them all with panic. Urla must have had some sort of safe-conduct, to bring him through here unscathed before. The seven of them had nothing.
And Hosea began to play.
The banjo's notes sounded flat, almost muffled. For a moment Eric thought he'd stop, but the novice Bard persisted, playing grimly, almost doggedly. A moment later he began to sing. " 'You couldn't pack a Broadwood half a mileYou mustn't leave a fiddle in the damp' "
The sense of panic drew back, as if affronted.
When all else fails, try Kipling. It was "The Song of the Banjo," set to a tune of Hosea's own creation, one as impudent and saucy as its bragging words. Hosea strode forward, moving as easily and certainly as if he knew precisely where he was going. Only Eric saw the strain and concentration on the big man's face, the effort it took to keep his own fear out of his voice and the music.
The chorus came round, and now Ria joined in, her voice soaring bell-like over Hosea's rumbling baritone. Eric joined her, his clear tenor soaring and twining with the other two as though they'd rehearsed for months. Whether by accident, or good guess, Hosea was moving in the direction of the next Gate; Eric walked back to Lady Day and swung up into her saddle. The elvensteed was quieter now, though she still trembled.
Paul handed Kayla up to Eric. She held on tight, and he could feel the shudders that racked her body, but she took a deep breath and added her voice to the others. Eric dug the flute from his gig bag and began to play, the flute weaving its silvery counterpoint into the banjo's sparkling melody as the black mare trotted after Hosea. The music seemed to form a bubble of protection in which they could move safely through the mad blind terror that surrounded them.
They did not dare stop singing. It did not matter that between the light and the music they were attracting the attention of anything within ten miles. It was one of Kipling's longer poems, and Hosea knew every word, but he'd reach the end eventually, and the music they made was the only thing that would keep the Blind Lands' utter despair at bay long enough for them to cross it alive.
The song ended. It was Ria, surprisingly, who saved them then.
"Oh, what do you do with a drunken sailor" The chantey had dozens of verses, and new ones were easy to make up on the fly. Eric sighed with relief. They could keep this one up for hoursand he had, on occasion.
And so they arrived singing at an enormous henge whose black stones were the size of city buses. Eric dismounted, handing Kayla Lady Day's reins, and advanced upon the Gate.
Only two destinations were coded, the other four left blank, their buttons dark and lifeless. As he touched each of them, an image of the place formed in Eric's mind. One led to Aerune's domain. The other probably led someplace worsehe jerked his fingers back with a gasp, heart hammering, with a confused impression of an arctic wasteland filling his mind. They wouldn't last ten minutes there. The weather alone would kill them.
One or the other, and both choices bad. But Eric was a Bard, and there were four unused destinations available. With skill, and luck, he could make the Gate take them where he chose.
Only he'd have to withdraw his magic from protecting the others to do it.
He had no choice.
He reached out and touched the Gate itself. The stone was as cold as dry ice beneath his fingertips, burning painfully. This must be what Kory, what any of the Sidhe, felt when they touched Cold Iron. He imagined blisters welling up, bursting, the blood freezing as it oozed over this cold burning.
He shut out the pain, reaching into the stone with his magic. Its music was dark, unsettling, sliding off-key in a jangle of minor chords before settling into a new mode for a few seconds. He could feel a dim slumbering mind deep within the stone, passive yet malevolent. An echo of the magic that had formed it. He fought to control the shifting chords he heard in his mind, to make sense of them.
Here.
Yes, here was Aerune's domain. The shape and sense of it filled his mind in a wordless knowing impossible to explain. But that wasn't where he wanted to go. Near it, yes, but outside. Just outside, into the unclaimed Chaos Lands where every stray thought could become real. Had he warned the others about that? Could any warning be enough?
He forced himself to concentrate. To shape the sense of his destination was like transposing music into a different key, adapting a known melody to the needs of an entirely different instrument. With the way into Aerune's domain to guide him, he changed, edited, added, and at last produced what he could only hope was a viable direction.
He opened his eyes, not remembering when he'd closed them, and saw that now three, not two, destinations were marked with a cool blue-green fire on the Gate's surface. How long had he been entranced? His Bard's silks were drenched in sweat, and every muscle ached. He withdrew his hand from the stone, feeling a pang of relief that the skin was whole and unburned. Had the pain been only an illusion? Or would the damage have become reality if he'd failed?
Ria's elf-light and the two Guardians' swords were their only source of light here in the Blind Lands. The singing sounded raggedthey'd moved on to a startlingly bawdy ballad, of which only Ria seemed to know all the words. Hosea's playing sparkled with metronomic precision, but Eric could sense the other Bard's weariness at the unfamiliar exertion.
Wonderful. We're all exhausted before we start. Great tactics, Banyon.
But there'd been no other way. They couldn't Gate directly to their destination, and they couldn't drive there eitheror ride. This was the best they could do. Maybe they could win a breathing space before Aerune noticed them. God, I sure hope so. He won't even break a sweat if he takes us on while we're in this condition.
But to delay here a moment longer than they absolutely had to would be fatal, with only their magic to protect them from the baleful influence of this realm. Eric took a deep breath and keyed the Gate to the destination he'd chosen. The opening shivered and went white. The glare made his eyes water after so long in the Blind Lands. He waved the others forward.