Trapped

by James Alan Gardner

  “What did he intend to do?” Impervia asked. “What was his plan?”

  “Plan?” I laughed. “Sebastian wouldn’t have a plan; he was just a dreamy-eyed kid. He’d never consider writing ahead for reservations or setting up a wedding in advance—that would have forced him to set an elopement date weeks before it happened, then send out letters, wait for replies...” I shook my head. “He’d see that as far too cold-blooded. Sebastian didn’t believe anything could be sincere unless it was spontaneous.”

  “Rosalind was the same,” Annah said. “Filled with romantic ideals of how people should behave when they were in love. If she and Sebastian decided to elope, they’d want to do it right away. Let’s go tonight or Let’s go this weekend—not Let’s go three weeks from now so we’ve got time to book a nice room.”

  “And,” I added, “I doubt if Rosalind and Sebastian ever had planned ahead. Rosalind’s life was run by her mother; the girl couldn’t schedule anything in advance, because she never knew when she’d be whisked off to another continent. As for Sebastian, why would he have to think ahead when his powers kept him out of trouble? I didn’t know about his powers till Myoko told me, but when I think over things the boy told me about his past...well, consider this: how did he get chosen for a full scholarship to Feliss Academy? He’s not the energetic go-getter we usually look for in local kids, but Opal immediately signed him up. Was she influenced by his powers? I don’t know. But the scholarship was certainly a lucky break for a boy who wouldn’t usually have been chosen.” I shrugged. “Good things have a way of falling into Sebastian’s lap, and he’s come to depend on that. He likely had no idea what he’d do when he got to Niagara Falls—he just assumed things would work out. Get married, get a honeymoon suite, no problem.”

  “And what about the creature he’s with?” Pelinor asked. “We’re agreed it’s a Lucifer, like in Opal’s story?”

  He was looking at Impervia. She gave a little sniff. “That’s the most likely conclusion...which means there’s no point debating what Sebastian and the real Rosalind would have done. This monster, Jode, won’t stick to any preexisting script. It has its own agenda and it will manipulate Sebastian to further its goals.”

  “Lucky for us,” I said, “Jode can’t directly force Sebastian to do anything. According to Myoko, the boy’s powers kick in automatically when he’s threatened...so if Jode tries to hurt Sebastian, the result will be baked shapeshifter.”

  Pelinor sucked on his mustache. “No need for Jode to use violence. The creature looks like Rosalind; surely it can coax the boy into just about anything.”

  “Yes and no,” I said. “Sebastian is a decent kid. He won’t commit outright mayhem just because Rosalind asks pretty please. If Jode wants Sebastian to do something extreme, the boy will have to be tricked.”

  Impervia gave a disdainful sniff. “How hard is it to trick a sixteen-year-old?”

  Before anyone could answer, our supper arrived: ale, tea, and five bowls of stew, brought from the kitchen by a tall woman in her twenties whose hair had already gone gray. The gray didn’t seem to have come from stress—the woman appeared as relaxed and self-assured as a pampered house-cat. After she’d passed around the bowls, she gave us an easy smile. “Anything else youse wanted?”

  “Information,” Impervia said. “Has anything unusual happened here in the past day?”

  “No, sister, it’s been some quiet. You’re the first folks who weren’t regulars.”

  “I wasn’t asking about your tavern,” Impervia said, making an obvious effort not to sound snippish. “Niagara Falls in general. Anything notable? Fires? Fights? Sorcerous explosions?”

  “Oh, sister, nothing like that ever happens in Niffles.”

  Under her breath, the Caryatid said, “The night’s still young.”

  The five of us ate in silence. I can’t tell you if the stew was good, bad, or bland—the food made no impression because my mind was elsewhere, trying to reconstruct Sebastian’s movements over the past day.

  Sebastian and Jode caught a ride on the fishing boat Hoosegow. Hoosegow left Dover at 11:05 p.m. It would take at least ten hours to reach Crystal Bay or one of the other harbors on the Niagara frontier...possibly logger; since Hoosegow wasn’t built for speed. Therefore our quarry landed no earlier than nine or ten in the morning—after which, they had to find overland passage from the lakeshore to Niagara Falls. That trip was another three hours.

  So Sebastian and Jode reached “Niffles” no earlier than noon...and I was inclined to add a few hours onto the calculation, considering their boat was slow and they might have trouble arranging coach transport. No driver would be eager to make a special run into Niagara Falls for two teenagers who were obviously eloping. The kids would need to pay a lot of cash to overcome such reticence. Jode might indeed have a lot of cash, either stolen from the real Rosalind or procured some other way—a shapeshifter wouldn’t have much trouble filling its pockets at other people’s expense. Even so, money didn’t guarantee instant service; teenagers with overflowing purses might get hauled in by some town constable who wanted to know how they acquired so much loot.

  Many delays possible. Unless Sebastian used his powers.

  If the boy wanted, he could ask a trillion nanites to lift him into the sky and fly him wherever he wanted to go. He and Jode-Rosalind could have lofted themselves straight off the school grounds and across the continent. But as far as we knew, they’d traveled by conventional methods, horseback and Hoosegow. That suggested Sebastian preferred not to use psionics unless he had to...which made sense, considering how much Myoko must have badgered him to keep a low profile. She would have told gruesome stories of psychics who were discovered and enslaved because they took even a tiny liberty with their powers; and Myoko had a knack for putting the scare into teenagers. Sebastian would stringently avoid showing anyone what he could do.

  So assume no use of psionics. In that case, the boy’s best bet would be telling the truth (as he saw it): “My sweetheart and I are eloping to Niagara Falls and we’ve scraped together a little money by selling our belongings. Please, Mr. Coach Driver, can’t you give us a ride? We’ll pay you everything we can afford.”

  Given a line like that, a lot of drivers would hide a smile and say something on the order of “I’ve got chores to do first, but I’ve been meaning to head into Niffles for supplies I can’t get here in town...”

  Suppose Sebastian and Jode could reach Niagara Falls by mid-afternoon. That wasn’t unreasonable. Then what?

  Sebastian would want to get married...and he could do that easily. When I’d visited Niagara on that class field trip, I’d seen a dozen chapels within ten minutes’ walk of the Falls—Buddhist, Jewish, Magdalene, New Grace, Marymarch, Taozen, The Hundred, and several more. If those didn’t suit Sebastian’s taste, there were secular wedding halls too; I remembered one with a sign SINGLES IN, COUPLES OUT, HITCHED IN HALF AN HOUR OR YOUR MONEY BACK!

  The boy would have no trouble tying the knot. Nor would he have difficulty finding a honeymoon suite immediately thereafter. Late winter/early spring must be a slow season for hotels—there’d be vacancies all over town, and whatever Sebastian’s price range, he’d find plenty of rooms he could afford.

  Then what?

  Then Jode would let the boy consummate the marriage. I didn’t want to dwell on that thought...but what else could Jode do? The demon had to play its role as Rosalind, at least in the short term. Eager fiancée; beaming bride; glowingly fulfilled newlywed. Jode had to go along.

  After which...

  Jode would say, “Oh darling, let’s go see the sights.”

  “Oh darling, I’ve got a surprise for you.”

  “Oh darling, someone said there’s something interesting to visit over here.”

  Jode would invent an excuse to get Sebastian...where? To have him do what?

  Whatever it was, it wouldn’t be long now. If Sebastian and Jode had arrived in town mid-afternoon, they’d take an hour or two or three to
wallow in connubial bliss.

  That would get them to nightfall. And whatever skullduggery Jode intended, the Lucifer would probably prefer to do it after dark.

  I looked out the tavern’s west window and saw the sky washed with red fading into purple. The sun had fully set. Alien Jode would soon make its move.

  There was another window to the north, this one looking out on the city. As I watched, a streetlight came on. Then another. Then another and another. Some were mercury blue, others sodium orange.

  OldTech electric lights. Powered by the hydro-electric station that tapped energy from thousands of tons of falling water. A station tended by the Holy Lightning, but secretly supported by the Sparks.

  The tavern door swung open and Bing entered, shuffling his feet to scrape mud off his boots. “You folks decided where you want to go?”

  “No,” said Impervia.

  “Not a clue,” said Pelinor.

  “Not a fucking clue,” said the Caryatid under her breath.

  “I know where they’re going,” I said.

  The others turned to me in surprise.

  The target had to be the generating station. Nothing else fit.

  If the Sparks supported the station, they didn’t do it from blissful generosity; they must be using the power for purposes of their own. And the Falls gave them prodigious amounts of power—at one time, Niagara’s electrical grid supplied energy to millions of people. Millions of OldTech people, with all their refrigerators, stoves, and computers (not to mention factories, office towers, and neon-bright casinos). Now the generators supplied only Niffles itself...and the power lines didn’t even reach the city’s outskirts, as evidenced by The Captured Peacock’s kerosene lanterns.

  So: enormous generating plant, minuscule public consumption. Where was the rest of the energy going? How was it being used?

  I didn’t know. But Dreamsinger did. And when she realized Sebastian had the psionic potential to threaten the generators, the Sorcery-Lord took off like a firecracker. Now she’d be guarding the power station; and if Sebastian or Jode got near the place, they’d both end up as sorcerous shish-kebab.

  Or would they? Why did I think Dreamsinger would be victorious, given that Sebastian had top-notch psychic abilities and Jode had already killed one Spark? It wasn’t at all certain the Sorcery-Lord would win. Then again, Dreamsinger had the advantage of twelve hours to prepare a defense, building on whatever fortifications the power station already possessed. (You could bet if the station was truly vital to the Sparks, they’d have done their best to make it impregnable.) Dreamsinger also knew she was dealing with a Lucifer; she wouldn’t be taken by surprise like her unlucky brother. And even if the Sorcery-Lord got defeated, it didn’t mean Sebastian was safe—Spark Royal would then cry vengeance, and no one could win a fight against the entire Spark family (plus the League of Peoples backing them).

  So to save Sebastian, we had to reach the power plant ahead of him. Intercept the boy before he came into Dreamsinger’s sights. We’d then have to persuade him his bride wasn’t the real Rosalind...after which we’d thrash the Lucifer, take Sebastian home, and pray the whole thing would blow over.

  Sure. Simple.

  On the other hand, if I hadn’t been in Niffles risking my life, I’d be home in my stifling don’s suite, marking geometry tests and bemoaning how little I’d made of my intellectual potential.

  Was tedium better than facing death? I honestly couldn’t tell. Someone else in my position might suddenly realize geometry tests weren’t so bad after all. Others might say, “Compared to being a teacher, I’d rather fight alien shapeshifters any day!”

  But I couldn’t say which I feared more—which I hated more. Quests or tests. Death or monotony.

  So it’s come to this. And hasn’t it been a long way down.

  19

  THE MUSIC THAT REMAINS

  Supper was finished. Darkness had fallen. Outside The Captured Peacock, we waited for Bing to fetch the coach.

  Pelinor and the Caryatid huddled together, talking in low voices. Impervia paced back and forth some distance away, surrounding herself with the air of someone who didn’t want her solitude interrupted. Annah stood by my elbow, close but not touching.

  Silent. Breathing the cool night air.

  Stars had begun to appear, plus a few satellites tracking brightly across the blackness at speeds faster than any natural body. Most of the satellites were abandoned and defunct— OldTech derelicts waiting for their orbits to decay—but I wondered if some of those eyes-on-high belonged to Spark Royal: relay stations for ghost-smoke tubes that carried the Lords anywhere on the planet.

  Trust the Sparks to have their own private satellites while the rest of Earth couldn’t even re-create the Industrial Revolution.

  Annah nudged my arm. “What are you looking at?”

  “Oh, just the stars.”

  “Making a wish?”

  “One wish isn’t enough. We need at least a dozen if we hope to see the dawn.”

  “Or we could just go home.”

  I turned toward her, but she’d focused her eyes on the stars and the dark. “Haven’t we been through this?” I asked. “Didn’t we decide to drink life to the lees?”

  “I’ve been thinking of other ways you and I could do that. Besides dying.”

  She looked up at me, eyes white in her dark face. I could see she wanted to kiss me; and I wanted to kiss her. Strange that neither of us made a move.

  “I’ve been thinking of such things too,” I said. “But if we just ran off and found a honeymoon suite instead of sticking with our friends...”

  She nodded. “I could not love thee, dear, so much, lov’d I not honor more.”

  “All these years,” I said, “and I never knew you liked quoting poetry.”

  “I don’t, really.” She laughed. “I suppose it’s because we’re on a quest. Poetry just springs to the lips.”

  The word “lips” made me want to kiss her again. But I didn’t. “This isn’t a quest,” I said. “It’s real.”

  “The best quests are real. Isn’t that the point? Myths are everyday life in disguise. Slaying the Jabberwock means facing your own monsters; searching for the Holy Grail means pursuing some goal you’ve previously shied away from. But it would be sappy to say that in so many words. That’s why poets sing about battling gigantic beasts instead of fending off boredom. And why they sing about finding the Holy Grail rather than...oh, the things you can get only when you give up the nonsense that holds you back.”

  “What kind of nonsense?” I asked.

  “Habits. Inhibitions. A flawed self-image.” Annah’s eyes glistened. “You know what I’m talking about, Phil.”

  “I do indeed.” I still didn’t kiss her. “When I get rid of those, that’s when I find the Holy Grail?”

  “When you get rid of those, the Holy Grail finds you.” She let out her breath, as if she’d been holding it. “Or so the poets say. Grails can be awfully damned slow in getting the message.”

  She took my face in her hands and pulled me down to her mouth.

  When Bing arrived with the coach, everyone piled inside without a word—even Pelinor, who’d decided to forego the driver’s seat. Supposedly, he was sitting with us so we could talk “strategy”...but I couldn’t help noticing how close he tucked himself against the Caryatid. Not just due to the narrowness of the bench. Annah had obviously been right about the Caryatid and Pelinor; with danger soon approaching, they didn’t want to be apart.

  But they didn’t indulge in any last-minute whispering. No one did. Nor any talk of strategy. We all gazed wordlessly out the windows into the dark, like soldiers withdrawing into themselves before the call to arms.

  Five minutes after we left The Captured Peacock, we reached the first of the city streetlights: a garish silver-blue bulb on an OldTech lamp standard that tilted fifteen degrees to the right. The pole’s concrete support had tipped sideways over the past four centuries, and no one had bothered to corr
ect the slippage. As the horses clopped past, I thought the slanted pole was a perfect symbol of our modern age. Some Keeper of Holy Lightning had worked long hours to construct the lightbulb by hand, yet had ignored the less complicated job of straightening the pole. Why? Perhaps because making the bulb seemed important and special, while straightening a pole wouldn’t impress anyone. Or perhaps because the Keeper thought making lightbulbs was his job and straightening poles wasn’t.

  There were other lamp standards on the road into town—all tilted, some badly—but only one in four was actually lit. I wondered if the Keepers couldn’t make enough bulbs or if they’d decided our modern eyes didn’t need as much illumination as the OldTechs had. We’re far more accustomed to darkness than our spoiled ancestors; they were obsessed with expelling shadows. If they had to five by candlelight the way we do, they’d soon fall to pieces: trembling at the dark beyond the door. They’d probably see this roadway as poorly lit and creepy...whereas the truth was we had ample illumination to keep our horses on the straight and narrow, so why did we need more?

  Even so, we got more. Five minutes later, we reached a stretch of road where every third streetlamp was lit instead of every fourth. The poles were straighter too. Most houses on the block showed nothing but the flicker of candles or the glow of an open hearth, but one or two displayed a single electric bulb burning with conspicuous wattage: in an uncurtained window or as a bright glow behind a vividly colored blind. I suspected these families owned only one lightbulb which they carried from room to room as needed...but at least they had the bulb, and they wanted their neighbors to know.