Novel - Arcanum 101 (with Rosemary Edghill)

by Mercedes Lackey

  “Well, this is going to be fun,” Ms. Smith said. She didn’t sound particularly upset.

  “Okay,” Eric said, turning to Kenny and Tomas. “These are Low Court Sidhe, meaning they’re tied to this Node Grove. They’ve englamoured your friends in order to keep them with them. What are you going to do about it?”

  What am I going to do about it? Tomas thought in exasperation. “Guys! Hey, guys! Time to go!”

  The dark-haired boy holding the mirror laughed, and the butterfly-winged girls giggled. The whatever-it-was with the hooves just ignored him, and so did the pink-haired girl and the big blue dog.

  And so did his classmates.

  He walked into the clearing and grabbed Devlin by the ankles, dragging him out of Pink Hair’s lap. Devlin didn’t react, but when Tomas got him to the edge of the clearing, he struggled free—getting to his feet and elbowing Tomas painfully in the ribs in the process—and made his way back to his new girlfriend’s side, cuddling up to her again. She looked up at Tomas and snickered, flicking her ears back and forth like an irritated cat.

  “Well, now you know that won’t work,” Eric said calmly. “As long as they’re englamoured, they’ll just want to stay here.”

  “So… break the spell?” Tomas asked. Eric nodded.

  And it was obvious that the teachers were going to leave it to him and Kenny to figure out how to do that. He looked at Kenny.

  “We could, um, throw holy water on them?” Kenny suggested.

  “Nice try,” Ms. Smith said, “but they aren’t vampires. And I don’t think you’ve got any holy water, either.”

  “We could, um, burn down their grove,” Tomas suggested tentatively.

  “Well, yes,” Eric said. “That would certainly work. But it might be a little extreme.”

  “It would kill them, wouldn’t it?” Tomas said.

  “It would,” Mr. Moonlight said. “The Sidhe of the Low Courts are bound to their Groves. They have no other habitation.”

  Tomas thought about that for a few minutes. He thought about how much he was looking forward to going to the Mall tomorrow, and what it would be like not to ever be able to leave St. Rhia’s, ever. And the Sidhe were supposed to live for a really really long time…

  “So I guess they get really bored, right?” he said after a moment.

  “Perhaps they do,” Mr. Moonlight said, in tones that indicated he’d never thought about it before.

  “Kenny,” Tomas said. “Get the mirror.”

  Kenny looked puzzled—just for a moment—then smiled. He reached out his hand, and the mirror shivered in the dark boy’s hand—and then rose up into the air.

  The boy snatched at it, but Kenny swooped it out of reach. He made it fly all around the clearing, swooping and sailing, but after that first failed grab, the dark boy simply sat back and watched it, a smile of delight on his face.

  At last Kenny brought the mirror to himself.

  “Do you want it back?” Tomas asked. He was hoping to trade the mirror for Destiny.

  “I can get another,” the dark boy said, shrugging. “Make it fly again.”

  “What’s he so excited about?” Kenny whispered. “He’s got magic. He can make dozens of mirrors fly.”

  “He can’t make them fly without magic, though,” Eric said.

  “Hey,” Tomas said, getting an idea. “Look. We want our friends back. We’ll make the mirror fly again in exchange for them. And other stuff, too.”

  “You would bargain with us for your friends’ lives?” the dark haired boy asked. His eyes gleamed.

  Kenny opened his mouth to say something. Tomas kicked him. If there was one thing Tomas knew something about, it was cutting a deal with bangers and not getting skinned. He’d done it for years back in El Paso, when he’d had a skill that everybody had wanted, and had used it to buy his safety and freedom and not get dragged into any of the gangs.

  He shrugged, feigning disinterest. “I just want you to let them go. Got stuff to trade, you know?”

  “What “stuff?’” The dark haired boy looked interested now.

  “We’ll make your mirror fly again.”

  “Not enough,” the boy said quickly.

  “Did I say that was all?” Tomas held out his hand, palm up. He concentrated, and a jet of fire leaped up from his palm.

  Whoa!

  Ms. Smith had been right about everything being… stronger… here. He’d only meant to make a little flame. She’d said it wouldn’t affect psions, only mages, but he was more nervous than he wanted to let on. This was no time to lose control, though.

  The flame collapsed and died.

  “Do it again!” the boy cried. All five of the Sidhe were watching him now.

  “If we’ve got a deal,” Tomas said.

  “One of them,” the boy said, grinning.

  What else have I got that they want?

  He shrugged off his backpack and rummaged through it.

  “No candy bars,” Ms. Smith said in a low voice. “The chocolate’ll kill ‘em.”

  Tomas nodded. “I got genuine Earth sandwiches. I got potato chips. I got bottled water.”

  Kenny had gotten the idea and was going through his pack as well. “Pretzels,” he said. “Jelly beans. Granola bars—no chocolate in those. Raisins. And, um, sunglasses.”

  “I’ll go get the other packs,” Ms. Smith said.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  A few minutes later, everything they’d brought with them that contained neither chocolate nor caffeine that was spread out on one of the picnic blankets—including two paperback novels, a Frisbee, and a bright pink boonie hat. The Sidhe had abandoned their new playmates—who were still sitting, entranced, in the middle of the clearing—to inspect the goods. Tomas couldn’t decide which of them was the weirdest—he was pretty sure it was a tie between the pink-haired girl with the hooves and the bright blue dog-thing.

  He kept hoping that one of the teachers would step in and take over, but by now he’d realized that he and Kenny were pretty much on their own here. And that Kenny was expecting him to figure things out.

  The dark haired boy reached for one of the books.

  “Uh-uh,” Tomas said firmly. “Not until we’ve got a deal.” He glanced at Kenny and wiggled his fingers. Kenny got the idea. The book rose up off the blanket and hovered.

  “You’ll give us all this? You’ll make fire again? You’ll make the mirror fly again?” the boy asked guardedly.

  “You give us back our friends—all of them—”

  “Undo,” Ms. Smith murmured in a low voice.

  “—and undo what you did to ‘em,” Tomas added, “and yeah.”

  The boy still hesitated.

  “Seriously,” Kenny said. “This is cool stuff.” He picked up the Frisbee—Tomas wondered who’d brought it, because it hadn’t been in Kenny’s backpack—and skimmed it across the clearing with an expert flick of the wrist. It arced upward, turning, and came back again. Kenny reached up and caught it—no telekinesis required.

  “You’ll have to practice with it,” Kenny said, shrugging, “but it will work for anybody. No magic.”

  But they hadn’t closed the deal yet, Tomas could tell. What else did he have to sweeten the pot with?

  “And here, okay?” Tomas said, untying the red do-rag from around his head. “This, too.” He held it out.

  The boy took it, and tied it around his own head the way he’d seen Tomas wearing it. It looked weird with the flowers and the loincloth, but the boy didn’t seem to care. “A bargain, then, Child of Earth,” he said. “Now, make my mirror fly.” He held it out.

  Tomas glanced back toward the three teachers, but from their expressions, he and Kenny were still doing okay. He nodded. “Done deal.”

  For the next half hour, Kenny made the mirror swoop around the clearing like some kind of demented bird as Tomas juggled fireballs—small ones. It took every ounce of the control he’d learned in those weeks of tedious practice sessions with Mr. Bishop, and when he go
t tired, he switched to flashier—but easier—moves: lighting up his fingertips like candles, and then walking a single flame across the backs of his hands, the way a stage magician would manipulate a coin. His audience watched closely, and Tomas had the feeling they’d be willing to watch, well, forever.

  “The bargain is fulfilled,” Mr. Moonlight said at last—to Tomas’s great relief. “Now you must fulfill your end of it.”

  “Take them,” the boy said, sounding bored. And between one moment and the next, he and the other four Sidhe… weren’t there any more.

  “Oh man,” Kenny said plaintively.

  “Welcome to Underhill, hotshot,” Ms. Smith said, smirking. She walked over and began folding up the picnic blanket. It was empty now; its contents had vanished with the Sidhe.

  “Hey!” Devlin had jumped to his feet. “Megs, I just saw a girl with wings! And—” Abruptly he realized that he was very far from alone. He stared at the others in confusion.

  “So was this some kind of a test?” Tomas asked Eric. He hadn’t decided whether he was angry that he’d been tested, or pleased to have passed.

  “Yes and no,” Eric answered, shrugging just a little. “No, because it isn’t anything we planned to have happen, but yes, because it’s the kind of thing that does happen Underhill, and you need to know what to do if something like this does.”

  “So… what if we couldn’t get them out, you know? I mean—” Tomas said hesitantly.

  “Well, in that case, Lord Moonlight or I would have stepped in and taken over. But you did a great job, Tomas. You kept your head, and you didn’t panic, and you came up with a good solution that kept everybody happy.”

  “Yeah,” Ms. Smith said. “You rocked, kiddo.”

  “Indeed, young Master Torres, you comported yourself with distinction here today,” Mr. Moonlight said.

  By now the three girls were on their feet, and Kenny was explaining to them what had just—sort of—happened. According to Megan, they’d wandered into this clearing to look at the flowers—all of them knew better than to actually pick any—and that was the last thing they really remembered.

  “Time to go,” Eric said firmly.

  As they walked back to the buckboard, Destiny dropped back to walk beside Tomas. “Thanks for getting us out of there,” she said.

  “It wasn’t really anything much,” he said, feeling awkward.

  But Eric and Ms. Smith—and even Mr. Moonlight—seemed to think he’d done a good job, and he was a little embarrassed to realize how much he valued hearing their words of praise.

  “Are we gonna be late?” Chloe asked, when they were moving down the road in the wagon again.

  “Not really,” Eric said over his shoulder. “Time is pretty much a suggestion in Underhill, not an absolute. We’ll just skip a couple of stops on the tour, and reach Misthold pretty much when we said we would.”

  “And be home on time?” Tomas asked. Underhill was great, but he’d trade everything he’d seen here for tomorrow—a real date with VeeVee.

  “You got somewhere to be?” Devlin snarked.

  “In time for dinner,” Eric said, ignoring the byplay. “Hey, it’s Friday. Wouldn’t want to miss Pizza Night.”

  Destiny groaned, too low for anyone but Tomas to hear.

  He’d never actually met anyone who hated pizza before.

  About ten minutes later the buckboard reached a stone circle. They drove into it, but they never reached the other side. Chloe made a startled sort of hiccupping noise, and Tomas turned to look at her, and suddenly the light changed, as if somebody had turned up the sun.

  And the buckboard was driving along a cliff road above a beach.

  “Hey, cool,” Kenny said.

  “I wish we’d stopped here for lunch,” Megan said wistfully, gazing out at the ocean.

  Tomas found himself in agreement. From their viewpoint at the top of the cliff he could see the perfect white sand beach below—it looked like something out of a travel poster—and beyond it, the ocean was a glowing pale turquoise.

  “You wouldn’t get along with the locals,” Eric said. “And none of you can breathe underwater. So….”

  “You mean this place isn’t safe?” Johnny asked indignantly.

  “Devlin, did you sleep through everything that happened in the last place we drove through?” Kenny asked.

  “No place down here is safe,” Tomas said, reasoning it out. “But I guess… some places are safer than others?”

  “We’re okay here as long as we don’t go down to the water—or into it,” Eric said. “And Lord Moonlight and I could probably keep the merfolk from luring the rest of you in. Probably.”

  He sounded like this was all a great big joke, Tomas thought—and it probably was, if you were up here on the road, and safe, and knew you had magic to protect yourself besides. But he was just as glad when, a few minutes later, the road curved away from the cliff and they went through another Gate.

  “Euw,” Chloe said immediately.

  It was dark—not night-dark, but overcast. And foggy. And after a few seconds Tomas realized that he expected it to be damp and cold, too—because when it was dim and foggy like this, it was always damp and cold—but it wasn’t. It wasn’t much of anything.

  At the edges of the road he could see—he was pretty sure—trees. It was hard to be certain. On the one hand, what else could they be? On the other hand, he couldn’t really see them clearly at all.

  “Um… shouldn’t the weather be a little better?” he heard Ms. Smith say.

  “Yes,” Eric answered. “I’m going back to the Gate. We’ll take a road through another Domain.”

  He pulled the buckboard to a stop and clucked to the Elvenponies, and the wagon began to make a wide careful turn. Soon they were heading back the way they came.

  Destiny poked Tomas. “Wrong turn?” she asked in a low voice.

  “I guess so,” he said.

  “The ways through Underhill are not always straight,” Mr. Moonlight said. “Nor do they remain the same from season to season. Yet I had thought this was Prince Panariel’s Domain, and Elfhame Silverleaf should be willing to grant us safe passage.”

  “Yeah, well, how long since you’ve been here?” Ms. Smith asked.

  “Long,” Mr. Moonlight answered shortly.

  Shouldn’t we be there now? Tomas thought a few minutes later.

  By now all six of the students were exchanging nervous glances, and even Ms. Smith was looking edgy. They’d been heading back up the road toward the Gate for longer—a lot longer—than they’d been coming down it, and they were still in the middle of the fog and the mist. In fact, it was getting thicker.

  “I think I see something out there,” Megan said uneasily.

  “Oh, no,” Ms. Smith said. “I’ve been in this movie.”

  Eric looked back at them over his shoulder. “We’ve got a little problem, and all of you need to help. This, ah, used to be an Elven Domain. Now it isn’t. And that means it’s returning to Chaos Lands again.”

  “Breaking down into the elemental stuff of magic,” Chloe said.

  “And that means it can be shaped by the thoughts of anyone who travels through it,” Eric finished. “Now, Lord Moonlight and I can shield you from its effects while we make a run for the actual Gate—never mind the details now—but it will be a really good idea if you don’t look at the mist, stay calm, and, above all, don’t imagine things. Okay?”

  Now how the hell are we supposed to do that? Tomas thought with a combination of irritation and panic. But he said “right” along with the others, because what else could you do?

  He wasn’t even sure what the Chaos Lands were, but it sounded really bad.

  The Elvenponies moved from a walk into a trot.

  “Why don’t they, you know, just magic us out of here?” Johnny asked in a loud whisper.

  “The Chaos Lands are made of magic,” Ms. Smith said. “Any magic anybody uses is just going to feed the Chaos. And, of course, attract the
attention of anything that happens to be around.”

  “And that would be bad?” Megan asked.

  “It’s the Chaos Lands, so yeah,” Ms. Smith said.

  Suddenly there was a howl from somewhere out in the mist.

  It didn’t sound like either dogs or coyotes—Tomas had heard both back home—and it didn’t sound like the wolves he’d heard in the movies, either. It sounded like a monster.

  The Elvenponies broke into a run. It was odd, Tomas thought—with the part of his mind that wasn’t on its way to a full-scale panic—that the wagon didn’t bounce, but it was as if whatever its wheels were rolling over was absolutely smooth. He could barely hear the hoofbeats of the ‘ponies, either: he didn’t know whether the mist was muffling them, or whether the whatever-it-was that they were running over was soft.

  “Eric?” Ms. Smith said tensely.

  “We might be in trouble,” Eric said.

  Tomas heard the howling again, louder. It echoed weirdly, the sound bouncing off the mist, and he couldn’t tell whether it was one… thing… or… more than one.

  “Guys! Look at me,” Ms. Smith demanded.

  Everyone did. Chloe and Megan were holding hands, white-faced, and Destiny was hugging herself tightly. Kenny looked like he wanted to throw up, and Johnny looked like he wanted to cry. Tomas put his game face on and gritted his teeth.

  “We will get out of this. Once we’re through the Gate, we’re safe, and we’re almost there. Chloe, Destiny, Megan, down on the floor. Now.”

  “Because they’re girls?” Johnny demanded. His voice was high and shaky.

  “Because they’re Mages, jackass,” Ms. Smith snapped, as the girls moved to obey. “If we have to fight, it’s up to you Talents to do it. Your psi-powers won’t feed the Chaos-energy.”

  “Incoming!” Eric shouted.

  “There!” Ms. Smith said. “Tomas! Hit it!”

  All he saw in the direction where she pointed was a darker shape in the mist. He flung a fireball at it anyway, and something screamed. The mist swirled away from his fireball for a moment before his fire vanished and the mist closed again, but he still didn’t get a good look at what he’d hit.