A Host of Furious Fancies

by Mercedes Lackey

  He always forgot how hot the house lights were, dazzling his sight even as they pressed down on him like a heavy hand. The small Lincoln Center auditorium was full—he could tell from the sound, even though he couldn’t see the audience—and in the first row sat their instructors, clipboards in hand, preparing to grade the performances of their students.

  Oh, sure. No pressure, right? Just a big chunk of your final grade and no way to gloss over any missed notes.

  And, of course, the fact that, since he was sitting First Chair, the others were looking to him to set the tempo and carry them along.

  Their first piece was a sprightly Mozart contradance—fast, but not too fast, with a French horn solo in the middle that Lisa choked on half the time, even in yesterday’s dress rehearsal. Eric waited for the others to take their places, gathered them in with his eyes, and smiled encouragingly.

  It’s just like leading troops into battle. Act confident, and they’ll be confident.

  Then he raised the silver flute to his lips, nodding to set the tempo, and blew the first note.

  The little trio he’d formed with Kory and Beth, Beth’s group Spiral Dance, and the pickup jams at RenFaires were no kind of preparation for working with a real ensemble. It called for discipline as well as spirit, cooperation as well as feeling—all characteristics that Eric had grown used to thinking of himself as lacking. But if the difficulties were greater, the rewards were greater as well—the complex surge of melody filled him like a storm of light, the passion and discipline of the others creating an ocean that bore him up like a windjammer upon its surface, its master and victim all in one.

  There is nothing better than this, Eric thought, in the last moment in which words were possible, before he surrendered to the music and simply was.

  Their first piece ended—there was applause—and he led them through the second, a sprightly rondo that called for fast fingering on everybody’s part, five separate threads of melody weaving into a glorious braid of sound. Moments later—too soon—it was over, and he and the others were coming to the edge of the stage to take their bows. Lisa had hit every note perfectly, the horn’s golden mellowness soaring over the brightness of the flutes and the deep echos from cello and bassoon. Jeremy had regained his usual bland expression, and even Lydia looked radiant.

  “It was good, wasn’t it? It was good,” she said, as soon as they were off.

  “It was okay,” Eric said, smiling back at her. And best of all, it was a part of himself that he could share with those who could not share any other part of his life—this music was a matter of skill and craft, not magic, though the discipline he’d learned in those long lessons with Dharinel certainly helped here.

  In fact, I don’t think I could have gotten this far without it. You’ve got to want it, and work for it, to be able to do it. The first time I was here it wasn’t my idea at all—it was Mom and Dad, wanting to add “prodigy” to their list of my Trophy Child accomplishments. But this time it’s my idea. My success.

  “Are you coming to the dorm party?” Jeremy asked.

  “Sure.” Eric paused to consult the program tucked into his pocket. “I’ve got a solo after this, then the reception, then I’m there.”

  “I’ll see you, then,” Jeremy said, turning away to go look for his bassoon case. “Good luck.”

  The others had already wandered off, still giddy with the high that came with performance. Eric smiled. No matter how often you performed, it was always a rush to find yourself off the stage alive and in one piece, and these kids didn’t have a lot of experience with performing yet.

  “These kids.” Boy, does that make me feel old!

  There were times when the gulf of years—only a handful by the calendar, but far more in terms of experience—made Eric feel like he came from an entirely different planet than his classmates. Sometimes he just felt like grabbing them and shaking them, telling them to value what they already had, to see how precious it was. The mood, fortunately, always passed. If there was one thing he’d learned from his time Underhill and his experience with the elves, it was that you couldn’t pass on wisdom just by talking about it. Wisdom came only from experience.

  He hung around backstage while two more groups went on, doing his best to stay out of their way. There was a woodwind trio—the clarinetist faltered badly at the beginning and they had to start over—and a baroque group whose members were already getting outside gigs, they were that good. The wail of the shaum and dronepipe sent shivery hackles up his spine—not Bardcraft, but close, close. . . .

  But it was time to focus inward, because his next performance was only minutes away. The evening had started with the full chamber orchestra, moving slowly toward smaller and smaller groups as the stagehands cleared away the stands and chairs during breaks. The soloists traditionally closed out the evening. In the high-stakes world of classical music, they were the heavy horses that everyone was waiting to see, the next Galway or Weisberg.

  Tonight there were three of them, including Eric. And the whimsical gods of misfortune had placed him last.

  Professor Rector was out there laying for him, Eric knew. Tonight wasn’t only a solo for him. It was his first Juilliard performance of his own composition, “Variations on ‘Planxty Brown.’” He’d picked the tune not only for its lively melody, but because it had no associations with Bardic Magic or elves or anything else uncanny.

  The other two soloists—one piano, one violin—acquitted themselves honorably (as Dharinel might have phrased it), and then—too soon!—it was Eric’s turn to step out on the stage again.

  He was sure he’d sweated all the way through his shirt, sure the audience could see his nervousness and uncertainty. Some of them, probably, still remembered his last memorable solo appearance on this stage, when he’d unwittingly summoned Nightflyers with his nascent Bardic Gift.

  Oh, THERE’S a cheery thought!

  For a heartbeat he was filled with panic, and for just that moment he was tempted to call up the magic again—under control this time—to exert just a tiny bit of influence on the professors grading and critiquing his performance. It would be so easy. . . .

  No. I came back to do this on my own terms. No magic, no Gift but the music I was born with. I know I’m a good Bard. I’m here to see if I’m a good musician, too.

  He lifted the flute to his lips and began to play.

  It wasn’t as powerful an energy surge as playing with an ensemble. That was like driving a team of wild horses, a swelling power that came from many hearts and minds all working as one. This was more like flying, soaring over the earth on the wings the music lent him. As always, his anxiety vanished with the first note, and he carried his audience with him through all the intricate variations of the old dance tune. And perhaps because it was music made for dancing, he felt his audience caught up in his rhythm, toes tapping and heads nodding to the music.

  He brought the piece to an end with a flourish, and there was that one moment of silence as he lowered the flute that was the true tribute every musician looks for.

  Then the applause began, and Eric stepped forward to take his bow. The house lights came up, and for the first time he could see the people he’d been playing for all night.

  He looked down at the front rows—still bowing—looking for Rector and the other professors. He could just imagine the sour look on Rector’s face—he’d been good, and he knew it, and so did they. He was smart enough not to catch Rector’s eye—the man looked to be in a towering snit, and his mood wouldn’t be improved by knowing Eric had seen it—and glanced around the rest of the house as he straightened.

  And froze.

  Ria Llewellyn was there. Second row aisle, the critics’ seats.

  She was wearing something in pale blue, looked just the way she always had, the ice princess who had turned his world inside-out. Only years of professional experience kept him moving, and smiling, and got him off the stage.

  Ria! How did she get here?

 
Backstage was full—friends and relatives coming back to congratulate the musicians, stagehands, other performers. Several of them tried to stop him, to congratulate him, but Eric tore through them, looking for the stairs that led down into the house, his flute still clutched in his hand. By the time he reached them, the audience was getting to its feet, preparing to leave.

  He didn’t see Ria.

  He shoved through the concertgoers, fighting his way up the center aisle like a spawning salmon. He reached the street ahead of most of the audience, but he didn’t see Ria anywhere.

  The biting chill of late autumn cut through the damp cotton shirt he was wearing, bringing him back to himself. Even if she had been here, he’d never find her now.

  And face it, Banyon. You could have been imagining things. And the only question that leaves is—why would you imagine Ria Llewellyn coming to Juilliard?

  The Sherry-Netherland was the grande dame of New York hotels . . . expensive, tasteful, and with better security than the White House. It kept secrets better than the White House did, too, even with the Joint Chiefs thrown in. If you wanted to vanish in style in Manhattan, you booked rooms at the Sherry-Netherland.

  LlewellCo kept a permanent suite here to pamper its out-of-town execs and to provide a perk for visiting guests. It had probably been occupied when Jonathan booked her flight. It wasn’t now.

  Ria didn’t care. She’d had a long day with a killer ending.

  Damn the boy! she thought furiously, and then, with grudging honesty: No. That isn’t right. He’s no boy. He’s a man, now—and how does that make you feel, Ria-girl?

  She didn’t know. That was the worst. Not the loss of command of her emotions, but the turbulent swirl that didn’t even let her know clearly what they were.

  She walked into the bathroom, shedding pieces of her ice-blue satin dinner suit as she went. She kicked off her Ferragamo pumps and tossed her jewelled Judith Leiber handbag onto a chair, standing before the bathroom mirror wearing only a silk slip and enough pale-gold South Sea Island pearls to finance a startup company on the Internet. The bathtub beckoned invitingly—water hot enough to scald away her sins, and bath salts from a little shop down on Chambers Street that blended them to her personal specifications. She turned the taps on full, then, too keyed up to simply stand there, walked back out to her bedroom to pace.

  The papers from this morning’s meeting were still strewn across the bed, as if she’d have the discipline to look at them any time soon. She felt a faint pang of guilt, knowing that she’d dealt with the New York people a bit high-handedly. She’d pay for that later—if there was one thing years of corporate infighting had taught her, it was that while friends came and went, enemies accumulated. She was sure she’d made more than a few enemies today.

  But she hadn’t been able to give the meeting her full attention, because more than half her concentration had been on the contents of that folder Jonathan had given her, and on the lunch appointment she’d made to interview the private investigator that she’d hired as soon as she’d started reading the report. She’d taken the woman to Le Cirque to overawe her, but the woman hadn’t been overawed, and Ria had liked that about her at once.

  Claire MacLaren was an uncompromising woman in her fifties, prosaic as bread. She made no effort to hide either her age or the fact that her figure had long since lost, if it had ever possessed it, the whippet slenderness of youth. She resembled the Miss Marple sort of detective, grey-haired and kindly, her strong Scots bones and pale blue eyes showing her heritage, even without the faint flavor of the Hebrides still in her voice, and was, very simply, the very best at what she did.

  “I’m pleased to have the opportunity to speak with you personally on this matter, Ms. Llewellyn,” she’d said, after they were both seated and the waiter had taken their drink orders. Ria had ordered white wine. Claire had unabashedly ordered Scotch.

  All around them the hubbub of Le Cirque’s lunchtime clientele eddied and flowed, providing perfect privacy for their conversation. Mechanical eavesdroppers would be foiled by the background noise, and magical ones would be baffled by the sheer numbers of minds all thinking at once. Even Ria, whose gift was very small, had some trouble shutting them all out. But even with her shields in place, Ria could easily sense the unease radiating from the woman seated opposite her at the table.

  “I find it’s always best to do this sort of thing personally,” Ria said. “There are always some things that don’t make it into a report. Things too . . . tenuous? to commit to paper.”

  “Oh, I wrote it all down,” Claire assured her strongly. “Everything I could find. And that wasn’t enough—considering. There’s the matter of the money, for one thing.”

  “Money?” Ria said, momentarily at a loss. She knew Jonathan had already paid Claire MacLaren’s exorbitant fee in full.

  “Money doesn’t just appear out of nowhere,” Claire said. “And that young man has quite a lot of it. Where’d it come from, is what I’d dearly love to know.”

  “Oh, that,” Ria answered.

  She kept a show of interest on her face, but in fact, the source of Eric’s money didn’t concern her very much at all. A full elven mage could ken and replicate anything—rubies, diamonds, Krugerrands, bearer bonds. She couldn’t work that magic, and neither could Eric, but all that meant was that someone Underhill had set Eric Banyon up with a serious stake and the means to finish his studies Here Above.

  Why?

  That was the question that had occupied her throughout the meal, as she’d fenced with Claire and finally thrown a small glamour over her to quiet Claire’s worries that Eric Banyon was being financed by drug lords, industrial espionage, or worse. It had nagged at her through the round of afternoon meetings with various LlewellCo East department heads. She’d been supposed to have dinner with one of them, but had cancelled at the last minute. That was good luck of a sort. If she hadn’t, she wouldn’t have given in to the impulse to drive past Juilliard and seen the notices of a student concert to be held that evening. She wouldn’t have looked at the list of the soloists and seen Eric’s name. She wouldn’t have gone inside—gaining a seat by a minor enchantment—and seen Eric soloing up on the stage, performing with a surety, a grace, and an art that he had never had before.

  The bathtub was full, and she walked back into the bathroom, shedding the last of her clothes, and turning off the taps. She picked up the bottle of bath salts and shook in a generous helping, watching the crystals dissolve and stain the water a rich living green.

  She sank into the water, wincing at the temperature. But the heat did its work, leaching away the nervous energy that filled her, calming her.

  Eric is back, and he has Underhill backing. And why is he back? Because he’s finished with everything he needed to learn Underhill—that much was clear from tonight. You saw that performance. The old Eric couldn’t manage to play “Baa Baa Black Sheep” without some magic leaking. This Eric has as much control and discipline as any Elven Bard I’ve ever seen.

  She closed her eyes, trying to surrender to the spell of the water. In a lot of ways, an Eric in control of his magic was the scariest thing she’d encountered since she’d reentered the world after her coma.

  First of all, who taught him? And most of all, who sent him back?

  She knew that most of the Seleighe Sidhe didn’t blame her for Perenor’s attempt to grab the Nexus back in Los Angeles. She’d changed sides at the last minute, at great cost to herself, and that counted for a lot with their kind.

  But what if Eric’s teacher were one of the few who did bear a grudge against her—either because of her past actions or because of her halfblood ancestry? What if Eric had come into the world as a kind of secret agent, intending to lure her out?

  What if, for that matter, Eric held a grudge of his own? She’d tried to kill his friends, after all. Most people tended to take that personally.

  She sighed, sinking deeper into the water and inhaling the fragrant steam. She had no idea
what Eric was feeling right now, and that disturbed her more than she could express. She hadn’t been able to read anything in his face but shock when he spotted her, and after that . . .

  She’d panicked, plain and simple. Proof (as if she’d wanted any) that her feelings for the man were too strong to lightly dismiss. There was unfinished business there, and like it or not, one way or another, it was going to be finished. Before the turn of the year, she thought, with an undependable flash of Foresight, and shivered.

  The bathwater had grown cold while she’d sat musing, and now Ria got to her feet, swirling her long ash-blond hair up into a towel and wrapping herself in another of the voluminous Turkish towels the hotel provided.

  It was just too bad the problem wasn’t on Eric’s side, she thought, rubbing herself dry until her fair skin was pink and tingled. If Eric hated her, it wouldn’t matter. Ria had been hated by experts. It made little difference in her life.

  The trouble was the fact that she wanted him. Still. Again. Not as a pet, as she had before, a graceful subservient boy who could amuse her while she used his magic for her own ends. No, if it were that, if her own desires were that simple, it would be an inconvenience, but not a problem.

  The problem—the real problem, the insurmountable one—was that seeing him tonight on that stage, assured and totally in control, Ria had realized that Eric Banyon would never again be anybody’s pet. Not a boy, not a toy. He was a man now, with a man’s will and determination. Her equal, and more.

  And everything in Ria’s half-Blood Perenor-nurtured soul rebelled against the thought of accepting anyone on equal terms. Conciliation was weakness. Cooperation was only a trap. Only the strongest had any right to survive, and Ria knew that if she matched her power and her tricks against the Eric she had seen tonight, she might very well lose the battle.

  And the worst was, she had no heart for such a fight. Unless he truly was here hunting her, he was no threat to her, and unlike Perenor, Ria had never had any taste for empty cruelty. She was ruthless. That was her nature. But viciousness had never been a part of her spirit, and if it had, that part of her was purged long since. So she had no quarrel with Eric Banyon, True Bard of Underhill, and if he were in truth sent here as her foe, mercy would be impossible. For either of them.